True Crime Vault: Figure in the Shadows
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This is Deborah Roberts. Welcome to the 2020 True Crime Vault. Each week, we reach back into our archives and bring you a story we found unforgettable. You broke her teeth. You broke her bones. Poisons that you could use that would be undetectable. Oh my goodness! What have you done? Take a listen. Coming up.

Holly, I love you so much. Please try to get home to us. I mean, there were days that I literally begged to die because I just wanted Holly back home.

On the banks of the Tennessee River, a true crime Southern mystery that stunned the nation. We have a major breaks report. A promising young nursing student and daughter, Holly Bobo, led from her home by a mystery man in camouflage. Holly's screaming, "Stop, stop, stop it." Her cousin, country singer Whitney Duncan. This is not real. It can't be real. That doesn't happen back in my hometown.

The last hours of a life cut short. The clues left behind. For an hour and a half, her cell phone traveled all through Decatur County. Everyone was a suspect, even Holly's own brother. It was just question after question after question. But in the end, did they get the right man? They had no physical evidence. I know my boys, they're drug addicts. They're not murderers. He said, I need you to help me bury this body. Boom, boom, boom.

Justice for Holly Bobo.

I'm John Quinones. It's a family that could be any family living in a small, beautiful town. But their perfect life was shattered the morning Holly Bobo walked off into the woods and was never seen again. As the investigation unfolded, the dark underbelly of their rural Tennessee community would be revealed. The convicted sex offender who delivered the morning papers, the drug addicts living down the way,

As Elizabeth Vargas first reported in 2017, there would, in the end, be a conviction. But some still wondered, did they get the right man? A patchwork of dense woods and hardscrabble farms sewn to the west bank of the Tennessee River. This is Decatur County, Tennessee.

ATVs, horses, and hunting. It's where Karen and Dana Bobo live, in a home they built with their own hands, with their 25-year-old son, Clint, and his younger sister, 20-year-old Holly. Holly was...

pretty much a mother's girl. We shared a bond that she would sometimes look at me and say that's scary because we could finish each other's sentences. Whitney Duncan, a country music singer, is Holly's cousin. Holly was very, very shy until you really got to know her. And then she would come out of her shyness a little bit. She had a beautiful voice, so I would kind of help coach her a little bit on that. They will be here

And it was a special time for Holly. She had recently received a promise ring from her boyfriend, Drew Scott. I remember, you know, her showing me and just being so excited about the future. And she really was planning their life together. The last day of her life was a Wednesday, a perfectly ordinary April morning in 2011. Too early for trouble.

The sun climbing the trees, chasing off the mist. The Bobo family is rising too. Holly, a nursing student, is up by 4.30 that morning studying for her test that day. Karen packs Holly's lunch and then she's off to teach second grade at Scotts Hill Elementary. Did you say goodbye before you left? She was sitting at the kitchen table studying and I kissed her goodbye and told her I loved her just like every other morning.

Holly gathers her lunch and homework and walks out to get into her Mustang in the carport. At about 7.40, Holly's older brother, Clint, is asleep in his bedroom. The house is quiet until the scream. Around 7.40 that morning, a neighbor was getting ready to go to work and was outside and he heard a scream from next door. Holly screaming, stop, stop, stop it.

Her brother Clint doesn't hear Holly screaming. He wakes up to the family dog barking. So I decided to get up, you know, to see what he was barking at. Clint hears voices in the carport behind the house. I listened just briefly and I could tell it was a male and a female voice. I never was able to really tell what they were saying. You couldn't tell if they were shouting, if they were arguing? Well, as I listened a little bit closer, I could tell that that was Holly's voice. So I knew it was Holly. So in my mind, the male's voice I knew to be

Drew, you know, who is her boyfriend. Through the blinds, he spies the strangest thing, two figures in the shadows of the garage. Holly was knelt down in the garage, and a man in camouflage who identified as Drew were knelt down in the garage facing each other. Unsure of what's going on and wary of walking into the middle of a quarrel between Holly and her boyfriend, Clint calls his mother.

