Michael Holton Off My Feet Again

Madison Holton wants people to know he'south neither angry nor bitter.

On Monday, the land dropped two murder charges against him in connection with the September 2022 shooting deaths of his parents in their Eclectic home. He had just turned 17 when his parents died. Now 19, he is working to get his life back on track. He was arrested shortly after the shootings and spent one year and 3 months in the Elmore County Jail before being released on bail Dec. 18, 2017. He missed his senior year at Elmore County High Schoolhouse. He did non attend his parents' funerals.

His Christian organized religion got him through the hard times, he said.

More than:Murder charges dropped against Eclectic teen accused in parents' deaths

"I couldn't alive every twenty-four hours existence mad. I don't understand how a person could do that," he said Midweek afternoon during an exclusive interview at Blount Cultural Park. "I but give thanks God that he kept my head on direct through the whole thing. There were times when I would ponder what happened. There were times that I felt so helpless.

"Merely then I thought well-nigh all the people that were supporting me. And that'southward what kept me going."

It was a loftier-contour and confusing case.

"He's been determined from the first twenty-four hours that I met him in 2022 that he is not the guilty party in this,"  Tom Azar, his defense attorney, said Monday. "He maintained that position today. He said regardless of what the district attorney's office offered him, he would not consider pleading guilty to annihilation that suggested he hurt either 1 of his parents."

Madison Holton was originally charged in the deaths of both his parents. One grand jury indicted him of the death of his father, Mike Holton, but cleared him on the death of his mother, April Holton. Then a follow-up grand jury dropped the murder indictment in the death of Mike Holton and returned indictments for murder in the deaths of both parents.

On Monday, the charges were dropped and Madison Holton pleaded guilty to violating the Alabama Youthful Offender Statute. The proceeding was closed and his criminal record is at present sealed. The judge likely gave him credit for time served because  he walked out the courtroom a gratuitous homo.

"The case is over," Azar said, Monday. "Madison is released from any obligations of his bond. He is free to alive his life. It is over. This young man amazes me. I'd be mad at the world. But he actually is a a sweet, sweet kid."

And the family went to Freedom Park in Atlanta to gloat.

"What better place to go?" Madison Holton said, dandy a grin.

So, has he grieved his parents?

"It's hard to explain," Madison Holton said. "People say I showed no emotion. I was just shocked the night that it happened. And then everything that happened over the next couple of weeks was just crazy. I approximate I've grieved my parents' deaths. It was simply an extremely difficult thing to exercise with everything else that was going on.

"There were several times I woke upward in jail and thought I was in a dream. A nightmare."

When he was released on bond just a few days before Christmas, his commencement meal was pizza.

"They don't serve pizza in the Elmore County Jail," Madison Holton said. "We went to the bonding company office and they had Netflix. My favorite Television receiver show is 'The Walking Expressionless.' So I caught upwards with 'The Walking Dead' in the office. ... Otherwise I just visited with my family."

He'south looking for a fresh starting time now. He will exist moving out of Elmore County in the coming weeks.

"I need to get out of Elmore County and start putting this behind me," he said.

He is going to a local community college to stop his high school instruction. Then he plans on going to another community college to get his GPA up before going to a iv-year higher and probable pursuing a history caste before going to law school. He wants to exist a defense attorney.

But still, he looks back at times. The highlight of every loftier schooler's life is senior year. How can he get that lost time back?

"I don't take information technology every bit lost time," Madison Holton said. "I thought about my friends a lot when I was in jail, about what they were doing. I grew up a lot while incarcerated. I learned a lot in a practiced way. If I had been in schoolhouse I would likely have been partying; drinking and smoking."

Has he put that life, the alcohol and the drugs, backside him?

"Oh, yeah sir," Madison Holton said. "No more than of that stuff."

He credits the back up of April Holton's family, and his church family at New Hope Baptist in Titus for being a positive influence. He was baptized at the church on Aug. v.

He said he bears no ill will to the district attorney's office or law enforcement.

"I saw all the comments on Facebook after the charges were dropped Monday," Madison Holton said. "I'm not mad at the police force. They are the protectors of society, so you tin't exist mad at the police. At that place'southward no reason for that.

"There are a select few I'grand mad at, and I won't use their names. But I tin't be mad at the entire Elmore County Sheriff's Department."

The couple was shot in a home on the outskirts of Eclectic on Sept. 11, 2016. Mike Holton was pronounced dead at the scene, and April Holton died some days afterwards from her wound. Elmore Canton Sheriff Bill Franklin said Mike Holton called the sheriff'due south department and filed a complaint about the home existence "trashed" following a weekend party. There was show of drug employ recovered at the home, he said. Mike Holton, a erstwhile mayor of Eclectic, asked investigators what information technology would take to file a juvenile petition against his son, the sheriff said.

The deputy then left the home, simply to return a brusque time later when the shots fired call came in. Azar said the well-nigh likely scenario is that Mike Holton shot April Holton, and then turned the handgun on himself.

This weekend is the outset weekend he volition spend as a costless man in two years. What's on tap?

"I have a political party at church Friday nighttime," he said. "Then I'thou going to my aunt'south Sabbatum for horseback riding and shooting, and I accept a cousin's birthday party Saturday. Then information technology's church building on Sunday and back to school on Monday."

And he has some relationships to restart, particularly his 2 younger brothers.

"I dear them and accept kept upwardly with them with social media," Madison Holton said. "Part of the bond requirements were that I couldn't take whatever contact with them. I want to be a large brother, merely I think information technology's a good idea if I look for them to reach out first."

Many people have told him he needs to sue the sheriff and district attorney offices for simulated abort. He has no interest in doing that.

"Liberty is priceless," he said. "It's not about money. I just want to have a life once again."

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Source: https://www.montgomeryadvertiser.com/story/news/2018/10/24/madison-holton-parents-murdered-eclectic-alabama-tom-azar-mike-holton-april-holton/1749134002/

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