Alabama Cold Case Advocacy™

Case Review Series: Brittney Wood

Part 5: The Call from River Road

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Published 6/3/2026

Read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4.

Content Warning: This article discusses suicide, self-harm, child sexual abuse allegations, and graphic details related to a gunshot wound and death investigation. Reader discretion is advised.

If you are having thoughts of harming yourself, please call or text 988 to reach the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, available 24/7 for free and confidential support. Veterans and service members can call 988 and press 1, or text 838255, to reach the Veterans Crisis Line. You can also download the AVAP app to connect with someone who can help. You are not alone, and help is available right now.

By the afternoon of June 1, 2012, Donnie Holland was supposed to be on his way to meet with investigators. According to records reviewed in this case, Donnie had an appointment at 2:00 PM that day. Investigators were prepared to question and potentially arrest him in connection with the child sexual abuse investigation involving members of Brittney’s family.

But Donnie never made it to that interview.

At approximately 2:15 PM, a 911 call was logged from the area of River Road in Fairhope. The incident was entered as a suicide attempt. The notes describe a gunshot wound to the head, agonal breathing, and a man sitting inside a black Suburban.

The 911 CAD notes state that the caller advised Donnie was breathing on his own, but that “they” weren’t going to touch him. The notes also state that the caller advised she got a call from him.

Those statements alone are significant.

Because the caller information in the 911 records is redacted, we can’t identify the caller from the CAD report alone. However, the wording of the CAD note suggests that the caller was female—or, at minimum, that dispatch understood the caller to be female.

It has been repeatedly stated publicly that Wendy Holland and Jennifer Moore were the two people who found Donnie. The records received from the Baldwin County Sheriff’s Office also reflect that Wendy and Jennifer were both present by the time authorities arrived. According to BCSO, one female flagged down responding officers and pointed them toward the Suburban, while another female was standing in the driver’s doorway of the vehicle.

But the question of who actually called 911 hasn’t been as consistent.

Depending on the source, the 911 call has been attributed to either Wendy or Jennifer. The CAD records we received don’t resolve that question since the caller information isn’t visible.

What the records do show is that one possibility becomes much less likely when the CAD timeline is compared to Donnie’s phone records.

At 2:15 PM, the same minute the 911 call was being made, Donnie’s AT&T records show a call involving Donnie’s phone and Jennifer’s cell phone. The call is listed as outgoing from Donnie’s phone to Jennifer’s cell and lasted 5 minutes and 49 seconds.

In other words, while the 911 call was underway, Jennifer’s cell phone was also connected to Donnie’s phone. That makes it unlikely Jennifer was the person speaking with 911 at that exact time.

Wendy, however, later stated in her 2026 interview with the Unforbidden Truth Podcast that she was the one who called 911. According to Wendy, Jennifer was on her own phone, and Wendy retrieved her phone from the vehicle Donnie was in before calling 911.

Source: Unforbidden Truth Podcast

That statement answers one question while raising another.

If Wendy made the 911 call, that would be consistent with Jennifer’s phone being tied up on a call with Donnie’s phone at 2:15 PM.

That is significant because Donnie’s phone records show Wendy’s last reflected call to Donnie before the 911 call occurred at 12:28 PM. That call appears as an incoming call to Donnie’s phone from Wendy’s cell, but it has a duration of 0:00. After 12:28 PM, there are no reflected calls or texts between Wendy’s cell phone and Donnie’s phone before the 2:15 PM 911 call.

So if Wendy had been dropped off earlier—around 10:30 AM—and later went looking for Donnie, the question becomes: How did Wendy’s phone end up inside the Suburban Donnie was in sometime between 12:28 PM and 2:15 PM?

The Calls Described in the Medical Examiner Records

The Florida Medical Examiner’s preliminary investigation report includes a narrative summary stating that, at approximately 1:00 PM, Donnie reportedly called his wife and said he wasn’t going to the interview with BCSO and was going to “jump off a bridge.” (See Part 4 for a copy of the Medical Examiner records.)

The same report states that, at approximately 1:50 PM, Donnie reportedly spoke with his wife again and told her he was coming home. When he didn’t arrive, the narrative states that Wendy went looking for him.

But those calls don’t appear in Donnie’s phone records.

According to the records reviewed, the last completed call between Wendy and Donnie before the 911 call appears to have occurred at 11:35 AM, when Wendy’s cell called Donnie’s phone for 3 minutes and 20 seconds.

After that, there are additional attempts to reach Donnie, but they don’t appear to reflect completed conversations.

In other words, the records don’t show a completed 1:00 PM call between Donnie and Wendy. They don’t show a completed 1:50 PM call between Donnie and Wendy. And the last reflected Wendy-to-Donnie call before the 911 call appears to have gone unanswered.

That discrepancy matters because those reported conversations appear to explain why Wendy went looking for Donnie and how she ended up at River Road.

It also creates another problem.

In Wendy’s 2026 interview, she said Donnie dropped her and the children off at Jennifer’s house because he said he had to go home “real quick,” but never came back.

If Wendy was at Jennifer’s house, how would she have known whether Donnie had gone home at all?

