Murder of Holly Bobo

Holly Lynn Bobo (October 12, 1990 – c. April 13, 2011) was an American woman who disappeared on April 13, 2011, from her family home in Darden, Tennessee. She was last seen alive by her brother, Clint, shortly before 8 a.m., walking into the woods outside her home with a man wearing camouflage. In September 2014, Bobo's partial remains were found in northern Decatur County, and her death was ruled a homicide via a gunshot to the back of the head.

Six men have been arrested for varying degrees of involvement in the murder. However, only three of the six have been prosecuted. Most of the arrests were made on the basis of a confession by John Dylan Adams, a man with an intellectual disability. He told police he saw Bobo with his brother Zach and a friend, Jason Autry, at his brother's home after her kidnapping. It is unknown what led police to question Dylan about Bobo's disappearance. Dylan, Zach, and Autry were charged with especially aggravated kidnapping, first-degree murder, and rape. Of the other three men arrested, charges against two were dropped, and one committed suicide without any charges being filed against him.

The case has met with several setbacks, such as the death of a suspect, multiple changes to the prosecutorial team, and disputes with the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation (TBI). The prosecution has been heavily criticized for refusing to produce evidence against the defendants, missing multiple discovery deadlines, and making frequent changes to the charges against the defendants with little explanation. The TBI even briefly withdrew its services to the entire district after the prosecutor accused the agency of compromising the case by proceeding "so slowly that the culprits were always one step ahead and that TBI . . . was leaking information and possibly covering up evidence." Defense attorneys reported that they, over a year after the arrests were made, had still not received a bill of particulars detailing the case against their clients and the results of forensic testing done on evidence from the case. They hence filed motions to dismiss charges on the grounds of "silence or stonewalling". The arrests took place in early 2014, but it was not until July 2015 that it was announced that the defendants finally received access to all evidence against them.

On September 22, 2017, a jury found Zach guilty on all charges, including first-degree murder. He was sentenced to life imprisonment plus 50 years on September 23. He maintains his innocence. In January 2018, Zach's brother, Dylan, accepted an Alford plea and was sentenced to 35 years in prison. Autry chose to make a plea bargain with prosecutors, wherein he would testify against Zach in exchange for a significantly reduced sentence. On September 16, 2020, after accepting a deal that reduced his sentence to eight years of time served, Autry was released from Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville. Autry subsequently recanted his entire testimony against Zach and confirmed that he was then given access to the discovery material, allowing him to synchronize his testimony with the available evidence. In January 2024, Adams filed a petition that his conviction be overturned on the basis of this new evidence.

At the time of her disappearance, Holly Bobo was a 20-year-old nursing student at the University of Tennessee at Martin at The Parsons Center in Parsons. She lived with her parents and brother in Darden. Friends described her as shy and sweet. She was the cousin of country singer Whitney Duncan. In 2017, Duncan released a song called "Better Place" in memory of Bobo.

On the morning of April 13, 2011, Bobo awoke at 4:30 a.m. to study for an exam. At 7:30 a.m., she answered a call from her boyfriend, Drew Scott, who was turkey hunting nearby on his grandmother's property. Bobo's parents had left for work by this point, and her brother, Clint, was still asleep. Twelve minutes later, Bobo made her last cell phone call. After this point, all phone calls and texts were incoming and unanswered.

Shortly after Bobo's final phone call ended, a neighbor heard a scream from the Bobo residence. The neighbor called his mother to tell her about what he heard, and the mother, in turn, called Bobo's mother, Karen, at work. Meanwhile, Clint was awakened by the family dogs barking and saw Holly outside with a man dressed in camouflage: "It appeared to be Holly kneeling down and Drew [Scott]. They looked like they were kneeled down, facing each other in the garage, and they were talking back and forth. Holly sounded very upset and heated. He was doing much of the talking, and she would answer back and things like that. I couldn't make out hardly any of the words. The only words I could make out from here were Holly saying, 'No, why?'" Clint said he believed that the couple were breaking up. At some point, Karen called home and spoke to Clint. She said, "Clint, that's not Drew. Get a gun and shoot him." Clint reportedly replied, "You want me to shoot Drew?", still believing that the man was Holly's boyfriend.

Karen called 9-1-1, but because she was calling from work, she reached a dispatcher for the wrong county. At home, Clint looked outside again and saw the man walking with Holly into nearby woods. At this point, he noted that the man was larger than Drew Scott. Clint tried to call his sister's cell phone as well as Scott's cell phone, but neither call was answered. When Karen called her house again, Clint told her what he witnessed and was instructed to call 9-1-1. Clint fetched a loaded pistol and went outside, where he found bloodstains belonging to Holly in the garage. He dialed 9-1-1. Police arrived at the Bobo residence ten minutes later.