On April 13th, 2011, Holly Bobo, a 20-year-old nursing student, was getting ready to head to school when she was abducted from her family’s home in Darden, Tennessee. She was last seen walking into the woods behind her house with a man dressed in camouflage.
Soon, hundreds of volunteers began searching the area, hoping to find the missing young woman. However, only items belonging to Holly were recovered in the days following the abduction.
Years later, the investigation would point to a group of local men, but not everyone is convinced they were the perpetrators of this crime.
Background
Holly Lynn Bobo was born on October 12th, 1990, to parents Karen and Dana. Karen worked as a school teacher, and Dana owned an excavation business. Holly had an older brother named Clint.
The Bobo family resided in Darden, a small community located in rural West Tennessee, where everyone knows each other.
The Bobo family was a very tight-knit unit, and they made sure to attend church every Sunday together. Holly loved to listen to country music and enjoyed riding horses. As a teenager, she was a student at Scotts Hill High School, where she was known as a hard-working student with excellent grades.
After graduation, Holly enrolled in a nursing program at the University of Tennessee at Martin in Parsons. She continued to excel academically and was focused on her goal of becoming a nurse one day.
The disappearance
On the morning of April 13th, 2011, Holly woke up at 4:30 AM to study for a test. Her dad, Dana, woke up at 5:15 AM and noticed the light in Holly’s room. The two greeted each other, and Dana went to work.
Holly’s mom, Karen, woke up at 6:00 AM and started getting ready for the day. She made lunch for Holly before heading out. At 7:30 AM, Holly’s boyfriend, Drew Scott, called her on the cell phone. He was turkey hunting at his grandmother’s property and just wanted to say hi.
Around 7:45 AM, a neighbor next door heard a scream coming from the direction of the Bobo family home.
He was alarmed because he heard a female voice repeatedly saying: “Stop.” The neighbor told his mother about the scream, and she immediately called Karen Bobo to check if everything was okay. By then, Karen was at work.
Meanwhile, Clint Bobo, Holly’s brother, was sleeping when he heard the family dog barking in the yard.
He approached the window to see what was going on outside and saw Holly with a man dressed in camouflage by the carport area. They were kneeling and talking, so Clint assumed the man was Drew Scott, Holly’s boyfriend.
Although he couldn’t get a good look at the man’s face, Clint talked to Drew the night before and knew he was planning to go hunting in the morning, which explained the camouflage clothes. However, their body language suggested the two were having an argument, and Clint moved away from the window.
Since Holly was already supposed to be on her way to college, Clint texted his mother to ask if his sister had school today.
At the same time, Karen was on the phone with Drew’s mother, who confirmed he was hunting thirty minutes away. Karen then called Clint, and when he told her Holly was with Drew in the carport, she yelled: “That’s not Drew. Get a gun and shoot him!”
Clint, still sleepy, was confused for a moment and replied: “You want me to shoot Drew?” Before he could get an answer from his mother, she hung up and immediately dialed 911. Unfortunately, Karen reached the wrong dispatcher because she was calling from her workplace.
While his mother was trying to reach the police, Clint looked out of the window again and saw that Holly wasn’t at the carport anymore. Instead, she was walking with the unknown man toward the nearby wooded area. Clint was able to get a better view of the man’s build and realized he definitely wasn’t Drew Scott.
Still believing the man had to be someone the family knew, since Holly was walking with him, Clint tried calling Holly on her phone, but got no response. Karen called the house again, and Clint told her what he had just seen from the window.
Now in complete panic, Karen told her son to call the police right away. Clint grabbed the family pistol and ran outside, only to find bloodstains in the carport next to Holly’s car. He contacted the local police department, who arrived at the Bobo family home ten minutes later.
After hearing what had happened from Clint, the police officers confirmed that Holly’s boyfriend was indeed out of town, and he wasn’t the person seen with her that morning.
The news about Holly’s potential kidnapping spread quickly through the small community, and soon people started arriving at the Bobo family home to help police search the area.
The investigation
It didn’t take long before photos of Holly were put up across the county, but she was nowhere to be found. Karen and Dana Bobo appeared on local television, pleading with the person who took their daughter to return her home safely.
Soon, the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation and the US Marshals came in to help with the search.
They brought in bloodhounds and divers who searched the Tennessee River. Bloodstains found next to Holly’s car were sent for DNA testing, and it was confirmed that the blood belonged to Holly.
Holly’s black Mustang was checked for fingerprints, and forensic experts discovered a palm print that didn’t match any member of the Bobo family. Since Holly had her cell phone with her when she was taken, investigators were able to track her movement by using cell phone pings.
They soon learned her phone traveled north into the woods close to Interstate 40. Following the abduction, Holly was placed in a vehicle since police confirmed the phone was moving at approximately 32 miles per hour.
The search team headed directly to the last known ping location and found Holly’s Samsung phone and a SIM card on the side of the road.
Nearby, they discovered the items Holly had with her when she was abducted, including her notebook, school handouts, a receipt with her name on it, and her lunchbox. However, the searchers didn’t find Holly or any clues regarding her whereabouts.
The suspects
Since Clint was the only person who had seen the abductor, he was interviewed by the police right away. According to him, the man was approximately 6 feet tall and weighed between 180 and 200 pounds.
He had dark hair that covered his neck and was fully dressed in camouflage, including a hat. Clint wasn’t sure about the camouflage pattern, but he believed it was either leafy wear or Mossy Oak break up.