And he asked me, "Was Holly not going to school today? Was she going home with Drew?" And I said,

That's not Drew. Karen Bobo knows Holly's boyfriend is elsewhere that morning, turkey hunting. So I instantly knew something was wrong. I could see them. Where were they? They were walking towards the woods, and there's a trail that leads you to a logging road. Was your sister walking unaided on her own? Yeah, she was walking on her own. She wasn't dragging her? Oh, no, no. So when Clint told you on the phone, Holly and Drew just walked off into the woods...

I said, "That's not Drew. Get a gun and shoot him." And Clance said, "You want me to shoot Drew?" And I think that's when I hung up and called 911. 911, what's your emergency? I am in a full-fledged panic by then. Somebody has my daughter. Please get there now. Police rushed to the house on Swan Johnson Road, followed closely by Dana and Karen Bobo. I ran through the woods.

calling her name. In the garage, there's evidence of a struggle, a puddle of blood later confirmed to be Holly's. Holly's nursing school classmate, Suzanne Pratt, knew something was wrong when Holly didn't show up for their test. We waited for just a little while because she wasn't there and no one knew where she was. Then the instructor broke the news. She announced that something terrible had happened.

Soon, half the county, people, police, and search dogs overrun the Bobo property. Get it ready and go out into the woods, okay? You had neighbors, friends, family, all of Decatur County just kind of poured into this family's front yard, and they're out in the woods looking for her. You know, cops everywhere, helicopters flying. It was already crazy. And I remember putting on...

boots, getting on your hands and knees, searching through fields, through woods, basically looking for a needle in a haystack.

Holly's dad tells reporters he suspects the man who took Holly had to be familiar with the area, familiar with her habits. It might have been somebody close, somebody that kind of knew our routine, or when I left, when she left, and when my daughter left to go to school. Tennessee, the volunteer state, lives up to its name.

Day after day, friends, neighbors, and strangers continue searching for Holly. The urgent search for a young woman gone missing. Holly, I love you so much. Please, please try to get home to us. We've been searching all day and pretty well into the night. What was it about Holly in this story that struck so many people? I think it was because everybody realized

This could be their own child because she wasn't some famous person or she was just a normal, regular, average 20-year-old. Police ask AT&T to track Holly's cell phone. What could you tell from Holly's cell phone that morning? Essentially, for an hour and a half, her cell phone traveled.

all through Decatur County. The beating electric pulse of Holly's phone travels north to this wooded area near Interstate 40 and then turns back south by another route. At any point does the cell phone stop moving? Around 8:30 to 9:00 that morning, her cell phone stopped moving for about 20 to 30 minutes. And what do you think was happening at that point? I don't want to think about it.

For several days, the house is a crime scene. Eventually, the Bobos are allowed to return home. I remember the first thing I wanted to do was go to her room and open her closet and smell her. Karen Bobo longs for the touch of her daughter's hand. When Holly was at home, she'd be asleep. Her hand would be kind of flabby.

folded like this and I would just slip my hand in her hand for just a few seconds. And I remember doing that after trying to feel her, thinking if I could just feel her hand in my hand.

Investigators follow every lead. Disheartening evidence of Holly begins turning up. Homework, a notebook, that lunch her mother made, and Holly's phone, all found scattered along backcountry roads in the weeks after the abduction. I wondered if she maybe had a chance to throw out some things or if it was just some kind of taunting.

The strange abduction, the apparent signs of familiarity with the victim, and the trail of evidence lead police to think the suspect was close, perhaps even inside the house. There were a lot of people that felt Clint was lying. Holly's own brother. What does he know? Have you told everything you know about that morning? Stay with us.

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And now we have the latest on the desperate hunt for Tennessee nursing student Holly Bobo. She was taken from her home by a man wearing camouflage. This morning there are some new clues. Did she know her alleged abductor? Clint Bobo was the last person to see his sister Holly alive as she was led into the woods by a man.

I knew that he was wearing camouflage and he had what appeared to be a black object in his hand. You also described his height and weight and hair color. I estimated him to be about 5'10" and about 200 pounds. What color hair? I really don't remember focusing on his hair. But you've described it to police as being dark. Yeah. How did your mom look when she showed up? Very panicked. She was very panicked. I remember her coming up to me and shaking me. And she said, "Clint, why didn't you do something?"

