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Does anybody want breakfast? Guys, let's go. I'm leaving for McDonald's in five seconds.

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Why is that?

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The breakfast stampede meal. It's only at McDonald's where there's a meal for every morning and nothing says morning like a classic Sausage McMuffin with egg right.

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Now, get this all time favorite for just two bucks on the one, two, three dollar menu. Price participation may vary, cannot be combined with any other offer a combo meal, but up, up, up.

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A certain scale contains adult themes and violence and is not intended for all audiences. Listener discretion is advised.

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These fucking envious, greedy, rotten, no gratitude fucking cuts, they're everywhere. Hello and welcome to Season eight, Episode 178 of Sword and Scale, the show that reveals the worst monsters, a real. You ever get the feeling that someone was trying to copy your style, trying to act like you, I get a lot of that, you know, because we were the first true crime podcast basically that started this whole thing nine months before Syria, just so everyone knows, keep saying that.

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Nobody seems to remember that. So, yeah, I kind of I kind of get it when somebody is trying to steal your look, your NSA Khoi. But in all seriousness, there are some very sick people out there, some very, very sick people that take a small idea like this and expound on it within their highly mentally ill minds. The ramifications of that can be disastrous. And as you'll hear today, sometimes in these cases, no one, not even someone minding their own business to say.

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Brockport, New York, is a small village within the town of Sweden and Monroe County, unless you're from New York, you've probably never heard of it. But the town does have a few claims to fame. The town is home to the State University of New York at Brockport, affectionately known as SUNY Brockport. It's the hometown of two Major League Baseball players. It was also the hometown of two U.S. congressmen and professional actor Martin Ferrero, who is best known for being the lawyer in the 1993 classic Jurassic Park.

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You know, the one that hides from the T-Rex in the bathroom, only to be eaten right off the toilet. If you're not familiar with the iconic scene from Jurassic Park. He also starred in a 2011 college humor short, where he pokes fun at the fact that his character is only there to show how serious the situation is by dying among the village's many claims of modern notoriety. The town also has a healthy historical footprint. The main street is lined with a Victorian era historical buildings that bring a lot of tourism to the small village.

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With the Erie Canal running through the center of town. Brockport actually calls itself the Victorian village on the Erie Canal because of its commitment to keeping up the village's historical buildings. And the Erie Canal boardwalk not far from the center of town, is a more modern part of the village, the part with the tractor supply, the Wal-Mart Supercenter and the Lowe's Home Improvement Store. All the modern conveniences of life. On Friday, August twenty fifth twenty seventeen, Megan Dix, the credit coordinator at Lowe's, took her regular lunch break at around one p.m. She rarely ate lunch on the premises, and although she didn't live in Brockport, she did have a favorite spot just a little way down the road like she did most days.

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Megan would leave the parking lot and turn north onto Owens Road a short distance down this road. She would turn west on South Avenue, along the south sides of South Avenue. Power lines stretched out, accompanying a sidewalk into the distance. The north side of the street was lined with sparse forest not far down South Avenue was a small park. Well, it was called a park, really. It was really more of a small paved parking lot adjacent to a thicket of trees and a railroad that paralleled Brockport Creek, Michigan.

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Enjoyed going here and watching nature while she ate lunch. It was her little getaway from the hustle and bustle of her job. She liked to watch the wildlife, the deer especially, and that's her messages on a tablet. Like any other Friday, the sun would slowly sink behind the horizon and the streetlights would begin to flicker on. But on this particular Friday, Megan Dix never returned to work. Her co-workers didn't think anything of it because they knew she had a sick father in the hospital.

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They just assume that she got called away and the lows continued to operate without her. After her shift, she didn't return home either. As the early evening turned to night, Megan's husband, formally her high school sweetheart and now the father of their eight year old son, got worried and went to go look for when she wasn't at work and he couldn't get in contact with her. He decided to check her favorite spot just in case. Seven hours after she left work to eat a sandwich, Megan's husband found her still seated in her truck, still at that park.

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Tonight, Brockport police continue to search for the person who shot and killed a wife and mother. On Friday afternoon, Megan Dix was found in her pickup truck in a spot where she usually spent her lunch break.

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Thirty one year old wife and mother of an eight year old son, Megan Dix, was murdered. Her body was slumped in the driver's seat of her pickup for seven hours before her husband finally found her all at once. At about eight p.m., nine one one was flooded with multiple calls. Brockport rarely had homicides. In fact, there were only three murders in the decade preceding Megan's death. How in that same decade, from 07 to twenty seventeen, the town had more arson cases than homicide cases.

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Six more, to be exact.

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Needless to say, everyone was stunned, not just because historically there were so few homicides, but because of who was killed.

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I mean, just as a great person, which I think is why it's just so impactful that something like this happened to someone. Just this is great. She was the store manager at Lowe's, recognized Megan's unique kindness, but not more than her family did. Megan came from a family of six older brothers. Donny Duncanson, one of her older brothers, would miss his sister.

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Deeply good person, you know, honest, caring, loving, dedicated mother, wife. It doesn't happen to us. There's no shootings, you know, and even in Brockport, there's no shootings, you know, so it's just crazy. She's always happy, you know, I don't get it. And all three times she had grown her hair out for Locks of love. She did, she volunteered for like marathons and raisers.

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Nobody would miss Megan more than her eight year old son, C.J. is hurtin like we all are, but eight years old and our first day of school in a week.

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And if you get to go there at his mother's and take them, you know, this wasn't the kind of thing that happened in their town. There were never shootings, let alone the victim being an innocent mother, just eating her lunch. The residents of Brockport and the authorities were completely lost on what to do or why this happened. Obviously, the authorities had their protocols to follow, but the typical protocols were leading them down dead ends. Megan had no enemies, no secret that got her killed.

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She was nice to everyone. She came in contact with, some might say too nice. And she went out of her way to help the less fortunate by donating hair to locks of love and volunteering for any marathon or fundraiser supporting a worthy cause. Authorities were left wondering. Who would want to kill this woman? The Brockport P.D. held a press conference on August twenty fifth at about 1:00 p.m., an employee of Lowe's Home Department store left for what was normally a routine lunch break at about 8:00 p.m. last night, based upon numerous calls to 911 when it was reported that an individual later identified as this employee was deceased in her vehicle and subsequently was found to be the victim of a what appears to be a single shot gunshot wound to the head.

