Going West: True Crime - Holly Cantrell // 103

Episode Date: January 13, 2021

In 2017, a 40-year-old woman never returned home after working at an Oklahoma hospital. When police reviewed the security footage, they saw her getting into a man’s truck and they drove off together- but she was never seen again. This is the story of Holly Cantrell. *BONUS EPISODES* patreon.com/goingwestpodcast *ADS* Gobble: Get 6 meals for $36 (and free shipping!) at gobble.com/goingwest Apostrophe: Visit apostrophe.com/goingwest and use code GOINGWEST for $15 off your prescription Talkspace: Get $100 off by going to Talkspace.com and use code GOINGWEST *CASE SOURCES* https://obituaries.mcalesternews.com/obituary/holly-cantrell-1078504813 https://www.bishopfuneralservice.com/obituary/holly-cantrell https://www.oxygen.com/crime-news/oklahoma-police-holly-cantrell-missing-pregnant-mom-body https://www.mcalesternews.com/news/skeletal-remains-identified-as-holly-cantrell/article_761ff0c0-52b6-11ea-8c7d-b39df0871a08.html https://www.bishopfuneralservice.com/obituary/4216025 https://www.investigationdiscovery.com/crimefeed/missing/holly-cantrell--mother-of-3-with-secrets--vanished-in-broad-dayl https://www.mcalesternews.com/news/skeletal-remains-identified-as-holly-cantrell/article_761ff0c0-52b6-11ea-8c7d-b39df0871a08.html https://www.fox23.com/news/local/human-remains-found-2018-belong-missing-pittsburg-county-woman-sheriffs-office-says/MOHT7EWZVVAT7NLY5KAR77QFGA/ https://people.com/crime/holly-cantrell-human-remains-pregnant-oklahoma-mother/ Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What is going on True Crime fans, I'm your host hee, and I'm your other host Daphne, and you're listening to Going West. Really cool announcement for our other show, which is the Dark Parts. We just started it back up again. We took a few weeks off for the holiday season, but it's back and we have a super creepy episode that just came out last week and it's on security tapes. And that shows creepy, but it's also kind of funny, so it's a little bit more light-hearted than going west, so you guys should definitely check it out. Yeah, that episode about security tapes really freaks me out,

and it kind of has a true crime aspect to it as well. So if you like true crime and you like scary stories, you'll definitely like the dark parts. Thank you so much everybody for tuning in today to Going West. Today's episode is a newer case, so make sure that you listen closely and share this episode.

Alright guys, without further ado, this is episode 103 returned from her job working at a hospital in Oklahoma. When police reviewed the security footage, they saw her getting into a man's truck and they drove off together, but she was never seen again. can trail. Holly Marie Constantio was born on July 12, 1976 in Sacramento, California to her mother Joelle in Constantio as the second oldest of five children. She had a brother Michael and three sisters, Bonnie, Alice, and Maya. When Holly was just 11 years old, she and her siblings went to live in Oklahoma with her aunt Cheryl and grandmother, along with cousin Charlesi, who was just a year younger than Holly. And the two girls became very close just as if they were sisters.

From the start, Holly had a huge heart and she just loved people. All of her siblings and cousins really looked up to her for being such a genuine and kind person. She just kind of charmed everyone she met with her, really contagious laugh and constant big smile. And in high school, she was the captain of the cheerleading squad. After graduating high school, Holly attended and graduated from Eastern Oklahoma State College in Wilburton and started working as an elementary school teacher. By her early 20s, Holly was already married to a man who she had her first child

Trenton with. But during their relationship when she was 23 years old, Holly met a 46-year-old man named Tommy Cantrell. Holly started entertaining the idea of being with Tommy since her first marriage wasn't really going well, and one day she left her husband and took their son Trenton to her grandmother's house. They stayed there for a while as she began seriously dating Tommy and things were really going great. Tommy had three children of his own from previous marriages, who were in their tween in teen years so much older than

Holly's two-year-old son Trenton. But nonetheless, everyone got along well and she treated his kids like they were her own. Before Tommy and Holly got together, Tommy's daughter 15-year-old charity had a child and Holly helped raise the boy. She was just naturally very nurturing and she was such a good mom. At this time, she was still working as an elementary school teacher, which she did for about six years until she decided to start working in the physical therapy field. So she went to school part-time for nearly seven years, mostly doing night school, so she could earn her degree. And in 2016, she got a job as a physical therapy assistant at McAllister Regional

Hospital. Holly and Tommy got married in February of 2001, and a few years later, they had two sons together. And Holly and her kids and husband were very, very close, like they all love the rural lifestyle that McAllister Oklahoma offered them, and they did a lot of family activities together. Between fishing, hiking, and camping, they were always outdoors. Sounds like my kind of people. Exactly. And it was really a big deal for Holly to be outside as often as she could because she just loved it, like she hated being stuck in the house for too long. Luckily, they lived on a big property, and they even had different animals.

