Investigators expose fiancée’s role in Alyssa Burkett murder plot

What looked like a brutal ex-boyfriend killing quickly turned into something far bigger once investigators started pulling at the loose threads. Alyssa Burkett, 24, was killed in broad daylight on Oct. 2, 2020, outside the Greentree Apartments leasing office in Carrollton, Texas, where she worked. Andrew Beard, the father of her child, was identified early as a suspect, but detectives soon learned Beard was only part of the story and that his fiancée, Holly Elkins, helped drive the plan that ended in Burkett’s death.

The case turned on the evidence trail around the murder, not just the violence itself. CBS’s updated 48 Hours account described Beard attacking Burkett in a black Ford Expedition SUV, shooting her through the driver’s-side window and then stabbing her 44 times, a level of force investigators read as rage and planning at once. The appellate record later said Beard disguised himself as a Black man before the killing, a detail that reinforced how deliberately the ambush had been staged. For Burkett’s family, the crime left a wound that never closed; her mother, Teresa Collard, described dreaming about her daughter after the killing, a stark reminder that the case did not end with an arrest.

Detectives initially treated Elkins as someone who might help explain the murder rather than as a central player in it. That shift proved crucial. As the case expanded, investigators and prosecutors tied Beard and Elkins to a custody fight over Beard’s child and to months of stalking and harassment aimed at Burkett. Court records and federal filings described a GPS tracker placed on Burkett’s car, false police reports, and a plan to plant a gun and drugs in her vehicle. By then, the narrative had changed from a single-act revenge killing to a coordinated conspiracy that used surveillance, deception and paperwork as much as raw violence.

Federal prosecutors indicted Elkins in June 2023. She was convicted in April 2024 after a seven-day trial and about 90 minutes of jury deliberation, then sentenced on Aug. 15, 2024 to two consecutive life terms. Beard later pleaded guilty and received a 43-year federal prison sentence. The Fifth Circuit later affirmed most of Elkins’s conviction, while vacating one firearm-related count and the associated life sentence. What began as a presumed ex-boyfriend case ended with investigators exposing a far more intricate murder plot, built behind Burkett’s back and hidden in plain sight until the evidence finally forced it into view.