The pressure is enormous. People are puzzled by Clint Bobo's account of the abduction. At the time, Tennessee Bureau of Investigation's Terry Dykus is heading up the case. There were a lot of people that felt very strongly that Clint was lying and that Clint telling the truth would be the secret to solving this case.

Did they tell you they thought your story was strange? It was just question after question after question. Now, of course, they did check me. They said for scratches, and so I took my shirt off. That was that morning that she disappeared? Yeah, yeah, that was that morning. Suspicion, was that quickly turned toward you? But you were there. I was there, yeah. Yeah, I was there, and Holly was not there. Police search Clint's computer, monitor his phone calls, and polygraph him twice.

Have you told everything you know about that morning? Yes. That your sister disappeared? Yes, I have told everything. What has it been like to lose one child and have the other child be the focus of so much suspicion? I felt like we had lost one child and was having to fight for the other one. But I knew the truth would always come out in the end.

Eventually, Clint is cleared, and investigators turn their attention to another man from the county. Terry Britt was a registered sex offender who lived fairly close to the Bobo home. He lived also very, very close to where some of her property was found. The first time I interviewed him, I was like, oh, my God, this guy did it. This guy did it. You thought that the first time you interviewed him? I thought that before I interviewed him, actually. According to Terry Dykus...

Terry Britt did have, for lack of a better term, a type. He liked pretty blonde, blue-eyed girls, and Holly fit that type.

The dark underbelly of Decatur County, the criminal underworld of drug addicts and sex offenders, is a foreign country to Karen Bobo. And we didn't live in that culture. We lived in our own little circle. So you weren't even aware of it? That that world existed? Absolutely not. We were just hardworking family. I thought that's how everybody lived.

Tell me about Terry Britt. He is a horrible, horrible human being. He spent the majority of his life in prison for kidnapping and rape. And he absolutely perfectly matches the description that Clint Bobo provided of Holly's abductor. His entire alibi was a lie from start to finish, complete and total fabrication.

His alibi was that he was buying a bathtub with his wife at this salvage yard. The problem is Dykus says the store has no record of that sale. Dykus does not believe it's a coincidence that Britt's home is in northern Decatur County, in the general direction Holly's cell phone was moving the day she was taken. Obviously, whoever did this knows these roads because they knew how to go from

this point to this point, avoid this bridge, avoid every way that a police officer may come in. You executed a search warrant on Terry Britt's house, and that involved bringing cadaver dogs.

Did they find anything? The cadaver dogs alerted to two of Britt's vehicles and several tools around his house. Somebody has been decomposing in and around these vehicles and around these tools. So you seized the vehicles and the tools and tested them for any DNA? Correct. No DNA? Correct.

Undeterred, police wiretapped Britt's phone and put a bug in his house and listened to his conversations. The wiretap did not result in anything. We didn't have any type of admission on that. And I think a lot of people looked at that as exoneration.

But not Dykus, and he says largely because of this. A recording of a chilling conversation he had with Britt. Britt seems to actually fantasize about what Holly's kidnapper might have been thinking. Jeez.

Young, pretty, perfect, somewhat body. Yeah. Okay. Like a toy. He can't wait to get her to where he's going to take her to because he's wanting that body. But here comes reality. Now I've got a body. What am I going to do with it? If you keep it, you've got to feed it. You've got to hide it. And if you kill it, what are you going to do with it?

The hairs must have stood up on the back of your neck. The way I took it is he's reliving the story, and when he gets to the point where she's no longer alive, he changes from talking about her as a person to talk about her as a nit. Dykus also believes the timing of the abduction might be a clue pointing to Terry Britt. Holly was taken before 8 o'clock on Wednesday morning. On Tuesday nights, the Brits would deliver newspapers and end by about 3 a.m.,

him. Britt's wife would go into work late on Wednesdays. She would have slept in until 10:30 or 11:00. So he would have had time to get back home and establish an alibi with his wife. I haven't left. I've been here with my wife.

Any other day, she would have gotten up, gone to work, and seen that he was missing. But Britt continues to deny he was involved, and investigators cannot seem to find compelling evidence to prove otherwise. Many in the TBI feel it's time to turn to other suspects. Not Dykus, though. He just can't let go. Were you asked to leave the investigation? I was taken off the investigation, yes. Because you felt passionately that they had...

a suspect that you should be pursuing and nobody else agreed? Well, not nobody else agreed, but the right people didn't agree is more accurate.