I mean, like they had miniature donkeys, cows, goats, and even a pet raccoon. Because Holly loved her animals, and she was so good at taking care of them. She was a natural born caregiver, which is why she excelled at her job in nursing so much. She woke up every day and was excited to go to work and help people. That's just who she was. But as the years went on, her relationship

with her husband started to deteriorate. She and Tommy just kind of seemed to be growing apart for one reason or another. So in early 2017, by the way, she and Tommy had two sons, Zachary and Wesley, and they were still living at the house. By that time, one of them was 12, and the other was a couple years older. And her son Trenton from her first marriage was in his first year of college out of the area, so he was not living at home. So it was just Tommy and Holly at the house with their two sons Zachary and Wesley. On the morning of Friday, January 20, 2017, Holly got up and made breakfast for Zachary, Wesley, and Tommy and got the boys ready for school. She then took them to the bus stop and returned home where she got ready for work.

Before leaving, she gave her husband Tommy a kiss on the forehead and reminded him that they needed to go grocery shopping when she got off work at 4.30pm. Then she hopped in her truck and made the 15 minute drive over to the hospital to arrive at 7.30am. The day went by and 5pm rolled around and Holly still wasn't home. Tommy thought it was strange but he wondered if maybe she just was held up at work and would be home soon, but she never arrived. By dinner time, he started getting really worried, so he called her cell phone.

It rang and rang and rang and then it went to voicemail. At that point, he's really concerned something happened, so he and the boys jumped in his truck and drove down to the hospital. Weirdly enough, Holly's car was still in the hospital parking lot. But when he went inside the hospital to see if Holly was there, he was informed that she was not. So Holly's not answering her phone, she's not home, she's not in her car, and she's not inside of work, but her truck is parked outside. So he's just kind of like where is she and they weren't gonna meet at the grocery store by the way

they were gonna meet at home and then go to the store together to get stuff to make dinner. So her being nowhere just doesn't make any sense. Yeah, and I wonder if this hospital was close to anything like if it was close to other businesses. So it's possible that she like walked over to a different store and she would be right back. Well, I actually looked into this. That's a good question. So surrounding the hospital that she worked out was mostly residential neighborhoods.

And the closest, like for example, there is a CVS within a few minutes drive, but to walk there, it would take her between 15 to 20 minutes. So not somewhere she would be walking necessarily like she may as well just drive. I know she liked being outside, but still there's no reason for her to be gone and it to be dinner time and her to be nowhere to be found and not answering her phone. Right. So Tommy called around to Holly's family, including her cousin, Charles E, but no one had seen her. So at this point, he knew something had to be wrong. And he called the McAllister

police and reported the incident to them. And he just kind of said that, you know, his wife was supposed to be home hours earlier. She's not at work. And her truck is sitting in the parking lot. He then drove down to the station and tried to file an official report, but the police told him that he needed to wait 24 hours. Because Holly was 40 years old, and at this time, there was no signs of struggle near her truck. So he had to wait a bit until police could jump in, and I mean, this makes sense because she's an adult,

but it's always really frustrating to hear when we're on the other side of things, like hindsight's 2020. But yeah, definitely really frustrating, but they're like, you gotta wait. Right, if you're the concerned family member, you're like, well, no, this is serious. I know my partner, they wouldn't be gone like this.

And they're like, well, that person is an adult, so. Right, and maybe they even had the same thought that you had that maybe she walked maybe she went on a walk or maybe she met up with a coworker and they went to a store they went to get something kind of thing. So then Tommy drove back to the hospital and he decided to use his spare key to drive Holly's truck home. And I really don't understand why he did this because it doesn't make much sense that since he doesn't know where she is He just moves her truck without her knowledge

Like maybe he didn't want it sitting in the parking lot, so it didn't get towed That's kind of my only thought on that, but I still find it really odd that he moved it Because what if she was just at the store or on a walk and then she comes back and her truck's gone? Well, and how did he move it? Did he drive to the hospital? I mean, it's like if he drove to the hospital himself, then he would have to leave one of the two cars there. Yeah, so there's confusion here because from what I, from my research, I know that he took the boys with him.

