Crime Library: Criminal Minds and Methods

Teen Killer Couples

Part One - Holly Harvey and Sandra Ketchum
"Kill, Keys, Money and Jewelry"

Holly Harvey, 15, had lived with her grandparents Carl, 74, and Sarah, 73, Collier at their Fayette County home in Georgia for just four months when she decided that she had had enough. Holly had no intention of going to church as her grandparents had hoped or conforming to the rules imposed on her. Nor did she want to give up her one true love: Sandra (Sandy) Ketchum, 16, whom she was forbidden to see.

Holly Harvey
Holly Harvey

Holly decided that she was not going to allow her grandparents to interfere with her decision-making any longer. She was going to live her life the way she deemed fit. So in the summer of 2004, she recruited her lover Sandy to assist her in a gruesome plan, which they believed would allow them "to gain freedom and be able to stay together forever," according to the Associated Press. Their devious plot would eventually lead to the brutal murders of Carl and Sarah Collier.

According to Jon Shirek's 11Alive.com article, the Colliers believed their granddaughter was up to no good, and they began to fear her. Holly had become increasingly abusive towards them; she had even begun to make death threats. It was so bad that Carl even approached his adopted son, Kevin, sometime in late July and told him that Holly wanted him dead, according to the report.

Carl and Sarah Collier
Carl and Sarah Collier

Neither Holly nor Sandy were secretive about their evil intentions; the girls were brazen enough to tell their friends that they were going to kill Holly's grandparents. Moreover, both girls were actively looking for a gun, asking whomever they knew about how to obtain one so that they could carry out their plans. Although they did not succeed in finding one, they didn't let it hamper their plans. On August 2, 2004, the two girls finally decided to act out their threats. 

That evening, Sandy Ketchum, who had sneaked into Holly's basement bedroom the previous day, talked about killing Holly's grandparents. The girls reviewed their plan in detail, which had been broken down into four key steps. Just in case, Holly wrote the "to do" list on her arm in ink. The list   read, "Kill, keys, money and jewelry," according to Shirek.

The two girls began to smoke marijuana, hoping to lure the Colliers down into the basement with the smell. It didn't take long for Holly's grandparents to react. When Carl and Sarah reached the room, Sandy was already hidden behind the bed armed with a knife. Holly was also clutching a knife, waiting to lunge at whoever came at her first.

The Collier home
The Collier home

When the couple entered the room, an argument quickly ensued, and Holly stabbed her grandmother in the back. Carl and Sarah managed to wrestle her to the bed, trying to prevent her from stabbing her grandmother again, but Holly shouted for assistance. Sandythen leapt from behind the bed and got involved in the struggle. 

During the attack, Sarah suffered more than 20 stab wounds to her chest and back before dying.  Although Carl had also been stabbed repeatedly, he was able to run upstairs to the kitchen, where he tried to call the police. Holly chased after him and cut the phone lines. Rochelle Carter reported in The Atlanta Journal and Constitution that Carl tried to stop his granddaughter by throwing a coffee cup at her, but it didn't work. Holly caught up to him and dealt the final fatal blows that left Carl lying face down on the kitchen floor in a pool of his own blood. He had sustained around 15 stab wounds to the chest and neck.

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