After Texas woman's murder, detectives learn killer was "only half of the story"
Three days after 24-year-old Alyssa Burkett was shot and then stabbed to death outside her office in Carrollton, Texas, Andrew Beard – with whom Burkett shared a 1-year-old daughter – was charged with her murder. The following day, Beard's fiancée Holly Elkins voluntarily sat down with two detectives at the Carrollton Police Department.
"I wanted to use her as a witness in this. And if she had information that could put her in that witness column and not in the suspect column, I was gonna listen to her," Det. Jeremy Chevallier told correspondent Peter Van Sant in "The Plot to Eliminate Alyssa Burkett," an all-new "48 Hours" airing Saturday, Nov. 16 at 10/9c on CBS and streaming on Paramount+.
Elkins told Chevallier and Sgt. Michael Harding she was convinced they had the wrong man. "I can't believe my fiancé would do something like that to a woman, or to anybody …" she said.
And Elkins also said she was willing to help if she could: "I just feel bad to not help something that I think is very sad that happened … I feel conflicted morally because I want to help, but I don't have anything …"
But there was one thing Elkins was adamant about – Beard was home with her the morning Burkett was killed. "… if I had any reasonable reason to believe that Andrew left that house and did it, I would give it to you. I would, I would, I promise," Elkins told detectives.
"At first it seemed like an open-and-shut case," Chevallier told "48 Hours." He would later discover "Andrew Beard was only half of the story."
On the morning of Oct. 2, 2020, Burkett parked outside the Greentree Apartments leasing office when a man in a black Ford Expedition pulled into the spot next to her. He got out of his SUV and shot Burkett through the driver's side window.
Assuming she was dead, the shooter began driving away, but Burkett was still alive. As she got out of her car and ran towards her office, the assailant — who several eyewitnesses described as a Black man — got back out of his car and chased Burkett with a hunting knife. He stabbed and slashed her 44 times before he fled for good. When Burkett's mother, Teresa Collard, arrived at the scene, she immediately gave investigators a name: Andrew Beard.
In the months leading up to her death, Burkett and Beard, who was 33 at the time, had been involved in a bitter custody battle over their daughter, Willow. After Willow was born in July 2019, Beard filed for primary custody of the baby. "Andrew, he made more money than [Alyssa] … She was afraid that … he wanted Willow, and he was gonna get her," Burkett's younger sister Madison Grimes told Van Sant.
Finally, in the spring of 2020, things between Burkett and Beard seemed to calm down after they came to an agreement on visitation with Willow and child support. Beard had also started dating Holly Elkins, and Burkett's family said she was happy that Beard had found someone new.
But the peace between Beard and Burkett would be disrupted when he started demanding primary custody of Willow again. Burkett also couldn't shake this uneasy feeling that she was being watched, and she told her family that Beard always seemed to know where she was. "Every day you feel like you're having to watch over your shoulder ... That's how I felt she lived," Collard told "48 Hours."
Within hours of Burkett's murder, police pulled Beard over in his F-150 pickup truck with Elkins and Willow inside. Police seized his truck and told Beard and Elkins that they could leave, but they couldn't return home. Later that night, police searched Beard's home and found GPS tracker batteries and charging stations that matched a tracking device detectives discovered under Burkett's car earlier that day.
The next day, police searched Beard's F-150 pickup and uncovered two bottles of dark foundation — makeup investigators believed Beard used to disguise himself as a Black man on the morning of the murder. Later that night, police located that black Ford SUV the assailant drove to the scene. It was found abandoned less than a mile from Beard's house.
On Oct. 5, 2020, Beard surrendered at the Carrollton Police Department and was charged with murder. He spent two weeks behind bars before he was released on bond. Chevallier said he was worried about baby Willow's safety, so he reached out to the federal government to take the case under federal firearm laws.
Because an unregistered silencer was found during the search of Beard's home, the federal government agreed to take the case. Eight days after he bonded out, Beard was rearrested and ultimately charged with cyberstalking using a dangerous weapon resulting in death.
In June 2022, Beard pleaded guilty. One month later, he spoke with the FBI as part of a plea deal, and he had a lot to say — especially when it came to Elkins' role in the plot to kill Burkett. "… It was …'this is how you're gonna do this,' it was, '… you're gonna wear this dark makeup …' That was her plan … that's how it's gonna be done," Beard told the FBI.
Investigators soon realized that the Holly Elkins who told detectives, "I want to help, I really do. But I don't have any answers …" just four days after Burkett's murder, had given the performance of her life. "She was the one running the show … she was telling him what he was gonna do …" Chevallier told "48 Hours."
Investigators dug back into text messages between Elkins and Beard, which revealed Elkins' true feelings about Burkett. "She hated Alyssa with a burning passion," Harding told Van Sant.
One week before the murder, Elkins texted Beard while she was away on a trip in Mexico and wrote, "I hope you handle it I'm not coming home to b***s***." Beard responded, "That's my goal."
During his interview, Beard explained to investigators: "I just basically said, 'OK' and became submissive to whatever she wanted me to do, that's the task I did."
After speaking with Beard, the FBI spent about a year building a compelling case against Elkins. And in the eyes of the investigators, Elkins was just as culpable for Burkett's death as Beard. "I 100% believe that if Holly and Andrew had never met that Alyssa Burkett would be alive today," Harding told "48 Hours."
In May 2023, Beard was sentenced to 43 years in federal prison. Investigators believed Elkins thought the case was over. "I think she believed that the further she got away from this, the less involved she was gonna be," Chevallier said. "But it didn't work out for her."
Two months after Beard was sentenced, Elkins was arrested by federal agents at the Miami airport after returning from a trip to the Dominican Republic. She was charged with conspiracy to stalk and stalking using a dangerous weapon resulting in death. Elkins pleaded not guilty.
In April 2024, Elkins went on trial as a co-conspirator where one of the federal prosecutors put it like this: "Andrew Beard was a monster, but he was Holly Elkins' monster," Harding told "48 Hours." After a one-week trial, the case went to the jury. Jurors deliberated for about 90 minutes and returned a verdict of guilty on all counts. Three months later, she was sentenced to two life terms — much longer than Beard's sentence.