Kentucky Teen Charged With Murder in Death of His Guardians

EDMONTON, Kentucky — A troubled 15-year-old shot and killed relatives who had taken him in because his mother could not control him, then stole their car and fled with the younger girlfriend they had ordered him not to see, police and family members said.

Gary and Barbara Holloway’s adult son found them dead in their bed Tuesday. Police issued an emergency missing child report for the teen and his 12-year-old girlfriend, saying they feared they might be in grave danger.

Police soon caught up to them after a volunteer firefighter spotted them in the car, the 15-year-old behind the wheel.

By Wednesday, in one of the strangest cases to arise from the system designed to find abducted children, the teen had been charged with murder in the Holloways’ deaths.

Family members said the boy was an eighth-grader at the local middle school who habitually got in trouble for bringing cigarettes to school, bullying other children, and talking back to his teachers.

Barbara Holloway, his second cousin, had taken him in three months ago, said her sister, Ruby Whitehead. Family members said his father is in prison.

“He’s always been abandoned his whole life,” said Elizabeth Osborn, a friend of the Holloways’ son, Stephen. “… I guess the first people who showed him love, he didn’t know how to take it.”

Barbara Holloway would sometimes have to pick him up an hour after school had started because he had been suspended.

“They gave him everything in the world,” Osborn said. “He kept getting suspended from school, and they still gave him everything.”

Then there was the relationship with the 12-year-old, which Osborn said both the Holloways and the girl’s mother tried to end. There was no indication the girl was involved in the killing, and police said she was released after they questioned her.

“We had been trying to fight it and keep them apart,” Osborn said. “Barb had grounded him from seeing her or talking to her.”

The state medical examiner’s office said Wednesday that preliminary autopsy results showed Gary Holloway, 50, died from multiple gunshot wounds and Barbara Holloway, 51, died of a single gunshot wound.

The teen was being held Wednesday at a juvenile facility. Besideds murder, he is charged with fleeing and evading, wanton endangerment, criminal mischief, reckless driving and driving without a license. Authorities have not said whether he will be charged as an adult. The Associated Press generally does not identify juveniles charged with crimes.

Osborn said she and Stephen Holloway discovered the bodies Tuesday when they went to check on Barbara and Gary Holloway because they could not reach them on the phone. She said $1,000 had been taken and someone had dropped off the couple’s dog at an adult day care center.

“We walked in the house, and they were in the bed dead,” she said.

They called police, who issued the missing child alert, which described the Holloways’ car. Volunteer firefighter Moe Hensley told The Associated Press he heard the alert several times on his way home, then spotted the car and called a dispatcher, who contacted state police.

“I happened to be in the right place at the right time,” he said.

There was a short chase when police tried to pull the car over about 15 miles (24.14 kilometers) from where the Holloways were found, and the 15-year-old drove off the road. Police say he and the 12-year-old ran away but were caught quickly.