Tracy Holloway ventured out to mark her 30th birthday, unaware it would tragically be her final evening.

In the early hours following the celebration, Tracy—an energetic mother and hair stylist—was viciously attacked in her Searcy, Arkansas home in a 1997 murder that sent shockwaves through the small community. She suffered a beating, was strangled, and had her throat slashed.

Her lifeless body was discovered later that day, sprawled on her bedroom floor.

“I lost it. I can hardly talk about it,” her mother, Donna Vinson, shared on the October 25 episode of Oxygen’s Cold Justice. “She was all I had left. This just wasn’t supposed to happen.”

Cold Justice Launches Investigation Into Tracy Holloway’s Death

Despite nearly three decades having passed, Tracy’s murder remains unsolved. This has led Cold Justice prosecutor Kelly Siegler and homicide investigator Steve Spingola to collaborate with Searcy Police Detectives B.J. Rouse and Haley Dinapoli in hopes of uncovering new evidence in the case.

Those who knew Tracy remembered her as a lively individual with an infectious zest for life, deeply devoted to her 2-year-old son. At the time of her tragic death, she was separated from her husband, Larry Holloway, and chose to celebrate her milestone birthday with a friend at the local Elks Lodge, enjoying a game of pool.

“She had just gotten a brand new place of her own and she was just starting to see other people,” Siegler explained. “She was murdered just when she was starting over again.”

The next morning, after Tracy failed to show up for work, she was discovered dead on the floor of her bedroom, with her nightgown pulled up. She’d been beaten with a blunt force object of some kind and had injuries to the shoulders, abdomen, chest and head, knocking her teeth out. Her throat was slashed by what looked like a pocket knife. When that didn’t kill her, the attacker strangled her to death.

“I’ve been doing this a long time and this crime looks personal,” Spingola remarked. “There’s no signs of sexual assault, but everything about this scene points to jealousy and rage.”

Tracy Holloway’s Final Phone Call

No DNA or identifiable fingerprints were discovered at the scene, so authorities were tasked with piecing together Tracy’s last night alive as they searched for clues.

Investigators learned that while out celebrating her birthday, Tracy had connected with a man named Steve Webb at the bar. 

Webb told police that he drove Tracy home, shared a glass of ice tea with her on the porch and then went home. Witnesses saw his distinctive truck hauler backing out of the driveway around 12:30 a.m. 

According to phone records, Tracy placed a call to Larry’s home—which he was sharing at the time with his brother Allan Holloway—at 1:36 a.m. 

Larry, who was watching the couple’s son that night, initially told police that Tracy was supposed to come over to his house around 10:30 p.m. or 11 p.m. that night to pick up their son, but he didn’t hear from her until 1:36 a.m. early the next day.

Spingola explained, “He can tell she’s been drinking and he tells her to stay home.” 

Others Describe Larry Holloway As “Real Jealous”

In their search for the truth, the team from Cold Justice re-interviewed many of the key witnesses from the case. 

Tracy’s friends, coworkers and family members told the team that Tracy had been afraid of Larry, who they described as being controlling and jealous.

“It was just always fighting, arguing,” Vinson remembered. “He was real jealous. If I can’t be with you, nobody’s gonna be with you.”

Tracy’s cousin Carol Moore alleged that Larry even began following Tracy after she moved into her own place.

“He would drive by all the time,” Moore said. “He did not want the divorce. There were times that he would cry, have tears rolling down his face telling me, ‘I can’t be with that woman’…And that no other man was going to raise his son.”

Moore alleged that days after the killing, Allan—who worked with her—even told her that he heard Larry leave the apartment that night after getting that phone call.

But when Siegler and Dinapoli confronted Allan, who was now living in Houston, Texas, he denied ever telling that to Moore and said he was asleep at the time of the call and never even remembered the phone ring.

He insisted that he didn’t know what happened that night.

“There was opportunity for him to leave,” Allan acknowledged of his brother in the interview. “He sees somebody that he didn’t want to see or sees something that he didn’t want to see, something could have happened.”

Confronting Larry Holloway

Investigators believed the evidence was pointing toward Larry and set out to confront him about Tracy’s death.

He agreed to speak with Rouse and Spingola, but denied ever harming his estranged wife. 

Larry admitted he remembered talking to Tracy on the phone early that morning, but insisted he never left the apartment, saying,“I didn’t kill my wife.”

The team concluded there was enough circumstantial evidence to move the case forward and detectives spoke with the prosecutor about filing charges against Larry. 

According to Rouse, the meeting went well.

“Well, we’re sorry to keep you waiting but we’ve got the best news you probably have heard in 28 years,” he told Vinson at the episode’s end. “We talked to our prosecutor yesterday and we are sending a case file over to her for the arrest of Larry Holloway for capital murder.” 

While the charges had yet to be filed, for Vinson it was one step closer to justice.

“It has been my life tore up for a long long time,” she said. “I’m just ecstatic. I’m so thankful.”

To keep up on all the latest Season 8 episodes, watch Cold Justice Saturdays at 8/7c on Oxygen.