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| Sandy Ketchum (left) and Holly Harvey face multiple charges related to the slaying
of Harvey’s grandparents. A judge denied bond for the teens on Aug. 19.
(Photos by R.O. Youngblood)
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HOME > NEWS > LOCAL
By: DYANA BAGBY
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An attorney for a teen charged with killing her elderly grandparents to continue
a lesbian relationship says the alleged romantic connection “had nothing
to do with what happened.”
Holly Harvey, 15, and Sandy Ketchum, 16, are charged with the Aug. 2 slayings
of Harvey’s grandparents, Carl and Sarah Collier. Law enforcement authorities
claim the two hatched a plan to brutally stab the couple to death as part of
a plot so they could remain together.
“I’ve said Sandy was in it for the love,” Lt. Col. Bruce
Jordan of the Fayette County Sheriff’s Department told Southern Voice
this week. “I kind of feel Sandy is a victim, as much as she can be a
victim. She was manipulated [by Harvey]. But I can’t really go into the
evidence about this.”
The teens are both charged as adults with one count each of felony murder,
malice murder and armed robbery. They face up to life in prison, but cannot
be sentenced to death because of their age, according to Fayette County District
Attorney Bill McBroom.
The teens were denied bond by Fayette County Superior Court Judge Paschal
English on Aug. 19 after being described as flight risks by Jordan. No testimony
was presented about a relationship between the girls during the 35-minute hearing
at the Fayette County Justice Center in Fayetteville, a city south of Atlanta.
Jordan said more evidence of the girls’ relationship might be presented
at a preliminary hearing Aug. 31.
Harvey and Ketchum remain in separate juvenile detention centers and have
had no contact with each other since their arrest Aug. 3, according to authorities.
Harvey’s court-appointed attorney, Judy Chidester of Peachtree City,
said after the bond hearing that her client’s relationship with Ketchum
is inconsequential to the tragedy.
“I think it’s inappropriate police have released such information,” Chidester
said. “This didn’t have anything to do with what happened. I think
[the relationship] is a misdirection.”
When Ketchum’s attorney, Lloyd Walker, was asked about the girls’ alleged
lesbian relationship, he said bluntly, “I’m not going to discuss
that.”
Dr. Barbara Rubin, a gay Atlanta psychologist, said the teens are clearly
troubled with serious mental health issues, none of which have to do whether
or not they are lesbians.
“This is not a gay story,” she said. “They didn’t
do this because they are gay.”
Harvey and Ketchum were arrested in Tybee Island on Aug. 3 after fleeing the
Fayette County home where Harvey lived with her grandparents. The two took
the Collier’s blue Chevy Silverado truck to make their escape to the
coastal city about 250 miles from Atlanta, according to a Fayette County Sheriff’s
Department report.
Fayette prosecutors added the armed robbery charges at the Aug. 19 hearing.
Harvey and Ketchum also allegedly stole some of Harvey’s grandmother’s
jewelry, according to prosecutors.
The bodies of the Colliers, both stabbed more than a dozen times, were discovered
by law enforcement authorities after a Griffin teen called 911 to report Harvey
and Ketchum came by her home and claimed to have killed Harvey’s grandparents,
according to Spalding County Sheriff’s Deputy Cheryl Brown.
The Griffin teen said both girls were covered in blood and asked the friend
for a change of clothes and to wash up, Brown said.
Spalding County Sheriff’s officials contacted the Fayette Sheriff’s
office, which sent deputies to the Riverdale home where the Colliers lived
and confirmed they had been killed.
Harvey and Ketchum then apparently made other calls to friends on a cell phone.
Police traced these calls to Tybee Island where the teens were eventually captured,
Jordan said.
During the bond hearing, Harvey, apparently in tears, rested her head on a
table for nearly all of the proceeding. Chidester tried to console her by putting
her arm around the girl’s shoulder. At one point, Harvey raised her head
to ask Chidester a question.
“She asked me, ‘Is there anyone who is going to testify for me?’” Chidester
told reporters after the hearing.
Nobody testified for Harvey. Her mother, Carla Harvey — who was adopted
by the Colliers — is serving a three-year prison sentence for marijuana
possession. The Colliers became Holly Harvey’s guardians after her mother
was sentenced.
Holly Harvey’s father, a quadrapalegic and an ex-convict, said he would
not testify for his daughter but wanted her to know he was praying for her,
Chidester said after the hearing.
“She has nowhere to go,” Chidester said. “And she’s
never really had that.”
Testifying for Ketchum, who cried throughout the hearing and wiped tears away
with a tissue, were her father and stepmother.
Both teens were described as having a history of drug use ...
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