I know one of them was 12 and I cannot find anywhere how old the other one was, but the other son was in between the ages of the 12-year-old and 19-year-old Trenton. So I don't know, maybe he was 16 or 15 and he drove the other truck, but I have no idea. Yeah, that would make sense. But either way, it's like, why are you moving the truck? I don't know.

I just thought it was kind of weird. So Tommy then called around to more of Holly's family and all of her friends that he knows to see if anyone knew where Holly was, but no one had seen her at all or heard from her. The next day when Holly still wasn't found, Tommy officially filed that missing person's report and the police started investigating this like a missing person's case. And they started by going to the hospital and gathering every piece of information that they could, including the parking lot security footage.

After reviewing it, they found some very useful information. I love a CCTV moment. Yeah, I do as well. That's, it's always very, very helpful in cases like this. So on January 20th, 2017, the day that Holly went missing, at 11.56am, Holly is caught on the interior hallway camera of the hospital entrance, and she's seen badging out for her lunch alone. She then is caught on multiple cameras outside in the parking lot, walking out towards her truck, but she passes

her truck and keeps walking. That's when the camera catches her approaching a green truck. And the truck is in a parking space and it's being blocked for the most part by another truck, but you can clearly see a man and a cowboy hat step out of the truck and greet Holly. They then both get inside and the truck drives off. And we posted the surveillance video on our social media accounts, so make sure to follow us for general updates and news regarding cases in the podcast and go take a look at the video as well as photos of Holly. Instagram at Going West Podcast and our Twitter at Going West Pod. Earlier the next day, so one day after Holly's disappearance,

in the morning, Holly's first husband, along with their son Trenton, were informed about what was going on, and they both went down to the police station to make sure that they were taking the case seriously. Well, Trenton was saying that, because he knew his mom would never leave willingly like this, and he and his step-siblings

were her world, and so was her job, so something had to be wrong. Meanwhile his dad, Holly's ex, explains to police that Holly has done something like this before. When she left him for Tommy, she apparently left with no warning at all and took Trenton with her, and he had no idea where she went. But Alice, one of Holly's sisters, is adamant that that was a very different situation because she, along with the rest of Holly's family, knew where Holly was the whole time and she even was staying at her grandma's house.

And the day after she left her first husband, she filed for divorce. So Holly being missing now and no one knowing where she is is very suspicious and uncharacteristic. But police started wondering if she did just run away, and that whoever was in that green truck helped her do it. But luckily, they still worked on the investigation and tried to find out who the owner of the green truck was. After speaking to Holly's co-workers at the hospital, a few of them explained that Holly had mentioned having an affair with another man named Cody. And it's quickly discovered that his name is Cody Ketchum and he owns a green truck.

He was about 30 years old at this time, so 10 years younger than Holly, and he was married too. But he had been a long time family friend of Tommy's, so they were all very close, and he helped out a lot on their farm, and the couple spent a good amount of time together. Holly's sisters and cousins didn't know that she was dating him, but they admit that she appeared to be smitten with him whenever he was around. And remember, at this time, Tommy's in his mid-60s while Holly is 40. And their marriage had been falling apart for a few years now. So now this younger guy who seems to be a lot better suited for her comes around, and she's taken a liking to him, and vice versa.

After Holly's son Trenton was shown the security footage, he clarified that the truck indeed belonged to Cody. And he knew this because Cody was around a lot and he'd even been in that truck himself. And on top of that, co-workers told investigators that Holly had plans to spend the afternoon with Cody and they were gonna get lunch together. So police knew that Cody had plans to spend the afternoon with Cody and they were going to get lunch together.

So, police knew that Cody had to have some information on where Holly was. It was then that they also discovered from one of Holly's close friends that Holly was pregnant and she knew that Cody was the father. So, they located him and questioned him regarding the CCTV footage. He admitted that yes, that was his truck, but he didn't know where Holly was. Police then asked him what happened after he picked Holly up and he explained to them that he and Holly had a lunch date that day, but he had the cancel.

Instead, he picked her up and took her to a restaurant that was just 7 minutes away from her work on South George Nye Expressway called Brahms. And Brahms is a drive-through, dyin-in Oklahoma chain restaurant that offers burgers and ice cream, but it also has some grocery items. Cody Ketchum told investigators that Holly was having lunch with friends and then after she was done, he was to pick her up and take her back to work. But while she was supposed to be at lunch, he texted her and said that he wasn't going to be able to pick her up.