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The individual that was found to be deceased was subsequently identified as Megan Dix. Understand that this is a very early on. We are still very much in a preliminary investigative stages of this investigation.

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Does there appear to be any motive? None at this time. I won't even begin to speculate on motive or suspects. We have a lot of trouble spots in this park here. Is this kind of a kind of an anomaly for, you know, it's such an anomaly. It's it's a very quiet area, but it is remote, which is why we're asking and we know for a fact that there were other vehicles parked in there throughout the day. So it is common that people go there, whether they're going to walk the trails, take pictures, photographs, et cetera.

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And again, just because they are there doesn't mean they were involved in any way, shape or form. But it is remote. It is quiet. And that's why we're asking for the public's help to be able to provide us with any information that they may not themselves understand is valuable. But we may believe it's valuable after we've talked with them.

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The authorities asked for the public's help, but what the press conference was really saying was that they didn't have a clue who shot Megan or why it was shaping up to be random.

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And random murders are the hardest to solve because there's no link between the killer and the victim. As the weekend wore on and the Sun eventually set on Sunday and rose on Monday, they were still no closer to solving the murder of Megan Dix. That was a strange weekend for the BPD and surrounding law enforcement. In addition to the murder, there was a lot of unusual stuff going on. There was a rash of vandalism at various places across the area, a church, a basketball court, an exit ramp from Interstate 490 under a bridge, and at the fast food restaurant Tim Hortons, just to name a few places that were covered in graffiti.

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Oh, and all the tires on every car for the cleaning service Molly made were found slashed. There was a myriad of seemingly unconnected crimes occurring all over the county by Monday evening. It had been nearly 72 hours since the investigation began when the Monroe County Sheriff's Department got a call in nearby Henryetta. Somebody was going to actually go to work. She encountered her, walked up to her. It was a brief conversation and she wanted a weapon at her and then took off on foot.

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And she was located a short time later. Was that a robbery? No, there was nothing taken. There was nothing said other than a conversation. There's no threats.

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At a restaurant juke joint called Sticky Lips Barbecue, a waitress said that a random woman who was pacing and talking on a cell phone in the back parking lot became verbally aggressive and pointed a gun at her face. Naturally, the waitress unleashed the most unnatural scream that was so loud that the patrons inside the restaurant heard it. After she screamed, the woman with the gun ran away. Deputies showed up a short time later, but it would be more than two hours before they would locate the culprit.

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But shortly after 5:00 yesterday, deputies responded to Sticky Lips barbecue and waited for the report of an employee who had a gun to her head, a female suspect in the parking lot. The suspect was located in a hallway at the Holiday Inn on Jefferson Road. After a brief struggle, the suspect was taken into custody right next door to sticky lips in the hallway of a Holiday Inn and suites. The deputies arrested the woman with the gun, Holly M. Colleano.

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We were able to announce the arrest of Holly Marie Colleano. Date of birth of 12 eight nineteen eighty five of Arizona Colleano has been charged with murder in the second degree Class one felony and criminal possession of a weapon in the second degree class felony in Holly's possession, where three guns all legally purchased in Arizona in a room.

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She had a 38 caliber Taurus. Eighty five ultralight revolver ultralight refers to its aluminum and titanium construction, making it small, light and concealable. Also in her room was a 223 Remington semi-automatic rifle, not unlike any rifle used in pretty much any mass shooting in recent years. On her person, she had a black thirty eight caliber diamond brand semiautomatic pistol that measured less than four inches tall and five point five inches long and is marketed as a micro compact small enough to fit in your pocket.

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Needless to say, if Holly wanted, she could have wreaked a lot more havoc. Now in custody, deputies took her to a nearby substation for booking. That's when things got a little more interesting while in handcuffs inside Sheriff Substation Zone B, Holly slipped her cuffs and escaped exiting the building before anyone knew she was gone.

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She had broken away from the cuffs and and exited the building. And obviously that's concerning to us that she could, you know, get me on one of our protocols and processes that we have in place. She was brought back into custody within about two hours and as I said, never left more than a hundred yards from the actual substation.

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A manhunt was launched and even a helicopter took to the air to try to locate the yet to be booked escapee, even though the sheriff said she never made it more than 100 yards. She actually made it a lot further than that. They eventually caught up with her behind a nearby Wendy's. If Google Maps is to be trusted, Wendy's is nearly three hundred yards away from the substation in a straight line. Even so, it took deputies more than two hours to find her.

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But what's really interesting about Holly only came to light after she was captured a second time, taken back to the substation, booked and then questioned. We asked for citizens to report any suspicious behavior to law enforcement as a result of numerous leads. And the efforts of all those that stand behind us today and many others, there were upwards of 20, 30, 40 people working on this case, many of which were resources that were provided by the sheriff.

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Sheriff's investigators working closely with Brockport police officers were able to link an arrest that occurred in the town of Henryetta last night to the suspect that was charged with Mrs. Dix murder. If it weren't for the fact that we knew we were looking potentially for a specific vehicle and then a specific type of weapon was used, I don't know if we would have been able to add all this up as fast and as quickly as we did.

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A post arrest press conference claimed that with the help of the public, the authorities had narrowed. The suspect pulled down to ones that drove a specific car and had a specific gun.

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They credited inter-agency communication and cooperation for solving Megan Dix's murder. But really, it was just happenstance that Holly was arrested the following Monday in a neighboring town.

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But when she was in her car and firearm were taken into consideration, police felt they had the right person in custody. When Holly was asked about the death of Megan Dix, she confessed it.

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As far as the suspect, she gave no reason for why that situation occurred. She met the individual and within seconds of meeting her, ended up discharging a weapon to her Mrs. Dix.

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Was not involved in any criminal activity whatsoever, she merely left LOEs went to a place she commonly went to for the purposes of peace and quiet and to eat her lunch while she enjoyed a 30 minute break as a result of just that alone. She was the victim of this murder, just like the sheriff said could that could have been any one of you, me, our family members. She played absolutely no role other than being at the wrong place at the wrong time and countering the suspect.