The Medical Examiner’s narrative appears to frame Wendy’s search as beginning when Donnie failed to come home. But according to Wendy’s later account, she wasn’t waiting at their home. She was at Jennifer’s.

So the question isn’t simply why Wendy went looking for Donnie. The question is: What information caused Wendy and Jennifer to leave Jennifer’s house and go to the specific location on River Road where Donnie was found?

Without the 1:00 PM and 1:50 PM calls appearing in the records, there is a gap that raises significant questions.

The Scene at the Suburban

According to BCSO records, when Deputy Lucas Jones arrived in the area, a female subject flagged down responding officers and pointed them toward the Suburban. Another female was standing in the driver’s doorway of the vehicle.

The driver’s door was open, and Donnie was observed laying back in the driver’s seat.

A red Chevy Aveo was parked directly beside the Suburban, facing the same direction, almost window-to-window and only a couple of feet away.

The female standing near the Suburban was ordered away until the scene could be declared safe. Donnie was still moving as deputies attempted to locate the gun.

A small handgun was located on the floorboard near Donnie’s feet, between the seat and center console. The firearm was later identified in the records as a Raven .25 caliber automatic pistol.

Donnie was removed from the scene and transported by Life Flight to Baptist Hospital in Pensacola, FL. The two women at the scene were identified as Wendy and Jennifer.

The Phone That Left the Scene

There is another issue that has to be addressed before moving forward.

Wendy didn’t leave the scene empty-handed. She left with Donnie’s phone.

Based on information reviewed in this case, including Donnie’s phone records, Wendy continued using Donnie’s phone until it was later turned over to law enforcement. Before the phone was turned in, content was deleted from the device.

By the time Donnie was found on River Rd., Brittney had already been missing for nearly two days. Donnie had been one of the last known people connected to her final movements. His phone wasn’t just a personal device. It was potential evidence.

And it wasn’t only Donnie’s phone that becomes important here.

After Donnie was found, there were repeated calls from Donnie’s phone to Brittney’s phone. Those calls continued over the next several days. The records show multiple short calls to Brittney’s phone on June 1, June 2, June 3, June 4, and June 5.

Then, on June 5 at 3:25 PM, Donnie’s phone connected to Brittney’s phone for 5 minutes and 11 seconds. That call is believed to be the call that gained access to Brittney’s voicemail.

According to public statements and conversations with Brittney’s family, Wendy had repeatedly called Brittney’s phone and tried various passcodes until she was able to access Brittney’s voicemail.

If Brittney’s voicemail was accessed after her disappearance, that access could have affected what was preserved, what was heard, what was deleted, and what investigators were later able to confirm.

Again, the phone records don’t tell us who was physically holding Donnie’s phone at each moment. They show activity from Donnie’s line. But if Wendy had possession of Donnie’s phone after the scene, and if she was using that phone before turning it over to police, then the activity on that phone after June 1 has to be viewed through that lens.

What the Autopsy Actually Says

Donnie wasn’t pronounced dead at the scene. He was still alive when first responders reached him. He was transported by Life Flight to Baptist Hospital in Pensacola, FL, where he remained until June 4, 2012, when he was officially declared deceased.

Donnie’s cause of death was a gunshot wound to the head. More specifically, the entrance wound was located at the right temple – in plain terms, on the right side of his head near the temple/ear area.

The wound path traveled from right to left and upward. The Medical Examiner classified the manner of death as suicide.

The location of Donnie’s wound has been a major point of discussion over the years. Some reports and statements have described the wound as being behind his ear. Law enforcement records also describe deputies observing a gunshot wound on the right side of his head behind his ear. But the autopsy uses more specific anatomical language, placing the entrance wound at the right temple, centered in line with the right ear canal.

So, yes, there is room to talk carefully about how the wound location was described in different records. But some public statements about the wound have gone beyond careful questioning and crossed into claims that are simply not supported by the records.

The Problem with The Monster in the Shadows

In the first episode of Monster in the Shadows, Chessie discussed the suspicious circumstances surrounding Donnie’s death. To be clear, we don’t disagree that the circumstances surrounding Donnie’s death are suspicious.

But they aren’t suspicious for the reasons Chessie gave in that scene.

In Episode 1, Chessie states:

Source: Monster in the Shadows, Episode 1, 16:13-17:33

The problem is that the location identified in the docuseries isn’t the location where Donnie was ultimately found.

To verify that, we followed the route depicted in the episode and marked the location. When compared to the location reflected in the records, the site shown in the docuseries was roughly five miles north of where Donnie was actually found. (See the map below.)

That creates several problems with the way this scene was presented.

First, the mapped location shown in the episode wasn’t the actual scene.

Second, the actual location wasn’t some distant, unfamiliar, highly secluded place far away from Donnie and Wendy’s regular home. It was roughly a mile from their home.

In fact, based on the geography, Donnie would’ve had to pass his home in order to reach the location where he was ultimately found. There was only one way in.

And the location wasn’t 45 minutes from Jennifer’s home. It was less than 20 minutes away.

That doesn’t make the scene less important.

It makes the accuracy of the scene more important.