She replied to him, saying that it was fine, and she was just going to get a ride back to work for the rest of the afternoon. After that, Holly didn't send another text or make or accept another phone call. This is really strange to me off the bat. So first of all, if you canceled lunch plans, that means you're busy. Yet you have time to go pick her up from work, wait for her to be done eating, and then go back and pick her up and drop her off. Like Holly was fully able to drive herself to the restaurant in her truck, and

maybe this was just an excuse for them to spend a few minutes together in the car, but still it's kind of weird that he canceled plans, but then it's still like half available that's just like, I don't know, that's so weird. Yeah, that doesn't make any sense, like, hey hey I know you have your own car but let me pick you up and drop you off at lunch and then come and pick you up and drive you back to work like that no. Even though I can't see you for lunch but I can still like show for you. Yeah that that didn't happen. That doesn't make any sense so at that point either don't see her and see her the next day or

So at that point either don't see her and see her the next day or Freaking just have lunch with our man like what and this is so Reminiscent of a case that we've actually covered before the Aaron Corwin case If you guys haven't listened to that one check it out. This is so similar. Yeah, you're right like the pregnancy and the two couples and This shit doesn't make sense in a truck. Yeah exactly. So although it seems convenient that Cody says he dropped Holly off and didn't see her again, police believe that he sounds genuinely worried about her. And we say this often, you know, this doesn't mean anything because people can be deceiving. So I hate when police are like, oh, they seem genuine. They're probably telling the truth.

Yeah, that means nothing to me. Like, it means nothing. So, I like, look at the facts, man. Cody also tells them that he and Holly had been seeing each other for eight months and that they usually spent time together during her work shift when they'd go to lunch together. And he knew she was pregnant and believed the child was his. So, you can probably imagine that maybe her and Tommy were not being intimate and that's kind of how they,

they both just knew that it was Cody's kid. Right. So police wanted to check out his alibi fully, which is good, and make sure that everything lined up. So Cody gave them access to his phone and they even pulled Holly's phone records. They saw the text from that afternoon where he told Holly he couldn't pick her up

and she responded that she would get a ride to work. But when they pulled the security footage from Brahms restaurant, suspicions were raised. Uh-oh. Oh yeah. That Brahms location doesn't have cameras outside the building, so there's no way to check and see if Cody's truck pulled in and Holly got out. However, Holly never appears on the interior cameras,

meaning she didn't eat lunch there at all. There's absolutely no evidence of it. This also reminds me of last week's case, just due to the fact that there's the security footage that doesn't line up, and I don't know why people dig themselves holes like this, in cases like this where they lie, and then they're found out. I think maybe they do it because they're guilty of something, and they're trying to cover their tracks in any way that they can, because in Cody's defense, there's also no proof that he didn't drop off because there's no cameras.

Sure, but I mean, if she's never seen on the cameras inside the restaurant, that leads everyone to believe that she was never dropped off there. Right, and part of me thinks, you know, Holly was keeping her relationship with Cody mostly a secret, meaning she's capable of doing these kind of things

sneakily and under the radar, but a number of people knew about their relationship. So her secretly may be meeting up with someone else at Brahms and then Having them take her somewhere else after Cody dropped her off doesn't make sense because part of me was like well Maybe he dropped her off outside and she secretly had somebody else pick her up But that doesn't it doesn't make sense because you know like I said people knew about her relationship with Cody It's not like she had two secret relationships. Right, she's really only sneaking around with Cody.

Right. But if Cody says he dropped her off yet, she doesn't show up on the cameras. To me, that means that Cody didn't drop her off there. Because again, if he says she's going there for lunch, why would she change her mind? And if she did change her mind, there would probably be record of it in her phone records that she talked to a friend and, oh, she actually walked to this other restaurant. Yeah, and on top of this, Holly told her co-workers that she was getting lunch with Cody.

Also, police contacted everyone in Holly's life and no one went to lunch with her that day. McAllister is a small town of around 12,000 people, and although Holly had a lot of people in her life who loved her, it doesn't make sense that none of them would come forward with this information. Especially since news was spreading throughout her little town so fast, she only had a collection of close friends in the area, and everyone had an alibi and hadn't seen her at all that day, and again, she wasn't on the security footage, so no proof that she went to lunch with anyone anyway. But since

there aren't any cameras outside, police also can't say that Cody didn't drop her off because technically he could have dropped her off and she never went inside. But like Daphne said, where would she have gone and why? I'll note that a witness reportedly saw a woman who looked like Holly at Brahms at around 12-20pm that day. But if this was true, she would have definitely showed up on the cameras. The reports I read about this didn't say specifically if a person believed they saw her inside or outside though. Yeah, that's the only problem with this witness statement is someone says, oh I saw someone that looked like Holly but I couldn't find any of the research and neither could heath if it was supposed to be inside or outside.

