- I'm Craig Melvin,
and this is "Dateline:
Secrets Uncovered."
- Did you shoot your parents?
- No.
- Either one of them?
- No.
- You're not a murderer.
- I'm not a murderer.
- Madison Holton,
high school senior,
accused killer.
- I literally got chills.
This is a huge deal.
- The father
had come home
and found a lot
of drug paraphernalia.
- They were having
issues with him.
It was hurting her heart
to have this happen.
- Distraught parents,
a rebellious teenager,
a family meeting
explodes into violence.
- That situation goes from calm
to murder in 11 minutes?
- Yeah. I mean,
it's a homicide.
- I didn't hurt either
of my parents.
- I don't think anybody
is jumping up and down
about having to put
a 17-year-old boy in jail.
- This was a lot bigger
and a lot deeper
than what initially
we thought.
- They thought they'd picked out
some weak minded kid.
They didn't know who
they were playing with.
**
- Hello and welcome to
"Dateline: Secrets Uncovered."
Madison Holton was
a rebellious teenager
who crossed a line
his worried parents had drawn.
Then, in the blink of an eye,
two people were dead.
Investigators thought it
was an open and shut case
until a family
secret spilled out,
fueling a showdown that
would leave both sides stunned.
Here's Josh Mankiewicz
with "11 Minutes."
**
- The long road
of parenthood,
always watching as
your kids grasp at life.
You cheer from the stands.
- Get him, Madison!
- Do your best to
keep them safe.
Hoping they make it through
this world in one piece.
- Look, daddy, look!
- Madison Holton
was born a handful.
[laughing]
His parents, April and Michael,
could barely keep up.
- Madison was always
the helpful kid.
- Tanya was Madison's
mom's best friend.
She says Madison
was always sweet
and a little different.
- I remember we had a birdhouse
that my mom had brought over,
and she was gonna put it
in my backyard.
The other kids run,
go, play, have fun.
You know, oh,
mom needs help, whatever.
- Not available.
Madison is like, "Hey, do you
want me to help you do it?"
- School was a battlefield.
Madison was picked on,
the scrawny kid,
and a bit of a loner.
- He was always doin'
his own little thing.
- Everything changed
by Madison's senior year
of high school.
He sprouted to
almost six feet
and had less time
for dad and mom.
- Madison was very social.
He had a lot of friends.
**
- Hannah Traylor and Madison
grew up in the tiny town
of Eclectic, Alabama.
- He was always, like,
the class clown,
like, really goofy,
trying to make everybody laugh.
Like, you know, always, like,
he might get in trouble
for talking too much
in class.
- As Madison crossed over
into the land of teendom,
his parents found themselves
without a map.
- During senior year,
people are turning 18.
They're about to
graduate high school.
You know, he was just like any
of the other kids that thought,
like, oh, I'm about
to gain freedom,
and I'm just gonna, like,
push my boundaries a little bit.
- Madison had started
hanging out
with a group of friends,
but I feel like, too,
that group of friends kind
of opened a door to marijuana,
and partying,
and all that stuff.
- They opened a door,
and Madison walked through it.
- Yeah.
- April worried about where
this road might take her son.
So, she begged her brother,
Chris, a police officer,
to talk some sense
into Madison.
- And I sat down with him,
and I had a long talk with him,
and I said, "Look, this is not
the lifestyle you wanna choose."
- At the same time
Madison was going through
his teenage rebellion,
his parents, April and Michael,
were separating.
They were united in
their message to Madison.
Mess up again
and you'll go to jail.
He had one chance left,
and, on September 11, 2016,
he blew it.
While his dad was at work,
Madison threw a house party.
- Someone else called
Michael and said,
"My kid came home
from your house
"under the influence
of somethin',
"and I wanna know why."
So, Michael is embarrassed.
At that point, Michael
calls up and says,
"You need to get to my house.
We gotta deal with this."
**
- Chris has a twin brother,
Mike, who thought Madison's dad
had good reason
to be embarrassed.
Michael Holton had a reputation
to protect in Eclectic.
- He was the former mayor,
the former fire chief,
very well known.
How dare you embarrass me
in this community?
Uh, so, I'm sure
he was pissed.
I don't blame him.
I'd be pissed, too,
if my child had
thrown a party.
