Texas woman convicted in murder plot over custody battle

A GPS tracker, a black SUV bought for the job and a trail of stalking helped investigators move past the idea of a lone killer in the death of Alyssa Burkett. What first looked like a brutal parking lot attack in Carrollton, Texas, became, in federal court, a case about premeditation, coercion and a custody battle that prosecutors said turned deadly.

Burkett was 24 and working as an assistant office manager at Greentree Apartments when she was killed on Oct. 2, 2020, outside her workplace in broad daylight. She shared a 1-year-old daughter, Willow, with Andrew Beard, the child’s father and, investigators later said, the man who admitted to carrying out the killing in an effort to gain custody of the girl.

Court records and reporting describe a violent assault that combined a shooting and a stabbing, with one account saying Burkett was stabbed 44 times after being shot. Her mother, Teresa Collard, arrived at the scene and quickly told detectives she believed Beard was involved, an early instinct that matched the evidence investigators were beginning to assemble.

That evidence pointed to a longer campaign. Prosecutors said Beard and Holly Elkins spent months stalking and harassing Burkett before the murder, including filing false police reports and planting contraband in her vehicle. Beard admitted he placed a GPS tracker on Burkett’s car and used a black SUV purchased for the killing, details that helped investigators reconstruct the attack and link it to planning rather than impulse.

Beard later pleaded guilty to cyberstalking and murder-related federal charges and was sentenced to 43 years in federal prison in May 2023. Federal prosecutors said he killed Burkett, his ex-girlfriend, in a parking lot in Carrollton in an attempt to gain custody of their young daughter.

Elkins was indicted in connection with the killing and convicted by a federal jury in 2024 for helping orchestrate it. She was sentenced to two life terms in federal prison. For Burkett’s family, the case exposed the extreme danger that can grow out of domestic conflict when surveillance, manipulation and violence converge, and it showed how digital clues and custody records can be as central to modern homicide work as the crime scene itself.