229: Twisted Obsession: How a Love Triangle Turned Deadly | The Murder of Alyssa Burkett
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ABC Tuesday, Will Trent, special agent for the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, is back for a whole new season of mystery and intrigue. Follow Will and his unique crime-solving point of view as he cracks open some of the GBI's most shocking cases. Gina Rodriguez joins the crew as Marion Sanchez, a prosecuting attorney with her own take on justice and life. Will Trent, the two-part season premiere, begins Tuesday, 9, 8 central on ABC and stream on Hulu.

Hey true crime besties, welcome back to an all new episode of Serialistly.

Hey everybody, welcome back to an all-new episode of Serialistly with me, Annie Elise. If you are brand new, checking out this podcast for the very first time, first and foremost, let me just say welcome. So happy to have you here. If you are a returning listener, I hope you are having a great week. You know what today is all about, right? Because on Mondays, we do the case deep dives. And boy, oh boy, do I have a case for you today. Because

It's one where it's like there is such detailed deception and plotting, but also a lot of crazy twists throughout. Like to where as I was researching it and going through it, I was like my jaw was literally on the floor at three separate parts because I swear I thought I knew where it was going. I thought I knew what happened, who was responsible, everything. And then it was like, you know, one turn after another. So yeah.

We have got a lot to get into today. But again, just as a reminder for those of you who are new here, the way I break down these cases, I just want to deliver these cases in a format as if I'm talking to, you know, my best friend over a cocktail or over a coffee and in a more relatable, digestible sort of way. So we try to kind of keep out, you know,

the sterile aspect of it that sometimes you can see, you know, on documentaries and things like that and really just kind of talk about it as though I'm talking about this case with a friend. So again, let's, you know, today's case is wild, so I'm going to shut up now, okay? And let's just jump right in. I want to help. I really do. But I don't have any answers. I just told...

all my friends and family that I'm engaged to the most wonderful man on the planet. And now people want me to believe that he's not that. I don't want or need a lawyer because I don't have anything to hide. Well, I feel like the dumbest, most manipulated woman on the entire planet, if this is true.

Yes. So on October 2nd, 2020, people were just starting out their day in Carlton, Texas. And you know how your morning routine goes, right? Everybody has their own specific routine. You either are doing your coffee, your tea, maybe you're getting a workout in, whatever it is, you're just kind of going through the motions to get your day started. Well, at 9am here, everyone was going through their routines, driving to work, grabbing coffee, heading to school, the usual stuff.

Now, the people living at the Green Tree apartment complex were doing the exact same thing. Some of them were heading out, while others, like the employees, were just clocking in as they walked through the door of the main building's front door. It was a Friday, and like everybody else, the workers were hoping for just a super easy day before the weekend. Kind of, you know, mentally clocking out already a little bit. One of the employees drove into work, parked in her usual spot, and it felt like just another normal day. At least, at first it did.

She was the assistant manager, a 24-year-old woman named Alyssa Burkett. But before Alyssa could even get out of her car, a man who was dressed in all black got out of the car that was parked next to her, walked right up to her driver's side window, took out a gun, and shot her through the window. Then this attacker just bolted, completely took off.

And somehow Alyssa managed to still get out of her car through all of this, even though literally the left side of her face had almost been completely blown off.

It was definitely a struggle for her to stay on her feet, as I'm sure you can imagine. But she made her way to the front of the building. The whole time, she was doing everything that she could do to get attention. She wanted to get somebody to notice her, to come, to help her. She started banging on the windows of the building. I mean, literally, she was just right outside of the building where so many of her friends worked. She was seconds away from getting help, getting the help that she needed. But apparently, somebody else had something else in mind because the attacker came back.

And this time, he took out a knife and he stabbed her. Over and over and over again. Then, once Alyssa was now finally too hurt to do anything or to get away, he turned around, he climbed back into a black SUV, and he left. Now, even though Alyssa was seriously injured, she was still clinging to life somehow. Barely, but somehow miraculously was.

Her breathing was shallow, it was difficult, and it was very clear that she was in critical condition. So as soon as her co-worker saw what was happening, they of course ran over and they rushed to help her. Some tried their best to provide first aid, while one of them called 911. 911, what is the address of the emergency? 911 came up and shot my assistant manager. Where is the shooter? I don't have enough information. I need his car. He left his car. He literally left a second ago. Now by the time that the police and the paramedics showed up,

Sadly, Alyssa had already passed away. And as the police started combing through the scene, that's when they found a knife sheath. But there was no gun and there was no actual knife. But it looked as if the murderer had left the sheath behind. Very Brian Koberger-esque, right? Allegedly, allegedly. Now, since there wasn't much hard evidence here, the investigators really had to rely on the witness statements.

Now, this was bad news because for the most part, each witness had only seen small bits and pieces of what had actually happened. Nobody could tell the full story in detail. So instead, everything was just kind of chaotic and horrifying. The police were able to determine and figure out, though, that a medium-built black man had stepped out of this black SUV and had shot Alyssa, stabbed her, and then took off.

The other thing that everybody agreed on was the entire attack happened very, very fast. It was way too fast for anybody to even make sense of what was going on, or to get Alyssa help until it was unfortunately far too late. Now, there wasn't a whole lot to go off of, obviously, but right off the bat, the investigators were putting together an early theory, namely that this entire attack and murder was personal. They figured that Alyssa knew the man who had killed her.

The idea was that this couldn't be some sort of random act of violence because stabbing is so personal. The attacker during a stabbing needs to be incredibly close in proximity to their victim, looking them in the eyes oftentimes, you know, right up, right up close and personal.

So to pull something like that off, there usually needs to be a strong sense of rage or emotion. It's not something that you usually will do with a complete stranger, especially if it's something premeditated. Generally, there will be a different weapon of choice unless, again, there is just like that deep-seated, rooted rage to where you want to use a knife.