- When Michael Holton
walked into the house,
he found the remnants
of a teenage party.
Homemade bongs were scattered
throughout the house,
a box that
smelled suspicious.
That was it.
- And what he did, he called
the, uh, sheriff's office,
and we sent
a deputy up there.
- Bill Franklin is sheriff
of Elmore County,
and the deputy sent
to the house that day
happened to be his son.
When Deputy Franklin arrived,
Michael had something to say.
- Mr. Holton had actually
greeted him in the yard
and told him,
"Hey, when you come in,
"uh, you're going to
see my son is handcuffed,"
and he said, "I'm trying
to discipline my son."
- Sheriff Franklin
says he's seen parents
discipline their kids
in all sorts of ways.
- I don't think that his intent
was to harm or hurt the kid.
He was-- he was merely trying
to see what he could do
to try to get
his attention.
- To me, putting a kid
in handcuffs says either
I'm disciplining you,
and I'm serious about this,
or I'm afraid of you.
Possible that that's
what was going on there?
- Could have been.
Could have been.
**
- The deputy reported April
was in the living room,
Madison sullen
on the couch,
his hands cuffed
behind his back.
Michael asked
the deputy how,
as parents, they could get
the juvenile courts involved.
- He was very, I would say,
inquisitive about
what could he do to,
uh, paperwork wise,
to get his child, uh,
in front of a judge,
so he could talk to
the judge about the problems
that he was experiencing
with the child.
- So, maybe straighten him out,
in his view.
- That's right.
That's right.
**
- Call it tough love,
if you want.
To the sheriff, Michael
and April just seemed to be
grasping for a solution.
- They pretty much
reached their wits end,
one of those things.
- But these were not people
who were in the midst
of some huge fight.
- No, no, not at all.
- The deputy left Michael
and April with instructions
about how to get a copy
of the police report
the next day, a Monday.
- He leaves, and supposedly
everything is okay.
- And then, 11 minutes later,
there's a 911 call.
- That's correct.
[sirens wailing]
- Now, law enforcement
was rushing back
to Michael Holton's house.
Gunshots had been fired.
Only three people
had been in that home,
and now one of them was dead.
Another lay dying.
What had happened
in just 11 minutes?
- What would police find
inside that house?
- We noticed trauma,
what appeared to
be blood trauma.
- A marriage on the rocks.
- What did you see?
- She would just share
little stories.
- And bodies
in the bedroom.
- We discovered appeared
like an-an entry wound
to the back
of his head.
- You go forward with
a homicide investigation.
- It's not
a head scratcher.
You-you get a piece
of paper that says homicide.
**
- Michael Holton's front lawn
was a disaster scene,
with everyone trying to
make sense what had happened.
Inside, two people lay
on the bedroom floor,
a pistol between them.
All arriving deputies knew
for sure was that the situation
had escalated in
almost no time at all.
- About 4:48,
our deputy leaves.
Uh, 4:59, we receive
another 911 call.
- So, whatever happens,
it happens in 11 minutes.
- That's right.
- Captain Chris Ogden was
an investigator on the case.
- Madison left his residence
and reported to his neighbor
that his parents were involved
in a physical altercation.
- Madison told investigators
it all started as soon
as the deputy who'd been there
about the house party left.
- After his parents
came back in
after speaking with the deputy,
they went into the bedroom
and became involved
in a physical fight.
- Does Madison say what
the fight was about
or what sparked the fight?
- I believe the assumption
was obviously it had to do
with Madison.
- On the phone with 911,
the neighbor said it was
an attempted murder-suicide.
Michael Holton was dead
by the time deputies arrived.
Madison's mom was unconscious
but breathing.
So, investigators' first thought
was Mr. Holton shot his wife
and then himself.
- From what we
had been told,
you would think that
he actually shot her,
Mr. Holton, and then
would have turned the gun
and shot himself.
That's what one would
tend to believe.
- April's injuries
suggested she'd been shot
through her hand first,
as if she'd put it up
to protect herself.
And then, as she turned
her face away from the gun,
she was shot
in the head.
Michael's injuries
appeared self-inflicted.
- And we noticed trauma,
what appeared
to be blood trauma,
in his mouth.
The first formulated thought is,
well, he probably shot himself
in the mouth.
- Earlier, they'd seemed like
two parents on the same page
about their teenage son.
