A shocking murder outside a workplace in Texas set detectives on the trail of a suspect who seemed to be a ghost. However, as investigators uncovered a couple’s jealousy-fueled scheme to track their victim and conceal a gruesome crime, they also found a chilling motive for murder: the longing to start a family.

In October 2020, in Carrollton, Texas, a coworker of 24-year-old Alyssa Burkett witnessed a horrifying incident in a parking lot near their workplace. As Alyssa’s colleague awaited her arrival, a masked individual in black rapidly entered the lot and assaulted Alyssa when she arrived—first by shooting her, then stabbing her multiple times.

Realizing the threat had vanished, Alyssa’s coworker—known only as “Marie” to keep her identity safe—rushed to help, as documented in Snapped: Killer Couples, airing Sundays at 6/5c on Oxygen.

“She got stabbed more than probably 30 times. There was blood everywhere,” Marie told producers. “…She just looked at me. She’s like, ’Don’t worry.’ I guess she was just telling me that she wasn’t there alone. So she took her last breath, and she passed.”

Police were taken aback at the viciousness of the killing.

“This was probably one of the most brutal crime scenes that I’ve attended in my 32 years of law enforcement,” admitted Carrollton Police Detective Jeremy Chevallier to producers. “When I arrived, I could smell the blood.”

Who killed Alyssa Burkett?

Further witness questioning confirmed that the suspect appeared to be a Black male who had left the scene in a dark SUV, while an immediate search revealed that someone had placed a GPS tracking device on Alyssa’s vehicle. Believing that such a violent murder suggested a crime of passion, they questioned Alyssa’s current boyfriend, Ben — who happened to own a dark SUV.

Ben “ran a business out of his home, and we were able to establish that he was actually at home during the time of the murder, through video surveillance at his home,” recalled Chevallier. “He was quickly ruled out as a suspect.”

Investigators later found that someone had placed a GPS tracking device on Ben’s vehicle, too. They believed that whomever killed Alyssa had substantial knowledge of her everyday habits … and must have harbored a deeply personal reason for committing murder, according to Snapped: Killer Couples.

Detectives’ hunches proved correct after learning of Alyssa’s recent personal struggles. An aspiring and intelligent young woman and a source of inspiration to her younger sister Taylor, Alyssa was raising Willow, her 15-month-old daughter, while working as a single mom. But someone had intentionally been making her efforts difficult, as retired Carrollton Police Sgt. Mike Losack recounted.

“About a month prior to this crime, we received a drug tip from an anonymous caller stating that Alyssa was dealing drugs out of the back of her vehicle,” recalled Losack.

After questioning Alyssa and receiving permission to search her car, police did retrieve some incriminating items: a box with a pistol inside, drugs, and some cash. But they sensed that Alyssa hadn’t placed those items there and, in fact, had been the target of an attempted framing: “The [accusing] caller was very specific as to what was in the car, so it seemed kind of suspicious that this caller knew so much detail,” noted Carrollton Police Sgt. Michael Harding.

Ben, Alyssa’s present boyfriend, told investigators that he suspected Willow’s father — a man named Andrew Beard — as the perpetrator behind her attempted framing. They already were aware of a bitter child custody battle between Alyssa and Andrew thanks to information provided by Alyssa’s mother, who had spoken with investigators shortly after the murder.

A potential motive was emerging; one that sought to compromise Alyssa’s reputation as a mother in order to favor Andrew in their ongoing custody case.

Who are Andrew Beard and Holly Elkins?

Unlike Alyssa, Andrew Beard came from a wealthy background, having moved to Texas from northern California. Though he and Alyssa had never married, their time together as a couple produced their daughter, Willow — and, until Holly Elkins entered the picture, few acquaintances questioned Andrew’s affections as a devoted dad … or his ability to remain amiable with Alyssa after their breakup, according to Snapped: Killer Couples.

“As custody situations go, they were getting along,” Lusack told producers. “But when he started dating Holly, things started turning for the worse.”

Police had already zeroed in on Andrew as a murder suspect only hours after Alyssa’s death. But an initial visit to Andrew 30 miles away at his Rowlett, Texas home — while adding to their suspicions — didn’t yield enough probable cause to make an immediate arrest.

Police questioned both Andrew and Holly Elkins together in Rowlett, noting that their vehicle — a white pickup truck — didn’t match the description of the dark SUV involved in Alyssa’s murder. But things escalated after police obtained a warrant to search at Andrew’s home — and after Andrew and Holly failed to make good on a promise to meet investigators at the police station for questioning.

In addition to other incriminating evidence found at Andrew’s residence and in his vehicle, investigators discovered signs that Andrew might have disguised himself as a Black man in order to throw police off  the murder trail.

A major break came when police canvassed the larger neighborhood where Andrew lived in Rowlett.

“…[I]n that neighborhood, we found a dark SUV that had plastic taped up around the back windows,” said Lusack. “…We found out where it was purchased based upon the registered owner of the vehicle. We contacted that registered owner, and that registered owner said that, yeah, Andrew Beard came by, paid cash for this car, and left with it.”

Inside the SUV, police examined signs of blood (later matched to Alyssa’s) on the steering wheel, while also discovering a “fake beard,” according to Chevallier, “to make [Andrew] look like an African-American man.” The evidence was enough to finally arrest Andrew in connection with Alyssa’s murder, three days after her death.

What happened to Andrew Beard and Holly Elkins?

Holly Elkins remained free while Andrew spent time in jail, although he too was released only a few weeks later on a $1 million bond.

Andrew’s freedom was short-lived, after local police made a second arrest on the strength of a separate firearms charge; one cultivated in the wake of investigators’ suspicion that a .22 caliber pistol initially recovered from Andrew’s garage had been accessorized in violation of federal law. For the next two years, Beard remained in jail while awaiting trial — all while Holly, who had since moved to Miami, Florida, remained free and had moved on with her life.

In a surprising turn, Andrew Beard decided to plead guilty before he ever went to trial — a response, investigators believed, to recent news that Holly had since gotten married to another man in Miami, one year after Andrew’s arrest. Beard told prosecutors that Holly was obsessed with starting a family that included her as Willow’s de facto parent: “She wanted to be the mother of Willow,” said Harding. “She wanted that picture-perfect family.”

Andrew went on to characterize Holly as a lover allegedly obsessed with eliminating Alyssa for good from their ideal family future. Using statements Andrew provided detailing private text communications between the couple, police obtained a warrant to retrieve Holly’s phone records, and the resulting evidence generally supported what Andrew had told them.

“Several of those text messages were very aggressive from Holly to Andrew about how he’s weak; about how he lets his baby mama run over him,” said Harding, adding that police were further “able to uncover several specific instances where things… were bought for the commission of murder.” Less than a month before Alyssa was killed, said investigators, Andrew and Holly together purchased clothing, dark makeup, ammunition, and a knife — all of which were linked to the crime scene.

A judge already had sentenced Andrew Beard to 43 years in prison by the time police issued an arrest warrant for 32-year-old Holly Elkins. In Miami, they found her at the airport in the midst of an apparent plan to flee the country, freshly detained by the U.S. Department of Justice while preparing to board a plane to the Dominican Republic.

“Holly thought that she had probably gotten away with this,” said Chevallier. “She was living her life like she was going to just not have to answer for what she did.”

In August of 2024, Holly Elkins was sentenced to two life terms in prison. Having previously pleaded guilty in the case of Alyssa Burkett’s murder, Andrew Beard remains in prison, becoming eligible for parole in 2058 —when he reaches the age of 71.