Original subtitles

It's a rural area.

There was no neighbors to hear anything.

And the only thing I could think of

was, "something's happening,"

and it didn't seem good.

That house was a crime scene,

and that crime scene told a story.

If I had known then what I know now,

I would have certainly looked her over a lot better.

- Why you got to be like this? - No!

Why you always got to be like this?

No! Please!

Why do you do this to me?

Grand saline is a small town in east Texas,

about 60 miles east of Dallas, and it's a close-knit town

and everybody knows everybody's business.

It's a good little town, good little Christian town.

When we moved to east Texas with our three youngest children,

they were going to graduate and go off to college,

and we were getting that empty-nest syndrome.

And so we thought about fostering.

I think my husband wanted to do it so bad

because he was a foster child.

Lisa and her siblings

were the first foster children that we fostered.

They had been abused and neglected.

We adopted all five of them.

Lisa was 6 years old when we adopted her.

She was a very sweet little girl.

She was quiet, but she was full of giggles, always laughing.

Lisa and I were very close.

While she was growing up,

we would often have talks, just her and I.

And I just felt like I knew her soul.

When Lisa was in high school, she was in cheerleading.

She was in the yearbook, the newspaper,

and she was in marching band.

So she was... she was busy.

She really didn't date in high school.

She was more interested in school.

After graduation, Lisa decided to attend Tyler junior college.

It was just about 30... Little over 30 miles east of US.

She loved it.

I would hear from her just about every day.

When I first heard about Josh Holden, Lisa met him

and thought he was just the sweetest guy,

the nicest guy.

She was saying that he treated her really good.

She really, really liked him.

And so I was eager to meet him.

I wanted to see who this nice guy was.

And the first meeting with Josh,

it didn't go all that well.

My husband disliked him the moment he saw him.

He was just like, "no,

that's not who my daughter needs to be with."

He wasn't that sweet guy

that Lisa had portrayed him as to US.

He was arrogant.

There's just something about him

that just made the hair on my neck stand up.

We could never relate to Lisa how we felt about Josh,

because after that, we never saw Lisa without Josh.

Hello.

Mom?

Hey. It's good to hear from you.

How are you doing?

I'm good. How are you?

I'm doing great. It's been a while.

What you up to?

Yeah. Um, Josh and I

were just fixing up the house.

I didn't know

you all were thinking of moving in together.

Why don't you both come over sunday?

We can... we can celebrate.

Um, mom, I got to go.

Bye.

We were seeing less and less of her.

And then it really spanned out in time.

The very few times that Lisa called me,

I would ask her how she was.

"Everything's fine. Everything's fine."

But she was always really quick to get off the phone.

I often wondered if there was something that I did wrong,

if she was mad at me,

and I couldn't think of anything.

I didn't see her for over a year.

And then she called me and said that she was pregnant.

I was excited for her, and I thought, "well, maybe if...

Since she told me that she's pregnant,

then maybe I'll be able to get to see her more."

It was a beautiful baby girl.

And I was so... I was so excited.

It was... very excited.

A new little granddaughter and happy for Lisa.

I was still uncomfortable...

Around Josh.

But I really watched how he was with her.

He was really comforting to Lisa

so that helped me a bit,

knowing that he was being so sweet to her.

He really loved her, really cared.

Seeing that the way he treated her at the hospital

when she was having the baby put me at ease

to some extent.

It really did.

When the baby was 5 months old,

I found out that Lisa had gotten married.

I was not there for their wedding.

I drove by the house that she lived in in Tyler

after the baby was born, and they didn't live there.

We had no idea where she was.

And I thought, "my goodness.

She's not coming around

'cause she doesn't want to see me."

And it hurt. It hurt.

They've got a home of their own,

and it was in Ben Wheeler.

And the Ben Wheeler community

is an unincorporated part of the county,

so it's miles from any city area.

The houses are far and few between.

When they moved out there, they had one vehicle,

no landline phone, you know, total isolation.

I don't know what happened after that.

It was five years of silence,

no phone calls,

no seeing her,

not knowing where they were.

Five years.

