She Solved The Mystery Of Her Daughter’s Murder And Then Got Her Killer To Confess

Pictured above is April with her mom, Jamie
GoFundMe - pictured above is April with her mom, Jamie

April Holt was a 29-year-old mother of two from Tennessee with a large social media following. On TikTok, she was known for sharing positivity videos with her 200,000 followers.

Yet, on July 31, 2023, she was discovered unconscious in the shower of her Nashville home, with a plastic bag duct-taped around her neck.

April was transported to the hospital, where she passed away the same day, and an autopsy concluded that she’d died of suicide due to complications of suffocation.

April’s mother, Jamie Dickerson, never believed it. Rather, she claimed to have always known her daughter had been a victim of foul play.

“I got up, marched out of that room, and said, ‘I’m not done; I’m going to keep investigating,” Jamie recalled.

After the Metro Nashville Police Department and city prosecutors closed April’s case because of the autopsy ruling, Jamie began conducting some investigative work of her own. She quickly turned her focus to April’s husband, 33-year-old Donovan Holt.

According to Jamie, April had tried to leave her husband in the past but never followed through with the split. Then, two weeks before she died, April asked to get a divorce again, and Jamie stated that her daughter was “serious” about it at that time.

In speaking with her grandson, Jamie also learned that April and Donovan had been fighting on the day of her death. And one week earlier, Donovan had pawned his wedding ring.

His behavior in the wake of April’s death set off alarm bells in Jamie’s mind, too. Donovan called her once April had been discovered unconscious by their 7-year-old son, who he supposedly sent to the bathroom to “check” on April, and his tone of voice struck her as strange.

Pictured above is April with her mom, Jamie
GoFundMe – pictured above is April with her mom, Jamie

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“He was upset, kind of like a panic upset. He was like, ‘We found April; she wasn’t breathing, and she’s in the ambulance on the way to the hospital,” Jamie detailed.

Later, he continued acting odd at the hospital as well. Donovan reportedly allowed Jamie to make all of April’s medical decisions; meanwhile, he was “holding his head” and “rocking and pacing.”

After April died and her case was closed, Jamie spent a lot of time reviewing police reports and the autopsy. Authorities said April had no signs of trauma, but April proved otherwise and pointed out bruising on her neck, thighs, and ankles, which the autopsy also noted. Plus, she’d sustained “a gash on her inner thigh.”

Jamie attempted to meet with anyone she could, including the DA, to push her daughter’s case forward. They continued telling her that they simply didn’t have enough evidence.

So, she filed complaints and ultimately forced the Metro Nashville Police Department to conduct an internal investigation.

The resulting report, which was 47 pages long, revealed that, on a duct tape roll, there had been “two hits” for Donovan’s fingerprints.

At that point, Jamie confronted her late daughter’s husband herself. She sent him a screenshot of the report and urged him to confess. To her surprise, he allegedly did.

“I said you can tell me the truth, or I am going to go meet with the cold case team next Thursday and have this reopened,” Jamie explained.

“He just goes into how he killed her, and he describes how he killed her. How he strangled her and that he didn’t know what to do, so he dragged her to the shower and put the bag over her head and taped it so it looked like a suicide.”

In a press release on September 20, 2024, the Metro Nashville Police Department stated that, following a recent confession to detectives, Donovan was indicted by a grand jury for reckless homicide, evidence tampering, and false reporting. He was arrested on September 19 in San Antonio, Texas.

Even in the wake of this development, though, Jamie’s work is far from over. A Change.org petition has been launched, questioning Donovan’s story about how he killed April.

The goal of the petition is to increase Donovan’s charges from reckless homicide to second-degree murder.

The petition details how Donovan alleged he’d “accidentally” killed April while engaging in a violent romantic act. April’s family doesn’t believe she was engaging in any romance with Donovan at the time of her death, though, since she’d just been assaulted by a Tennessee man mere days earlier.

In her journal, April had also written about how she’d felt dirty, embarrassed, and ashamed following the assault.

“April’s family believes that Donovan Holt was losing all control. He was losing his home and his family, and his wife was moving on. He even wrote in his journals that if he got a divorce, he would just be a ‘money man’ to April, rather than a husband,” the petition reads.

“So, they believe that he intended to kill his wife that day. And then, following the attack, he staged her suicide, something he admitted to doing.”

Aside from the petition, Jamie has created a GoFundMe campaign that’s already raised over $2,600 in donations. With the funds, she hopes to launch a grief center in Nashville called “Grieve With Me” in April’s memory.

“[Jamie] wants it to be a place where people can come, drink some coffee, and talk about their experiences. A safe space where children can participate in art therapy,” the campaign reads.

“Jamie wants to create a community where people don’t feel alone in their sorrow. A place where people feel welcomed to talk about their grief journey.”

Finally, she wants to form a new state law that will help families more easily seek justice for relatives, saying, “I want to keep April’s light on. I’m going to keep doing things that let her shine.”

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