For most of us, the holiday season brings to mind fun get-togethers with family and friends. For some, though, it’s a dark time of year filled with loneliness and longing for those they’ve lost.
Former Jefferson County Assessor Randy Holman said the holiday season brings back painful memories for him and his family, who 22 years ago lost a loved one to murder, just before the Thanksgiving holiday.
On Nov. 21, 2000, Randy’s brother, Larry Holman, was shot in the back of the head and killed while he was sitting in his car parked at the former LaRoche Industries south of Festus where he had worked and often hunted. He was 44.
At first, authorities thought the shooting was an accident, perhaps from a stray bullet a hunter had fired from across the Mississippi River in Illinois. Eventually, though, suspicions arose about Larry’s wife, Tammy Holman, and a man she was associated with, Charlie Miller, and the two became suspects in a homicide investigation.
Tammy was sentenced in January 2003 to seven years for conspiring in Larry’s murder with Miller, who pleaded guilty to shooting Larry and told authorities Tammy encouraged him to kill her husband.
Miller was sentenced in September 2003 to 25 years in prison for second-degree murder and armed criminal action. He is being held at the Tipton Correctional Center and is expected to be released in the next year or so.
Tammy was released from prison in 2009 and reportedly moved back to the Festus area.
A true-crime TV show called “Murder in the Heartland” aired a Nov. 23 episode about the murder on the Investigation Discovery channel, and Randy and some of his family members were interviewed for it.
Randy said Dec. 2 that he had not watched the episode, titled “Hunting a Killer,” and he didn’t plan to because it’s hard to re-live the tragedy.
However, Randy said he agreed to be interviewed for the show because he wants people to know the truth about the cold, calculated way his brother was killed.
“I want to make sure the right version is told, instead of rumors and innuendo and in some cases, blatant lies,” he said. “It helps me from that perspective, and any time you have a loss, even though it’s been more than 20 years, remembering your loved one and talking about your loved one is therapeutic.”
Randy said he often thinks about his brother and the tragic way he died, but he feels the loss even more deeply on the anniversary of his death.
“Without fail, the hardest time for me is the Tuesday before Thanksgiving,” he said. “I remember that evening so well. I went shopping with my daughters and wife for Thanksgiving, which we were going to be hosting. I remember coming home from that shopping and being made aware of what happened, and every year that memory comes back. It does affect how I celebrate Thanksgiving, but that’s a cross millions and millions of people bear every year, losing people they love during the holidays.”
The TV show about the case made it clear that when authorities floated the idea that Larry’s death was an accident, Randy was skeptical and pushed law enforcement officials to look closer.
“Randy wouldn’t let it drop,” said his sister, Patty Huber. “He said it didn’t make sense (for the bullet) to come across the river from Illinois.”
“I just kept meeting (with law enforcement officials), asking questions and giving them information,” Randy said.
Not long before Larry’s murder, Randy had gone hunting with his brother, and on that day, someone fired a bullet that nearly struck Larry.
“We were about one-third of a mile from each other, and he radioed me that a bullet had grazed by,” Randy said. “When I was driving to pick him up, I saw a man (with a gun) in the woods walking. He was in camouflage, not orange, and he was walking from Larry’s direction.”
Looking back after the murder, Randy said that incident raised his suspicions, and he now knows the man he saw in the woods was Miller, who tried to shoot Larry that day but missed.
Not long after the murder, the Holman family began hearing rumors that before Larry’s death, Tammy had been meeting Miller at West City Park in Festus.
The Holmans also heard stories that Miller, whom Larry knew, was too friendly with Tammy and seemed to find excuses to stop by the couple’s home.
Randy said he didn’t trust Miller and remembered Larry telling him about a new gun Miller had bought. So, Randy asked police to check if it was the same kind of gun that had been used to kill his brother. It was.
Randy said initially it didn’t occur to him that Tammy might be involved in the murder. Larry’s siblings said Tammy and their brother had met at church and they seemed to get along, despite their age difference. Tammy was 12 years younger.
But, about two weeks after his brother’s death, Tammy let an old boyfriend move in with her.
“That was extremely suspicious, a huge red flag,” Randy said.
Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office investigators questioned that old boyfriend, as well as another man who had been involved with Tammy. Those men were cleared, but Miller’s name kept coming up.
Eventually, during police questioning, Miller crumbled and confessed to killing Larry, said Jefferson County Div. 6 Circuit Judge Troy Cardona, who was an assistant prosecuting attorney at the time and handled the case.
Miller said Tammy had led him to believe that if he killed Larry, they could be together.
Randy said he became convinced Tammy had conspired with Miller because the only way he could have known about that hunting spot was if Tammy had told him.
Also, Tammy showed Randy an insurance policy she thought her husband had that would leave her with $1 million, but it turned out the policy actually protected LaRoche if an employee were hurt while hunting on the company’s property.
Cardona said the case was one of the most complex he can recall. Initially, both Miller and Tammy were charged with first-degree murder, which can carry a life sentence.
However, after testimony and arguments concluded in Miller’s trial, the prosecution agreed to make a deal with him and reduce his charge to second-degree murder if he testified truthfully about Tammy’s involvement, Cardona said.
When the jury was deliberating in Tammy’s trial, the Holman family asked Cardona if the prosecution could make a deal with her to ensure she would serve some time in prison.
“I had custody of (Larry’s and Tammy’s) two kids, and my concern was making sure the kids were not going to be exposed to her until they were at least 18,” Randy said. “I didn’t want to risk her getting off. You don’t know with a jury what’s going to happen, so while the jury was deliberating, we asked Troy to offer some kind of plea.”
The children were 10 and 13 at the time, Randy said.
Larry also had a child from a previous relationship, but she was an adult when her father was killed, Randy said.
He said it was difficult for the children knowing their father had been murdered and their mother was in prison for her involvement in the crime.
“We got them counseling, and they did quite well,” Randy said.
He said it was hard for the family to see the charges reduced in the cases against Miller and Tammy, which meant shorter prison sentences, but he believes it was the safest decision they could make.
“The prosecution did the best job they could,” Randy said. “Nothing’s going to make us feel like justice was served. There will always be a hole in our hearts.”
Randy said his brother’s murder was especially heartbreaking for his father, Sid Holman, who died in 2007.
“He took it hard – the trial, the delays. Everything was difficult on him, but he was very strong and was a motivation for all of us to be strong.”
Randy’s mother died before the murder, and he said he is grateful she did not have to experience the devastating loss.
“Our family was close, so we were able to rely upon each other and the hundreds of friends and our extended families,” he said. “I don’t know what we would have done without them. Our upbringing and relationship with God, we relied on all these things.”