What had happened to this couple
in only 11 minutes?
April and Michael got
together in high school.
They married after graduation
and pretty quickly became
the parents of three kids.
- She was all about
her kids all the time.
Always kind of thought
she was, like,
this do-it-all kinda mom.
- Made it seem effortless?
- But I knew it wasn't,
but, yeah, she did.
You know, she was--
always looked good.
She always, you know, put
her best foot forward.
- Michael Holton's friend,
Tony, remembers him
as a fixture in Eclectic.
- You couldn't go around town
without him bein' recognized.
- He'd worked his way up
from paramedic, to fire chief,
and then mayor.
- Everyone knew him--
knew him as a leader.
- He was always very nice,
very funny, very,
you know, very easygoing.
- He and April
seemed happy.
- Yeah, yeah,
they did seem happy
for a long time,
and then...
- And then that changed.
- Yeah.
- What did you see?
- She would just share
little stories, not much,
but just maybe he wasn't
as nice to her.
He didn't talk to her
like he would talk
to someone you love.
- Tanya says April felt
she couldn't do anything
right in the marriage.
By summer 2016,
she was done.
April filed paperwork
for a divorce.
- I think she was at peace
with her decision.
- Was Mike at peace
with it?
- No, no, Mike was not.
- Too late.
April had made
her decision.
And on September 11, 2016,
April only answered
Michael's call
because the latest family crisis
was about Madison.
- Obviously, Madison had
thrown a party,
and so they had to talk
to Madison about it,
and she was like, "I'm gonna
have to go over there."
- Sounds like she didn't
wanna go over to Mike's.
- No, she did not wanna go.
She did not,
but she was going to.
I mean, she needed
to go for Madison.
- So, had Michael Holton
just snapped
in a fit of sorrow
and rage?
That's what it looked like
to investigators, at first.
So, when you finally
actually move his body...
- We discovered what appeared
like an-an entry wound
to the back
of his head.
- So, that's
the first false note here.
- That changed the dynamics of
the investigation.
- I've been in law enforcement
for 39 years.
I have never seen somebody
try to commit suicide
in such a weird,
unique manner.
If you argue that Mr. Holton
did shoot his wife
and then turned
the gun on himself,
why such a bizarre way
to-to do that?
- The next morning,
a state pathologist
confirmed Michael Holton
had a close contact wound
at the base of his head.
And to investigators,
the angle seemed telling.
- The only way we
were able to do that,
is hold a gun upside down
and place it upside down
and then angle it,
because, remember,
the angle is upward.
- Upside down and using
his left hand.
The thing about that is,
Michael Holton was right-handed.
Normally, when men
commit suicide,
they use
their dominant hand,
not their weaker hand.
- Sure. That's right.
- To the sheriff
and his investigators,
that made suicide improbable,
and the pathologist agreed.
He classified
Michael Holton's death
a homicide.
- He does not believe
that that man
would have killed himself
or would have been able
to kill himself
in that manner.
- And so, you go forward with
a homicide investigation.
- It's not
a head scratcher.
You-you get a piece
of paper that says homicide.
**
- This was now
a murder investigation.
And if there were
three people in that house,
and two were victims,
that simple arithmetic
made Madison
the prime suspect.
- Police also want to know more
about that other number
at the center
of this case.
What happened
in those 11 minutes?
Only one person
can tell them.
- Madison's dramatic story--
will police believe it?
- He didn't seem
that upset.
- No, no.
He seemed more concerned
about I'm missing homecoming.
- When "Dateline:
Secrets Uncovered" continues.
**
- April Holton's twin brothers,
Chris and Mike,
were keeping vigil
in the ICU.
Their sister had been
shot in the head,
and there was little
doctors could do.
- You see in the movies
with the machine breathing
for the person,
and this is far more surreal
than what it seems like
in the movies.
You know, it's--
this is goodbye,
and, no, there is
no more hellos.
There's no more hugs.
There's no more
phone calls.
There's no more
birthday videos.
Uh, this is it.
- It was 11 o'clock
on September the 12th
when they pronounce
April dead.
- Worst day of your life?
- To date.
- One person who did not
get to say goodbye
was April's oldest son.
Madison was now
a murder suspect.
He'd been questioned
that morning
at the sheriff's office.
