Ronnie Bernard Overton, 21, Charles D. Winter, 27, and Laverne Ellis, 28, are being held in the Richmond County jail on grand jury arrest warrants. Mr. Overton was the first to be arrested. He was picked up at 8 a.m. at his residence in the 2300 block of Richwood Drive in Hephzibah.

Mr. Winter, of the 2200 block of Basswood Drive, was arrested at 10 a.m. at the Augusta-Richmond County Law Enforcement Center. Just after noon, Ms. Ellis was picked up at her home in the 1800 block of McDade Road.

Her mother, Thelma Overstreet, said she did not know why her daughter was being held. She said she was working on retaining an attorney for her.

``They won't tell me anything,'' she said. ``That's all I know.''

Sheriff Ronnie Strength said Thursday he could not give specifics of how the three are involved in what police accounts and court documents describe as a web of robberies, killings and fraud dating back nearly four years and stretching from North Augusta to Warrenton, Ga.

He said that the suspects were not involved in Mr. Holt's killing but that their charges are indirectly linked to that case and to killings in Warren County. The suspects had business dealings with some of those suspects in the Holt case, but explaining how would be complicated without copies of the arrest warrants in front of him, the sheriff said.

He referred specific questions to District Attorney Danny Craig, who would not comment.

``There will be an appropriate time to comment on this. Tonight is not the appropriate time,'' Mr. Craig said late Thursday.

Ed Reinhold, supervising agent of the Augusta FBI office, also declined to comment. He said he could not do so until the indictments are unsealed.

This week a grand jury returned indictments that were sealed by a judge, and grand jury arrest warrants were issued.

Three people have been charged in the robbery and death of Mr. Holt. One of the men, David Joseph Easterling, 30, has pleaded guilty not only in the death of Mr. Holt but in the killing of an Evans couple.

With the plea, Mr. Easterling avoids the death penalty, but he must testify against his co-defendants in the Holt case, Ronald Coleman Jr., 28, and Carlston W. Coleman Jr., 30, and his co-defendants in the February 1998 slayings of Frederick and Yong-Suk Walker, Jimmy Lee Rhodes, 44, and Dag L. Rhodes, 23.

Authorities have been trying to link the Colemans to the deaths of two Augusta men whose charred remains were found in a car trunk outside Warrenton. The Colemans have been paired in other criminal investigations involving property crimes. Both men are on federal parole/probation for an income tax fraud case.

Reach Johnny Edwards at (706) 823-3225.