And the whole time, I kept talking to my husband

about getting an investigator and trying to find her.

It kept coming back in my mind, "why wouldn't she come see me?"

And the only thing I could think of was,

"something's happening,"

and it didn't seem good.

I hadn't seen Lisa or the baby in five years,

and then I go into the grocery store one day,

and there's Lisa.

And her first daughter was like 5 years old then.

And there were two little... Two more little girls.

And I could tell the middle one.

She looked exactly like Lisa, so I knew that these were hers.

And I hugged her

and, asked her how she was.

"I'm fine. I'm fine."

She acted like she was in a big hurry.

And when I walked away,

I heard the oldest one say, "mommy, who was that?"

And she says, "that's grandma."

I just... it tore me up.

I had missed... I didn't even know

that the two littlest ones were born.

I didn't know she had two more little girls.

When I saw Lisa, she looked okay,

but I didn't look that closely.

I-I looked at her face,

and I looked at those babies and...

If I had known then what I know now,

I would have certainly looked her over a lot better.

My husband had lung cancer, and it had metastasized.

He passed away in the end of August of 2011.

During my husband's funeral,

I heard the door and then I saw Lisa,

and she was in her work clothes.

She was working for the nursing home.

And she was crying.

"She put her arm around me, and she goes, hi, mama."

Hey, mom.

Hey. Hey.

Hi.

I'm sorry.

Hi. Hi.

Um, I just came from work,

and I actually have to go back.

I just needed to stop by.

I'm glad you did.

I wish... I wish I could stay.

I'm so sorry.

He loved you so much.

I did too.

Um...

I'll... I'll see you.

I really wondered about how our relationship was,

and I would love her forever.

I would always love her, no matter what.

But I didn't really know how she felt.

One night and all of a sudden,

I get this pounding at the door.

Well, I'm by myself, and I was scared to death.

And I said, "who is it?"

I opened up the door, and they said,

"do you have a daughter, Lisa?"

The first thing that came to my mind is,

"what did Josh do?"

Most people in the Ben Wheeler area have acreage.

Lisa and Josh had no neighbors.

There was no neighbors to hear anything.

The police have never been called to their home.

I feel like that Josh did move Lisa out there

to be further away from her family.

He moved her out there with the intention

of isolating her from the world.

I'll be drawing.

Can I show you what you should do?

Yes.

Watch this. Okay.

Look at that.

And...

It's for you.

Baby, it's beautiful.

Why don't you wear it? It's so pretty.

I can't wear it. I'm not a mom.

Mom? I see. I love that.

That's so thoughtful. Thank you, baby.

Hey, girls, let's go upstairs. Yeah? Come on.

It's okay.

Go look after your sisters, okay?

Let's go. No! Josh!

Please.

No!

The severity of it for Lisa and Josh

was a slow progression.

It spanned nearly 10 years,

especially after having her children.

She probably, you know, wanted to make things work

and wanted things right for her kids.

She probably wanted her kids

to have a life that she didn't have.

And all along, you know, it was the complete opposite.

Get the girl ready for school.

Hey, I said get the girl ready for school... now.

Let's go.

That morning, the oldest daughter had to go to school,

and Lisa wasn't moving fast enough for Josh.

Come on, let's go. No. I forgot...

Hey, what are you...

I said get the girl ready for school now!

What are you doing?

What's wrong with you?!

Josh. No, don't!

Are you stupid?

Why are you like this?

Why are you like this?

I'm sorry, I'm sorry.

So he took a stiff wire, like a romex wire,

and started beating her with this romex wire

because she wasn't moving fast enough.

Why do you make me do this?

I'm sorry, I'm sorry.

Why do you make me do this?

Please.

You stupid...

No, no, no, please don't.

Clean this mess up.

Let's go, joy!

When he went outside, the truck wouldn't start,

so that just infuriated him even more.

So he took the jumper cables and came back in...

You stupid, lazy.

Why do you make me do this?!

...and just started beating her in the head and about the body

with the jumper cables.

His words to Lisa was that he would Bury her,

he had plenty of acreage,

that he would Bury her and nobody would find her.