Initially, Clint was considered a suspect, but the cell phone data soon ruled him out. Drew Scott, Holly’s boyfriend, was also removed from the list of suspects because he was seen at his grandmother’s property at the time of Holly’s abduction.
Agents from the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation put together a list of local criminals, focusing on sexual offenders, and they zeroed in on a man named Terry Britt. He matched the description provided by Clint and was very familiar with the area.
Investigators brought him in for an interview, but he denied having anything to do with Holly’s abduction. According to him, he was at home with his wife, and she confirmed his alibi. Police searched his home before releasing him from custody.
They wiretapped his house, hoping Terry would slip up and reveal something, but it seems like he never did because he was cleared as a suspect months later.
In the years following Holly Bobo’s abduction, investigators began to focus on a group of local men who lived in the area: Zach Adams, his brother Dylan Adams, and their friend Jason Autry. They were known around the county for petty crimes and intimidating behavior.
The investigation took a turn after the arrest of Dylan Adams in early 2014 for unrelated weapons charges.
During his interrogation, he claimed he had seen Holly Bobo at his brother’s house after her abduction. Jason Autry was there as well. According to Dylan, his brother Zach told him he had sexually assaulted Holly and videotaped it.
This confession led to the arrests of both Zach Adams and Jason Autry. Investigators learned through phone data that Zach had been in contact with Shayne Austin in the hours after Holly’s abduction, leading them to suspect he was involved in helping Zach dispose of Holly’s body.
Shayne was offered immunity in exchange for revealing the location of Holly’s remains, but he insisted he had nothing to do with either the abduction or the murder. Shayne Austin took his own life in a hotel room in Bartow, Florida, in February 2015.
The discovery of Holly Bobo’s body
In September 2014, two ginseng hunters were in the northern parts of Decatur County, roughly 20 miles away from Darden, when one of them spotted a bucket in the woods. The man looked underneath the bucket and discovered a skull.
They immediately contacted the police, and investigators soon found more body parts scattered around the bucket. They were able to recover ribs, teeth, a shoulder blade, and the skull. The remains were sent to a laboratory where DNA testing confirmed that they belonged to Holly Bobo.
The probable cause of death was a gunshot wound to the head, as there was a bullet hole in the back of her skull. The bullet had also fractured her left cheekbone upon exiting. Unfortunately, the rest of her body was never found.
The arrests
Based on the information shared by Dylan Adams during his interrogation in early 2014, investigators headed to his brother Zach’s house, expecting to find DNA evidence. However, they failed to find any proof that Holly Bobo was ever there.
Dylan Adams was taken in for questioning, and after hours of interrogation, he was willing to say whatever the detectives wanted to hear.
As a result, Dylan Adams, Zach Adams, and Jason Autry were arrested and charged with aggravated kidnapping, first-degree murder, and sexual assault. The prosecution was pursuing the death penalty.
Zach Adams was the first to go on trial in September 2017. The prosecution claimed that Shayne Austin and the Adams brothers went to the Bobo family residence because Clint had asked them to teach him how to make methamphetamine. Clint Bobo himself stated this allegation was false.
Upon arriving at the house, Holly ran outside shouting at them, and the three men decided to abduct her. According to the prosecution, Holly Bobo was assaulted in a barn before being taken to the home of Zach Adams.
The prosecution also claimed they had the murder weapon – a .32-caliber Smith & Wesson revolver, which was recovered from a body of water.
Police officers were led to the location of the weapon by a local man who said he had received the revolver from the Adams brothers. Yet, the ballistics tests didn’t match the bullet hole in Holly’s skull.
Jason Autry served as the state’s main witness, but his testimony didn’t match up with Dylan’s confession at all. Regardless of all the discrepancies, Zach Adams was found guilty on all charges on September 22nd, 2017, and was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
On January 18th, 2018, Dylan Adams pleaded guilty to facilitation of first-degree murder and aggravated kidnapping. He entered an Alford plea and was sentenced to 35 years without parole.
The aftermath
Even though the investigators obtained multiple confessions from the arrested men, both Dylan Adams and Jason Autry denied their involvement in the crime, claiming that law enforcement used coercive tactics. Furthermore, Dylan Adams, who is mentally disabled, was interviewed for hours without being allowed to sleep or eat.
During the trial, Zach Adams’ defense pointed out that the cell phone pings indicated neither Jason nor Zach was near the Bobo family home at the time of Holly’s abduction, nor were they on the road as she was driven out of town.
The lead investigator from the TBI, Terry Dicus, testified for the defense during the trial, citing cell phone records as evidence that eliminated the men from the suspect list. Agent Dicus also confirmed that the palm print found on Holly’s car didn’t belong to either of the accused.
Years later, Jason Autry recanted his testimony against Zach Adams. According to him, he agreed to testify after consulting with his lawyer to avoid going to prison. In 2024, Zach Adams filed a petition for a new trial on the basis of Jason recanting his testimony.
The real suspect?
Agent Terry Dicus believes that Terry Britt, the first suspect in this case, is responsible for the abduction and murder of Holly Bobo. He matched the physical description provided by Clint Bobo, and he couldn’t be excluded as the person who left a handprint on Holly’s car.
Additionally, it was revealed that his wife lied about Terry being home on the morning of the abduction. The pair claimed they were installing a new bathtub and provided a handwritten receipt to the police. However, the store in question had no record of selling a bathtub around that time.
Terry Britt has a criminal history of assaults, and shockingly, his wife accompanied him while he stalked his potential victims. Therefore, law enforcement should’ve focused on him rather than pursuing the Adams brothers and their friend Jason Autry.
Leave a comment