Evidence processing needed in homicide investigation

Nearly two months after a local woman’s body was found along a rural Butler County road, authorities are awaiting the return of lab results and cellphone records.

Jessica Holland’s body was found Sept. 17 on County Road 612 by a passerby, who contacted the Butler County Sheriff’s Department, Sheriff Mark Dobbs said earlier.

“Upon arrival, it was obvious she was deceased, and she had been shot,” Dobbs said.

A subsequent autopsy reportedly found the 29-year-old had been “shot multiple times.”

The Butler County/Poplar Bluff Major Case Squad was activated to investigate Holland’s death.

In September, Dobbs said, investigators were “concentrating on retracing the steps of the victim to create a time line. … We are talking to everyone who knew the victim.”

The victim’s cellphone, as well as cellphones of possible persons of interest, were seized and had been sent for analysis, along with cellphone records, said Chief Deputy Wes Popp.

Facebook and its Messenger app records also were subpoenaed, Popp said.

The digital evidence, according to Popp, was sent to the Missouri State Highway Patrol, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms & Explosives and SEMO Cyber Crimes Task Force for analysis.

“We don’t know what we’re looking for; we’re looking at everything,” Popp said.

Investigators, he said, have “nothing specific” they are looking for other than anything that “has to do with Holland, her communications, locations, everything.”

At this time, Popp said, records have been returned on Holland’s phone, as well as the phone of one of the persons of interest.

Popp said those records are being reviewed, and it is unknown when additional records will be returned due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Investigators, Popp said, also are waiting on lab results to be returned on the evidence collected at the scene.

“We continue to follow leads and things like that,” Dobbs said. “Like many cases, we just get bogged down (in the investigation) by the slow lab turn around.”