Josh told her, "I'm taking her to school.

When I get back, I'm gonna kill you."

And Lisa... all the times in all these years

that he's probably told her things,

she had no doubts in her mind that he was gonna kill her.

When he left, he left mad,

so he didn't lock her back up in the room

and that she was able to... To get out.

Go.

Come on, baby, go, go, go.

I need you to go, take your sister down the stairs.

There was cameras on the house,

and I seen Lisa leaving the house

with those two little girls,

and you could tell she was moving slowly, she was limping.

You could tell her leg was hurt.

To endure that kind... A broken leg

and the kind of head injuries that she had,

she knew that he was gonna kill her.

She really has nowhere to go.

She didn't have a vehicle, she didn't have neighbors,

she was miles from any city.

Her only choice was to go in the woods.

She just took the girls and hid in the woods

and tried to keep the girls quiet

so Josh couldn't find her.

I can't imagine what the two little girls were going through.

I know that Lisa did her best in singing songs

and tried to make it more of that

they were on an outing for the little girls

and trying to comfort them and probably shelter them

from the reality of what was going on.

Come on.

It's okay. Mommy's okay. Come on.

Keep going. Keep going, baby.

Come on. Keep going.

Lisa!

Daddy?

Carrie?

Lisa!

When I find you, I am gonna kill you!

You hear me?! Lisa!

She could hear Josh looking for her,

and it would make her just hide

and hunker down deeper into the woods.

Mommy, what are we doing?

We're just playing a game, okay?

Just a little adventure, alright? Come on.

Shh. Got to be quiet.

Shh. Shh.

I was afraid to come out.

I was afraid if I came out, he'd see me,

and... and that would be it.

Physically, you know, I was barely able to move.

Emotionally, I was a mess.

And the only thing that gave me strength was god and my girls.

After the second day of being out there,

I had to make it to get help.

And so we made our way back up to the street.

There's a car. There's a car. Let's go.

We were walking up the road and, you know, covered in blood,

and then a woman pulled up

and she asked, you know, "what's going on?"

And I said, "my husband, you know, tried to kill me."

And she's like, 'get in the car."

When I get to Tyler, I go in the hospital.

There were police all over.

When they ask who I am

and when I told them,

they let me through.

And then I was stopped before I could go in,

and they said, "now, Lisa's in really bad shape."

That she ran away from Josh, she had been beaten.

She looks pretty bad.

And that she had been out in the woods

with the two little ones,

the two youngest ones for two nights and three days.

I was laying in the hospital bed, and she came walking in.

And... sorry.

Um, it was like an angel.

I mean, I hadn't seen her in forever.

So it was a little bit of peace with me because I knew

I wasn't gonna go through this alone,

that I had my mom.

She was very weak.

She was skin and bone with bandages everywhere.

It just didn't look like Lisa at all.

After finding out all that happened to her,

I just never knew

that anybody could go through that much and still...

Still live.

I had a hole in my knee from a hammer.

I had a hole on my left shoulder.

I had a great big hole in my right shoulder

that was actually rotting.

The skin on my head, they said it looked like

I had been scalped and the flesh was rotting.

I had a finger that was barely holding on.

My stab wounds had already healed,

but there were still marks there from them.

Well, Lisa had told me that Josh said

I didn't want anything to do with her.

I said, "Lisa that's... that's not true.

So not true."

All you have to worry about is getting better.

Okay?

Just get some sleep.

We'll figure all this out.

It was... I mean, all these years,

I thought my mom didn't want anything to do with me

because Josh had filled my head with so much stuff.

So for her to actually be there and just be there with me,

and it just... it was a relief.

Really, it was like we'd never been apart.

It was like it was before I ever met Josh.

We just picked up where we left off.

I am so glad she asked for me.

That just showed that she wasn't angry with me,

that she really wanted her mother

as much as I wanted her.

That she really wanted me.

And...

I can't tell you how that feels,

and I wouldn't have been any other place.

I had just gotten off work, and I got a call

from the dispatcher, advised me that there was a woman

and two small kids picked up on the side of the road

who was severely beaten

and transported to the Tyler hospital.