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In fact, she did everything a good citizen, a good wife and a good mother should do. And unfortunately, because of being at the wrong place at the wrong time and because of the sole act of one individual with absolutely no good reason became the victim of the murder.

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We are speaking of today, as the chief said, this really could have been anyone and there's no previous connection at all between the victim and the suspect.

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Is there any reason to believe she may have mental health issues?

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She's she was lucid with us and, you know, spoken and admitted to the crime.

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She also knew what she did was wrong and she was able to provide details of the situation that nobody else would have known other than the person that was involved themselves.

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According to the press conference, citing interviews with Holly, she didn't know Megan.

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They had never met. But that day she walked up to her, got her attention and then shot her dead. And after ending an innocent woman's life, she just went back to living hers. The authorities said there was no motive. They said it was random, but there was a reason Holly did what she did. It just wasn't a very good one. And that reason. Well, did you notice the long, awkward pause before they answered the mental health question?

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Stay tuned. Holly Marie Colleano was arrested three days after she murdered Megan Dix, a lucky turn of events by otherwise stumped law enforcement. She was being arrested for an unrelated crime when authorities put the evidence together and realized they had their killer well being led to court for her arraignment. Holly was the picture of a troubled woman. Her hair was loosely tied back, but apparently unkempt and greasy. Her bald eyebrows shadowed her sad, sunken eyes. Her expression was that of pure confusion.

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If you commit this murder. No, I did not stop. If you saw a random person with her expression, you might ask them if they were lost. Yet this was Holly's default expression.

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Walking up to the courthouse, she looked around like she didn't know where she was or where she was going.

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The sheriff's department provided Holly with a red jumpsuit and a bulletproof vest that draped over her thin frame.

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She looked unhealthy, like she hadn't eaten in days. She was so thin, in fact, that you could see the outline of every tendon in her neck. Her thinness was also the reason she was able to slip the cuffs. After her initial arrest outside the courthouse, Megan's brother expressed his bewildering sorrow.

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It feels so surreal. And then to find out it, she must have walked up to her and said, hide or something. Or Megan would just like hi back. And then she pulls out a gun and shoots her. Didn't take anything. It doesn't make sense. I just want to grab her and ask her why. You know, I don't get it. I don't know. I don't understand. I don't know if they I don't think anybody understands.

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I don't know what else to say. Just seems like a bad nightmare. You can't wake up.

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In her early life, Holly was described as being a good student and very active in extracurricular activities at school. She was the freshman class president and played a lot of sports to a childhood friend.

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Would say that the reason Holly joined the track team, field hockey team, basketball team and even the J.V. football team was because she didn't want to go home. When this friend heard of Holly's arrest, she had this to say. And my heart just sank. I was like, there's there's no way there's no way she could have done this. And then when I saw her being led into court, I was shocked. It didn't look anything like her.

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And she just really looked lost. She looked like somebody who's been through more than they have to and didn't have anybody there for them. There were things that aren't necessarily my business to tell, and it's not my story. But before people say that your upbringing doesn't cause this, it definitely can.

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Holly's mother left the family when she and her brother Jason were very young, leaving their father to raise them by himself. My dad did the best he could raise enough. He was a single father. He put food on the table. That's a given.

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Their father tried his best, but he was gone a lot, working to provide for his kids. Her home life as a child was less than desirable, but by no means horrible.

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A childhood neighbor that knew the Colleano said that she was a bright kid that used to babysit her children.

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If you help them read, she said, they were done very night. That is, until Holly it was about fifteen or sixteen. That's when everything changed. Her brother Jason got into a fight with their father and was kicked out of the house.

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Holly left to out of resentment for her father when she got thrown out of the house. I think she had a little breakdown, you know. I mean, her father packed her bags and told them both of the kids to leave. So at sixteen, where are you going to go after that?

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Holly and Jason relied on each other for years trying to navigate through life as just a bunch of kids.

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These early obstacles would forever scar her. Holly dropped out of high school, but later got her GED. By twenty five.

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She had enrolled in Monroe Community College on a scholarship, but she would later drop out of that school, too, after her sophomore year.

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It's unclear what she did for the years between 07 and 2010 when she joined the Army Reserves, but that was short lived.

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Also, she joined in June 2010 and was out by April of 2011.

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During her time in the Reserves, she started a blog titled Divine Justice. Divine Love. It seems to be essays and philosophical musings bordering on a scientific research paper, even offering up case studies supporting her opinion in her first post from December 21st, 2010, titled Why Is Pain an Opportunity for Harmony? She seems to be working through some emotional pain herself when she posits that the pain we carry with us influences what we attract and that recognizing the pain is the only way to release it.

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OK, makes sense to some degree. Some of her thoughts seem slightly insightful, like life is not easy and we are meant to experience challenges. It's how we come out of those challenges and how we handle them that will give us the gifts of strength. I mean, she's no Dalai Lama, but these are. Pretty universal truths that a lot of people understand, however, sometimes her writing transitions into hard to follow concepts, scattered thoughts and talk of resonating frequencies and.

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Well, this we must put our intent of higher thinking and understanding to the wounded area and recognize that that area was weak and deserved the pain so it could evolve and attain fruition. That emotional area was underdeveloped and was not working and ways to manifest its maximum capacity to endure those divine sensations and feelings we desire. It is in our best interest to flow energy of compassion to others that influence our emotional stature by sending them visions and messages of higher frequency along with compassion.

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We can help heal the severance we endured from the part in the given lesson applied to us.

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What it starts to sound a little like a Deepak Chopra speech, or perhaps something that Ezekiel Zayas from plus episode 72 wrote. It's clear that Holly is delving into her own pain, though, through these nonsensical posts in her final entry dated January 4th, 2011, titled Abandonment How Can It Cause Victimization?

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She's clearly working through her own sense of abandonment by her mother and then later her father.

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You know, she never had a mother love her and Holder. She has a lot of resentment built up towards that and towards even like my fiancee because of that.

