Perhaps it was just a matter of time. But a lot if it was.
Patricia Ruth Holt, 57, faces one count of first-degree murder, according to the Dallas County Sheriff’s Office.
In the charged incident, Carl Joseph Donaldson, 47, was shot in the head and killed in late July. The victim was later identified as Holt’s then-manager at Hutchins Trucking Yard.
Almost four decades ago, Holt was charged with attempted murder.
According to The Daily Freeman, on September 25, 1986, the defendant, an 18-year-old high school senior living in Red Hook, a port-adjacent neighborhood in the borough of Brooklyn in New York City, arrived at school with a loaded 12-gauge shotgun.
Holt was enraged at the time because she had been removed from an English class due to “behavioral problems” and appeared to be preparing to sue the teacher who had disciplined her.
Fortunately, the teacher was not in class at the time. So Holt made her way to a faculty lounge, where she was quickly tackled by two other teachers, disarmed, and arrested without incident.
She was initially charged with attempted murder, attempted assault, and criminal trespass (all felonies), as well as misdemeanor weapon possession, but pleaded guilty to attempted assault and received five years probation due to her young age.
Holt eventually moved to Florida. Then North Carolina.
In June, the defendant started working for the North Texas-based trucking company in question. Her boss would die approximately one month later.
The victim’s widow claimed Holt was trouble from the start.
The grieving woman told the Freeman that during her first week on the job, Holt was told not to drive her big rig faster than the speed limit. The defendant then had to be reminded of the road rules.
“She just went off,” the widow explained. “He remained calm, but she kept screaming that she had been driving an f-ing truck for thirty years. She stormed out of the office, slamming the door, and you could hear her yelling and screaming outside. “She couldn’t take being told what to do.”
The fatal flare-up began several hours earlier in Waco, a large city near the northern edge of the Hill Country, a central-southern region of Texas. According to the widow, Holt became enraged with a customer while there.
The alleged rage apparently spread several hundred miles north after the victim instructed Holt to apologize to the customer and pick up the load, or to empty the truck and leave it in Waco.
According to the widow, Holt returned with the truck, but when he arrived in Hutchins, a small suburb of Dallas, the defendant allegedly got on a tractor-trailer, drove around in circles, and then attempted to hit Donaldson.
The widow stated that her husband, a Purple Heart recipient, remained calm and even jumped onto the tractor-trailer to try to diffuse the situation and open the door. Then came the telltale sound.
“At that time, I had my back turned and I heard a pop,” the distraught woman told the paper. “I turned around and looked and I see my husband flying through the air and falling on the ground.”
When law enforcement arrived, Holt allegedly led deputies on a slow-speed chase before spike strips were used. The sheriff’s office says she then barricaded herself in the vehicle’s cab for nearly four hours.
In a press release obtained by The Dallas Morning News, the sheriff’s office stated that she surrendered at 8:55 p.m. Central Standard Time.
During an interview, the defendant allegedly stated that she intended to kill herself or end her life through “suicide by cop.”
Holt also allegedly told investigators that she had her sights set on Donaldson “for months,” despite the fact that she had only been there for a short time.
“[T]hey have been f—ing with her for too long,” a deputy wrote, allegedly transcribing the accused killer’s complaints.
Holt is being held in the Dallas County Jail on a $1 million bail.
