Holt case coming to a close

Web posted Tuesday, January 23, 2001

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By Johnny Edwards, Sylvia Cooper and Sandy Hodson
Staff Writers

Two years, seven months and two days later, local authorities say they've finally answered the lingering question, ``Who murdered David Holt?''

According to an indictment released in a press conference Tuesday, three men face charges in the 1998 kidnapping, armed robbery and killing of the Sam's Club manager and father of two.

One of the men has been in jail since July, charged in a Columbia County homicide that happened more than five months before Mr. Holt's death. Another is still at large, believed to be somewhere in the metro Atlanta area, authorities said.

David Joseph Easterling, 30; Carlston Winslow Coleman Jr., 30; and Ronald Coleman Jr., 28; are each charged in Richmond County with kidnapping, armed robbery, burglary, hijacking of a motor vehicle and possession of a firearm or a knife during the commission of a crime.

Ronald Coleman is still a fugitive, and Carlston Coleman was arrested Thursday.

Mr. Easterling was arrested July 1 and - along with two other men - is charged with two counts of murder in the 1998 shooting deaths of Fred and Yong-Suk Walker. The couple owned a Kissingbower Road liquor store and check-cashing business, and were found shot to death in their Evans home Feb. 3, 1998.

Murder charges in the Holt case cannot be filed in Georgia because the victim was killed across the state line in South Carolina.

Mr. Holt, 45, was found dead June 21, 1998, the victim of a merciless killing that occurred in the early morning hours. He had been seen setting the Bobby Jones Expressway store's alarm and walking to his car. About three hours later, his charred remains were found locked in the trunk of his car across the Fifth Street Bridge on Sand Pit Road in North Augusta.

Someone had apparently abducted him, taken him to the store and forced him to open the door and safe, driven him across the Savannah River, locked him in his trunk, set the car afire, then left him to die.

A coroner's report said he died of smoke inhalation caused by carbon monoxide, which would have rendered him unconscious.

The victim was a native of Bangor, Maine, and had been commuting 92 miles to Augusta each day from Cayce, S.C., his wife Donna's hometown. They had been married for 16 years and had two sons.

Mr. Holt had steadily been climbing the company ladder since beginning work there in 1992.

After his slaying, Sam's Club's parent company Wal-Mart established a trust fund for the family and a $25,000 reward. The company later bought space on billboard asking who killed the manager and offering $100,000 to anyone who could say. Last summer, the reward was upped to $400,000, and questionaires were mailed to Augusta homes fishing for information.

Reach Johnny Edwards, Sylvia Cooper and Sandy Hodson at (706) 724-0851.

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