Another thing, which I've mentioned this in previous episodes and when we've talked about cases that have involved stabbing, is when somebody is stabbed multiple times, not only does that usually have the markings of a personal attack, but generally it also requires an incredible amount of strength, which is oftentimes why it's classified as a crime of passion in some cases. Because stabbing motions...

if say somebody is stabbed five times it's really ten motions because it's the up and down of it all and you if you just even were to do that with a pillow at home which I'm not advising that you do but I'm just giving an example it takes an incredible amount of strength to go up and down several times so

All us to say that a lot of the times when there is a stabbing case in particular and a stabbing homicide, they look closer to home because it usually is, you know, has some sort of crime of passion weaved in or personal element to it. And the police in this situation with this specific case got some confirmation of that theory pretty early on. It happened when Alyssa's mom, Teresa, got the kind of phone call that no parent ever wants to receive.

the person who called her didn't even tell her everything basically her phone rang and somebody told her she needed to get to the green tree apartment complex immediately because her daughter had been very badly hurt that's what they said that alyssa was hurt nothing else they definitely didn't say that she was dead but still theresa of course headed over there in a rush she wanted to see her daughter she was also so hopeful that alyssa would be okay that she wasn't hurt that badly

And she didn't even consider the possibility that Alyssa might actually be dead, because that was way too terrible to even imagine. So, as you can imagine, she was not at all prepared for the scene that she drove up to. A full-on murder scene, with her daughter already passed away.

I personally cannot even imagine how Teresa was able to function after seeing something like that. However, in some kind of miracle, she was still speaking clearly. She still had her composure about her. She was even able to talk to the police and give them some very important key information. Specifically, Teresa told the investigators that she agreed with their theory and their conclusions. She agreed this was personal. It wasn't random.

And in fact, she thought that she already knew exactly who had done this to Alyssa, her ex-boyfriend, Andrew Beard. She even said, I think he's the kind of person that's going to try to kill me. And he did. And he did. Oh, my God.

Alyssa and Andrew had met for the first time about two years earlier. They first connected on a dating app back when she was just 22 years old, and he was a little bit older. He was in his early 30s or so. And that age gap might sound like some sort of, you know, red flag to some people, but the good news is that Alyssa wasn't really looking for anything too serious. She was just kind of dating, dating to date, and see if anything really sparked her interest.

Keep in mind, she was still in college, so she really just wanted to keep things fun and keep it casual. Andrew, though? He was in a totally different place in his life. He had a solid job at a tool company. He owned a nice house. Heck, he even owned a freaking plane.

So it kind of made you wonder, what was this guy doing with this young college girl? I mean, sure, age doesn't mean everything, and sometimes you hit it off with somebody who's much younger in a different place in life, but she was still in college while he seemed very established, very successful, but...

somehow the magic must have worked because they ended up together anyway. Now their relationship wasn't exactly this grand love story. It was more of this like chill, no strings attached, casual kind of dating, that kind of thing. You know, a few dates here and there, maybe a couple of hookups along the way, but really no plans to take it any further. That is until life threw them a massive curveball because Alyssa found out that she was pregnant. So

So suddenly, their casual relationship, it was about to get a lot more complicated. And to put it simply, Alyssa began freaking out. This was not what she wanted at this point in her life. It wasn't like anything that she had been wanting or even looking for. It was a complete surprise. But then, she found out that she was having a baby girl.

And it was almost like in that moment, something clicked into place, both emotionally and mentally. Instead of being afraid and upset about this pregnancy, now she was getting really excited. She was actually looking forward to being a mom. And she knew that she was strong and driven, the sort of person who didn't let anything stand in her way or set her back. So even though this was something that she hadn't planned at all, something that she might have never even chosen for herself, she decided to look at this pregnancy and this baby coming

as a blessing and a new chapter in her life. So on July 23rd, 2019, Alyssa welcomed her beautiful baby daughter, Willow Ann, into the world. By then, she and Andrew had already gone their separate ways, but they did agree that they were going to split custody so that they could co-parent.

Alyssa had primary custody, and then Andrew spent a few days a week with the baby as well. Now, Alyssa was all about being a great mom and really setting a good example for Willow. So she wanted to make sure that she worked incredibly hard to give the life that she wanted to give to her daughter. She dreamed of becoming a lawyer herself, so she ended up going back to school part-time to do that. She also started working at the Green Tree apartment complex.

On top of all of that, she also began dating a new guy named Ben Irwin. He was incredibly loving, supportive, and truly just exactly what Alyssa needed as she was now juggling everything that was going on in her life, between classes, work, parenting, all of the different things. But everything was going well. Things between the two of them, it was a healthy balance, they were happy. Alyssa's dreams were falling into place in this moment.

So things were going really smoothly for a while for Alyssa. That is until they weren't. See, in April of 2020, Andrew, her ex, started seriously dating somebody named Holly Elkins. Their relationship moved very, very fast. I mean, they spent their first weekend together in late April, and they were engaged just a month later, which, talk about a whirlwind, right? Again, I get it. Love is love, but that feels very, very fast. Very Chloe and Lamar, if you get the reference.

And I know sometimes when people get serious that quickly, it can sometimes cause a red flag or a warning sign like, is there some sort of element of love bombing? Is there some sort of manipulation? But all in all, the relationship seemed good.

Andrew and Holly seemed to be in a good place. Like maybe they were the exception to that kind of rule or mentality that you hear about when relationships move too fast. Now the good news in all of this also is that to all appearances, Holly and Alyssa got along very well. And that was incredibly important because Alyssa and Andrew were still sharing custody of their daughter.

So Holly was now about to, of course, become the new stepmom. She was going to be very involved in Willow's life. It also meant that she was going to be very involved in Alyssa's life. So the fact that the two of them hit it off and things were going great between them and they all had a healthy dynamic, that was incredibly important and really good.

Now, Holly was all about this whole co-parenting and healthy dynamic because one time she even texted Alyssa and said, quote, I look forward to having a super healthy relationship with you and Ben. Alyssa replied, I hope your influence helps because I love nothing more than for us all to have a healthy relationship.

So it sounds promising, right? I mean, these co-parenting situations usually can get pretty complicated, and maybe not usually, but often, especially when new partners start getting involved. It's almost like having, you know, too many chefs in the kitchen. Things can get a little bit messy and very quickly fast. Everybody has their own opinions on things. But from the sounds of things going by these text messages, Holly and Alyssa were committed to making it work. But as we know, unfortunately, good intentions aren't always enough.

