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What Caused April and Mike Holton's Deaths, and How Did They Die?

April At the age of 18, Diane Owenby Holton and Jesse Michael Holton first met in high school when they were both seniors. Because their relationship was founded on trust and understanding, it was not a surprise to anyone when they decided to get married at the age of just 19 years old. After getting married and becoming a firefighter, the newlyweds began a family, eventually becoming parents to three children. However, on September 11, 2016, their relationship had turned sour, and they had separated their houses, being in the middle of an aggressive divorce procedure.

While he was at work that night, Michael contacted 911 to report his 17-year-old son, Jesse Madison Holton, to say that he had thrown a party involving drugs and damaged his Eclectic house. Jesse's father had chained him behind his back as a sort of punishment, and a sheriff's officer from Elmore County came over to investigate. When it came to their son's rebellious stage, April and her ex-husband agreed on nothing. Together, the parents arranged for the deputy to leave the family alone the following morning so that they could take Jesse to the police station with a juvenile warrant.

A neighbor of Holton's called the police just eleven minutes later, reporting that Jesse had come over to their house, still handcuffed, and was frantic about his parents fighting and his father holding a gun to his mother's head. April and Michael were found laying on the floor of a bedroom with a gun between them when the cops arrived a few seconds later. A gunshot wound to the back of Michael's head killed him at the scene, while April, who was still breathing at the time but eventually died from severe head trauma, was transported to the hospital, where she died a day later.

Apparently, Mike was shot at point-blank range in the left back of the head, and the bullet sailed clean through him before exiting from the front. A gunshot wound to a finger on April's right hand was "consistent with a 'defensive wound,'" according to police. As a result, it also had an effect on the right side of her head, which was obscured by her hand. It was concluded that both Holton's injuries were caused by "close contact wounds" by the medical examiner who performed their autopsy. Although the pathologist categorized their deaths as a homicide, they could not rule out the possibility of a murder-suicide as well.

April and Mike Holton's murders remain unsolved.

Unfortunately, the answer to this conundrum is more convoluted than most people would prefer. When the detectives first got to work on this case, they focused on the Holtons' injuries and how they were sustained. That, however, swayed them away from the murder-suicide theory. He would have had to place the gun upside down and angle it with his left hand if Michael, a former Mayor, shot his soon-to-be ex-wife and then himself, which seems exceedingly implausible. However, his ambidextrous nature didn't completely rule out the option. That's not to mention the fact that Mike wasn't happy about their marriage ending and had a drug addiction, so he was already enraged by April's actions.

The only other person at the scene, Jesse Madison Holton, was the focus of the detectives' second and perhaps most critical investigation. He informed police that when the deputy left, his parents began bickering, and he heard physical attacks taking place in the bedroom after they locked the door and went to sleep. As soon as Jesse heard his mother pleading for help, he said he kicked down the door and spotted his father clutching a gun before running to his neighbors for help. However, no proof of a shattered door or anything else was found by the authorities to support his story. Jesse was charged with the murder of his parents because of his peculiar, almost heartless behavior in the weeks following their deaths.

All allegations against Jesse were dismissed by the District Attorney's Office in late 2018. "It's been a challenging case from the beginning," District Attorney Randall Houston stated at a press conference. "The case remains a homicide due to the odd placement of the bullet wound. When it comes to trial preparation, the best they can say is that it's a homicide is that it's more likely than not. "We had fingerprints, but they were not Jesse Holton's fingerprints," he added. Splatters of blood could be seen, although none of it was on Jesse... Jesse's story seemed more plausible in light of the data. There is still no word on how Jesse's parents were murdered, but he is now free.