Talking Dateline: 11 Minutes

0:01Hi, everyone. I'm Blaine Alexander, and today we are talking Dateline. I'm here with the one, the only Josh Mankiewicz. Hi, Josh. Hello. Okay, so today's episode is called 11 Minutes. It's the story of 17-year-old Madison Holton, who was charged with the September 2016 murder of his parents, Michael and Jennifer Holton, after a family dispute turned deadly in their small town of eclectic Alabama. Madison insisted he was innocent, joining forces with his uncles and a retired FBI investigator who stepped in to fight for him. They raised serious doubts about the case against him and pointed to a different explanation, that Madison's father may have murdered his mother in a murder-suicide.

0:42Now, remember, if you haven't listened to or watched the full episode yet, it's right below this one on your podcast list. So go listen to it or stream it now on Peacock and then come back here. And when we come back, we'll have two extra clips from the story, including one from Madison Holton, the person at the center of it all. So stick around. All right. Josh, let's talk Dateline. Let's talk Dateline. You squeezed a whole lot into an hour here, my friend. Yeah. There was a lot in this story. It's a weird story because no matter which way you go with this, whether you believe prosecutors and the sheriff or whether you believe Madison and his supporters, there are big holes in the story.

1:24Like none of it makes sense. Well, as I was watching this and going along, I'm thinking, oh, there are so many ways this could go. Oh, yeah, he definitely did it. Wait, no, he didn't do it. Oh, wait, he's handcuffed. No, they have problems. I mean, all of these things just kind of keep coming to where you really don't know how it's going to shake out. And in the end, nobody saw it coming. Well, I mean, then we did a good job because when, you know, you're watching and you're thinking, oh, I understand it. Wait, I don't understand it. Wait, now I think it's this. And then at the end, it's something you didn't see coming.

1:53That means we've done our job. Yeah. Let's talk about this family. We start the story getting to know Madison, learning about this family dynamic. They're dealing with a teenage son who they're trying to figure out how to get a hold on him. And at the same time, the parents are going through a divorce themselves. I can't imagine that kind of turmoil in one house at the same time. And that's the kind of dynamic that's going on in houses all across the country, which was one sort of great thing about this story was that it was kind of emblematic what a lot of families are struggling with all over the United States.

2:24You and I know from our careers and the stories we've covered, all the things that can go wrong when you have a teenager in the house, right? And what was Madison doing? Well, he was using some drugs, and he was inviting his friends over when his parents weren't home, and he was lying to them, and he was kind of a little bit of a discipline problem. But, I mean, you look at that measured against the chart of all the things that can happen with teenagers, and those are not the worst things out there. So he has a house party, but his parents really just don't know what to do. And they said this is almost kind of like a parental scared straight.

3:06We're going to put some handcuffs on him. Some could say, hey, is this extreme? Or other people saying, hey, we just parents need to do something to get their son under control on the right path. I mean, you know, handcuffs are one of those things like hitting your kids, which is you're going to find people on both sides of that issue. That seemed a little extreme to me, given that there was no testimony about him being violent toward his parents. There was certainly plenty of testimony about him misbehaving and not being honest and doing that kind of thing. But he didn't have some record for beating people up or fighting with his parents.

3:39I mean, one senses that the parents were more at the end of their rope than actually fearful of Madison. That was my sense. Like, this is more about teaching you a lesson than protecting us. But I got to say, I mean, putting handcuffs on somebody is kind of a thing you do when you're afraid of what they're going to do, not where they're going in life at the moment. I thought it was notable that the dad just apparently had handcuffs there ready to be put on. Right. He was a former fire chief, former mayor. There's some embarrassment issues that you kind of pointed to. I was struck by the fact that, you know, Madison's dad got a call from somebody, from a friend, somebody who knew and said, hey, my kid came home from your house under the influence of something.