And over time, things started to unravel a little bit. Andrew began feeling like, since he had a stable job and a house, that he could offer Willow a more secure life. So now, he wanted primary custody. Now obviously, that created a lot of tension between him and Alyssa. They just could not see eye to eye, and they were constantly arguing about the custody arrangements. And that's very unfortunate, because that kind of tension and ongoing fighting definitely is never good for the child involved.

And it's interesting because even though Alyssa and Andrew were arguing about what was best for Willow, she was the one being torn apart in the middle in all of this. That's who the arguments were bad for, for Willow.

So eventually they realized that they needed to put Willow first. So they agreed to work out a compromise, even if it wasn't exactly what either one of them wanted. It was going to be better than the back and forth. And what's that expression with a compromise? If you make a healthy compromise and a good compromise, neither party leaves happy because you both give enough. But anyway...

The resolution was that they were going to split custody of Willow 50-50. It wasn't perfect by any means, but at least it was a step forward in the right direction. So thankfully, things started to settle down once they reached that agreement. It was almost like a weight had been lifted, and for the first time in a while, there was a bit of peace between everybody. But of course, you're listening to this episode, so you know that peace did not last long.

Before too long, Andrew was back to thinking that he deserved full custody of Willow. And instead of working it out like an adult, you know, having a calm conversation, he became pretty mean. In

In fact, he started verbally harassing Alyssa, always making these like little cutting comments about her, about her choices, really trying to tear her down and quite honestly, just make her feel like shit. Now, verbal harassment on its own is never okay, but couple that with something else, it can get incredibly dangerous. And

And as time went on, Alyssa became very worried that eventually Andrew would escalate, that he might go from attacking her verbally to attacking her physically. Now, apparently this wasn't just some sort of idle fear for Alyssa. Andrew hadn't done anything to physically harm her yet, but she was still genuinely afraid of him. There was something about him, about the way that he was talking, the way that he was acting. It told her that it was really only a matter of time before he became violent. ♪

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and give your kids the nourishment they need to grow into healthy adults. So now fast forward back to when Alyssa was murdered in broad daylight at work, just right in front of everyone. It was really easy to see why her mom Teresa was so sure that Andrew was the one behind it. She even told the police about a confrontation that she personally had had with him.

Because apparently one day before the murder, it was one of Andrew's custody days with Willow. He was watching her, and while Teresa was talking to Andrew, he was acting very angry and almost erratic in a way. It was scary enough that Teresa was worried that he was going to hurt Willow, his own daughter. Now, during that conversation, Andrew also told Teresa that he would, quote, "...do anything to get custody of the child."

and there was nothing Alyssa could do to stop him. Which, think on that statement, from just a day earlier, he would do anything, and now here Alyssa was dead. It seems pretty clear, right? Now it's also worth mentioning that Teresa wasn't the only one who was suspicious of Andrew. Pretty much everyone was coming forward to the police to say that they thought that he was incredibly shady, and that he probably did have something to do with the murder.

I'm talking Alyssa's friends, members of her family, even at least one co-worker came forward with these concerns. And it's not like the police were just going off of witness statements and nothing else. They were also digging into Alyssa's history. They were looking at different official records. They were looking at everything they possibly could. And all of that evidence, it told a pretty clear story that did not look good for Andrew.

Right before Alyssa's death, she and Andrew had been fighting over custody again. They were in and out of court all the time. It was very stressful, of course, but also incredibly expensive because lawyers taking time off work, I mean, you know, it ain't cheap. So along the way, Alyssa had even set up a GoFundMe to help cover some of her legal fees. I mean, it was definitely rough, to say the least.

Now, in the GoFundMe's description, Alyssa wrote,

At the beginning of August, he took it upon himself to keep her from me. He would not open the door per the court order, and I went over a week without seeing my one-year-old baby girl when I'm her primary parent. It has also been made clear that this man will do whatever it takes to cut me out of the picture, and I'm worried that what is coming next will be worse. Hi, everyone. My name's Alyssa. Sorry, I look kind of crappy. It's fine. So...

This past year I have been going through a custody battle, a very ugly one. I'm a one-year-old child. It's taken a toll on my mental and physical health. I now have high blood pressure. I have depression and anxiety medicine. I have eating disorders caused by all of this. But it's getting better. With that being said, I've become a lot stronger physically.

in the process. This is my first year of college that I've finished. So go me. I have become a better person in the process of all of this. And I guess just my message is no matter what you're going through,

stick it out, you can do it and stay strong. So let's unpack all of that just a little bit here. Let's explore it because it was clear that Andrew's behavior was getting more extreme, right? He wasn't just calling her names and sending her these nasty text messages. He was stalking Alyssa. And just like she had been afraid of, he was now escalating past verbal harassment. He was escalating into scarier, more violent behavior.

Or at least, that's what she thought. I mean, sometimes it can be hard to prove something like this, and it can be tempting to second-guess yourself. You might start to wonder, is this person actually stalking me? Is this just a coincidence that they tend to pop up at the same places that I go to a lot? Am I overthinking it? Am I being paranoid? I mean, if you do have a lot of hobbies in common, and if you live in similar neighborhoods, it is possible that you could just happen to bump into somebody over and over again without it being on purpose.

But here's what we do know: Andrew was always showing up, wherever she was.

One time, Alyssa went to a bar in downtown Dallas with some of her friends, and Dallas, as you know, is a huge city with a ton of bars, so the odds of running into somebody completely by chance? Eh, kinda slim. But there he was, right there, at the exact same bar that Alyssa was at. It was creepy, to say the least. And things like that just kept happening. Alyssa would go somewhere, and then suddenly, poof, Andrew would just show up.

And again, she might have started by trying to act like maybe it was a coincidence or maybe it was something that she didn't have to worry about too much. But as time went on, she started feeling paranoid. She was always looking over her shoulder.