After one round
of the interrogation,
the sheriff asked
Madison's Uncle Chris
to join them.
- At that point, I-I really--
I-I didn't know what to think.
I didn't know
if Madison did it.
I didn't know
if he didn't do it.
I wasn't there.
I had not seen any evidence.
- Here's what Madison
says happened
after the first
deputy left.
- Madison said he didn't see
or hear what happened next,
not even the gunshots while
he was at his neighbor's house.
The sheriff wasn't
buying that one bit.
- Investigators thought Madison
didn't seem like a kid
who was sad about
what had happened
to his mother and father.
- And Madison's own uncle,
an officer himself,
knew the significance
of this moment.
- So, maybe Madison shot his dad
to protect his mom.
That sounds almost like
you're offering him a story
that you know fits the evidence
and is also exculpatory.
- Well, at that point, though,
I had not seen any evidence.
At that point,
I'd only seen my sister.
I had seen that her hand
was wrapped in gauze,
which tells me that somethin'
happened to her hand.
And-and at some point,
I think somebody told me
she was shot through the hand,
through the head,
which is
a defensive position.
- Back in
the interrogation room,
Madison stuck to
his version of events.
- As the interrogation
was wrapping up,
and the sheriff and Chris
were walking out,
Madison made a gesture
in their direction.
To the sheriff,
that middle finger
came out of nowhere.
And later, investigators
reported Madison was talking
about homecoming on the way
to take a blood sample.
- He seemed more
concerned about, uh,
missing homecoming,
uh, school, and things
of that nature.
- He didn't seem
that upset.
- No, no.
- And here is a call
that was recorded from jail
a few days later.
- That kind of talk
didn't prove anything,
but it did strike
investigators as odd,
as they continued
gathering evidence.
They decided to
test some elements
of Madison's story.
Madison had said he
didn't hear the gunshots,
so law enforcement
did an experiment,
and they recorded it.
[gunshot]
- We took the same weapon
and the same grade ammo
to do these tests.
- Madison's story is that
he ran from his dad's house
to a neighbor 200 feet away
and that he didn't hear
the shots on his way
or once he arrived.
Investigators
listened closely.
Here is what that test
sounded like standing
at the neighbor's
front door.
[gunshot]
To investigators,
that made Madison a liar,
a troubled kid who had
exploded into violence.
You think Madison saw
his parents gettin' ready
to begin a process that
might have resulted
in him being locked up,
and he got angry,
and he decided
to kill them.
- I don't know what
his mindset was there,
but could that have,
you know, triggered him?
Sure, it could have.
- By the end of the week,
17-year-old Madison Holton
was charged with murdering
his mom and dad.
- Holton's bond is now set
at a combined $1 million.
- I don't go out here
and beat a drum
'cause we were able to put
a 17-year-old boy in jail.
But pretty much,
Josh, if it looks,
walks, talks, feels,
and smells like a duck,
we're pretty much gonna
treat it like a duck.
- Madison says he was
no one's sitting duck.
- My opinion is,
they picked a fight.
They thought they picked out
some weak-minded kid.
They didn't know who
they were playing with.
- You're tougher than
they thought you were.
- Oh, yeah.
- I asked, like, three
or four times for a polygraph.
- Generally, guilty people
do not ask for polygraphs.
- Madison stands
by his story,
and supporters
stand by him.
- He didn't do it.
It's not possible.
- I knew, like,
he wasn't capable of that.
**
Welcome back to
"Dateline: Secrets Uncovered."
I'm Craig Melvin.
The shooting deaths
of April and Michael Holton
left their small town reeling.
Investigators were convinced
the couple's son, Madison,
killed them, even as he insisted
to police he was innocent,
and he had more
to say to us,
including what he said did
and did not happen
on that deadly day.
Here's Josh Mankiewicz
with "11 Minutes."
**
- There is no more
"High School Confidential."
When a senior is charged
with double murder,
that is on
every iPhone in class.
- I'm on Snapchat
all the time.
So, I'm scrolling
through Snapchat,
and then you see his mugshot
pop up on "Daily Mail,"
and you click through,
and then he's next
to Kim Kardashian.
That in itself was
absolutely crazy for me,
for my classmates,
like, all of us.
And I knew, like,
he wasn't capable of that,
but, you know, a lot of people
had opposite opinions.