4:25You need to figure out what's going on, basically. Right. Had that happened in Atlanta or in L.A., it may not have been like I know exactly the kid and the parent and who to call. That is the kind of small town. I mean, there's literally, I think, one traffic light, or at least there was when we were there. This was one of the few places that we've been at Dateline. They were not glad to see us in Eclectic. We were in the town cafe, the coffee shop where everybody meets, and we were talking to somebody there. And the people at the next table heard it, and they went to the manager, and the manager came over and said, I want you guys to leave.

5:01That's unusual because generally, yeah, when we're in a small – any town, when we're in a small town, generally people, sometimes they know why you're there. But they don't necessarily want you out of there. I would think that that's a nod to just how difficult this story was, that they don't want to talk about it. They don't want it to be put on a national platform, I assume. Right. I think that's exactly what it was. I mean, I think this is anguish for everybody because no matter what you believe, right, Michael and April were vital members of that community. And I think what they were probably saying to us is, you know, we miss them.

5:37We respect them. We don't want to talk about this. Yeah, interesting. I thought the interviews that you did do were very compelling. I mean, obviously, you sat down with Madison himself. I'm curious, what was your impression of him? You know, he was very forthright. His demeanor with me was not tremendously different from his demeanor with the cops. You know, he said, yes, sir, and no, sir. He was looking at me. He was paying attention. He wasn't looking down. He wasn't mumbling. He was ready for whatever came. And again, remember, your attorney may tell you to talk to police or not, but you're certainly not required to talk with reporters.

6:12But he did. And that earned him some points with me because I asked him all the questions that you'd want to ask. Like, you know, what's the story here? And he was pretty good about that. When we come back, we will hear an extra clip from Josh's interview with one of the men who set out to free Madison, his uncle, Chris Owenby.

6:38Madison's uncles, Chris and Mike, absolutely believed him, and they stepped up immediately to help him. The family rallied behind him. I'm curious what stood out to you in your conversations with them. I think they were convinced, not because they believed Madison, but because they knew what Michael and April were going through. And they probably had sort of a ringside seat to what was happening in that marriage in a way that Madison wouldn't have. Sure. So my guess is they knew things about that marriage, about what was happening, and what Michael in particular, the dad, was going through that made them think this has nothing to do with Madison.

7:17When you were talking to Madison, he said at one point, I don't remember which uncle, Chris or Mike, but he said he'd only had maybe a five-minute conversation with him ever before in life. I mean, they weren't very familiar, it seems. No, no. That's why I thought like this really had to do with not with knowing Madison, but with with seeing whatever they saw in that marriage and hearing whatever they had heard. We actually have an extra clip from your interview with Chris Owenby that didn't make it into the show. Here in this clip, he's describing what it was like to tell the kids that their father had been killed and their mother was fighting for her life.

7:51And I walked in the house. And of course, the other two kids were playing in the house. I said, look, I need you to come into the living room or the kitchen so I can talk to you. They came in and sat down at the table, and I said, look, there's no easy way for me to tell you this, but your dad shot your mom and killed himself, and we got to go to the hospital. And I didn't know how else to tell them. I think I looked at Tanya, and I said, my God, I got to tell them their parents are gone. How do you tell two kids that? And she said, you just tell them. And that's what I did. It was a fight for her life that April eventually lost the next day.

8:31She was alive, I think, when she went to the hospital. But 24 hours later, I don't think she was. She was gone. Wow. To hear him describe having to tell the children that, no matter how you say it, it's not going to soften the blow at all. You're giving somebody information that's going to split their life in two. Yeah. Yeah. Let's talk about Greg Biggs. He's a former FBI agent. Yes. Craig Biggs was under no obligation to help Madison, but he did. And he made a tremendous difference, I thought, because he started uncovering all kinds of like little things in the investigation that hadn't made sense.

9:09Things that a defense attorney would use. And he uttered a memorable line that the women of A Date With Date line talk about all the time and that many people talk with me about. In fact, I have a screenshot of this moment with Chiron on, you know, with the subtitles in my phone, which I send to people sometimes, which is I kissed a dead dog on the road when I was 17, which he said, right? Yes. When he said this, he said, you know, kids do foolish things all the time. I'm like, yeah, I'm with you. Kids do do silly things. Like, of course, we all do. He's like, yeah, let me tell you my story. I kissed a dead dog.