At one point, she even started texting her friends different things like, do you see anyone around you? Or lock the doors behind you. Now by this time, Alyssa was living with her new boyfriend Ben, and Andrew wasn't supposed to know a lot of the details about where she was staying, where her place was, nothing. She just didn't feel safe with him having access to that information. So imagine her shock when she went into one of those many custody hearings, and Andrew right there just

told the judge her address. Right there in the courtroom, he just announced that he knew exactly where she lived. In Alyssa's mind, there was only one way that Andrew could have known that information. He must have been watching her, he must have been following her, and he must have seen her go home one evening and just stalked her.

Then, just a month before her death, Alyssa was at her work when the police showed up and they asked to search her car. They claimed that they had gotten a tip from somebody named Frank Morrow, who said Alyssa was selling drugs out of the trunk of her car. Meanwhile, Alyssa was totally confused, but she let them search it anyway. I mean, she wasn't selling drugs, she had nothing to hide, so she figured they could just look around, confirm that she wasn't doing anything wrong, and they would clear everything up.

But to her shock, they ended up finding bags of weed, cocaine, and a gun with a serial number scratched off of it all in the wheel well of her car. I mean, that is diabolical. That takes some very careful planning, right? Luckily, Alyssa wasn't arrested, but she could have been.

However, I guess the police could tell that she was genuinely surprised and confused to see all of these things. So maybe they figured, okay, this was a setup. This tip was intentional. They wanted to get her caught. She also kept swearing up and down that she had never seen those drugs before, that she had never seen that gun before. She had no idea how any of it got there. And she must have come across pretty genuine because they believed her.

And I mean, in fairness, it would be very easy to tamper with the wheel well of somebody's car. Now, if you don't know your way around cars like me, it took me some investigating to figure out exactly what this was, but it's a place where the wheel attaches to the body of the car. It's on the outside, so you don't need a key. You don't need any way of opening the doors to get to it. It's pretty accessible. So literally, anybody could walk up to a parked car on the street and just stick whatever they want in its wheel well.

Not to mention, it would also be a weird place for Alyssa to be stashing a gun and drugs if she was actually selling them, because it's not a very secure location. So Alyssa straight up told the officers she believed that Andrew might have been the one who planted these drugs and this gun inside her car.

And it was a tip that they determined was worth looking into. So the police reviewed Andrew's record, his history, all of the things. But at the end of the day, there wasn't any hard evidence one way or another. No way to know if Andrew had planted all of this stuff, or even, conversely, if Alyssa was guilty, or if maybe there was some sort of third person involved in all of this.

So since they couldn't sort everything out, the police just sort of dropped the investigation right there. Now, I would imagine that had to be so incredibly frustrating for Alyssa because, again, Andrew was escalating. He was getting scarier. He was apparently trying to literally frame her for a crime that she didn't commit, and she couldn't do anything about it because she had no proof. Then there was another time when Holly and Andrew refused to hand Willow back to Alyssa.

Alyssa and her mom Teresa drove over to their house, and when they arrived, they saw the fiancé Holly riding in a golf cart with Willow just sitting on her lap. So Alyssa stopped the car, her mom Teresa jumped out, grabbed Willow from Holly, and they just took off. Holly was clearly upset by all of this, though, and in fact, she immediately called the police.

Yet, she told a version of the story that was pretty self-serving. I mean, she had kept Willow when she didn't have a legal right to see her, right? When it was Alyssa's day. But of course, that's not at all what she told the officers. In fact, she claimed that Alyssa's mom, Teresa, had assaulted her.

She said, quote, she literally attacked me from behind. She literally attacked me from behind or from behind side. I was facing the lake. So the police went over to Andrew's house so that they could talk to Holly, but they didn't buy her version of events. Not at all. Holly showed them a scratch that was on her chest, which she said, you know, was from Teresa. She claimed it was from the assault, but it looked really minor and potentially even self-inflicted. So they took her statement, but they didn't buy what she was selling and they just left. I

Again, there was no follow-up, though. No arrest. It was the second time when Alyssa felt like she was being framed for a crime that she didn't commit, and the police did absolutely nothing about it. Needless to say, everyone who knew Alyssa thought that Andrew was just bad news. Ben, her new boyfriend, even told the police that Andrew was, quote, overly obsessed with Alyssa. Which, in fact, that actually might be understating it.

Because after Alyssa's murder, the police searched her car and they found a hidden GPS tracker inside of it. As in, someone was keeping tabs on her, seeing everywhere that she went. When the officers talked to Ben about it, he said that he found that same kind of tracker on his car as well. Unfortunately, these trackers didn't have any serial numbers. They also didn't have any tags or any way for anyone to figure out who had bought them, who had put them there, but...

I mean, come on, the writing's on the wall, right? It was pretty obvious who was responsible here. Andrew. But there was one problem in all of this. A huge one. An issue that could make it almost impossible to arrest or charge Andrew with the murder. The witnesses all saw the murderer. And they all saw that he was a black man. And Andrew was white.

There's no way it could have been Andrew. It could have been possible that if it's hard to get a good look at somebody, you could make a mistake like that. But multiple witnesses, everybody who saw it, everyone agreed. Also, Alyssa was shot and stabbed in broad daylight. There wasn't any opportunity for obstructed vision or shadowing or darkness or anything like that. Everybody had very clear-cut vision and saw this person.

Still though, given Andrew's past history of being threatening and scary, they couldn't completely rule him out either. So the police decided that the best move was to gather more evidence, try to see if there was a way to make all of these pieces fit together. So they kept an eye on Andrew's house, which was about 30 miles from where Alyssa worked, and within just three hours of the murder,

No time at all, basically. They had some officers stationed on his block, just keeping an eye on everything. And those officers watched as Andrew, Holly, and Little Willow all piled into his white Ford F-150 and hit the road.

Now, this really stood out for one particular reason, because Andrew didn't have a front license plate, and that's required by law in Texas. So the police did what the police are going to do. They pulled him over. They were acting like they just wanted to talk to him about the license plate, but of course, they were also hoping to get a sense of his mental state. See if he was nervous, evasive, you know, a little bit spooked. Just sort of take his temperature on the entire situation.