The real question isn’t how Wendy and Jennifer managed to find some random, remote location nearly an hour away.

The real question is how they knew to go to that specific place, near Donnie and Wendy’s home, when they did.

The Bullet Claim

Chessie’s statement in the docuseries goes even further.

She says:

Source: Monster in the Shadows, Episode 1, 22:23-22:47

Chessie then reads from what she describes as a letter she allegedly received. In that letter, the writer claims that Wendy admitted Donnie didn’t commit suicide, that Wendy killed him, and that Wendy planted Brittney’s gun in the truck to make it look like Donnie had used Brittney’s gun to kill Brittney and then himself. The letter also claimed that the bullet was never removed from Donnie’s head.

That statement isn’t supported by the records.

The Medical Examiner didn’t document a bullet lodged in Donnie’s lower left jaw. As stated earlier, the autopsy states that the entrance wound as being located at the right temple, meaning the right side of Donnie’s head near the temple/ear area, and the trajectory path was right to left and upward. The records further state that two distorted lead fragments and a distorted copper fragment were recovered from the left parietal lobe of the brain.

In plain terms, the bullet didn’t lodge in Donnie’s jaw.

Fragments were recovered from his brain.

And those fragments weren’t ignored. They were later retrieved from the Medical Examiner’s Office and sent for forensic testing.

According to the records reviewed, Eric Winberg and BCSO Sgt. Gaull traveled to District One Medical Examiner’s Office in Pensacola on August 7, 2012, to retrieve the projectile recovered during Donnie’s autopsy and return it to BCSO’s evidence locker.

The recovered material was later submitted to the Alabama Department of Forensic Sciences for ballistics comparison. Those results didn’t prove that the recovered projectile came from Brittney’s gun. But they also didn’t prove that it didn’t.

The comparison was inconclusive.

According to DFS information summarized in the records, the recovered jacket fragment was too damaged for further classification, although it exhibited characteristics found in several types of .25 caliber firearms, including Raven Arms. The comparison to the test-fired round was inconclusive because the microscopic characteristics were insufficient.

That is very different from saying the bullet was never removed.

It was recovered. It was submitted for comparison. And the testing couldn’t conclusively match or exclude it.

Why Accuracy Matters

There are legitimate questions about Donnie’s death.

The timing of the 911 call.

The overlapping call activity involving Donnie’s phone and Jennifer’s phone.

The CAD wording suggesting the caller was female and more than one person was on scene.

The inconsistency in public accounts about whether Wendy or Jennifer called 911.

Wendy’s statement that her own phone was inside Donnie’s Suburban.

The fact that the last completed call between Wendy and Donnie appears to have occurred at 11:35 AM.

The fact that Wendy’s final reflected attempt to contact Donnie at 12:28 PM appears to have gone unanswered.

The missing 1:00 PM and 1:50 PM calls described in the Medical Examiner’s narrative.

The fact that Wendy’s own sister, Mendy, publicly stated that Wendy found Donnie approximately an hour and a half after he dropped her off. (See Part 4.)

And the fact that Chessie told us directly that Donnie was shot right after lunch, around 12:30 PM. (See Part 4.)

Those statements matter because they suggest the discovery, or at least the gunshot, occurred much earlier than the 2:15 PM 911 call reflected in the CAD records.

Then there are the phone issues: Wendy leaving the scene with Donnie’s phone, content being deleted before the phone was turned over, and repeated attempts to access Brittney’s voicemail using Donnie’s phone.

Those are real issues. But when inaccurate claims are layered on top of them, it makes the actual discrepancies easier to dismiss.

The records don’t support every public theory about Donnie’s death. But they do support the need for a much closer look at what happened between the moment Donnie was expected to meet investigators and the moment Wendy and Jennifer allegedly found him on River Road.

By the time law enforcement reached the scene, Donnie was alive but unable to speak.

And with him, another piece of the timeline was slipping out of reach.

Next Time

By the end of June 1, Donnie was no longer able to answer questions.

He couldn’t explain his communications with Brittney.

He couldn’t explain where she was supposed to be going on May 30, whether he saw her, or whether he dropped her off somewhere else later.

He couldn’t explain the phone activity that continued after she disappeared.

He couldn’t sit across from investigators and answer for what they were preparing to confront him with that afternoon.

But Donnie’s death didn’t end the investigation.

It changed it.

In the days and weeks that followed, the case shifted from unanswered questions to criminal charges. Arrests began. Names that had only been whispered or circled in reports became part of the public record. And the investigation that had been unfolding behind the scenes for almost 6 months suddenly exposed something much larger than one missing young woman.

In Part 6, we’ll walk through the string of arrests that followed Donnie’s death, what those arrests revealed, and how the public narrative around Brittney’s disappearance became tangled with one of the most disturbing criminal investigations Mobile and Baldwin County had ever seen.

If you have any information related to the disappearance of Brittney Wood, please contact Mobile Police Department at 251-208-1700 or submit an anonymous tip.

If you’d like to support this work, you can use the link below or text ACCAHOPE to 53-555. Donations help us continue reviewing records, building timelines, and keeping cases like Brittney’s visible.