Teen killers confess, get life sentences
By KEVIN DUFFY , KATHY JEFCOATS
Cox News Service
Friday, April 15, 2005
ATLANTA — Judge Paschal English glared at the teenage girl, shackled at the waist, standing before him. He wanted to know what happened before the killings.
Holly Harvey said she and her girlfriend, Sandy Ketchum, both 16, found a large knife and repeatedly stabbed a mattress and a picture of puppies on a wall.
 W. A. BRIDGES JR./Cox News Service Sandy Ketchum is led away by a deputy after her guilty plea. She was the lover -- police say the pawn -- of Holly Harvey, but was prepared to testify against her if necessary.  W. A. BRIDGES JR./Cox News Service Holly Harvey, accompained by her lawyer Judy Chidester, listens to the charges against her in Fayette County (Ga.) Superior Court. Harvey insisted she was remorseful.  W. A. BRIDGES JR./Cox News Service Judge Paschal English questions Holly Harvey Thursday, compelling her to give details about he grisly stabbing of Carl and Saran Collier last year. |
"Why did you do that?" English asked.
"To see if the knife was sharp enough," she answered.
"Sharp enough for what?"
"I guess . . .," she started.
"Don't guess, tell me," English said. "You know. You did it."
"To see if it would be sharp enough to stab them wherever the knife went."
English grilled Harvey for 35 minutes before sentencing her Thursday to two consecutive life terms. She and Ketchum murdered Harvey's grandparents — Carl Collier, 74, and Sarah Collier, 73 — last August in their Fayette County home.
English's unusual courtroom interview elicited chilling testimony from Harvey — and led to the surprise arrest of a man, who was picked up Thursday and charged with murder.
As part of the guilty pleas, Harvey will be eligible for parole in 20 years. Ketchum, who cooperated with police and was going to testify against Harvey, got a lighter sentence: three concurrent life terms. She could go free in 14 years.
Because the two teenagers were to have separate trials, Ketchum appeared Thursday before another Fayette County Superior Court judge, Johnnie Caldwell. He didn't question Ketchum about her motives in the killings.
"If there was any way I could take their place and give my life, I wouldn't think twice," Ketchum said. "I'm real sorry."
Until her sentencing, Harvey had refused to talk about the murders. Authorities said the girls killed the Colliers because they disapproved of their granddaughter's lesbian relationship and wanted to keep them apart.
On Thursday, Judge English, who three years ago gained national fame as a contestant on the "Survivor" television show, wanted to know what drove the teenagers to commit such a crime.
"Why did you decide to kill them?" he asked Harvey.
"For Sandy."
"Why?"
"I don't know."
"You do know," English said.
"So we could be together. We could leave."
"Where would you go?"
"Anywhere."
During her sentencing, Harvey told the judge that a man named Calvin supplied her and Ketchum with crack cocaine the night before the killings.
On Thursday afternoon, police arrested Calvin Lawson, a 41-year-old excavator from Union City, at a job site north of Atlanta and charged him with felony murder.
Georgia law allows a person to be charged with felony murder if a death occurs as the result of a felony, even if the person was not present at the time of the deaths.
Former DeKalb County District Attorney J. Tom Morgan said prosecutors will have a difficult time making the murder charge stick against Lawson.
"Just because I gave you drugs tonight doesn't mean you're going to go out and commit murder tomorrow," Morgan said.
As English questioned Harvey, she recounted in meticulous detail how she and Ketchum carried out the Aug. 2, 2004, murders.
The night before, she said, Lawson, a friend of Harvey's mother, took her and Ketchum to his apartment in Union City, where they smoked marijuana and crack cocaine.
The girls returned to the Colliers' house before the couple awoke.
As the girls listened to music in Harvey's room in the basement, Ketchum suggested they take Carl Collier's truck.
"We'd have to kill them to do that," Harvey said she told Ketchum, but told the judge she didn't mean it.
Ketchum then suggested hitting Harvey's grandfather with a lamp, but Harvey said she rejected that idea.
"So Sandy said to go get a knife," Harvey said.
English asked, "What type of knife was it?"
"The biggest knife," she answered.
English held up his hands eight to 10 inches apart. Was it that big? Harvey said it was.
The two girls practiced stabbing Harvey's mattress and the picture of the dogs, Harvey said.
Then Harvey lit a marijuana cigarette to entice her grandparents into the basement. Ketchum hid between the bed and the wall, she said, and Harvey concealed a knife in her jeans.
The Colliers came downstairs late in the afternoon. Sarah Collier stood by the bed. Carl Collier went into the closet to find a suitcase for his wife's trip to Hawaii. His wife turned her back to Harvey.
"I closed my eyes," Harvey recalled.
"Closed your eyes and did what?" English asked.
"Stabbed my grandmother. In the back, maybe three times. She screamed but it wasn't very loud."
Harvey said her grandparents fought back and pinned her to the bed.
"I called for Sandy to help me," Harvey said. "When they saw her, they started cussing and my grandfather ran upstairs. Sandy said for me to give her the knife and she stayed with my grandmother. She said, 'Go get him.' "
Harvey said she wrested a knife from him and "closed my eyes and stabbed my grandpa real fast." By the time it was over, Harvey said, "I had blood all over my face and on the right side of my body."
Judge English seemed aghast. "It was just like you gutted a deer," he said.
Harvey and Ketchum were arrested about 17 hours after the killings on Tybee Island, where they had driven the Colliers' truck.
As English prepared to sentence Harvey to prison, he asked her:
"Do you think 20 years is a pretty good exchange for killing your grandparents? What do you think ought to be done with you?"
"I think I should be dead," she replied.
"Well, we both agree on that," he said.
After the sentencing, Lt. Col. Bruce Jordan of the sheriff's department said Harvey's recollection was inconsistent with some of the evidence. He disputed her claim that Ketchum was an equal player in the killings.
"Holly is the dominant one in this relationship," Jordan said.
Outside the courtrooms, family members of both girls said they couldn't comprehend what drove the girls to murder.
"All I ever did was love her and try to teach her right from wrong," said Harvey's mother, Carla. "It was her actions. It was her doings. I can't hold myself responsible for that."
Kevin Duffy and Kathy Jefcoasts write for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. E-mail: kduffy@ajc.com, kjefcoats@ajc.com. Staff writer Saeed Ahmed contributed to this report.