Andrew was almost eerily calm. There was no sign at all that he was even remotely stressed or worried about anything. He was also very cooperative, and each time the police asked him a question, he answered it very politely. There were no red flags. There was nothing to suggest that he even had the slightest idea that Alyssa was even dead, let alone that he might have been the one responsible for the murder. So clearly, there was nothing that came out of that traffic stop that was useful in terms of solving her murder.

The police certainly couldn't arrest him right then and there. But while he was pulled over at the side of the road answering their questions, the officers did get some important news. They had just gotten a search warrant that was approved. Teams were now headed to Andrew's house to search it.

They also had permission to go through his truck as well. So the police officer on duty confiscated the truck, right? They also told him that he couldn't go home because it was being searched. And they were basically kind of like, hey, guess you have nowhere to go, no way to get around it. Good luck anyway, just figure it out. And I'd almost feel sorry for this guy, like he was being intentionally targeted unfairly, if it weren't for the fact that it was looking increasingly likely that Andrew was guilty. Because when the teams were going through Andrew's house...

they hit the absolute jackpot. Namely, the officers found proof that Andrew had framed Alyssa for selling drugs out of her car. It was exactly what she had suspected, and now they knew that she was right. See, they found an envelope with notes scratched and scribbled all over it. And the notes? Oh, nothing major, just casual references to Alyssa, her car, her license plate number, and, wait for it, drugs.

And in the corner, there was also a name, Frank Morrow, which you'll remember that Frank Morrow was that person who called the police to drop that tip about her selling drugs out of the car. So one theory now was that Frank Morrow didn't exist, that someone...

probably maybe Andrew, maybe a friend of his, whoever, was given instructions to make this call, to pretend to be this Frank character and leave this false tip. The police also found three different phones, one of which was a prepaid burner phone. And when they looked at the Google search history on one of these phones, they found a ton of fake

Awful, very incriminating search terms. One of the most damning being, the best way to remove gunpowder residue from hands.

I've never searched that. I don't know if you guys have, but it doesn't really sound like a typical search, especially if coincidentally just hours earlier the mother of your child was shot. Probably too big of a coincidence, right? Now another phone had a script that was written in the Notes app, and it was almost word for word identical to what this Frank Morrow guy had said when he called the police to report Alyssa for selling drugs. Then there was also the charger that they found.

a charger that matched the specific kind of GPS tracker that they found on Alyssa's car. They also found a gun silencer that matched the gun that Alyssa was shot with.

I mean, truly, all of the pieces were falling together now. It was like there was one giant red flashing red arrow just pointing right at Andrew. When the police searched his truck, they also found a serrated kitchen knife, a flathead screwdriver, and a bunch of pieces of a boot. It looked like somebody had cut this boot up. I mean, and these pieces reeked of bleach. But the most damning find was absolutely jaw-dropping. ♪

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The other thing that the police discovered when they searched Andrew's truck was, get this, a makeup brush and several bottles of Maybelline Fit Me Foundation. Now, Maybelline Fit Me Foundation, for any men who are listening to this podcast, it is a brand, obviously, by Maybelline, and it's a liquid foundation. So you have a makeup brush and liquid foundation. And get this,

It was a dark shade of brown, which did not match Andrew or Holly's skin tone. It was fair to think that maybe, sure, either one of them could have used it to darken their skin, but there were also burned makeup wipes that were smeared with that same shade of foundation. So let's connect the dots there for a minute.

Because they found all of this evidence, and also all of the witnesses reported seeing this murder and reporting that it was a black man. But now, the police were searching Andrew's car, and they found dark colored makeup, makeup brushes, and makeup wipes...

all inside of it. It seemed pretty clear that Andrew most likely killed Alyssa while he was wearing blackface, that he had put on this makeup all to disguise his race, probably hoping that it would help throw the police off his trail and that he would get away with this, which is

It almost did. And I've got to say, I haven't seen something like that in a case before where somebody full on tries to disguise their race. I've heard about lying about seeing a certain race during an attack, but never going to this length. But I also got to say, if you're going to go to these lengths and you're literally going to try and disguise your race,

How are you such a moron that you're still leaving all of this evidence behind, right? Like, you are so calculated and smart and thoughtful, yet you have Google history, you have three phones, you have the charger for the GPS tracker. It's like, you're so sloppy. But like I will say, we love to see it. Now, they were finally beginning to put all these pieces of this puzzle together, right? But there was still one piece left, the getaway car.

The witnesses said that the killer drove off in a black SUV, but Andrew was driving a white Ford F-150. Sure enough, when the investigators looked at the security cameras nearby to double check and confirm that it was a black SUV, they did verify it. They were also able to find the car's make, model, and license plate number. They also were able to work out the escape route that the killer took to get away. So just one day after Alyssa's murder, they tracked this car down.

And wouldn't you know it, it was parked just about one mile away from Andrew's house. There was even a walking path that went straight from his house to this SUV. I mean, this idiot, this sloppy man literally parked his getaway car in a convenient spot for him, which how stupid can you be? Not that I'm complaining, but still, it truly does boggle my mind.

Police even found security camera footage that showed somebody parking the car and then running away. This all happened about 30 minutes after Alyssa's murder. Now, as it turns out, the car was registered to a woman. But she told the police that she had sold the car way back on September 26th.

She had met the buyer through Craigslist, and all she knew about him was that he was a man who drove a silver van. The woman also said that this man was white, that he stood about six feet tall, and that it was really difficult to get a good look at his face. She said he was wearing a baseball hat. Since this was still in the early days of COVID, when people were trying to be careful, he also was wearing a face mask as well. But he ended up paying $2,000 for this SUV. All in cash, of course, so it couldn't be tracked.

And then after the woman gave him the title, he got in and drove off. It was simple as that. So to recap, a man fitting Andrew's description bought this SUV just one week before Alyssa's murder. And all of Andrew's neighbors also said that they noticed this exact same black SUV parking in their neighborhood for the past week. Which, again, it just is hilarious to me that he went to such lengths to cover his trail when he was buying the car to...

covering his race and then he just parked the car literally right there at his house for everybody to see so with all this information the police got a warrant to search the black suv and inside of it they discovered a fake beard that had specks of brown foundation and blood on it there was also blood spattered all over the interior i mean it was just everywhere so they sent the beard and blood off for dna testing and when it came back the beard showed that it was andrew's dna and

And the blood was Alyssa's. Now, not that I think that the police needed a ton of additional evidence at this point, because everything they already had was telling, you know, a very compelling story already, but this sort of just sealed the deal. It was very clear to everyone that Andrew was the killer.