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When Jason started to build his own life and proposed to his girlfriend, Holly again felt abandoned as close as they were for years, they quickly drifted apart.

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By the fall of 2011, she was back in college, enrolled at SUNY Brockport. But by this point, she was already a drastically different person than she had been six years previous.

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At AMCC during her sophomore year in 2012, she interrupted a lecture in front of an audience.

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First of all, I came to an understanding that the gospel of Jesus was about a lot more than just being a good nun, praying for people, being charitable. And here's Holly with a lot of humanity.

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Just if you have one lady, who are you?

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My name's Hollywood Queen. All right. Thank you, Madam Justice. And I can no longer listen to like, just tell me one last cent of all.

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You have lied about the gospel of Jesus. But what here has studied the Bible in a secular manner? As a scholar who here has known about the fabrication, the Roman Catholic Inquisition who was murdered? Three thousand. I never faced a situation like this before.

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This was a boring lecture by a nun. But then Holly spiced it up a bit.

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The cameraman recording the lecture zoomed out to include Holly pacing at the front of the stage, yelling at the nun and addressing the audience directly. Soon, school officials of some sort came to try to coax her out of the room. You are wrong.

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I am probably. You know, I've been a volunteer pastor as a certified intuitive counselor. I also had an opportunity to counsel convicts and experience told me, see that? Bring up that. No, I think this is the right no. You are speaking about this in a statement and a devotional man to God. We have a constitution that would separate the church in this case. Yes. I'm sorry. I cannot allow you to do something so profound.

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I've seen solicitation of Roman Catholicism posted on a billboards. You do not know this is wrong. This is unjust. This is a good story. Just let me read that. How do you read this about the realities of what these criminals say that, you know, if you don't want the trouble, you want the truth. Right.

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This is one police show up to escort her out of the auditorium.

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This is not right, Holly. I'm sorry to say all the realities of criminal justice, Holly. Right. For the love of humanity and justice, get the facts, let's get the facts credible. Why, yes, you know, I thought you were somebody from the drama department.

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Out of respect for somebody who feels that deeply about truth, not being told to stand up in a group like this, you know, to have respect for her, truly, I'm sorry it ended that way. And true none fashion.

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After cracking an accidental joke, she praised Holly for being so passionate about her beliefs.

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This is the typical reaction these days to severe mental illness. When it's exhibiting itself in public, we tend to brush it off, pretend like it's not there, and hope somebody deals with it at some point. Of course, that rarely happens. Holly would later be expelled from SUNY Brockport for this interruption during her short time there. However, she called the police five times, claiming harassment. None of these claims were ever substantiated between her time at SUNY in twenty twelve and a one year and five month job beginning in January of twenty fourteen.

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As an unarmed security guard at O'Callaghan's pub in nearby Rochester, we couldn't find any trace of Holly.

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We did, however, find someone who knew Holly somewhat professionally. Sherief Royal is a music producer that lives in Rochester, New York. He's been producing music for years.

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You may have heard some of his stuff, specifically a song that made it onto the soundtrack for the nineteen ninety eight film Blade.

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Remember that movie? Wesley Snipes is a vampire hunter. Well, he had a song on the soundtrack called Things Ain't the Same. All right, so what's going on?

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This is a reflow. Yeah, this is how I met Holly Colleano.

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He met her by chance through another producer he was working with.

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She was dating Jake Pritch. And this casual just one day, you know, came through and they were an item. And then like any couple, he played her the music. And she would tell me, yo, I really I really liked your music. And so we would just have our little private conversations about ideas that I had to get her incorporated in some way because we was always looking for a girl musician, oh girl singer to sing some of the songs.

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When we asked Real if Holly was any good, he had this to say.

[00:34:21]

It's not about being a good singer. It just was more like, you know, she just seemed like a music lover and that she was no Whitney Houston, but she she was going to be good enough to use the same. We got a girl on a song. So I think what her was like, she had a really distinct voice and a particular look. Right. So I'm like with a little makeup, she can turn into one of the most beautiful women out there you want in tone wise.

[00:34:53]

She had this great texture to our speaking voice where I personally was like, you probably will make an amazing actress. You got what I'm saying? So I'm my encouragement was like, yo, you going to do this video? You're going to be the detective. So I was like, really trying to get her towards. Being a detective in a video and or like a short film type of thing, real like to collaborate, and he had an inspirational effect on those he let around him.

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Holly was really inspired.

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She was young, attractive and had discovered a passion for the music industry, the song Anything was the first song that I demo with her boyfriend, a prince, and that song like. Was the song that I was also looking for a girl or somebody else, so she said, you know what, Jane played the song for me. Do you mind if I do it? I said, OK, whatever, just go ahead and do it right. I'm thinking nothing of it.

[00:36:01]

Like because I'm like when Usenko out of whatever everybody want to do it just take a shot. So she did it. She was like, this is going to be the song that she was going to take to number one. And so that became the driving force for everything.

[00:36:19]

She looks kind of like a plain Jane version of Fiona Apple, to give you an idea. Also, her unique raspy voice was a plus. Holly was in she saw herself going the distance in the music industry, she thought that her contribution to the single song was going to make her a star. Then as quickly as it began, her relationship with J. Pritch started to dissolve for whatever reasons, couples breakup.

[00:36:51]

Right. So they're going through whatever they're going through. So whatever was happening with them was evident to me. So she would stay in contact with me just to talk like just this day. Inspire with music.

[00:37:04]

Holly and Real stayed in touch after her breakup with J. Pritch and Holly continued to work on the song anything, even making a short music video for it.

[00:37:14]

But she would contact me asking, could she post the song still like, Yo, listen, that song I made a video of it. Do you mind if I post it? Post it up there, go ahead, rock with it. But then she would send videos of her like. Put another words together, like instead of her singing, you know, melodic little tones, she was more like she was going to be a lyricist.

[00:37:42]

Holly's passion for music was growing and with it her ambition, she started to write, sing, make music videos and now rap.

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She was making more and more musical content that she would share with real until she finally sent one particular video that he was interested in.

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To me, it was funny, like she did something or said something funny or something like that. She said, I said, yo, this is content. This is like like I can make this go viral, you know? So I'm like I could make this go viral if you let me post it right. And she said, nah, I don't post it.