But, you know, so technically if it was outside, somebody else could have picked her up, but who and why? I think, yeah, and I think this is more of a thing like, oh yeah, I think I might have seen somebody who looks similar to that person. Right, and again, everyone should go look at the photos of Holly just so you kind of have a visual anyway, but she didn't have a particularly unique look, but she also didn't have a non-unique look.

So I guess she could have looked like somebody else, for sure, is what I'm saying. Yeah, so you're saying she, it's possible, she could have blended in. Yes, for sure. She wasn't, even her sisters say like she was just very plain and simple. Yes, she was wearing scrubs that day so that's a little bit unique, but you're also near a hospital and did this person specifically see a woman wearing scrubs? I don't know. Yeah, or was it just like, oh yeah, I think I saw a woman whose face looked like that.

Yeah, or was it just like, oh yeah, I think I saw a woman whose face looked like that. When Holly or Elise Holly's phone sent the text to Cody saying she would find another ride, her phone pinged off the McAllister phone tower, meaning the text was sent from somewhere within McAllister. So this doesn't help with much because that's the area she lived and worked in, as well as the same city where Brahms was located, because again, Brahms is very close to her work. Cody's phone also panged in that same area at the time, which isn't strange because he also lived in McAllister. Cody had also texted her within the next day to check on her since word of her disappearance was spreading, and her family and friends did the same thing.

But her phone was going to voicemail at that point and therefore wasn't pinging anywhere, and by this I mean the next day. But the reason for this was because her phone service was suspended the day after she went missing for lack of payment. Which sucks because it's the next day anyway, but if she hadn't turned her phone off or somebody else hadn't turned her phone off, we could have been getting more pings throughout the day as people were contacting her, but her phone service suspended her account because she didn't pay the bill on time.

And I guess Holly paid all the bills for the family, so Tommy states that he has no idea why her phone would be turned off. But because she went missing, she couldn't pay her bill, so her phone company shut off her services. So that's why her texts and calls weren't going through, and thus police couldn't get a ping off of any towers. So at this point in the investigation, police feel really stuck. Because again, they can't prove that Cody did anything at all, and there's absolutely no trace of Holly. But after talking to more of Holly's family, they discovered a bit more information about she and Tommy's marriage. They all knew she wasn't happy with

him at all, but some of them had their own issues with Tommy. Even as early as when they got married in 2001, her family noticed that Tommy was very controlling over her, and he started kind of taking her away from her family. As time went on, she saw her sisters and cousins less and less, and whenever they were able to hang out, she was openly nervous about Tommy knowing she was seeing them, like being afraid that he was going to come home soon. Which isn't a good sign, and this is a big deal in the investigation where the family is telling you that sometimes she was kind of scared of her husband.

But when police questioned Tommy about their marriage, he painted the picture to be a perfect one, stating that they had no issues at all in their marriage and everything was great. Either he was totally blind and in denial or he was lying to them. Despite police having this information about their bad relationship, they weren't able to get a search warrant of the property without more concrete suspicions. But I also just don't think they thought that he was involved because the detectives themselves have said that he seemed truly worried about

her and wanted to help in any way that he could. But again, that doesn't always mean the person really is being genuine, but that's what the detectives thought and they didn't pursue him any further. On February 25th, 2017, so just over a month after Holly went missing, a hunter discovered Holly's purse in a wooded area near Lake Ufala. Just about 12 miles or 19 kilometers from Holly's work. It was just a short distance from the road and looked to have been thrown.

Since it was multiple feet into the woods, police believed that someone pulled over on the road and walked into the woods a bit before throwing the purse and then leaving, because some of the purse's contents were spilled out. The purse included Holly's wallet with all of her cards and her identification, her hospital badge, her medication that she needed to take daily because she had problems with her heart, but there was no phone. The area was cardinal point, and it was actually a spot where Holly and her family would often go camping and fishing, so she was familiar with this area.