Dykus was reassigned and then left the TBI altogether. The agency says Dykus was benched because he developed tunnel vision and had lost his ability to be objective about the facts of the case. The investigation, meanwhile, seems to go nowhere. Holly's family is increasingly frustrated. Until your child is found or you know what happened to them, I don't think anyone could ever do enough.

in a parent's eyes. But in the depths of the Bobo's despair, suddenly a stunning turn. We have a major racial report. A suspect is in custody this morning. Police say they found their man. Make that men. And then they find something in the woods. I once again got that same it's her feeling. Stay with us.

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Two years after the disappearance of Holly Bobo, Tennessee Bureau of Investigation's agent Terry Dykus is off the case, and Terry Britt is no longer a suspect. But if Britt didn't abduct Holly, then who did? Once again, here's Elizabeth Vargas.

Ever since that April morning when Holly Bobo vanished into the Tennessee woods, the tips poured in. The more the investigation found her, the wilder the speculation. Psychic visions and sightings. Holly becomes a phantom, haunting every dark corner of Decatur County.

Citizens report she's being held captive in a barn. No, tied up in a warehouse, thrown down a well. One woman claimed to have been there the night Holly was taken. Another fella claimed to have her in the basement. Everybody called, "You need to check out this guy. You need to check out this guy. I don't have any information, but he may have did it. Okay, thank you." We interviewed pretty much everybody that had broken the law, I'm sure, at one point or another.

Police are tipped off early in the investigation to four small-time criminals, brothers Zach and Dylan Adams and cousins Jason Autry and Shane Austin. They were essentially best friends. They did everything together. Zach Adams is one of those people in town allegedly shooting off his mouth, taking credit for Holly's disappearance. Zach would tell people, you're going to end up in a hole just like Holly. They would make comments everywhere.

that normal people would not make. So do they come to the top of your suspect list, somebody to check out? They're brought up early and often. They were brought up by people that know that they're just bad people.

Into drugs. Reputations that draw the attention of the Bobos, who by now have begun doing their own police work. They track them down one by one and ask for a chat. What did you say to these people? I asked them, did they know anything about our daughter's abduction? Yet, of course, they all denied it. Was any part of you afraid? No. I guess I would have fought Goliath.

You know, I just had no fear. I was trying to find my daughter. Every single moment of her life since Holly went missing has been devoted to that. She never gave up hope. When you went to interview these two brothers and their friend, Jason Autry, how did they strike you? They appeared believable to me. Did they have alibis during the time of the crime?

alibis that checked out. But then Dykus is taken off the case and investigators return to that foursome.

Unlike Britt, who Dykus thought acted alone, the four suspects provide an opportunity to break the case. Detectives just need one of them to turn on the other three. - Do you have your seat right there? - Police begin a series of at least six interrogation sessions over eight months with the weakest link, Dylan Adams, who quickly admits being with Holly Bobo the day she was taken. - Describe what was she doing, what did she look like, what was she wearing?

Of the four suspects, Dylan is the youngest, and his mother, Cindy, says he has intellectual disabilities. He even has trouble telling time. As you watch that videotape of your son, what do you see? You've destroyed evidence. You've withheld information.

That ain't how this works. Was Holly Bobo kidnapped? Was she raped? Raped by you? After numerous sessions with halting one-word answers, the frustrated agents seem to realize that Dylan will not make a good witness. Dylan doesn't give them any of the mysteries about who took Holly, where she went, you know, when she walked into the woods.

where she was killed, where her body had been. Even so, detectives cobble together the following story from Dylan. He tells them his brother Zach, Jason Autry, and Shane Austin kidnapped Holly. Dylan says all four of them sexually assaulted her at Zach's house. As for who killed Holly, in one version he says it was Zach, another it was Autry. I think that he was just trying to get through it.

And he really didn't care what he said. Dylan is a people pleaser. I know my boys, they're drug addicts. They're not murderers. But a grand jury says that's exactly what they are. Zach Adams and Jason Autry are indicted for murder. Decatur County Grand Jury handed down indictment of especially aggravated kidnapping.