[00:38:20]

My interest for listening to anything she did after that was done because I'm like, what can I do with it if you're not going to allow me to help you during all this time, developing a friendship with real Hollywood getting kicked out of Sunni college, she was meeting, dating and breaking up with Jay Pritch and she was working as a security guard at an Irish pub. Then almost suddenly, she asked for some time off from her job and never returned.

[00:38:50]

Eventually, she moved to Arizona in the latter part of twenty fifteen. A couple of years would pass. While Holly was living in Arizona, she would stay with a few different cousins while trying to work as an unarmed security guard for Eagle for security.

[00:39:05]

She kept having to move from home to home because of her actions towards the women she shared homes with. Once she lived with one younger female cousin and her uncle, her little cousin used to look up to her. She was her favorite cousin until she started seeing some unusual and concerning things. General conversations with Holly would often become discussions about all the people she felt wronged her in her life.

[00:39:33]

When Holly began to accuse her of being obsessive with various things a high school aged female might be interested in, like her hair and makeup. That was the last straw. Holly's uncle asked her to leave. She moved on to another family member, kind enough to let her live with him. His cousin also asked Holly to find somewhere else to live after her attitude became threatening to his girlfriend. The word hater was even keyed into the side of his girlfriend's car, a word that Holly would often say in her now more frequent rants about how people, most often women, were trying to steal her identity.

[00:40:17]

It's hard to ask a family member to leave when you know they have nowhere else to go. But when it is a matter of your own safety, it makes the decision much easier to make. After Holly was gone, her relatives were left with the realization that she was spiraling emotionally. Holly would end up living in her car and later being fired from her security job for her bizarre behavior.

[00:40:44]

What Josh is telling me is totally OK. What would you tell? He's telling me that you've been sitting in of that you were inside telling them they can play music because it was illegal, it was a misdemeanor extortion. And if you were outside. Shame on you.

[00:41:02]

It's I'm glad you told me. I'm letting you know you're on film because I've been recording all my activity. So that's all the light. Thank you.

[00:41:10]

Well, first of all, why is that your business?

[00:41:13]

It's based on everything I've heard from Josh, based on the call he made to Gabe, based on our conversation that I just had with you a moment ago, what I'm going to tell you right now, that is actually Holly, in that last clip in twenty seventeen, she had begun to document much of her life and posted to YouTube.

[00:41:31]

The only thing is that most of her life consisted of her constantly accusing random people she encountered for various crimes centering around stealing her identity and what she called extortion. Extortion, of course, is the act of obtaining something valuable through force or threats.

[00:41:51]

Holly is using the term incorrectly. I started to acknowledge that the general population of women have a dissociative identity problem. So there actually is something in the DSM dissociative identity disorder and that's actually something that's legit because it's clinical. Dissociative identity disorder can be clinically measured. Botox, chemicals, hair dye, chemicals, and just the fact that they're trying to conceive an image that they do not have. No, ladies and gentlemen, and I'm talking to you, sickness, envy and jealousy.

[00:42:29]

Expression is not image. Expression is body length. In communication, it's not image, OK, it's the act. So what these women are doing, their act is stealing my identity. It's identity theft. These women are mentally unstable and they're actually insane. They are clinically insane. They are a liar. They are a fake. They are a hypocrite. They are a walking lie. They have chosen to criminally extort money and use my large lips, my dark, thick, black eyebrows in my hair for commercial profit and other commercial purposes.

[00:43:07]

That was one of the more tame videos of Holly and others. She accosts random people in a convenience store, kind of like the videos of targeted individuals, which we've covered on this show before.

[00:43:21]

The hair dye. Your hair. Yeah, yeah.

[00:43:23]

OK, we got an envious Canadian jealousy identity thief, another one identity thief. Identity thief. She's not she's not even aware of her offense.

[00:43:33]

Ma'am, you need to stop taking my identity and stop copycatting.

[00:43:36]

Keep in mind, all the clips of Holly so far are from one video. Each YouTube post was a mash up of many short videos that she crudely strung together into a hard to follow nonstop rant about women.

[00:43:51]

In the next clip, she yells across lanes of speeding traffic at a car full of girls firing this dissociative identity disorder.

[00:44:01]

Mental instability. You're liars and your fakers and your hypocrites. Mentally unstable, mentally unstable, mentally unstable, dissociative. I look at her on this dissociative identity disorder, this dissociative identity disorder.

[00:44:18]

They come together in gangs. They're never alone. They're not mental fortitude like me.

[00:44:22]

In another portion of the video, she nearly starts a fight with some kids on skateboards. Yeah, what was that? He flashed some red light on me. Little coward on a skateboard. 19TH in northern approximate one little after eight o'clock.

[00:44:39]

No, you shut the fuck up, mother fucker, you bitch. Look at that piece of mother fucker. He's. Oh, yeah. Really? That's it. Go ahead. All you want to run away, like Holly cuts the video there, so we don't know exactly what happened after the standoff. Did you hear the car horn honk, it was because one of the skaters pretended to throw his skateboard at her, laughing at her for flinching, Holly's paranoia is almost entirely focused on women in her mind.

[00:45:20]

Women have copied her and what she was born with, long, straight hair with highlights, thick, dark eyebrows and full lips. Any woman anywhere becomes the target of her frustration, and her frustration was growing to extraordinary levels.

[00:45:38]

Everywhere I turn, it's a mirage of me, somebody imitating me.

[00:45:43]

Everywhere I turn around, she came over right up to my vehicle and just asked for something to back. Yeah, I mean, it's almost like she said it, like she was just doing it to harass me. So I start filming them too and getting the license plates. She's resting the second. She doesn't realize I have a license and legal to kill now. So it needs to be known. All of these women that I envy want me to kill them.

[00:46:05]

I just pulled in.

[00:46:05]

There's two of them. You see the one in the pink. She's faking my blonde in Carmel. Yeah. And there's some dark brown in there, too. It's anywhere I go, all of them. They've all robbed my life, my person, my identity. They robbed my image. Every one of them. Every one of them in the media, every one of them. Everywhere I go, they took me. I see Holly Colleano, she's got two other followers who she's enticed with get it wrong to want to see corporate evil speak on her behalf, and why is it that they and she can lie constantly?