It was also pretty clear what the motive was, the motive that I touched on already once before. He wanted custody of Willow. He wanted her all to himself. And just a few days before the shooting and the stabbing on September 30th, Alyssa had won primary custody of Willow, which is apparently something that Andrew just could not accept.

So instead, he killed her. He murdered the mother of his child just because he decided that what he wanted out of his life and what she wanted were as incompatible, that he deserved to have Willow 100% of the time, that his wants mattered more than her life.

So the next step was to arrest Andrew, and the good news is that the police didn't have to look very long or very hard to find him. He actually turned himself in on October 5th. He just walked right into the station with his fiancée Holly at his side, and she even agreed to do an interrogation while she was there. So in this interrogation, Holly told the police that Andrew had been with her on the morning that Alyssa died. That was his alibi. She claimed that they were at home, they were looking after Willow, and Andrew never even left her side.

On the surface, it sounded like a solid alibi, but the evidence that the police had found didn't exactly back up her story. So I just told all my friends and family that I'm engaged to the most wonderful man on the planet, and now people want me to believe that he's not that. And there are so many emotional roadblocks for you to try to believe that. I get that.

I can't believe that my fiance would do something like that to a woman or to anybody, but a woman. There are a few hours that you know he was not in that house. You cannot tell me that I feel that way, sir. I can tell you that because I know that for a fact that he was out of the house, Holly. I don't know that for a fact. I am a total stage five clinger girlfriend. I'm always up his ass. I

I find it hard to believe. The police were worried that Andrew was a flight risk. They thought that he might even flee the country, and I'm not sure exactly why they thought that, given that he had voluntarily surrendered. But for whatever reason, they believed that, and they decided to set his bail at a whopping $1 million. Now that's shocking, of course. But even more shocking, someone ended up coming through with this money. Just after two weeks, he got out of jail on bond.

Andrew Beard, he was taken to the Dallas County Courthouse, fitted with an electronic GPS ankle monitor and released for home confinement, placed on bail after a $1 million bond was paid on his behalf.

Beard said nothing today while preparing for his release. But the family of Alyssa Burkett wants to know why someone paid for that release. They believe he should still be behind bars. He is a flight risk himself. He has a pilot's license and he has an airplane that police have not been able to locate yet. While the police weren't only worried about Andrew skipping town, they were also worried about Willow's safety.

They thought that he might try to hurt his daughter if he was looking down, you know, the long hallway of life in prison or worse. And again, I'm not sure exactly what these concerns were based on. It sounds to me like Andrew did love Willow. I mean, his whole motive for the murder was that he wanted full custody, but we've also seen in many situations, unfortunately, when somebody's

back feels like they're being pressed against a wall that any rational thinking tends to go out the window and maybe there was something going on that i'm not aware of but the point is the police had some serious concerns so they decided to arrest andrew another time this time on new charges

Cyberstalking resulting in death. So with those new charges, Andrew had to stay in jail with no chance of release until his trial. At first, Andrew planned to plead not guilty to everything. He was arguing that he didn't kill Alyssa, and in fact, he didn't even have any motive to hurt her. Weird argument, I know, especially in light of the fact that Alyssa got primary custody on September 30th, but Andrew and his lawyers tried to argue that this was only part of the story.

It wasn't the whole truth. According to them, Andrew and Alyssa didn't even have a formal legally binding custody hearing on September 30th. It was just a simple phone call in which Alyssa and Andrew worked everything out together amicably. They agreed that Alyssa would be the primary caretaker.

They also agreed that Alyssa's mother, Teresa, would also help out with some of the child care. So to hear Andrew tell it, the police had just completely misunderstood everything. They thought that the custody agreements were these contentious, heated things, but in reality, they weren't.

There was no cause for Andrew to even be upset, no less murdering somebody over it. And that was Andrew's stance for about the next year and a half. He was innocent. But then, in June of 2022, Andrew shocked everybody by accepting a plea deal.

And with that, he was going to also offer a full confession. And in this confession, he admitted to everything. That he had bought the black SUV, that he put on that dark makeup, that he shot and stabbed Alyssa to death. I mean, all of it. But according to Andrew, none of it was his idea. He wasn't the mastermind behind this murder, not even close. Everything had been planned. Everything had been meticulously worked out by his accomplice.

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In his confession, Andrew described one person as being the absolute mastermind behind this entire murder plot against Alyssa. And surprise, surprise, you probably guessed it, that someone was none other than Holly, his newish girlfriend turned fiance, lunatic partner in all of this.

Now, remember earlier when I said that Holly and Alyssa got along great, that they were committed to having a positive co-parenting relationship? Well, that's how it looked from the outside. It sounds like the only thing that these two women were ever on the same page with was that they didn't want to air out their dirty laundry. Because in truth...

They hated each other, but they did a good enough job of playing nice and pretending to get along that almost nobody knew the real story. And get this, Holly actually had Alyssa saved in her phone under the name Cunt Baby Mama.

I mean, definitely not the kind of nickname that you would expect of somebody that you were on good terms with, right? And whenever Holly would talk to Andrew about Alyssa in their text message exchanges, she wasn't a whole lot nicer. She was always calling Alyssa a bitch, saying she was fat, that she was ugly, that she was a terrible mom. I mean, just these really low blow nasty things. And honestly, I think anyone in general who attacks somebody over their appearances, no less a woman attacking another woman over their appearances, is a

It tells you something about them too, right? I mean, talk about zero class. Now apparently, Holly was also one of those people who just could not be single. She always had to have a partner, always have a boyfriend, always have a guy by her side. If she broke up with someone, she'd instantly be on the hunt, literally just looking for somebody new. And whenever she was with someone, the rumor went that she was always very manipulative, that she was very good at getting her partners to do exactly what she wanted.