Recognizing Dylan's weakness as a witness, authorities turn to Shane Austin. He's not charged. Instead, they offer him immunity in exchange for testimony. But he says he can't answer the most important question. Where's Holly? We still didn't have her back. So for me, even then, I think there was a part of me that still didn't believe it.

That all changed on September 7, 2014, a Sunday, when two ginseng hunters find partial human remains, including a skull, at the foot of a cell phone tower in this wooded area off Interstate 40, the very area where Holly's phone had been pinging, and just six miles from Zach Adams' house. The TBI confirmed they found Bovo's remains. Wow.

Where were you when you got word? We were at the mall in Jackson, Tennessee, and I will never forget that. I once again got that same, it's her, feeling. Just had that same feeling they're going to come and tell us that's her. Her intuition proven right, the skull is Holly's, and there's a bullet hole in it.

They have a body, but they lose their witness. Before he can testify, Shane Austin hangs himself in a Florida hotel room. Authorities desperately need a break. There is no physical evidence linking the Adams brothers or Jay Sinatry to the crime. Even so, prosecutors charge all of them, including Dylan, announcing they'll seek the death penalty. All three plead not guilty. Zach would not...

fight this if he was guilty. He's not going to put forth the energy to do this, but this is something he strongly believes in. And he said, mom, you know, if I get the death penalty, I'll die an innocent man. And this man actually believes all three are innocent. The former agent in charge of the early years of the investigation, Terry Dykus. Why don't you think these young men are guilty? I don't think they're capable of doing arithmetic.

Much less this. But prosecutors are confident they can make it all add up. Still ahead, the trial that rocked Decatur County, a best friend's betrayal, and a chilling story about what happened to Holly. Boom, boom, boom. Stay with us. In the summer of 2017, Holly Bobo's cousin, country singer Whitney Duncan, released a song about Holly called Better Place. I bet you don't miss

The song was kind of me talking to her. So I really wanted to show some clips of Holly from when she was a baby and just of her growing up through the years. But I know she's watching down and she sees everything. God bless the United States, the state of Tennessee, the county of Hardin.

and this honorable accord. On September 11th, 2017, Zach Adams' death penalty murder trial gets underway in an ornate chandeliered courtroom in Hardin County, Tennessee.

Zach Adams, standing alone as the face of evil. His husky appearance strikingly different from the gaunt man seen in preliminary hearings two years earlier. Prosecutor Paul Hagerman delivers his opening statement in a voice so quiet, many strained to hear. He took her. He raped her.

He killed her and he almost got away with it. Members of the jury. Jennifer Thompson is Zach Adams' defense attorney. He did not, as a matter of fact, know Holly Bobo and had never even laid eyes on her. When Holly's mother, a schoolteacher, testifies a surreal moment. She knows her daughter's alleged killer. She taught Zach Adams in the fourth grade.

She keeps her composure until she's asked to identify some of Holly's belongings. Is this her car key? Yes, ma'am. Take just a minute. I'm feeling sick. Let's take a break, sis. I want everyone to remain with me while the jury files out, please. Got a nurse? Got a nurse?

Now prosecutors introduce a recent discovery, what they consider to be the murder weapon, a pistol allegedly once owned by Shane Austin. It had been recovered just before the trial was set to begin.

Finding the gun came out of nowhere. Nobody could ever find the gun. If it's the smoking gun, it hasn't smoked in a while. The pistol was found underwater in a drainage ditch. One expert testifies, based on the size of the bullet hole, it could be the murder weapon. But no expert proves it actually is. And Dylan Adams is also nowhere to be seen. Not on the witness stand.

not in that videotaped interrogation. That's because the state no longer needs him. Because prosecutors have found a real rock star witness, none other than Jason Autry himself. - Be seated, state your first and last name. - Jason Autry. - They had no physical evidence other than a skull and a gun. So Jason Autry is their best hope at a conviction.

When Jason Autry came along, it's what the state really needed to try to get a conviction of somebody. And I think the state really needed to convict somebody. For years, Jason Autry has been proclaiming his innocence to anyone who would listen. I want to say one thing. I'm innocent of these charges. Right hand before God, I'm innocent, sir.