Like, oh, well, they wouldn't
have put him in jail
if they didn't have evidence
to lead towards him,
or he wouldn't be
staying in there so long
if there wasn't somethin'
pointed towards him.
- The sheriff believed
that when Madison realized
his parents were about to
take him to juvenile court,
he killed them
and then lied about it
to investigators.
The sheriff also believed
some time in jail
might encourage Madison
to come clean.
- There's a lot of people
that come to jail,
and there's a lot of people
that profess their innocence,
and they've been
found guilty,
or later they will
pretty much profess their guilt
on actually what they did.
- That, however,
did not happen,
not as the teenager sat
in the county lockup.
- Mark.
- And not when he sat down
to talk with us.
Did you shoot
your parents?
- No.
- Either one of them?
- No.
- Did you ever have your hands
on that gun that day?
- No.
- You hear any gunshots
when you're on your way over
to the neighbors?
- No, I didn't.
- Under advice of counsel,
Madison wouldn't
talk specifics
about the day of
the shootings.
He did tell us his story
of how his family
started to fall apart.
- Whenever things
started to fall down,
it just got
worse and worse.
- Could you tell there was
tension in the house?
- Yeah, sometimes I could.
Sometimes I couldn't.
Sometimes they would
be giving the--
each other
the silent treatment.
Sometimes they would be
arguing in front of us.
Most of the time,
it was more of, like,
behind closed doors.
- He says the Holton house
became an unpleasant
place to live.
- I wanted to go
do my own thing,
and that included partying,
and smoking pot,
and stuff like that.
So, I mean, I couldn't
do it at home
when my parents
were around,
so I decided
to go other places.
- After his parents separated,
Madison lived with his dad
and was present
when his father discovered
April had
a new boyfriend.
- He, like, freaked out,
and then he called her
and was, like, going off
on her about it.
- Saying what?
- It was, like,
"I-I need you.
Like, I can't live
without you,"
stuff like that.
And whenever
we got back home,
I had never seen
my dad cry before,
but he was bawling.
- Madison was remembering
all of this sitting in jail,
months and months,
contemplating the past.
You wrote people letters.
- Yeah.
- Apologizing,
in some cases,
for things you'd done.
- Yeah.
- "Dear Hannah, I know
it's kind of weird
gettin' a letter
from me right now."
I opened it,
and I just remember,
like, I literally got chills
because, like, it was stamped,
like, Elmer County Jail
on, like, a red stamp.
And so, like,
I'm reading this letter,
and, you know, like,
in the letter,
he, like, apologizes for
somethin' that happened,
like, back in ninth grade
just because
he wanted to, like,
apologize to everybody
that he had wronged.
I guess, like, he was
just reflecting on
a lot of stuff.
"But every person
I've written,
I've told
the exact same thing.
I'm not a murderer.
I don't know if you
believe me or not,
but I'm not.
I couldn't kill anybody."
And then, like, in the end,
he put a Bible verse.
So, like, that just
showed me, like,
in the midst of, like,
this situation that you're in,
like, you're trying
to encourage other people.
So, it was just, like,
really crazy to see that.
- I was just thinking
about the light
at the end of
the tunnel, you know.
My favorite Bible verse,
Jeremiah 29:11,
is, like, "'For I know
the plans I have for you,'
declares the Lord.
'Plan is to prosper you
and not to harm you.
Plan is to give you hope
and a future.'"
- You still thought
you had a future.
- I knew I had a future.
- Madison's present,
though, was
the four walls of a cell.
Time in jail did not
motivate him to confess
to crimes he says
he didn't commit.
His story never
changed from the one
he told the night
his parents were shot.
- I think I asked, like,
three or four times
for a polygraph.
- Generally, guilty people
do not ask for polygraphs.
- Yeah, I mean,
it's a lie detector test.
I mean, yeah, some people
can find a flaw in that.
Some people can beat it
even when they are lying,
but, I mean,
I was 17 years old.
I mean, I didn't know
nothin' about it.
I just knew it was
a lie detector test.
- That polygraph
never happened,
and Madison remained a teenager
facing two murder raps.
Law enforcement
was lined up against him.
His mom's family
felt differently.
They saw Madison
behind bars
as just another tragedy.
