Tenn. Woman's Death Was Initially Ruled a Suicide. Then Her Mom Allegedly Got Killer to Confess

Mar. 15, 2025

Jamie Dickerson and her daughter, April Holt, and Dickerson holding the book she wrote about grieving.Photo:Courtesy Jamie Dickerson

Courtesy Jamie Dickerson

• Mother of two April Holt, 29, of Tennessee, was found dead in her bathroom with a bag over her face in July 2023, police said

• Dickerson began investigating on her own

“I knew it was foul play,” Dickerson tells PEOPLE about her daughter, April Holt, a mother of two from Antioch, Tenn.

Dickerson, however, had been told that her daughter had tried to take her own life on July 29, 2023, after April’s husband said he found her unresponsive in the shower with a bag taped to her head.

Dickerson didn’t believe it then and she didn’t believe it in the weeks and months after April died from her injuries July 31, 2023.

“She’d requested a divorce two weeks prior,” says Dickerson.

April had previously tried to leave her husband, Donovan Holt, 33, she says, but she’d never gone through with it.

But in her latest attempt, says Dickerson, “April was serious."

In July, Metro Nashville Police Department Cold Case Unit detectives allegedly obtained an official confession from Donovan, who, authorities claim, admitted “he was responsible for strangling his wife,”according to a statement from the department.

He was extradited back to Nashville, where he is being held on $75,000 bond in Davidson County Jail awaiting his Oct. 23 arraignment, according to online court records. It is unclear whether he has retained an attorney who can speak on his behalf.

Donovan Holt.Metropolitan Nashville Police Department

Metropolitan Nashville Police Department

Dickerson, who first spoke to local outletFox 17, News, says she worked “relentlessly, two to three hours a day for months and months" in her quest for justice for April.

“I had to fight  for her," she says.

When it comes to protecting their children, she adds, “Moms have superpowers.”

Solving Her Daughter’s Homicide

April, who owned her own lash studio in Nashville, loved being a mother to her daughter, 12, from another relationship, and son, 8, whom she had with Donovan, and was looking forward to the future, Dickerson says.

Jamie Dickerson and her daughter, April Holt.Courtesy Jamie Dickerson

In November 2023, the Medical Examiner’s Office ruled her death a suicide due to complications of suffocation, the MNPD said.

Still, Dickerson followed her gut and persisted.

“I had to keep calling for meetings with the DA and the police department,” she says, claiming that police largely “disregarded” her questions.

Determined to find answers, she turned for help to theCommunity Review Board,a police advisory and review committee for the city of Nashville.

Four months later, the board sent her a 47-page report with one glaring piece of alleged evidence: that the only fingerprints on the bag and tape found around April’s neck were Donovan’s.

Despite that, “They said they still didn’t have enough evidence to convict him,” Dickerson says.

So she kept going. She sent Donovan a screenshot of the report. “I told him he had a choice,” she says. “He could tell me what happened, or I was going to go to the cold case department.”

She notified the MNPD, who began investigating anew.

The MNPD did not immediately respond to PEOPLE’s questions about why the department didn’t initially pursue the case as a homicide.

Helping Others

To help others who have lost loved ones, Dickerson is working on starting theGrieve With Me Centerin honor of April’s memory.

April Holt.Courtesy Jamie Dickerson

In aGoFundMeshe created to raise money for the center, she wrote that she is starting the center because there were few resources for her and her grandchildren when April died. Her aim is to create “a place to just sit and be, enjoy a cup of coffee, a place of grief resource classes, youth grief groups, grieving through art classes, and future grief camps.”

She also wants to create a new state law to make it easier for families to seek justice for their loved ones.

“I want to keep April’s light on,” she says. “I’m going to keep doing things that let her shine.”

If you are experiencing domestic violence, call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233, or go tothehotline.org. All calls are toll-free and confidential. The hotline is available 24/7 in more than 170 languages.

source: people.com