But this time, with his right hand before God, it's a different story. He says the morning Holly was taken, Zach Adams asked him to help get rid of a dead body wrapped in a quilt in the back of his pickup truck.

And he said, I need you to help me bury this body. He says, according to Zach Adams, the body in the blanket was Holly Bobo. Autry says he and Zach drove the body down backcountry roads to a spot on the Tennessee River under the Interstate 40 bridge. Cell phone records show they were both in that area that morning. And graffiti on the bridge suggests Zach had been there before. He says they laid the body in the blanket on the ground. It's that time.

Jason says he kept a lookout and Zach fetched a pistol from the truck. Boom, boom, boom.

underneath that bridge. It was just one shot, but it echoed underneath that bridge all the way down that damn river bottom. Birds went everywhere, just all up under that bridge. And it was just dead silence for just a second. He says they load Holly's dead body, still in the quilt, back onto the truck. Shut the tailgate and turn out of there like wild, wild Indians. Jason Autry is a star witness like no other. Just details...

his entire day on April 13th like it was yesterday. Autry claims that this was the extent of his involvement. He says he eventually learned from Zach and Dylan Adams that they and Shane Austin had kidnapped Holly earlier that morning and sexually assaulted her in an old barn.

After shooting her under the bridge, he says Zach disposed of her body. Did Jason Autry's story on the stand sound plausible to you? It did. Every part of it? It did, and it matched, it matched everything.

what the prosecutors had also. Zach Adams' defense attorney says it's all a pack of lies. I think Jason Rodger is going to be rewarded for his story. I think he's going to be released. I think he'll be released fairly soon. She points out phone records show Audrey takes time out from allegedly participating in murder to chat on the phone with his girlfriend and his mother. In the middle of all this...

You were able to take a telephone call from your mother, Shirley King, that morning at 9:42, weren't you? If your records reflect that, that's true. But prosecutors point to their own phone records, bringing on a TBI expert who tells the jury that Autry's story of meeting up with Zack Adams before traveling to the Tennessee River is backed up by the movements of their cell phones.

The prosecution isn't finished. They call to the witness stand a rogue's gallery of walking, talking, testifying mugshots. Cons and ex-cons who say they heard Zach Adams bragging about what he had done to Holly Bobo. He said, I'll kill you like I did Holly Bobo.

I couldn't have picked a prettier bitch. He made the comment that it sure was fun. The prosecution's case leaves some nagging questions unanswered. Which of the suspects took Holly from her home?

Why was she targeted? And what happened to her before she was wrapped in the quilt in the back of that pickup? That's what leads the defense and the original investigator to say the wrong man is on trial. Now, Terry Britt, the original suspect, is about to take the stand. Stay with us.

In the Hardin County Courthouse, it is Zach Adams' turn to defend himself. His attorney, Jennifer Thompson, calls a cell phone expert. He determines that although Zach Adams' phone may have been in the same place as Holly Bobo's at times on the day of the crime, at other times that day, Zach and Holly's phones were far apart. At

At 8.17, Holly's phone is over in this area, and at 8.16, Zach Adams' phone is over here, and they're miles apart, okay? But it's not just about creating reasonable doubt. Thompson is shooting for reasonable certainty that the real killer was someone else.

For assistance, she turns to Terry Dykus, the former lead investigator removed from the case because of an unwavering belief that his old nemesis, Terry Britt, is the predator who murdered Holly. In your opinion, what is the strongest evidence implicating Terry Britt? He's the kidnapping rapist in Decatur County.

He's the one that would be willing to do this. Aside from his notorious rap sheet, you'll recall that Britt had a wafer-thin alibi and the cadaver dogs alerted on his car. Who has human decomposition on two of their cars and four of the tools in their shed? Who has that? Zach didn't have that. Shane Austin didn't have that. Dykus makes his case to the jury. Terry Britt has black hair,

He weighs 200 pounds and he's six foot tall. So I got on to him because, number one, he is the exact size of what our witness said the abductor looked like. He's capable of kidnapping her. On cross-examination, he's forced to admit he knows nothing of the developments in the case in the years since he left the TBI. But you can't tell us anything about...

the three and four years after that. You're right. I don't know what y'all have done since then. And now, the showstopper. Here's Terry Britt himself, brought in straight from the penitentiary to testify in court. Would you tell the jury what you're currently incarcerated for? Kidnapping, temporary. Britt has not forgotten Terry Dykus, the agent who hounded him for years. Do you know whether Dykus is still a TVA agent? No, he's lost his job.