[00:46:48]

There are working like they're a fake. And you gave them credit, status and acknowledgement for something they do not have. They are not and do not deserve and did that.

[00:47:06]

You don't apply the law to one. You don't apply to anybody. So I'm very suspicious that he give credit an acknowledgement to the woman that envies me. I see Holly and it out.

[00:47:18]

Along with her YouTube channel, Holly compiled her evidence of people extorting her image and yet another blog. This blog is even more difficult to understand with Holly's extreme use of commas. She talks about her cousin kicking her out, blaming him for charging her rent when he didn't charge his girlfriend.

[00:47:41]

She also claims to have started investigations into many celebrities for involvement in extorting her image. She mentions Eminem, Ariana Grande Day, Dr. Dre, Beyonce, Justin Bieber, Tupac, Mariah Carey, Britney Spears and Madonna. This next excerpt is from her blog Investigating Madonna. It's very common as they took my personality and thereby which I received telepathic and clairvoyant messages from envy. And these messages threaten my life, burn my flesh and heart, restrict my will and choice.

[00:48:21]

And they disturb me. I sing and rap. Hence, I also regularly receive telepathic clairvoyant messages coming from the N.V. through the envious jealousy of criminal impersonators.

[00:48:34]

I know that doesn't make much sense at all, but that was after I paraphrased her original writing. It originally read its karma, very karma, karma, karma as karma, the karma to Karma, My Semicolon, Holly M. Colleano semicolon person. Well, I won't bore you with the rest of it, but you get it. It's unintelligible gibberish. But in her ramblings, she also mentioned Jay Pritch, who she refers to as J-P, she was still doing videos.

[00:49:09]

I was in watching the videos because she said don't use them, Jay Pritch will watch and he would tell me about it. And I was like, I really I don't care. I understand that if they were in a relationship, of course, you know you know, you probably still watching the girl. You don't saying like, that was my girl, but he was telling me like he wasn't watching because of that. He was telling me he was watching because she was changing.

[00:49:38]

And I was like, I don't know. I was like, she seems the same to me.

[00:49:43]

Real hadn't been watching Holly's recent videos, but Jay Pritch had and he noticed something worrisome. What he saw was Holly acting crazy.

[00:49:55]

Insane, in fact, some people these days think that's an insult, it's a description, heck, anyone that stumbled upon her channel would have come to the same conclusion.

[00:50:08]

But when I watched the video, he saw them in a different context, remember the song anything and the music video he wanted to shoot with Holly, I told her, this is the road you're going to play. You're going to play this woman detective. You're going to get everything squared away. You know, she's like she's going to play this role. When he showed me the videos, she was playing the role of detective, she was figuring things out and she was analyzing it.

[00:50:41]

She had a pad and she was writing things down. So I'm just like paying attention. But like, come on, man, what are you watching this for?

[00:50:50]

I'm going to try to make this very brief. And then in person, you know, it can be discussed in detail. OK, number one, I was around a stone building on a property and I detected or sensed murder. I'm very psychic. Documented criminal activity documenting criminal activity.

[00:51:08]

Nitpicker Patty pulls wrong's out of nothing except a willful neglect and a willful ignorance while initiating whitefly in the nowy try to entice one into an FBI because I can kill him. That's why he's lucky I'm building my case.

[00:51:21]

Records, wages, documents, emails, text calls. Feld's, you're stealing my bank statements. You're stealing my US direct mail.

[00:51:31]

Royal didn't see what Jay Pritch saw. It's hard to understand how anyone could not see the rampant mental illness in this woman, but he saw Holly as playing the role of a detective like they had discussed multiple times before during their long conversations about the industry. As for the more bizarre claims of people stealing her identity, it reminded RIL of other conversations he had with Holly that reminded him of a lawsuit he filed for brand infringement some time previously, a lawsuit that he often discussed with Holly.

[00:52:06]

These people were trying to take my look. They're trying to think she was kind of like echoing things that conversations that we had. But just doing it like, you know, with me out of the picture, like now this is my life. Like they're copying off of me. They're trying to be me. Look at me, this and that. But watching the videos to me was just watching her normal. So it wasn't like it was a big contrast to who I seen to the woman that I first met.

[00:52:36]

While I didn't see at all what Jay Pritch was worried about, he just saw an old friend playing the role of a detective. And quite hilariously at that, apparently what's obvious to most of us wasn't obvious to him. Like I've said before, common sense isn't all that common. All of Holly's videos and blog posts were made in the three months preceding the murder of Megan Dix, seemingly documenting her return to the Brockport area in the days following the murder of Megan Dix and the arrest of Holly Riau was on his way back from a trip to New York City.

[00:53:16]

As I'm on my way back and tell me, I get a text message. Watch out for Holly. What do you mean watch out for like me and Holly's cool like me, but why are you still watching Holly and leave her alone? No, man, something is different. Watch out for Holly DePrince had already moved out of the old neighborhood where she used to live, but Real was still there, he wasn't worried as Holly had never been to his house, not that he was really concerned about her videos in the first place.

[00:53:49]

But then I get a text. Holly killed somebody. Like what? Get out of here. I'm like, I don't believe that's when Real did a quick dive online. Remember that rash of vandalism around the county and nobody connected that Dink's murder to anything. It didn't it didn't make any sense to anyone. Everybody was trying to figure out who was this Vandar or who was this person that killed the woman. It was two different stories. Holly was also the vandal in various places around the county.

[00:54:27]

Holly had spray painted messages to the public at large. At the church, she tagged the walls with the words people hated, envied H.M.S. The church just so happened to be the one she attended in her youth at some basketball courts, she wrote, Fuck off you girls who envy Holly M. Colleano on the exit ramp. She painted on her Holly M Colleano at the Tim Hortons. She wrote on her Holly M Colleano Kill Women. And under the Erie Canal Bridge, she wrote a poorly planned message that read something like this man, watch out.