- I told him on day one
the only role he played
in this case
was the fact that
he threw a house party,
but you don't put somebody
in prison for life
for throwing
a house party.
- Mike hadn't even known
Madison well
before all of this.
- Before everything happened,
I never really even had,
like, more than, like,
a five minute
conversation with him.
Uh, but whenever
I got to the jail,
I mean, we'd just sit there
and talk on the phone
'til the time ran up
on the phone.
- And he was pretty
solidly in your corner.
- Oh, yeah,
without a doubt.
- And Mike was going
to make sure his nephew
didn't spend his life
locked up.
He had worked
as a police officer
and was now hunting
for anything
that might prove
Madison's innocence.
- He didn't do it.
It's not possible.
- Coming up...
- No DNA,
no blood on Madison,
not on his clothes,
not on his hands.
- If Madison had
committed this crime,
if he'd shot both his parents
at pretty close range,
he'd have some blood on him.
- Right,
he'd have some
forensic evidence on him.
- A former FBI agent
joins the case.
- This is the same
make and model of gun.
- The same make--
it's a 380 cobra.
- With some intriguing
detective work
about the shooting
- Two life sentences is
a long time for anyone.
When you're 17,
it's unthinkable.
Behind bars, Madison Holton
prayed for the light
at the end of the tunnel.
And in December 2017...
- My wife and I were
able to eventually
bond him out of jail.
- After, like,
more than a year, yeah.
- A year and three
or four months.
- Where did you get the money
for Madison's bond?
- My wife and I
took out a loan,
and we're still
paying for it.
- After, um,
15 months and 7 days,
the guard said,
"Today is your lucky.
Pack it up."
**
- Madison was out
but far from free.
Now, he was prepping
for a murder trial
with the help of
his twin uncles.
His Uncle Mike
discovered information
critical to
Madison's defense
when he went through
Madison's dad's autopsy report.
- Michael Holton was
under the influence
of heavy narcotics.
- Michael Holton
had a cocktail
of tramadol, oxycodone,
and hydrocodone
in his system
at the time of his death.
Was pretty much everybody
in your family aware
that Michael
had a drug problem?
- They-they were.
It was somethin' nobody
wanted to talk about.
- And it's
an embarrassment.
- Right, I mean,
he was, at one point,
he was the mayor of Eclectic,
the fire chief.
Um, he was
the best paramedic I knew.
His drug problem
got away from him
and just down
the hill he went.
**
- Chris speculated that,
on the day of the shootings,
Michael was using
the latest problem
with their son
as a way to win
April back.
- It's an opportunity
for Michael to say,
"Look, you know, if
the two of us were together,
this probably wouldn't
have happened."
- And she says, "It's too late
for that conversation.
I'm moving on."
- Yeah, that ship has sailed.
And I think, at that point,
Michael just snapped.
I think Michael killed April
and then killed himself.
I think Michael
couldn't face the world
knowing he killed his wife,
and the only option
left for him
was to end his own life.
- Mike learned
Madison's dad might have
thought about suicide
in the past.
It was right there
in the pages of his diary.
To April, he wrote,
"I just can't go on
knowing you are with
somebody else,"
and, "It was either me
or the both of us."
- You read it, and it
clearly indicates
a person who is not
in their right state of mind.
- Madison's uncles shared
their discoveries
with his court
appointed attorney,
and they worried.
The family didn't have
money for fancy experts
or the things they would need
to make a strong case.
As his uncle stressed,
Madison went to church,
and that's where
everything changed
in the form of Greg Biggs.
- On Sunday afternoon,
we had a prayer meeting.
So, to get
your prayer partner,
the pastor put
our names in a hat
and started drawing
our names out.
So, drew my name out,
and he drew Madison's name out.
- Did you know Madison?
- I had no idea,
but I got to meet him
that day,
and he was a nice kid.
It was only a few days later,
his Uncle Chris tells me,
"Well, you know,
he's indicted for murder."
I'm going,
"What? Madison?"
- Greg is a former FBI agent
and state's attorney.
He knew his way
around a case file
and offered to help.
He says the impressions
deputies formed
during the investigation
were off base.
But his parents have
just been killed,
and he's, what, talking
about homecoming?
- I don't think
you can put--
get yourself in the mind
of a 17-year-old
to make him out
to be a Ted Bundy
when he's just a kid.
