Karen Hollis, 23, sent her boyfriend one final text just before disappearing on the night of May 8. “The last thing she texted me was saying she was going to the store to get a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup,” Zackary Slaughter told local reporters. She never made it back.
Her family reported her missing that same day. Her phone was found miles from her Northport, Alabama apartment — near what investigators initially thought was the scene of a car crash. Her Life360 app had recorded her leaving home at 4:25 a.m., heading south through downtown. At 4:42 a.m., the app logged “hard braking.” After that — nothing.
For eight agonizing days, her family searched. Then, on May 16, they found her — dead along the side of Interstate 59 in Greene County, her body stuffed inside a garbage bag.
The Suspect’s Shocking Excuse
Police zeroed in on Randall Lendell Dejourney, 44 — a man Hollis barely knew. He was a friend of one of her neighbors, nothing more. But surveillance footage from her apartment complex told a damning story.
Video showed Dejourney leaving Hollis’ apartment — then returning carrying a blue tote container with a trash bag inside. Phone data from both Dejourney and Hollis showed their devices moving together along I-59 in the early morning hours.
When detectives sat him down, Dejourney had an explanation ready: he claimed Hollis had hanged herself in her apartment, and he simply put her body in the bag.
The medical examiner destroyed that story. Hollis’ injuries were not consistent with hanging. The autopsy confirmed she died of asphyxiation — and the manner of death was ruled homicide. Investigators say Dejourney strangled her to death inside her own apartment. Blood was found in her bathroom.
A History He Couldn’t Hide
This wasn’t Dejourney’s first brush with violence. Prosecutors revealed he had previously been arrested for domestic violence with strangulation — the exact same method used to kill Karen Hollis.
He was originally charged with abuse of a corpse. After the autopsy results came back, those charges were upgraded to murder. A judge ordered him held without bond following a May 26 probable cause hearing.
“Early in the investigation, evidence suggested that foul play may have been involved.” — Tuscaloosa County Sheriff’s Office
What Happens Next
Dejourney remains locked up in the Tuscaloosa County Jail with no bond. Authorities say they have gathered extensive physical, witness, and electronic evidence — including data from multiple search warrants, phone records, and the apartment surveillance footage.
A motive has not yet been confirmed. Investigators are still working to understand why a 44-year-old man, who barely knew this young woman, allegedly ended her life over something as ordinary as a late-night convenience store run.
Karen Hollis was 23 years old. She just wanted a snack. She deserved to make it home.