But why would her purse be spilled out in the woods, and how did she even get out there? Unfortunately, her purse didn't have any information or clues leading to who could have caused her disappearance. So instead of keeping it in evidence, police decided to return the purse to Holly's husband. And this angered her family a lot because they felt that the purse could contain vital DNA that they could have collected at a later date. Yeah, why the hell would you...why the fuck would you do that? I'm not trying to be anti-detective here, but there's a lot of frustrations with them in this case

where it seems that they did things that was just really poor judgment. Yeah, it just doesn't make any sense. Like, if there's a potential for DNA evidence to be on this purse or on items from the purse, it needs to be collected and analyzed. I know that they did search the purse and they did try to collect evidence from it, but because they couldn't get anything at that moment,

they just kind of thought, well, maybe her family wants this because it belongs to her. And I guess there was some stuff inside the purse that were like children's items and she was like, oh, maybe her kids want these or something. So, but at the same time, you should just keep it because it could turn into something and that's exactly what her family was saying. They're just like, are you serious? Yeah, this is vital evidence. It's really, and it's all they have.

The only piece of anything from her disappearance is her purse. That's the only thing they have and they gave it away. And I know that the family was kind of telling the police like why did you give it away, but by that time it had already been handed off to Tommy, meaning that the evidence that could have been there was officially contaminated. That week, police continued to search the wooded area surrounding where Holly's purse was found, and they also tried to search the lake.

But at this time of year, the lake was extremely low, so they looked around the water but didn't see any signs of her body having been dumped there at all. So once again, police are kind of back to square one. Because even though they had this seemingly important piece of evidence, which was her purse, they couldn't collect any information about it. All this did was confirmed that someone had done something bad to Holly, but who? Police continued to interview her family and loved ones to try and figure out if there was anyone who would want to hurt Holly.

Holly was loved by most everyone, but those who didn't like her stood out. The only person any of her family could think of that didn't like her was Tommy's daughter Charity. At this time, Charity was in her early 30s, and she and Holly always but it heads. And I wonder if this has anything to do with the fact that Holly was around Charity's age, so maybe because of this, Charity couldn't really see her as a mother figure and felt upset about that, because I feel like that's a thing. Yeah, I feel like that's totally understandable.

Obviously, I have no evidence of this, but I just wonder if this is what made Charity not like her. And I know that Charity had a son when she was 15, but I don't know when she was 15. But I read a statement from her saying that, Holly was younger than her, which is definitely possible since there was a 23-year difference in Holly and Tommy's relationship. statement from her saying that Holly was younger than her, which is definitely possible since there was a 23-year difference in Holly and Tommy's relationship. So either way, they were very close in age, so I bet this was like a tense spot for charity, because Holly seemed to be such an all-around great person, but I know that kids sometimes

automatically dislike their parent's new partner, so not unusual. But charity always gave Holly trouble, and the reason why we're bringing her up is because it seems like there was some relevant tension between them when Holly disappeared. According to Holly's family, Holly had recently mentioned talking to Tommy about his will. Remember, Tommy was in his mid-60s in 2017, and he had also been sick around this time. So it was a normal conversation for he and Holly to have about what would happen to the property after he died.

And Tommy told her that he was going to leave it to charity and her son Michael. And this really upset Holly because she didn't understand why he didn't want to leave it to their two sons who were now in their teen years, and they got into a fight about this. It's not like Tommy had this huge estate that was worth a ton of money, but Holly was pissed that he wasn't even considering putting their sons in the will. But at the end of the conversation, Tommy stood as ground and said that his property was being given to charity and her son, and that was that. But weirdly enough, Tommy told police that he didn't even have a will, and they never talked about said will.

And this is really weird to me, because first Tommy maintains that he and Holly had a wonderful marriage and had no issues, which is obviously not true because she was having an affair. And now he's saying that the will fight never happened and he doesn't have a will. Holly had apparently told multiple members of her family about this argument. And why would she lie about it? She was just venting to them

about her frustrations regarding this fight. But then Tommy has a totally different story to the police. It just seems like he's trying to cover up any possible tension in this marriage, so they don't look into him and that's weird. Yeah, that's definitely suspicious. And I know that everything we're saying that's conflicting with what Tommy says is based on what Holly's family says, but they have Holly's best interest at heart, so they just

want her found. So they're not going to go spreading lies to point the police in the wrong direction. And this is multiple members of her family who are saying the same thing. And then one other person, aka Tommy, says the opposite, it's just weird. It's very weird. And another weird point is that charity told police that she and Halle had a good relationship. So that doesn't make any sense.

And they didn't talk too often, but they never had any problems, as what Charity says. So I don't know about that. Which if you ask Holly's family, that is an outright lie. But again, there was no evidence of any of this. No evidence of her and Charity not getting along, no evidence of Holly and Tommy's fight and no evidence of a will Other than people's word which was very frustrating at this point and again They couldn't search the house so it's not like they can sift through Tommy's shit and say oh, here's the will They're not the wiser right

But the police just kind of left it at that and they didn't look into anything further because they didn't feel like they needed to. So once again, this case just falls flat. That is, until a couple weeks later in March of 2017, when a woman named Luan Woolly came forward with some possible information. Luan was a 56 year old artist from the neighboring town of Stewart, which is 20 minutes from McAllister, and she became really interested in Holly's case. Her daughter had passed away in 1991 of cancer, so she knew what it was like to lose someone and felt like she could help in Holly's case.