[00:55:10]

Cops involved kill women. Identity thieves honor Holly Colleano can kill. Right? Truly, she even tagged the wall outside of Sticky Lips, which actually called out Jay Pritch. It read Jay Pritch extorted Holly m colleano cops to stupid to jealous. Female cops imitate Holly's image too. She even went to purchase former work and vandalized a truck with bags. Girls, women, envy, imitate, honor Holly M. Colleano. In another location, she wrote simply women that imitate Holly M.

[00:55:53]

. Carlinhos Image are sex offenders. But the graffiti didn't start there. Outside her cousin's apartment in Arizona, she spray painted the pavement by the dumpster. Fuck off you girls who envy Holly Colleano. Oh, and all the tires slashed on the Molly Maids cars. That was Holly, too. She worked there for three and a half days. Four years previous, she was making the rounds, tagging all her old stomping grounds. Clearly, she had some unresolved issues with literally everyone she'd ever come in contact with stemming from her abandonment issues during her youth.

[00:56:36]

But one recurring word in Holly's vandalism honor meant something different to real to him. It was the name of the music video that Holly made to accompany the song. Anything Real now believe that Holly did what was alleged. But two questions still crossed his mind. Could Holly be playing? The character they had discussed was her rash of vandalism, some sort of brilliant, elaborate guerilla marketing for the song and video that nobody would ever see? Or did she really believe what she was saying?

[00:57:14]

Holly's cousin in Arizona called her brother Jason because the behavior he witnessed from Holly was concerning. He wanted to get the family together to try to help Holly help herself. In that phone call, her cousin was informed of Holly's crime. It was already too late. Well, she refuses to go in and seek help. I tried to talk to her. She wouldn't listen to me. It's a good thing you guys got her because you're telling me she had two guns.

[00:57:43]

And, you know, I really felt this kind of deep down inside of me like something bad was going to happen. She thinks women are imitating her. I really hope that, you know, Holly gets help she needs. And, you know, I pray for the other family at their loss. It's awful. You know, I think about that every night. It was too late to get Holly help. Her illness had already taken control of her life, making her see enemies everywhere.

[00:58:13]

Maybe she was in Brockport to take revenge on Jay Pritch, but instead she enacted her unwarranted vengeance on a random, innocent mother in her truck eating a sandwich. Holly Colleano was arrested for pointing a gun at a random woman's head, then she escaped, sparking a two hour manhunt.

[00:58:58]

After her recapture, she confessed to the random murder of Megan Dix three days before.

[00:59:03]

Not to mention the spree of vandalism across the county. She was arraigned 17 days after that while being led into the courthouse for arraignment.

[00:59:12]

She was asked by reporters if she killed Megan Dix and she denied it during the part of the arraignment where the defendant usually makes a plea of either guilty or not guilty. Her lawyer did something unusual.

[00:59:28]

No one in custody. Holly Kaleena. Yes, Your Honor. May clean up. You're brought here by Monroe County indictment number eight 17, charging you with one count of murder in the second degree and two counts of criminal possession of a weapon in the second degree alleged to have occurred on or about August. Twenty fifth twenty seventeen in the county, Monroe, as well as additional counts of criminal possession of a weapon in the second degree, three counts, criminal possession of a weapon and third degree escape and the second degree and menacing in the second degree alleged to have occurred on August twenty eighth.

[01:00:03]

Twenty seventeen here in the county of Monroe. At this time, do we have a further reading and enter a plea? Judge At this time we would waive a further reading of the indictment in regard to the plea. At this time, we do not intend to enter a plea. However, if the court is intending to proceed at this time, we'd ask that the court enter a plea of not guilty on our behalf.

[01:00:25]

Holly reserved her right to not enter a plea.

[01:00:28]

Instead, the defense asked the judge to enter a plea on her behalf or certain determinations that are reserved for the defendant to make, not for counsel. And a determination of entering a plea is something that the defendant has to be able to do. And this is a case it's going to involve a certain evaluation and certain analysis that's going to determine whether it's appropriate for her to do that. And so at this stage in the proceeding, we reserved on that and ask the court to enter the plea simply because we want to make sure that due diligence is done to make full determination on what's appropriate.

[01:01:02]

Her mental state will certainly be something that's under consideration as the case proceeds.

[01:01:07]

Well, I think one of the unique things from the public perspective is because there was so much information provided in regard to what may have been going on with her beforehand. There's a unique level of interest, but there's also a unique reservation of judgment in this case. I think people realize that there may have been things that she was dealing with that separates her and distinguishes her from other individuals in this situation. And that's one of the things that's going to be analyzed as we go forward.

[01:01:33]

It was clear to everyone involved that Holly just wasn't capable of making such an important decision on her own.

[01:01:40]

Less than two weeks later, in another hearing, the defense requested a mental health evaluation to see if Holly was competent enough to even understand the charges against her. In court, Holly argued that she was a mental health advocate and knows how to represent herself in court and that she would refuse pills or confinement. After the decision, Holly's brother Duncan expressed his dismay.

[01:02:07]

He'd like to see her put in a cage and thrown away forever, you know, but they got to go through the proceedings. She knew what was going to they were going to plead insanity. It it'll play out. Hopefully it'll play out. Right. You know, instead of getting off on a technicality, you've got to be crazy to do what she did anyway. But in my philosophy, there's she showed up or she was expelled from college ten years before a day before college started because she was the figure.

[01:02:39]

She was in town for three days. She took out a random person, which was Megan. She went sticky lips. Afterwards, she wrote her graffiti, jumped around town. She leaves Brockport. She goes to Henrietta on her way back out, tried to try to kill that poor girl, that sticky lips. And that's what got her. She would have done that. She would just kept on going back there, Arizona, and she would have been away for free, you know.

[01:03:04]

So I was praying for the justice system, thinking of the kindness of Megan.

[01:03:11]

The Dick's family knew the kind of justice she would want.

[01:03:15]

She gets the help she needs and she goes to prison for life with no possibility of parole. So she can never do this again. You know, for Megan's case, Megan is way better person. I would hope that she would want to see her get help, go through the channels.

