A Texas woman has been sentenced to 50 years in prison after she reportedly brutally tortured and killed her pregnant roommate because she wanted the expectant mother to “feel the pain of a miscarriage.”
Courtney Dawn Whitley, of Abilene, has been handed a 50-year prison sentence on Monday, Nov. 1, for killing her 24-year-old housemate Kelly Holder and the victim's unborn child with the help of her accomplices Alexander Christopher Lopez, 30, and Casey Kennedy, 27, in August 2019, Law & Crime reported.
On Aug. 3, 2019, deputies from the Taylor County Police Department rushed to the victim's residence located in the 1700 block of South Fifth Street and found Holder, who was six weeks pregnant, lying unresponsive and motionless on the floor inside the home. The officers immediately rushed Holder to a nearby hospital where doctors pronounced her and her unborn child dead upon arrival.
Holder's autopsy results revealed that her death was a homicide caused by blunt force trauma to her torso and asphyxiation. The results also stated that she was subjected to sexual assault and that a large object had been “forced in her rectum.”
Lopez and Kennedy initially told investigators that they found Holder unresponsive in the bathtub when they returned home after a walk. They added that they were the only two people staying at the house aside from Holder. However, when officers searched the premises, they found Whitley hiding inside the residence.
The suspects initially told the officers that they had no idea how Holder sustained the gruesome injuries. However, when the stories of the three suspects did not match up, they were subjected to further questioning.
Eventually, the suspects confessed to the murder. They said that they were angry with Holder because they believed that she had caused Whitley to suffer a recent miscarriage, KTXS reported.
On Aug. 2, 2019, when the trio confronted Holder, she refused to admit that she was responsible for causing Whitley’s miscarriage. Following this, the suspects allegedly kicked and punched the pregnant woman in the chest, pelvis, and torso multiple times, strangled her, and bounced up and down on her stomach in order to make her “feel the pain of a miscarriage.”
After they were done beating Holder, they allegedly used a wooden rod to sexually assault Holder by forcing it up her rectum.
Lopez and Kennedy are scheduled to be sentenced on Nov. 12 and Dec. 17.
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