9:54I was like, wait, wait, I can't go with you there. I believe it was some kind of like probably pre-college high school college road trip. He was with his friends and it was either a dare or losing a bet. I can't quite remember that little moment, which, of course, has nothing to do with Madison Holton. He certainly illustrated to us that there is a very wide spectrum of kids do foolish things when they're young. I was doing a story once. I said in the interview with one of the people in the case, I said, you know, I jumped off the garage holding an umbrella like I was Mary Poppins, right? Because I thought it would be like a parachute, right?

10:40And guess what? Yeah, it wasn't. Didn't work, I'm assuming? No, landed in a bush. I got cuts on my arms. I mean, I'm lucky I didn't break anything, but I didn't. Yeah. Can I ask how old were you when you tried this flying experiment? I was 37. No, I was, I was, this was just last year. Yeah, I was, well, let's see. We were not living in the United States. So I would have been probably seven. That's what I think, seven or eight. Okay. Yeah. But yeah. Within that realm, within that safe realm of, okay, this is cute and it makes sense. Right. Like, so like post seeing Mary Poppins or The Wizard of Oz, both of which have, I believe, scenes in which people are use umbrellas and are carried by the wind.

11:26It could make sense. I could see who that could follow. Yeah, I was seven years old and clearly influenced by things I saw on television. Well, insofar as the case is involved, he was an interesting character in that, too. Right. He Madison kind of said this guy was my guardian angel. They met essentially by chance. Yeah, they met in a church group. And I really do think that without Greg Biggs' involvement, the case against Madison Holton would have gotten into a courtroom. I do. You know, what does that say about the initial investigation? That somebody from the outside, a former FBI agent, could come through and say, no, this was wrong, this was wrong, this was wrong.

12:06Certainly, you kind of have to look at the initial investigation and say, okay, maybe there are some questions. Yeah, I mean, to give the benefit of the doubt to local law enforcement down there, this is a little more complicated case than they usually get. And, you know, this is not a jurisdiction that gets a tremendous amount of murders on which forensics tell one story and eyewitnesses tell a completely different one. And you can't tell which is which. Because even the forensics, like, were a little bit, you know, flawed. Like, there wasn't any blood on Madison. And so he shoots mom and dad, but then there's no blood spatter.

12:42And clearly he doesn't have time to change his clothes or wash it off in those 11 minutes. So that was something that sort of was a hole in the armor of the state's case. We look at investigations all the time and sometimes big elaborate investigations by major departments that get a lot of homicides. Sometimes there can be a thing or two that they should have done differently and that can make the difference. I mean, in this case, like at first, clearly law enforcement thought this was a murder-suicide. Again, which is something that's going to come out at trial. I mean, like any defense attorney is going to say, you know, in their opening statement, law enforcement believed at first that this Michael's parents in a murder-suicide because their marriage was failing.

13:27And they were right. That's what they thought. And they were correct. And we don't need to go any farther than that. When we come back, we have an extra clip from Madison Holton himself.

13:44Let's talk about the march up to trial, the lead up to trial that never happens. You point this out, and I think that this was such a strong point to make in this story. But life sentence feels daunting. And then two life sentences feels, you know, also daunting. But when you're 17 years old, I can't imagine walking into trial, which you think will be a trial, with that on the table, possibly ahead of you. Yeah, I mean, like, it's, you know, it's, you don't get to think to yourself, well, I've had a pretty good life. Because you had almost no life at that point. And suddenly you're realizing the rest of it's going to be in a place like where I've been locked up, only worse with some scarier people.

14:26That is a daunting future to look at. And I think he thought, absolutely, until Greg Biggs got involved, I sort of felt like Madison thought he was probably going to get convicted, even with the support of his uncles. Sure. You know, what happens next almost sounds like something out of a courtroom TV show, right? Everyone starts rushing around. There's a flurry of activity. And then suddenly the charges are dropped. Look, prosecutors have a duty under the legal canons of ethics not to bring cases that they don't think they can win. And it's one reason why, and we've talked about this before, one reason why these murder prosecutors go into court and they got a record of like, you know, 29 and one, you know, like they almost never lose.