[01:03:33]

Both the defense and prosecution had experts evaluate Holly. Both came to the same conclusion. Holly was suffering from schizoaffective disorder with bipolar symptoms, all they had to do to come to that conclusion.

[01:03:48]

And was to look at her blog, YouTube channel and simply speak with her. Six months later, Holly returned to court after she was finally determined, competent to stand trial. At least I think it was her.

[01:04:03]

My interaction with Miss Kelly, I've seen a remarkable improvement based on the treatment she's received.

[01:04:09]

The woman led into court by bailiffs looked like a stranger. Holly's image was drastically different other than the red jumpsuit. Her hair was clean and kept. Her eyes were no longer sunken into her thin face. She had gained some weight and her complexion was brighter. The look of bewilderment was gone. The frantic Holly we knew from her YouTube channel was replaced with a calm, well-mannered woman that undoubtedly resembled who she was when she was younger. Now, she wasn't cured, there is no cure, but she was under treatment and could now understand the charges and was able to assist her attorney in the trial.

[01:04:54]

That's all it means to be competent to stand trial. Six months after that, in October of twenty eighteen, Holly once again returned to court and this time was finally able to make a plea of her own accord.

[01:05:08]

She pleaded guilty, but ultimately not responsible by reason of mental disease or defect. This was a plea agreed upon by both the defense and the prosecution, the district attorney would explain that if it were to go to trial, there would be no doubt that Holly committed the murder. However, both the states and the defense's mental health experts would likely take the stand and say the same thing, that she is mentally ill. And at the time of the crime, she was unable to understand that what she was doing was wrong.

[01:05:45]

In most cases, there would either be an ultimate disposition of not guilty or guilty. And this is this is sort of an area of the law that falls somewhere in between that. And it acknowledges that what was alleged took place. But there was mental defect. There was mental illness that was severe enough and it had enough of an effect on the defendant that it's ultimately determined that you're not criminally responsible for what happened, even if there was acknowledgement that, yes, it did happen the way it was believed to have taken place.

[01:06:21]

The doctors who have met with Mr. Colleano have come to a similar diagnosis, which is that of schizoaffective disorder with bipolar symptoms. Ultimately, there's consistent findings that she was delusional at the time of the incident and ultimately the right resolution here, at least in terms of the law and in terms of the court proceedings, is that we take that into account, that there's all this evidence to support that somebody is not criminally responsible and that they sort of fall into to the succession where, yes, it did happen.

[01:06:55]

But the right outcome isn't throwing somebody in jail and locking them up there and letting them rot. It's dealing with what was going on at the time. And this will allow her to be put in an institution hospital if if the findings are consistent, that she still has mental illness and she'll receive treatment. And that's consistent with what the public's interest should be here.

[01:07:16]

Holly was off the hook, at least for a while. She would not be tried for the murder of Megan Dix. Instead, she would be remanded to a secure psychiatric facility in the custody of the State Department of Mental Hygiene. Soon, a decision will be made if Holly is a violent risk to society or not determining if she will be held in a secure or nonsecure mental hospital until the time she is deemed cured.

[01:07:47]

So pretty much forever.

[01:07:49]

We need to trust me mental health professionals who are going to be charged with taking care of Miss Colleano and making sure that, you know, she's helped along the way in the larger regard as is that she's not ever in a position again to to hurt anybody else, including herself, has a long road in front of her. But more importantly, the family of Megan Dix does as well. There's no closure for anyone. Unfortunately, in this matter.

[01:08:17]

Holly will likely never go to prison for the murder she committed, but will stay in a mental health facility for the rest of her life. While Holly was incarcerated and after she had begun treatment, Jay Pritch went to see her probably just to make sure they were cool and that if she ever got out, she wouldn't be coming to get them. Yeah, he wound up going to the prison to speak to her because he wanted to make sure he was in good standing.

[01:08:48]

So she didn't. So she didn't attack him. When I say when I was speaking for a text right to her voice, her voice sounded completely different. Whatever she was on was completely different. She looked completely different and she sounded completely different. Whatever chemicals was triggered by those pills triggered a whole new like she's not who she was at. All conversations with her is like, yeah, I'm sorry that even happened. You understand what I'm saying? Like, it's like, yo, I was going through something, but there are millions of Holly Carlinhos in the world in various states of sickness.

[01:09:34]

What will you do when you run across one of them? Will you be like that crowd at the college, laugh it off, dismiss it and hope somebody else deals with it? How will you respond to this responsibility, the societal responsibility? Ultimately, Holly killed Megan Decs but wasn't responsible because she didn't know what she was doing or the fact that it was wrong to her. It made rational sense to shoot this woman in the head for mocking her, for stealing her look or something.

[01:10:10]

Her mental illness progressed so far without anything or anyone doing anything about it, that Holly believed all the things she was saying to be true. And if she knew the truth, then everyone else must be liars.

[01:10:28]

Holly was going through something out of her control. She took a life and has lost her freedom in exchange, but will slowly regain her sanity. The Dick's family will have to settle with the little bit of closure they got from this whole ordeal. They lost a daughter, a sibling, a wife and a mother to mental illness in her place. All they gained was a memorial park at her favorite spot, a small seating area, including a bench and some pretty landscaping, a landmark to remind them of their immense loss.

[01:11:12]

Their only solace is their loved ones. Murderer was caught and hopefully will never be able to hurt anyone ever again. That does it for this episode of Sort and Skell, we hope you've enjoyed it. And listen, bitches don't extort hollum colleano and stay safe. Hey, Mike, this is going to tell you I kind of cheated on you last night and I did a true crime podcast, but I honestly didn't even finish the episode because it was so monotone and didn't even hold my attention.

[01:12:27]

And then today I listen to your new episode 176 and I realized it the same story.

[01:12:33]

But how you pulled it so detailed and gruesome and I hate to say entertaining, but a horrible story, but it is. So I just wanted to call and tell you what everybody goes through your research and your writing and how your team produces and presents a story is what puts Gordon scale on the next level compared to other two crime podcast. So it's want to call and say thanks for everything you do and for putting our articles and I hope you enjoy your holiday.

[01:13:07]

And we look forward to hearing from you in January. I'm Mike.