So she started doing some personal digging around the area and talking to Holly's family, and they all loved her and everything she was bringing to the case. And they were just really thankful that she came along and seemed like she actually cared and wanted to help. Yeah, that's amazing. And because she actually seemed like she wanted to help move things along quickly, while they weren't sure that police had the same intentions. Luanne also wasn't afraid to call people out and point suspicion towards them regarding Holly's

disappearance. She posted her theories and thoughts on the Facebook page for Holly's disappearance and it gained quite a lot of local buzz. Then, the following week in mid-March, Luan went to police with a recording that she felt was very important to Holly's case. Lewin and her husband Ray were at someone's house when they apparently heard someone talking about Holly's case, so they started talking to him and recording the conversation. The recording is kind of fuzzy, but it's essentially a guy saying that he heard that Holly's body was put in a well somewhere.

The guy is also heard saying that he isn't sure if it's true, but that's just what he heard from someone else. So this recording could have easily been a local rumor, and we'll touch on that a little bit more later. But police couldn't find the man who had spoke on the tape, and they didn't think that this was useful so they rode off Luan. They didn't believe that Holly was in a well and didn't search any wells in the area, but weirdly enough, less than two weeks later on March 24th, 2017, Luan was found hanging in a barn on her property. Her husband Ray found her and called the police, but her death was ruled a suicide.

And many members of Luan's family feel very suspicious about her death, because although she never fully recovered from the death of her daughter, she had three sons and a husband that she loved. She was full of life and loved creating gardens and planting vegetables and making art, and of course, no one can say for sure how she was truly feeling, but it just seems like really odd timing that she had just started personally investigating a local disappearance and calling out certain people as potential suspects. And then she dies.

It just seemed really strange, but the police didn't investigate this as anything other than a suicide. So it's unclear what really happened to her. And by the way, she didn't have any official business in the case at all. She just considered herself an amateur sleuth, kind of in February of 2018, skeletal remains were found near Cardinal Point, on the opposite side of the area where Holly's purse was found, two miles from the site to be specific. There was green clothing found with the remains, and police believed that they could be dark green scrubs that Holly was wearing the day that she

disappeared. Due to the extent of the decomposition, police believed that it would take at least a year and a half until they could identify them because of the lab's massive backlog, but they notified Holly's family so they were aware of what was going on. The remains were then sent to the national DNA database for missing and unidentified persons at the University of North Texas. And in February 2020, two years after the remains were found and three years after Holly went missing, they were identified to be those of Holly Cantrell. Her remains hadn't been found in an area that police had searched prior, so they had likely

been there since at least a month after her disappearance. As of October 2020, Holly's cause of death remains under investigation, but police are looking into her death as a homicide. Her remains were not found in a well as rumor had it earlier on in the investigation, and the only potential piece of evidence was a 9mm shell casing found relatively close to the remains. But since this was, and it still is a popular area to hunt, it doesn't mean it's connected to Holly's case, and there's no current evidence that her remains showed any signs of being shot. And I don't know anything about guns,

so I don't know if that's like a popular shell casing for hunting like I don't know. A 9mm casing? That sounds, I mean I could be wrong, but from everything I do know, that sounds like a handgun. Which is not used for hunting. No. So I know we kinda do some speculating throughout the cases that we cover, but right now we're kinda just gonna dive into some of the potential suspects and talk about them, so if you're into that, keep listening.

I first want to talk about Cody, because I just feel really suspicious about coding being behind this, because this case is mostly unwraps, so we don't really know anything about his behavior, but we do know that he was married and having a secret affair with another married woman, aka Holly, who he got pregnant. And we know that he knew about it. So that gives him possible motive to get rid of Holly. I also don't believe his bullshit story about that afternoon. So again, he cancelled lunch plans because he was busy with something, but then he had time to pick her up from work, and drop her off at the restaurant, and then pick her up again and drop her

off at work. You know, obviously he had cancelled the latter, but that's just kind of convenient that he texted her saying he couldn't get her a ride in that she would find a ride, because there's no way to prove this isn't true, and that just makes it seem like whoever was giving her a ride to work killed her. She never showed up on the Brahms security footage and no one came forward saying that they had lunch with her either. So his alibi just doesn't hold up for me at all and that's really suspicious.

