Post Mortem | The Plot to Eliminate Alyssa Burkett
When Alyssa Burkett was murdered outside her workplace in Texas, authorities quickly zeroed in on her ex-boyfriend, Andrew Beard. But nearly three years after the murder, the FBI arrested another unlikely suspect. 48 Hours Correspondent Peter Van Sant is joined by Producers Liza Finley and Gabby Demirdjian to break down the evidence against Andrew’s former fiancée, Holly. They discuss the damning text messages between them and an unusual expert the defense called at her trial: a make-up artist.
- Duration
- 21m
- Broadcast on
- 19 Nov 2024
- Audio Format
- other
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[MUSIC] Welcome back to Postmortem, I'm your host Anne-Marie Green, and today we are discussing the case of Alyssa Burkett, who in 2020 was brutally murdered by Andrew Beard, her ex-boyfriend, and also the father of her young daughter. Nearly three years after Alyssa's death, Andrew's fiancee, Holly Elkins, was arrested in connection with a murder. So joining me now to unpack all the twists and turns of this case are 48 Hours Correspondent Peter Van Sant, producer Liza Finley, and Gabby Demurgen. Thank you so much, guys. Thanks, Anne-Marie. Thanks, Anne-Marie. Great to be here again, Anne-Marie. Okay, as per usual, everyone, remember, if you haven't listened to the 48 Hours episode yet, you can find the full audio just below this episode in your podcast feed. Go take a listen, and then come back for this conversation. So here we go. Alyssa Burkett was murdered in broad daylight outside of her workplace in Carrollton, Texas. This is just north of Dallas. They were witnesses, and even though Andrew Beard wore disguise, he was really quickly identified as a suspect and surrendered to authorities just three days later. But what I was really surprised by is he picked such a public place to attack her. Do you have any insight into why he would do it there in broad daylight? Well, first off, it's absolute madness that he did it, where he did it. His own mother even said this was stupid. She wasn't involved in the murder, of course. But to have all those eyeballs there where he was spotted, his getaway vehicle was spotted, how he killed her was seen by authorities. It's all part of this enormous psychological pressure he was under from Holly that he had to act. That's the power that she had over him, that he would have done something this stupid, which put authorities right on top of him so quickly. And by the way, a quick side, I used to live in Carrollton, Texas when I was a reporter in Dallas, and about a mile and a half from this site. So it's really something. Carrollton's a great town, and I love living there, and this is an extraordinary case for those folks. It was unbelievable. I mean, just to go back to how stupid it was, for instance, they made up this decision to have him appear. He's a white man, as an African-American man. So they got this makeup, sort of the Java makeup, and he put this on. It was ridiculous. And then he put on a fake beard that was a Halloween costume, and he expected people to think that he was an African-American man. A lot of the witnesses said, "Something about him, I don't think he was." Really? Yeah. And he wasn't fooling anybody. It was ludicrous. And you do wonder, I mean, one of the things we think about all the time is like, how did he think that he was going to get away with this? There's no way. I mean, he had a history with this woman of tormenting her and stalking her. And here he is in the nine o'clock in the morning doing this savage murder. You know, the thing about Andrew is that he was really willing to talk pretty openly with the FBI almost right away. Did you all reach out to him? Yeah. So I had originally sent him an email. He's in prison, but there is a system where you can contact incarcerated people through. And that's how I was able to get my message to him. And so I'd sent him an email and I said, "Hey, would you be willing to speak with me over the phone?" And he was. He was very polite, answered all of my questions. And he was very willing to help, and he wanted to do an interview on camera. And he was trying to facilitate this with the prison. Ultimately, they didn't let us in there. But he wanted to talk on camera. He was ready. Did he express regret? Not to me. And I always find some people, they just want to talk because they also realize we're the last gasp of the real world from the horrible confinement in prison. And we're a relief to them. They sometimes seize on that and they want to talk to us because after that, it's just bars, horrible food, violence, isolation, shame. That makes a lot of sense. Yeah. Of course, part of the reason that he was a suspect sort of early on is because Alyssa and Beard had had this contentious relationship, this custody battle,
Transcription truncated.
When Alyssa Burkett was murdered outside her workplace in Texas, authorities quickly zeroed in on her ex-boyfriend, Andrew Beard. But nearly three years after the murder, the FBI arrested another unlikely suspect. 48 Hours Correspondent Peter Van Sant is joined by Producers Liza Finley and Gabby Demirdjian to break down the evidence against Andrew’s former fiancée, Holly. They discuss the damning text messages between them and an unusual expert the defense called at her trial: a make-up artist.