I wish he'd get on food stamps. I object, Your Honor, to him saying he lost his job. He almost destroyed my life. But defense attorney Jennifer Thompson hopes to convince the jury Terry Britt should be on trial here, not her client, Zach Adams. When the police showed up at your house to talk with you, the first thing you said to them was, I didn't rape nobody, didn't you? Right.

And that's before they even said anything to you about what was going on, isn't it? That's right. Because you had already heard that there was a woman missing.

That's right. It's role reversal in the courtroom. The prosecutor, practically holding her nose, has to shoot down this defense ploy by proving Britt is innocent of this particular crime. After the searching of your house, taking your cars, taking your computers, bugging your phone, bugging your house, were you charged with anything to do with Holly Bobo's case? No, no ma'am. Did you kidnap, rape, murder Holly Bobo?

No, I didn't. I ain't no girl. Never seen her in my life that I know of. So, after all that, after all that, you still have to be here today, still answering questions about something that happened in 2011. It's like them camera back there. They're going to plaster me with lies on me from here on up.

In closing arguments, prosecutors remind the jury no physical evidence connected Terry Britt to the crime.

Not a hair, not anything at all that connected him to Holly Vogel. Of course, there's no blood or hair connecting Zach Adams to the crime either. And in her closing, Thompson does her best to torpedo the prosecution's case. There's no motive for Zach to have done this. The government wants you to believe Zach is guilty based on mere suspicion and rumor.

In this country, we do not convict based on mere suspicion and rumor. Terry Britt is most likely the real abductor and the killer of Holly Bobo. Ten days after the trial began, the jury is given the case. It takes them just 11 hours to reach a decision. Has the jury reached a verdict in this case? Yes, ma'am.

They find Zach Adams guilty on all counts. You checked guilty of first-degree felony murder. The Bobo family agrees with prosecutors to allow Adams to avoid the death sentence, a mercy they believe he did not show their daughter. Why did you make that decision? So that we can hopefully start doing a little bit of healing. Life in prison without the possibility of parole? Yes. Plus 50 years. Is that enough punishment for you?

there'll never be enough punishment for him. He don't deserve to be breathing the air that he's breathing today. After sentencing, the woman who taught Zach Adams in fourth grade insists that he pay attention once again. Can you back up just a little bit so he can look at me? And I know that she begged for her life because my daughter loved and enjoyed life, but you...

to take that from her.

Karen Bobo has a memento of Holly that she keeps close. It's her daughter's promise ring, recovered in the woods with her remains. The last moments of the trial belong not to the judge or the jury or even to Zack Adams. They belong to Holly Bobo. She was raised in a Christian home filled with lots of love and laughter. There'll be none of that anymore.

for all of us because there's a piece of us that will always be missing. As she wrote in her song, Whitney Duncan says their family knows that Holly is in a better place. I think of her every day. Hearing somebody talk about it or coming home and seeing the signs and seeing her picture.

It makes me sad, but I don't want to be sad. I want to think about the happy times that I had with her. This is Deborah Roberts with an update. Zach Adams appealed his conviction, which as of 2024 remains pending. We'll continue to follow this story as it unfolds.

Dylan Adams later took an Alford plea in which he did not admit guilt, but acknowledged the prosecution had enough evidence to convict him. He'll serve 35 years for facilitation of first-degree murder and especially aggravated kidnapping.

As for Jason Autry, he later pleaded guilty to lesser charges of solicitation of first-degree murder and facilitation of especially aggravated kidnapping. He was sentenced to eight years in prison and released in 2020. In June of 2024, Autry was sentenced to 19 years in federal prison on an unrelated weapons charge.

You've been listening to the 2020 True Crime Vault. Friday nights at 9 on ABC, you can also find all new broadcast episodes of 2020. Thanks for listening.

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