Yeah, and on top of that, his green truck, again, there's no way to mistake this. His green truck is caught on the camera's outside of the hospital. Yeah, there's no way to mistake this. His green truck is caught on the camera's outside of the hospital. Yeah, that's huge. Like literally the afternoon she disappeared. It would be different if he did drop her off and there was evidence, there was a camera footage outside of Brahms that showed him driving away and her walking into the restaurant and having lunch with somebody. That would be different, but that's not the freaking case. Yeah, that's not the case at all. In my mind, that video from the hospital is the biggest piece

of evidence, and also the purse, but I mean, the biggest piece of evidence to me is that truck being there on camera, the day that she disappears, like, we know that they were together that day at some point. And I wish we knew again since this case is unsolved, there's a lot of information that the police aren't releasing, like what Cody's real alibi was for that day. I mean, if there was evidence that he was somewhere else, the police would have said that to fully close him out, but he's still technically a person of interest. So he's not a suspect, necessarily at least that I know of, but I mean, he's like the biggest thing in this case.

Yeah, and you know what's kinda crazy is that if he thought that he was going to cover him getting another woman pregnant and spare his wife of that news by killing Holly, guess what? We know that she had an affair with Holly, like everybody knows now. Yeah, that's what I was thinking the same thing. Like, now your wife still knows, but it's worse because that woman is missing and maybe you had something to do with it. Exactly. I'm sure a lot of you guys have questions about Holly's first husband, and I'm sure he

had some anger about Holly leaving him out of the blue, but she disappeared 17 years after they split up. I do think it's kind of weird that he went and told police that Holly had done something like this before to him. But maybe he didn't say it to be malicious, but just as a genuine idea of where she could be. And I couldn't find any information about him at all, and don't even know if he lived in the area.

I think he lived in the neighboring town of Stuart, actually, but I can't be sure. But I do know that police didn't suspect him of doing anything to Holly. Yeah, I mean, it's possible he was just upset about the way that she left him. And I mean, maybe that doesn't mean he has any like intent to kill someone but I mean yeah if somebody left me in that way I'd still probably 17 years later be like yeah kind of don't like that person but I'm not gonna go kill him you know. Exactly. I know that Tommy previously had suspicions that Holly was having an affair with Cody but when he found out police said he seemed genuinely shocked

and hurt. I think it's weird that Tommy took her truck, and I could not find out if he had an air tie alibi, but police weren't looking into him at all, so I'm assuming his alibi was cleared. But I am a bit skeptical about him because of how much her family didn't like him because he was so controlling. And we've talked about controlling partners a lot on this show, and many times it doesn't end well.

So I do wonder about him, especially because he appeared to lie about multiple things and cover up the truth of their marriage. But at the end of the day, we have a video that proves she got into Cody's car and none of his story really lines up. I think if she was actually meeting Tommy for lunch that day, she wouldn't have had Cody drop her off because then Tommy would wonder why she was with Cody. And on top of that, there was no phone evidence that she had been in contact with Tommy after she left for work.

So I don't know how they would have met up and why she would meet her husband who she doesn't love anymore for lunch when she was supposed to meet with her lover. That just doesn't make sense to me, but I just don't know. So it's really hard for me to really look at anybody else other than Cody because he's the one who picked her up that day. The only other scenario I could think about in my mind is that it's possible that Tommy had followed Cody and Holly to the restaurant when Cody dropped her off and, or like he had been tailing them kind of like spying on what was going on.

And maybe he confronted her? And maybe he confronted her and took her and his truck out to the woods and killed her and just kind of tried to make it seem like it was Cody. Definitely possible. I think a huge issue with this case is that Cody's truck was never searched, neither was Tommy's and neither were either of their properties. So the only search done was in those woods. And that's just not enough because if there was evidence of blood evidence or any evidence of Holly being somewhere she shouldn't have been, that's huge for the case, but investigators just couldn't get the search warrants. Yeah, and this case really just comes down to two suspects for me.

And I know that this case is very, very solvable. I really truly believe that this case will be solved very soon. So please, people share this case. If you have any information on what happened to Holly Cantrell, her family is desperate for answers and it seems like, just like he said, the answers are just out of reach. Please Please call the McAllister Police Department at 918-423-1212. Thank you so much everybody for listening to this episode of Going West. Yes, thank you guys so much for listening to this episode, and next week we'll have an all-new episode for you guys to dive into. We love talking about unsolved cases and seeing what your guys theories are, so make sure

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