Mom vows to find justice for her daughter’s murder

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WSMV/Gray News) – When 29-year-old April Holt’s death was ruled a suicide, her mother knew something was wrong.

April embodied positivity, which she shared in the videos she created and posted on TikTok, viewed by 200,000 followers.

“I still watch them all the time, almost every day, because I feel like I really feel her,” said Holt’s mother, Jamie Dickerson.

Dickerson spoke to WSMV on Monday in a classroom at Believers Faith Fellowship in Christiana. It was full of decorations and objects that April had placed there over the years when she taught middle school students.

It was there that Dickerson was supposed to meet his daughter over a year ago.

“We wanted to watch the Barbie movie,” she explained. “She said, ‘Donovan has to work, I can’t go to the movies, but I’ll meet you at church tomorrow in Blast class.'”

Dickerson didn’t have a chance to answer April. She and her husband, Donovan Holt, were in a rocky relationship and were about to divorce. The next day, Dickerson got a call.

“The phone rang and it was Donovan and he was nervous – kind of panicked,” she said, recalling the events of 2023. “He said, ‘We found April not breathing and unconscious.’ in the ambulance on the way to the hospital.”

Metro Nashville police said April was found with a plastic bag strapped tightly to her neck. She died in hospital. In 2023, she left behind a 12-year-old daughter and an eight-year-old son.

Her death was ruled a suicide, but Dickerson knew that was far from the truth.

“They closed April’s case,” she said. “DA and everyone agreed to shut it down. I stood up, marched out of that room and said, “It’s not over yet, I’m going to continue investigating.”

Dickerson spent hours every day trying to find out who killed April. She filed complaints and ultimately had Metro Nashville Police re-investigate the matter. The department produced a 47-page report.

The report states that “two hits” of Donovan Holt’s fingerprints were found on a roll of duct tape.

Dickerson showed this information to Donovan.

“I said, ‘You can tell me the truth, or I’ll meet with the case review team next Thursday and ask for the case to be reopened,’” she told him.

Metro Nashville police said several weeks ago that Donovan confessed to strangling April, something Dickerson suspected all along.

“I’m not shocked,” she said. “I’ve been doing this for a year, knowing what happened; I already knew.

April is now buried just minutes away from her church. Although Dickerson didn’t have a chance to respond to her daughter more than a year ago, she said her TikTok videos were words from the grave.

“I still watch her videos and think, ‘Oh, I needed that one day,’” Dickerson said.

Last year, Dickerson wrote a book on grief and plans to open a community grief center that serves Rutherford and Bedford counties.

Donovan was charged with reckless homicide, tampering with evidence and making false statements. Dickerson says he wants those charges upgraded to first-degree murder and add child endangerment.

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