Police hunt for Holt suspect

Judge seals indictment as authorities track down last person thought connected to 2-year-old slaying

Web posted Saturday, January 20, 2001

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By Sandy Hodson
Staff Writer

The contents of a criminal indictment naming the suspects in the brutal slaying and robbery of Sam's Club Manager David Holt will remain sealed until Monday at the earliest.

Law enforcement officers are still hunting for at least one suspect who is believed to be outside the Augusta area, but others are now in custody, according to an official familiar with the case.

Thirty-one months have passed since Mr. Holt's body was discovered in the trunk of his burning 1997 Mazda Protege, found across the Fifth Street Bridge on Sand Pit Road in North Augusta. The autopsy on the 45-year-old husband and father of two revealed Mr. Holt died of smoke inhalation while locked in the trunk of the burning car on Father's Day 1998.

Richmond County sheriff's investigators and federal and state agents in Georgia and South Carolina have worked steadily on the case for the past 2´ years. The lead investigator, Sgt. Wayne Bunton of the Richmond County Sheriff's Department, and other officers have believed for some time that they knew who committed the crime, but needed more evidence to take to a grand jury for indictment.

This week, a Richmond County grand jury issued an indictment. That document and any others related to the case were placed under a seal and cannot be released for public inspection until a judge removes that seal.

While it's possible that the indictment could charge a suspect or suspects with crimes such as armed robbery and kidnapping in Richmond County, he or they could not be charged with murder here because Mr. Holt was killed in Aiken County.

According to court records and sources in South Carolina, no indictment or charges in Mr. Holt's slaying have been filed.

Mr. Holt was last seen alive by co-workers at Sam's Club when he set the store alarm and left at 12:05 a.m. June 21, 1998. About 1:30 a.m., someone entered the store, using keys and accessing the alarm system to turn it off.

Shortly after 3 a.m. North Augusta public safety officers responded to a car fire on Sand Pit Road and found Mr. Holt's body in the trunk.

At 6 a.m., a Sam's Club employee who arrived for work called the sheriff's department after finding the store's doors unlocked and the safe open and empty.

Sheriff's investigators theorized from the beginning that Mr. Holt was abducted and forced to return to the store and open the safe and was then driven to the rural road across the Savannah River where he died.

Because the crimes began in one state and continued in another state, a suspect or suspects could face charges in federal court.

``At this point we are not participating in the prosecution and we have not received a request to do so,'' said Dan Drake, spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's office in the Southern District of Georgia.

Investigators also say they believe the killer or killers knew Mr. Holt and knew the store as well, as the surveillance videotapes were removed from the cameras.

Authorities have never revealed how much money was taken from the store.

Wal-Mart immediately offered a $25,000 reward for information about Mr. Holt's slaying, increasing the amount to $100,000 a month later.

Mr. Holt's widow made a public plea for information, and Wal-Mart bought space on billboards and posters asking, ``Who Murdered David Holt?''

By October 1998, with no arrests, Wal-Mart doubled the reward for information to $200,000. In June, Wal-Mart increased the reward to $400,000, and thousands of questionnaires were mailed to homes in Augusta seeking information in the case.

Staff Writer Greg Rickabaugh contributed to this article.

Reach Sandy Hodson at (706) 823-3226 or shodson@augustachronicle.com.

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