The Tennessee Supreme Court has upheld four convictions and death sentences jurors imposed on a Bedford County father who walked into the Shelbyville Police Department and confessed he had shot his children to death.
Daryl Keith Holton was convicted in 1999 of four counts of first degree premeditated murder for killing the girl and three boys, who were 4, 6, 10 and 12 years old. He told his estranged wife he was taking the children to a movie on Nov. 30, 1997, and would return them to her that night. Holton, 36 years old at the time, drove the children to an automobile repair garage where he lived and worked, told them to cover their eyes because he had a surprise and then shot them with an SKS semi-automatic rifle.
He later drove to the police station and said he wanted to report a "homicide times four." He told officers he killed the children because he had not been allowed to see them for several months. Holton also said he loved the children, but had no regret or remorse for killing them.
"We have considered the entire record in this case and find that the sentences of death were not imposed in any arbitrary fashion, that the sentences of death are not excessive or disproportionate, that the evidence supports the jury's finding of the statutory aggravating circumstances and the jury's finding that these aggravating circumstances outweigh mitigating factors beyond a reasonable doubt," Chief Justice Frank Drowota, III, wrote in the majority opinion.
In a separate concurring/dissenting opinion, Justice Adolpho A. Birch, Jr., said he agrees with Drowota and Justices E. Riley Anderson, Janice Holder and William Barker that the convictions should be affirmed.