And ultimately, what she wanted in the grand scheme of things was a house, a husband, a child, and a white picket fence. She basically wanted it all. So then Andrew came into the picture, and when Holly started dating him, she got a lot of those things that she had been looking for. The boyfriend who proposed, who was about to become the husband, the nice house. He even had a child already in all of this. Willow.

But the problem was, Holly didn't want to share. She didn't want to be the stepmother. She didn't want Willow part of the time. She wanted to be Willow's only mom, her only mother figure. She wanted Alyssa out of the picture. Now, you'll remember that for years after their breakup, Alyssa and Andrew were pretty much on good terms. I mean, so far as custody was concerned anyway. They had worked out terms that were good for both of them. I mean, they were both cooperative.

In fact, Andrew never even started fighting hard for full custody or going all in on harassing Alyssa until after he had gotten together with Holly. And from the sounds of things, that's because Holly was the one pushing him and pressuring him to go for full custody. She was trying to drive a wedge between him and his ex and to get Alyssa just out of the picture entirely.

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying this at all in order to give Andrew a pass. I mean, not at all. He was a grown-ass man. He could have definitely told Holly no at any point in time. He definitely is at fault for listening to her and letting her get away with all of this crap that she had been pulling. But also, she was just horrible.

She even did things like talk Andrew into hiring a private investigator to tail Alyssa. Apparently, she had convinced him that this investigator would find some sort of smoking gun and then they would be awarded full custody. That they would catch Alyssa doing something bad and then Andrew and Holly could use that information to get Willow away from her. But surprise, surprise, that plan went absolutely nowhere because the private investigator did not find a single thing. Alyssa wasn't involved in anything shady.

And the fact that Holly was so convinced that she had to have some sort of deep, dark secret in all of this? I mean, if you're asking me, it was probably projection. I think Holly's the one who had, like, some deep-seated, rooted issues here. So Holly's next big idea was to plant the drugs in Alyssa's car.

And she was actually the one who physically did it. She got her hands on all of these substances, this gun, the scraped off serial number, everything, and she put them in Alyssa's car all by herself. Then, after she was done, she snapped a photo of Alyssa's car and her license plate and sent it to Andrew, making sure that he had all of the, quote, you know, evidence to back up this fake tip that this fictitious Frank Morrow person was going to call in.

Holly was also the one who came up with that entire plan when they kept Willow longer than they should have. Then she lied and said that Alyssa's mom, Teresa, had assaulted her. She also made a false report against Alyssa that she was driving dangerously, but again, it was all a lie. I mean, everything was just complete BS, and none of those tactics worked. She just could not get Alyssa in trouble, not the way that she wanted to. She couldn't intimidate her or drive her off.

But even after she failed and failed and failed again, Holly was not willing to back off. Drugs and the planning of drugs was Elkins. Your previous methods aren't working. This is what you're going to do now in order to prove that, that, that, that.

you're basically you're worthy. So you might be thinking at this point, okay, Holly had to be some kind of master manipulator, right? I mean, how do you convince a good man to commit a murder? What kind of expert mind games was she playing in all of this? Well, the answer is that her quote unquote manipulations weren't even that masterful. Literally, she told Andrew that he had to kill Alyssa to prove that he was a man.

That was it. That's all she said. It was like she was this 12-year-old girl picking on somebody on the playground, saying, you have to do this if you want to prove that you're a man. But for whatever reason, it worked.

She was like, you'll do what I do if you want to prove that you deserve me. And Andrew went along with it. In one text message to Andrew, Holly wrote, I don't want anyone who is a pussy to some lowlife or a pushover. I want a man who protects his woman and child before anyone else and doesn't give two Fs otherwise. In another text, she said, your baby mama owns you. You choose to be, I don't know, for a lack of a better term, submissive to her. I

I don't have, want, or need any bullshit from anyone. - I was emotionally drained, and at that point,

I just basically said, "Okay." And became submissive to whatever she wanted me to do. That's the task I did. So the big theme that I'm taking away from all of this is that Holly was a nightmare. And also, Andrew was a nightmare too, because again, he's the one who agreed to murder his ex all because Holly was like trolling him into doing it. And it makes me wonder, would he have done something like this if Holly was never even in the picture? Was he just looking for an excuse to kill someone?

Or was he actually that weak-willed that he would literally just go along with about anything that anybody said to him or suggested to him? It's beyond me. I mean, who jumps from point A to Z so fast for really no reason at all but your fiancé who sucks, by the way, trying to force your hand into doing it?

it. Because according to Andrew, the entire plan was all Holly's brainchild. I mean, every twisted detail. She was the one who suggested buying that black SUV, the one who suggested putting together a race disguise, grabbing makeup to alter his appearance, ultimately ambushing Alyssa at her work. It was all Holly. Your

About a month before the murder, Holly and Andrew went to a sporting goods store, and that's where they bought the all-black outfit that Andrew wore when he killed Alyssa. Then, Holly bought the dark foundation at a local drugstore.

They went together when they bought the bullets and the knife that would ultimately kill Alyssa, so they didn't do everything separately. And shortly before the day of the murder, Holly went off on a vacation to Mexico. But that didn't stop her at all from micromanaging every single detail from far away. She sent Andrew a text saying, "'I hope you handle it. I'm not coming home to bullshit.'"

It would be a whole different conversation if I felt like you're a ride or die. If not, then I don't know. And then, once he did it, once Alyssa was dead, she wanted to know everything. Every sordid detail. Every gory detail. According to Andrew, she even asked him to describe the crime in graphic detail to her. And get this, not just describe it as if that's not bad enough, describe it while they were having sex.

What a sick freak, right? Like what a disgusting, sick psychopath. Now,

Now, Holly gave her first interview to the police back in October of 2020, that same day when Andrew was arrested. And that day, she acted like she had no clue what was going on, like she was just this innocent bystander in all of this. But then, after that interrogation, guess what she Googled? Because the Google will get you every single time. She Googled, can I be brought to court if I have a psychiatrist note?