I mean, I-I did
a lotta stupid things
when I was 17.
I kissed a dead dog
on a road on a dare
when I was 17.
So, kids are kids.
- And this was just
Madison being a kid.
- Just Madison being a kid
saying stupid things.
- And if law enforcement
didn't catch
Madison in tears?
Madison said he had
a good reason
and said as much
in the interrogation.
- Greg says
the physical evidence
supports Madison's story
that his parents
had been fighting.
April had Michael's DNA
under her fingernails.
Michael had scratches
on his face.
And if Madison had shot them
during the fight,
where was
the proof of that?
- No DNA,
no blood on Madison,
not on his clothes,
not on his hands,
so all the-the evidence
points toward
exactly what Madison said.
Mom and dad were
in the bedroom.
- If Madison had
committed this crime,
if he'd shot both his parents
at pretty close range,
he'd have some blood on him.
- Right,
he'd have some
forensic evidence on him
to demonstrate
he had fired a gun
at a very close range.
- Law enforcement was
never able to lift
a full print from the gun,
and the only DNA they found
was April's
on the trigger.
And what about
that head wound,
the one a pathologist said
made Michael's death
look like a homicide?
- I've consulted with
a forensic pathologist
who said he looked
at the wound,
and he said that it
is more probable
that it is suicide
than homicide.
- If investigators
thought it was difficult
for Michael to shoot himself
at that odd angle,
Defense Attorney Biggs
demonstrated for us
how easy it could be
using an unloaded gun
identical to the one
found at the scene.
This is the same
make and model of gun?
- The same make--
it's a 380 Cobra.
Not impossible, is it?
- Greg said he didn't even
need the forensics
to show Madison
was innocent.
Common sense, he claimed,
said it all.
Remember, Madison's dad
had handcuffed him
behind his back,
and when deputies arrived
after the shootings,
they found Madison
still in those handcuffs.
- The sheriff's theory?
Madison had been able
to take the cuffs off
using a handcuff key
investigators found
in the living room.
- Our primary investigator
is in his mid-30s.
Our chief investigator
is in his late 40s.
They were both able,
in about
12 to 15 seconds,
stand up, slip it
below their feet,
get in front of them,
take a handcuff key
that has been placed
right in front of them,
and get out
of the handcuffs.
- Wait, wait, wait.
That's what you think
Madison did?
You think he took
his handcuffs off
and shot his parents
and then put
the handcuffs back on.
- Yes.
Yes, I think that's
what happened.
- Did you slip
out of the handcuffs?
- No.
- And-and commit murder
and then put
the handcuffs back on?
- No.
- Would you know
how to do that?
- No, it was
the first time
I had ever been
put in handcuffs.
- The state
was moving ahead.
A date for Madison's
double murder trial was set.
They seem
pretty determined.
- Yeah, they seem
pretty determined,
but I was
pretty determined myself.
- Coming up...
- This is the start
of war, you know.
- Everything is at stake.
- I was like,
if this goes downhill,
I would have
two life sentences
and be in prison
for the rest of my life.
- The jaw dropping news
that no one expected.
- Did you have your suspicions
about what was coming?
- No.
- Welcome back.
Madison Holton
was heading to trail
for the double murder
of his parents.
The defense planned to argue
that Madison's dad, Michael,
distraught over
his impending divorce,
was the real killer.
If they failed
to convince a jury,
the teenager could spend
his life behind bars,
but this case was about
to take a startling turn.
Here's Josh Mankiewicz
with the conclusion
of "11 Minutes."
**
- Murder has a way of
splitting a small town in two.
That's what happened
in Eclectic, Alabama
after the killing of
April and Michael Holton.
Each side felt
they knew what had happened
on that September afternoon
in 2016.
To County Sheriff
Bill Franklin, it was clear.
Madison Holton killed
his parents
after their threats
to take him to court.
- I hadn't missed
a minute's sleep at night
because we were able
to charge that kid.
- Just as sheriff's
investigators said
Madison could have gotten
out of his handcuffs
and committed
a double murder,
the lack of blood on him
was also easy to explain.
- It was
a small caliber weapon,
and a small caliber weapon
doesn't cause
a whole lot of
initial damage to a person.
