David Hollis

This may prove to be one of the shortest blogs that I have written. There is not a lot of information to be found about this case but it is one that for if no other reason should be remembered for the victims.

David Hollis was twenty-one years old in early 1982. He had a young daughter, who was said to be “just over two” at the time. David and his wife, Debra, who was eighteen at the time had separated in November of 1981. In January Debra filed for divorce. One can only assume after hearing what happened next that the marriage was likely riddled with domestic violence. Debra and her daughter, Nina, lived in an apartment in Hammond Indiana with another, unnamed as I could find, woman. On February 27, 1982 Debra was being visited by a neighbor, eighteen year old Kim Mezei along with Kim's two year old son, Craig. David entered the home and by the time he left, Debra, Kim and Craig were all dead. Debra had been stabbed several times and all three victims were strangled. Two year old Nina was in the home and left unharmed.

I cannot tell you how authorities were led to the bodies but obviously they were. The following day David Hollis went to the home of an acquaintance, Donald White in Griffith Indiana, just fifteen minutes south of Hammond. Hollis had a shotgun with him. White told Hollis that he was a suspect in the murders. White would later claim that Hollis soon confessed to the murders saying that he regretting killing Kim and Craig but that they were “in the way.” White would allege that Hollis then tied him up and forced him to perform or sex on him.

Once again I cannot tell you what happened after this, how Hollis was caught, or when. But, he was caught. It appears pretty obvious that the prosecution was planning to seek the death penalty. The unusual part here is that Hollis decided to plead guilty to the crimes without any sort of agreement from the prosecution. This is generally an unusual move. When one faces the death penalty the idea of taking a plea is in order to avoid death but that was not the case here. He pleaded guilty to three counts of murder and to one count of criminal confinement. On November 12, 1982 David Hollis was given a sentence of death. He was given more than that as he was given two sentences of years but really, when death is given, the others do not matter. An appeal was never filed and again I do not have great details but I can say that on February 19, 1984 David Hollis committed suicide by hanging in prison in Michigan City Indiana while on death row.

But, there is a silver lining in this story. I came across Nina's name when I found an appeal on her behalf by her guardians, Phyllis and Richard Wild. The couple had filed for assistance under the Violent Crimes Compensation Act of Indiana as a dependent child of a murdered parent. It was denied due to a provision in the law about the applicant being related to the perpetrator. In this case while her mother had been murdered, and obviously a victim of violence, her father was the perpetrator. To be honest it was this appeal that helped with some of the details of the original crime. In fact, before coming across this I was unaware that David and Debra had a child together. In the end the courts upheld the denial.

Then, in an attempt to find more information I went to findagrave.com and entered Debra's information. There was a picture of her tombstone, with her maiden name (Miller) as well as the Hollis name but there was no other information. So on a hunch I decided to look at the cemetery in Portage Indiana for the names of Richard and Phyllis Wild. It was then that I discovered that Phyllis Wild was in fact Debra's mother with Richard being her stepfather. Phyllis died in 2016 with Richard to follow in 2019. In the obituaries of both Phyllis and Richard, Debra was listed as pre-deceased and I noticed that she was listed as Debra Miller, with the Hollis absent. Also among their children was a Nina Rivas. This was biologically their granddaughter and the daughter of Debra. I took things a bit further and learned that Nina has married for decades and has at least two teenage children. She is currently the Clerk/Treasurer of Portage Indiana. The point is that it's great to hear that she is doing so well despite the issues she faced as a toddler.