15:11And that's because they have an overwhelming case before they go in. And this prosecutor did not have an overwhelming case. And I think they thought, we are going to lose and we cannot be confident that we will win. And if you're not confident that you're going to win, you are not supposed to bring the case. They dropped the charges. And like you said, that's the ethically responsible thing to do. Oh, no question. No question. And again, you have leave to represent if you want. I mean, if you get more evidence, you know, look, we talk about this all the time. What leads to a prosecution when there couldn't have been one before?

15:45And it's two things. Changes in technology, changes in circumstance, right? Changes in technology, suddenly you can get touch DNA from places where you couldn't get it before. suddenly this person was in that room. They said they weren't in that room, but we now know they were in that room because their DNA was on the doorknob on the inside. So that story they told us about not being there, they're lying. That's one way. The other is, you know, I am not in love with you anymore and I'm not going to lie for you anymore. And when I said that you were with me, when that person got killed, I'm not going to tell that lie anymore.

16:22Changes in technology, changes in circumstance. Either one of those could get Madison Holton back in a courtroom. Of course, you talk to Madison. Sometimes we do these stories where someone is exonerated, and you know they're not going to be tried again. They can move on with their life, not having to wonder or worry. That's not the case for Madison here. He could face charges again. Let's listen to the two of you talking about that. You know they can refile. Yeah, they can. And I think they'd like to. Oh, they would love to. But at the end of the day, they're going to lose either way. They think they're all good.

16:57They think they're this and that because they're police. But they're not. They're just human beings at the end of the day, just like me. You don't think they have a case? They don't have a case. They didn't have a case in the first place. You think you should never have been arrested? Oh, without a doubt, I should have never been arrested. Listening to him, there's no wavering in his voice. I agree. I agree. And also, I mean, he's absolutely provably right about one thing, which is he never should have been arrested because people who you don't think you have enough evidence to convict should not be arrested.

17:31I mean, I think, you know what, eight years have passed since we did that story. He has not been retried. I think the chances that that's going to happen significantly diminish with each passing year. You know, you ended with Madison talking about the fact that he visits his mother's grave, but he doesn't visit his dad's grave, even though they're separated by steps. It has to be just a very big internal struggle for him. You know, the fact that he told me that felt like sort of powerful evidence of his lack of guilt. Like, you've got to believe that he is one sophisticated criminal to have committed a murder, gotten away with it, and then made up a story like that.

18:20That felt to me as if he were telling the truth, which is I visit my mom's grave. I can't go to my dad's grave and look at it and say, I'm sorry that you're not here. I must say that that struck me as genuine. Yeah. Well, like I said, my friend, you packed a whole lot into this hour. There were a lot of twists and turns, and it was a very compelling story. So thanks so much, as always, for talking Dateline with me. Great to see you. And that's it for our Talking Dateline this week. Thanks, of course, to all of you for listening so faithfully every week. Remember, if you have any questions about our stories or a case that you think we should be covering, you can reach out to us at any time on social media at Dateline NBC.

18:59And if you've got a question for Talking Dateline and you want to hear your voice right here on this very podcast, you can leave us a voicemail at 212-413-5252. And Keith will call you back personally if that happens. Well, see, I heard that that rang directly to your landline, Josh. Oh, no, no. It rings right to Keith's desk and he will call you back like instantly. And have a long conversation. Yes. Yeah, he's got nothing else to do. So call that line or record yourself and send it to us via DM on social media. Thanks so much for listening. And of course, we will see you Fridays on Dateline on NBC.

19:34And just one more thing before we go. Remember to check out Andrea's daily coverage of the federal sex trafficking trial of Sean Combs. She's getting updates from NBC News correspondent Chloe Malas every day after court. And those conversations are dropped in the Dateline True Crime Weekly feed. You can listen to that wherever you get your podcasts. Thank you.