I responded immediately to that call.

And by the time I get to the hospital,

cps has already been notified by law enforcement

and they have taken...

Taken the girls already at that point.

So they were safe.

The hospital was on lockdown.

In my years of law enforcement,

I have never... I've never heard of that.

So you have a major hospital that is so afraid

of what Josh is gonna do,

because they see Lisa's injuries and what happened to her

that they were not letting anybody into the hospital

that wasn't medically necessary or law enforcement.

Miss Holden?

My name is kristine holt.

I'm an investigator

with the Van zandt county sheriff's office.

I know you've been through a lot,

but I'm going to need to ask you some questions

if you're up to it.

I was surprised she was alive, but I was also surprised

of how well she was communicating with me.

Have you found joy?

No.

You have to find him if joy's with him.

Josh was taking her to school that day,

and that was one of her concerns in the hospital,

that she knew that the oldest daughter was still with him.

It was also a concern for US and law enforcement.

So we had a huge sense of urgency of trying to find

where Josh was and trying to get the daughter back safely.

Van zandt county is 859 rural square miles,

and Lisa was afraid that Josh would just disappear

because that's what he had told her for years,

that "I'm gonna kill you and I will just disappear."

Seeing Lisa's injuries,

we've seen what Josh was capable of,

which was horrific,

and knowing that Josh had the oldest daughter,

we knew that we had to find Josh.

Upon leaving the hospital,

I had to meet the justice of the peace at his home

to get the search warrant signed.

And then we had to call in some of our SWAT members

to help US go into the house...

...because we had no idea what we were going into.

We had child protective services on standby.

Josh wasn't in the house.

But that house was a crime scene,

and that crime scene told a story.

It corroborated what Lisa said of the abuse that was going on.

I told them, you know, "here's the house.

If you go in this room, this is what you'll find."

And they went to the house,

and they found what they called the torture chamber.

There was a padlock on the outside of the door.

There was a stiff wire laying on the ground

with hair and blood in it where he had beat her.

They found blood on the walls.

They found brain matter on the walls,

brain matter on the baseball bat.

All the weapons I said he used, they found them.

There were camera systems inside to monitor

everything that Lisa was doing.

At the end of the house,

where the master bathroom would have been,

he had computers and TV monitors where he was watching

what was going on with Lisa inside the house.

No! No!

Why do you look at me this like?

No, please!

Why do you do this to me?!

If he was mad, he did horrific things.

Like he shot her in the leg with pellet guns.

He had stabbed her in the leg.

It was just incredible the extent

that he went to for as long as he went.

And it's a rural area.

There was no neighbors to hear anything.

She was in a world of abuse and alone

with her and her kids.

God, are you ugly...

Well, Josh always told me

that if I ever called the law,

before the laws would ever get through the door,

he would slit the girls' throats.

And if I ever got away, he would hunt me down

and kill me and the girls, and he'd kill my family.

I believed him because of what he'd done to me.

I knew he had the capability to do it.

After we went to Josh's house and he wasn't there,

we immediately went to the next logical place

that he might would have been,

which would have been his brother's house.

And at that point, we just knocked on the door.

His sister-in-law answered the door,

and she told US that Josh was in the house.

Um, and we located Josh

and the daughter in the bedroom of the house.

Josh did not put up a fight.

He had a pretty arrogant attitude,

but he did not put up a fight.

The oldest daughter was found safe.

She was checked by ems, and she was fine physically.

And child protective services took custody of her.

A big relief to know that that baby was fine,

that she was okay

and that he was gonna be behind bars.

When they told me that Josh was arrested,

it was, um...

It was a relief.

I felt like I was finally safe.

I knew my other daughters were okay.

I was finally able to breathe and just relax and rest.

I was safe...

Until his brother bonded him out.

I was taken from a regular hospital room to a secured room

that you had to have a code word to get into

or the door code to get into.

Just, you know, I was told

that was for my safety, my protection.

I was terrified.

I was so afraid of him coming up to the hospital.

And cps had already taken the girls,

so I knew, "okay, at least they're safe."

He wouldn't know where the girls were at,

but he could find out where... Where Lisa was.

