Tennessee Man Convicted of Murder Confessed to Strangling Wife While on FaceTime With the Victim's Mother

A Tennessee man was sentenced to two years in prison after allegedly confessing over FaceTime to strangling his wife, a revelation that led authorities to reclassify her death as a homicide.

In July 2023, 29-year-old April Holt was found unresponsive in the bathroom of her Antioch home with a plastic bag taped around her neck, according to the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department.

The woman's mother Jamie Dickerson doubted the findings after April's death was initially ruled a suicide, and pushed for further investigation.

"Her husband was acting very, very strange," Dickerson told WKRN. "He was holding his head. He was rocking and pacing."

In June 2024, Donovan Holt, 33, reportedly admitted to Dickerson during a FaceTime call that he had strangled April.

"He just goes into how he killed her and he described how he killed her," Dickerson told the outlet. "How he strangled her and that he didn't know what to do."

Dickerson recorded the confession and brought it to police, leading to his arrest in San Antonio on September 19, 2024, WKRN reported. Holt later pleaded guilty to reckless homicide, tampering with evidence and false reporting.

On February 18, he was sentenced to two years and one month in prison, followed by eight years in community corrections. The victim's family agreed to the sentence.

Meanwhile, Dickerson launched a GoFundMe to establish a grief center in Nashville in honor of her daughter, aiming to provide support for grieving families, including April's two children.

"After losing my daughter and seeing the far and few resources available for children and adults during their grief journey, I want to meet a need within the community," Dickerson wrote on the GoFundMe page. "A place to just sit and be, enjoy a cup of coffee, a place of grief resource classes, youth grief groups, grieving through art classes, and future grief camps."