Also, can I be subpoenaed to jail if I have a mental issue? So again, it really sounds to me like she was just looking for an excuse, looking for a way out, a way to avoid responsibility for what we know she was in fact involved in. So in May of 2023, after Andrew pled guilty and shared all of this information with the police,

He ended up being sentenced to 43 years in prison. But of course, now they had to bring Holly to justice, which was easier said than done, because by the time Andrew got around to spilling the beans and pointing the finger at her, Holly had left the state.

See, way back in 2020, when Andrew was first arrested, Holly had been staying with his mom. The two of them became very, very close. Andrew's mom believed that her son was innocent in all of this, and Holly played along, acting like she thought he was innocent as well, so they really supported each other and leaned on one another. And when the news came out that Andrew was being released on bond, his mother and Holly were both thrilled to go back to, you know, some semblance of a normal life. Except then, Andrew came home.

only for Holly to just straight up disappear. She skipped town. She never talked to either Andrew or his mom ever again. Which, let's be real, it's pretty bizarre behavior for somebody who claimed to be so devoted to Andrew and to Willow, right? He had to commit this murder to prove that he was man enough for her, that he was a quote,

ride or die, and then she took off the second he was back? It turns out that Holly had fled back to Michigan, which is where she was originally from. There, she of course wasted no time at all in starting all over, starting fresh, new condo, new boyfriend, new job. She basically hit the reset button on her entire life. And honestly, it was like she couldn't pack up and move on fast enough. She was also living basically like this woman of mystery.

She didn't ever mention her past. Nothing about Andrew, nothing about Alyssa or Willow. None of it. She didn't even tell her new boyfriend anything about what her life had been like in Texas, which is pretty wild. I mean, I wonder if maybe she told him a cover story or if he just never thought to ask about it. I don't know. But either way, Holly couldn't stay on the run forever. And in June of 2023, while she was enjoying a vacation in the Dominican Republic, probably thinking that she was getting away with all of it, she wasn't.

because right when she got back to the US and landed at the Miami International Airport, she got the surprise of her life. The police were there waiting for her, and they arrested her right when she got there. It's a challenge, and this arrest is-- it came as a surprise. But the more details I find out about it, the more I realize that she played a really big part in this. And she's gone two and a half years without any accountability.

So I'm glad that she is being held accountable at this point. Holly's trial was in April of 2024, and during it, she pled not guilty to all charges, which, of course. The trial itself lasted for seven days, and then the jury only took 90 minutes to reach a verdict. They found Holly guilty on all counts.

She was sentenced to two full life sentences with no chance of parole, which I gotta say, that's pretty crazy that she was given a longer sentence than Andrew. I would imagine it had something to do with his plea deal, but if you'll remember, he only got 43 years in prison. She got two full life sentences with no parole. Is that because she was the mastermind, or is it because she made them all go through with the trial and didn't take a plea deal? I don't know.

Sadly, even though Alyssa had justice, that won't ever give her family peace. Everyone who knew her misses her every single day, still. Her mother, Teresa, is now raising Willow. And she and other relatives say that Willow is a lot like Alyssa in a lot of different ways. She's a fun-loving girl, a free spirit, and incredibly strong. They do what they can to keep Alyssa's memory alive. They want to be strong. They want to be there for Willow now that Alyssa can't be there at all. Number four.

Who's that for? For your mommy? It's again one of those cases that's just...

so incredibly heartbreaking but also so senseless because a lot of times when we talk about a situation like this where a spouse or former spouse kills the other parent so that they can have full custody of the child even though it's incredibly selfish

there seems to be that underlying motive that it's for the child. It's because they want full custody. It's because they love their child that, you know, selfishly, that's the reason. But that's not even the reason in this case. In this case, it seems like Andrew killed Alyssa not for Willow, not because he wanted full custody, but because of his batshit crazy fiancee, Holly, because she wanted full custody.

So when you think about that and you step back, as a parent in his position, how much could you really love your daughter if you're willing to murder her own mother, not even for her because you want her, but for your fiancé?

It feels very detached and impersonal to me. That's the best word I can use to describe it. It's just like, usually you would say, okay, they think it's the best decision because they want to be with their kid 100% of the time. That's not even the case here. There's no justifying it. Not that there ever is, but like, there's not even an explanation for it because he did this all for Holly.

And now, poor Willow, who at one point in time before Holly entered the scene, was living a happy life. She had two parents, they split custody of her, they co-parented well, they got along, and now, because of this monster who inserted herself into their lives, she doesn't have her mom, she also doesn't have her father, and she has to grow up knowing what really happened here. It's

It is horrible. So it's not really applicable in this situation, but you know what I always say. I always say, just get a divorce, which I know that doesn't apply here because they had split already anyway. But what I will just say is, thank you.

Think of the children. Maybe that's the new tagline. Think of the children. Think of what your actions will do to your child and the ripple effect that it'll have on them. Even if you're not going to be selfless enough to think of the in-laws, the parents, the friends, the co-workers, think about your child and think about yourself.

what your actions will do to them and further what your actions will do to them if you end up getting caught for that too like it's just it's so selfish and it's very disheartening so I'm happy that Willow is with Alyssa's side of the family and that they are raising her and loving her and getting her you know to be the strong independent woman that they want her to be but

It's still, it's just, it's so senseless. Thank you guys so much for tuning in today and hearing Alyssa's story. Again, I think it serves as a reminder too that you can't trust everyone. And if you have kids and you start dating somebody new, guard yourself and your child with your life.

because you never know who somebody really is on the other side of things. Truly, you don't. Thank you guys so much for tuning in. I'll be back on the mic with you first thing Thursday morning with an all new headline highlights where we are going through everything happening in the true crime world this week. New cases, updates and cases, everything. So make sure if you're not following the podcast yet, you take a quick second. It's totally free. Follow the podcast. That way you will not miss any of those episodes.

and if you have an extra 30 seconds and you're enjoying this podcast please leave a rating and review over on spotify or apple let me know what you're liking about the podcast if there's any case recommendations or requests that you have it's the best way for me to see feedback from you guys in that section so if you have an extra 30 seconds please go do that if not no worries

All right, guys. Thanks again for tuning in. And until the next one, be nice. Don't kill people. Don't join any cults. Stay safe. Get a divorce. And think of your children. All right.