- So, it's conceivable
that Madison
was involved
in that shooting
and didn't get
any blood on him.
- That is correct.
- Even if Michael was physically
able to shoot himself,
he'd hardly seemed suicidal
to the sheriff's son,
who was that first deputy
on the scene.
- The conversation that
he'd had with the deputy,
uh, I don't think anyone
would agree that the man,
well, is gonna
go in there,
and he's fixing to kill
his wife and kill himself.
He was very clear minded.
- Did your deputy,
in that initial encounter
with Mr. Holton,
describe him or think of him
as being under the influence
of any kind of drug?
- None whatsoever.
- And he didn't seem
excessively angry
or-or--
- No, no.
- The showdown was set
for October 22, 2018,
the first day of
Madison's murder trial.
- This is the start
of war, you know.
- Madison, who'd always
been so convinced
he would be found
not guilty, was worried.
He'd found a new girlfriend
while out on bond
and told her this.
- If this goes downhill,
I will have two life sentences
and be in prison
for the rest of my life,
and I was like,
"It's okay.
Like, if you don't
wanna be with me anymore,
you can go."
That was pretty tough having
to tell her that, you know?
**
- In court, attorneys
were about to start
the last phase
of jury selection
when suddenly the mood
in the room
seemed to shift.
- People running
all over the courthouse,
back and forth.
- The sheriff
was there, too,
waiting for
proceedings to begin.
Did you have your suspicions
about what was coming?
- No.
- What was coming was
a stunning announcement
from the district attorney.
- We don't have proof
beyond a reasonable doubt.
- After two years
of investigating,
prosecutors had decided
they didn't have enough.
- We are ethically
obligated, at this point,
to dismiss those charges.
- If this had
been a battle,
then the D.A.
had just retreated.
The murder charges were
dismissed just like that.
In a press conference,
the D.A. explained.
The pathologist
who'd already ruled
Michael's death a homicide
was not prepared
to say on the stand
that he was
100% sure.
- The most they
could say was it's
more likely than not
a homicide,
which is not beyond
a reasonable doubt.
- And so, the answers
Eclectic was waiting for
never came.
- The son was-was released
not too long ago,
and that's about all I know
about-about the case.
- Tony prefers to think
about his friend, Michael,
in happier times.
- I wanna remember Michael
the way he was, you know,
smiling, having a beer,
kicking back with
our guitars,
and just playing music.
- Tanya says she
thought of April
every day throughout
Madison's ordeal.
- Finding out that
Madison was released
and that it was done,
I feel like she's
finally at peace.
She can be at peace
'cause for her babies
to be in turmoil,
that's not somethin'
that would be
acceptable for her.
- For the sheriff,
the murder case is
far from over.
You think Madison is
gettin' away with murder.
- It's an open case.
As long as I'm sheriff,
that's an open case.
- You could refile
against Madison.
- Absolutely.
- Which is why
Madison doesn't want
to discuss the specifics
of the case.
He's not cleared.
He's just not charged.
- From everything that
I've been through,
I have no doubt
in my mind that the sheriff
will try to put me
back in jail.
I don't know why he has
such a grudge against me.
- Well, uh, he thinks
you're guilty of murder.
- Let him think that.
He's gonna think wrong
for the rest of his life.
- Madison is hoping
to live out
the rest of his life
as a free man.
He finished high school
and joined the Army
to help pay for college.
He's even
considered becoming
a criminal defense attorney.
You ready to go back
in a courtroom?
- Oh, yeah.
- Maybe not wearing
handcuffs.
- Yeah, I wanna
find that kid
who is put in
the odd predicament
that I was put in,
that doesn't know what to do,
that doesn't know
how to act,
and fight for them.
It's not about
the money for me.
Yeah, lawyers
make good money.
It's not about the money.
It's about
that one life out there
that could be saved.
**
- They are dreams Madison
shares with his mother
when he goes
to visit her grave.
She's buried
right next to his dad.
I mean, you're
visiting her grave,
but he's five feet away
or less.
- Like, I've forgiven him
for what he's done,
but I can't come
to the point
where I'll visit his grave
like I do my mom's.
- What do you say to
your mom when you go?
- I'm sorry,
and I love her.
**
- That's all for this edition of
"Dateline: Secrets Uncovered."
I'm Craig Melvin.
Thank you for watching.