Part of the conditions of his bond,

he was to wear a leg monitor.

Josh did not do that.

I received another call from the adult probation office

that apparently Josh was driving around the hospital in Tyler,

which we believed he would be looking for Lisa.

He's gonna get me. Yes, he's gonna get me.

Mom, no, you don't understand.

I have to get out of here.

I was terrified

that he was gonna show up at that hospital,

that he'd find me and he'd finish what he started.

After Josh got out on bond,

we knew that he was gonna look for Lisa.

In fact, I had other inmates that were in a cell with Josh.

They would come to me

and tell me the things that Josh was saying.

And he was very adamant with the other inmates

that when he got out that he was gonna look for Lisa.

There's only a few hospitals in Tyler,

so it wouldn't have taken much to figure out where I was at.

He had every intention of finding me

and finishing the job.

'Cause without me alive, there was no case against him.

Get out of the truck!

Step out of the vehicle.

I was in the hospital learning how to walk again,

and the police found him

circling the hospital that I was in.

When he was asked

about why he was around the hospital area,

he gave some excuse about he was looking for a job,

but we knew better.

When he was rearrested,

because he showed up there at the hospital

and they believed he had intended to finish the job,

they raised his bond back up to three quarters of a million.

We went to court every time

he had to see the judge.

And every time, he'd look at Lisa and I,

and he had the biggest grin on his face.

Just... no remorse.

No remorse whatsoever.

I didn't want to have to go through a trial

because I didn't think I could handle it.

They came to me with a sentence of 30 years, and I said no,

because my youngest daughter would not have been

an adult yet.

And so they went back to him with a plea for 40 years

and he wasn't gonna take it until they told him

they had other charges they could bring against him.

He pled guilty and took the plea for 40 years.

They allowed me to do a victim allocution statement,

which was just me

basically telling Josh what I thought about him.

My name is Lisa.

I was married to Josh Holden.

Josh...

You don't control me anymore.

I am free for the first time in a long time,

and you are going to be behind bars.

You are a fish in a tank full of sharks,

and I don't have to be afraid of you anymore.

Josh is sitting in prison,

and it makes me feel good that now he's the prisoner

and I'm not.

He can't hurt me, and he can't touch my kids.

Physically, I recovered

in, you know, just a matter of months.

Emotionally, I don't think...

I don't think I have even fully recovered.

It gets easier every day.

But it's one of those things

that goes with you the rest of your life.

I wanted nothing more

than to Lisa have the children back.

That's all I wanted for her to get well.

But I didn't realize at first

how deep the scars were, especially emotionally.

If Lisa couldn't take care of herself,

she wouldn't be able to take care of the girls.

I was hoping I could get them.

Then I realized that I need to spend time with Lisa.

And I had to try to do my best to help this...

This young woman

that didn't know who she was anymore

because she had somebody else tell her

what to do for all these years.

And... and she was beaten to believe

that she was everything that he said she was.

My kids went into a foster home together.

I wouldn't let them go unless they were,

you know, in the same home.

And these kids have been through a lot.

A lot.

And for this couple to come in

and take such good care of them

and they let US see them.

They let the family be involved,

even though I wanted to be their mom,

I couldn't have given them the life that they deserve,

the life that I wanted them to have.

And I prayed about it and I prayed about it.

And I talked to my family about it.

And in the end, I felt like the best thing

was to let these people adopt them.

It's the hardest decision I've ever made.

But they're happy, they're healthy.

They have a great life.

I still get to be part of their lives.

And these people are amazing to them.

And even though it haunts me every day

and it hurts me so much, I do not regret my decision.

Reconnecting with my mom's been wonderful.

We still have to make up for all those years.

We do our best,

but I'm so thankful that she's my mom.

Lisa's gone through a lot.

I'm surprised that she survived all that she has survived,

but she... she did it.

I have my Lisa back,

and I'm really proud of her.

I want awareness to be raised that domestic violence,

it happens and it happens a lot.

And if one woman can see this and hear my story of survival

and get out of a bad situation,

then I feel like I've accomplished a good deed.