Spotlight on the death of Holly Bobo.
The 20 year old vanished from her family's home back
in 2011 after her brother saw her walking into the
woods with a man wearing camouflage.
It took three years for her remains to be discovered.
It's six years for her family to get justice.
But now it seems that Bobo's alleged killer may have
been put behind bars with false testimony.
Nick Beres with Scripps News Nashville has more.
It was seven years ago that a jury convicted Zach
Adams for the murder of 20 year old nursing student
Holly Bobo.
There was no physical evidence or DNA linking Adams to
the crime,
so the key for the prosecution was Co defendant Jason
Autry,
who cut a deal to testify against Adams.
And he said I need you to help me bury
this body.
What was your plan of disposing of Holly's body?
Mr. Gutter? Audrey captivated the courtroom with the gruesome details,
and I grabbed the upper torso of Miss Bobo.
Jack, come around, let the tailgate down.
I brought the upper torso
to the end of the tailgate.
The jury believed Autry and sentenced Adams to life.
Autry got eight years, but now he says he made
it all up.
It's a very big deal,
but it's not very common because most lawyers can't find
new evidence in a case of this magnitude.
The new evidence is spelled out in this petition just
filed by Adam's appellate lawyer.
Autry recants his testimony. He admitted to concocting the entire
story in his cell at jail while reviewing discovery,
he said. We put it together in three days that
he just recreated his day and added Holly to it
all to get him out of jail at the express
guidance from his attorney. That is extremely rare where a
witness will recant their testimony.
Say I lied about everything.
In fact, Autry did deny any involvement in an exclusive
interview with me before the trial.
Do you know who did?
No,
Sir. Well, so many questions here.
Now let's bring in live Nick Barris.
Nick, good morning to you.
Thank you so much for coming on opening statements today.
Well, let's talk about that exclusive interview you've done.
I mean, you have made.
We just start by commending you on,
on the tremendous reporting work.
You've really owned this story and become such an authority
in terms of
reporting work on it. And
Jason Autry talking only to you.
What did you make of what he said?
Please, Nick. Oh, listen, this was a jailhouse interview well
before the trial took place,
and his attorney wanted him to tell his side of
the story.
I sat down with him and he was completely convincing
to me,
talking about how he had no involvement with what happened
to Holly Bobo.
I asked him a series of of questions.
You only saw a snippet there in that news report,
but then they go to trial and he says the
exact opposite of what he told me.
There's no question, Julie, Jason Autry is a liar.
The question is what to believe with when he talks,
right. And has this also then caused Nick,
counsel for Zach Adams, to then file a motion petition
the court to say,
hey, wait a second, my glide deserves a new trial
here,
Talk to us a little bit about the the fallout,
if you would, please. Yeah,
that's actually how this came about.
Zach Adams is in the process
of, you know, he already had his appeal before the
Court of Appeals here in Tennessee and that that went
down.
It was not something that he won.
But then they continued to pursue the case and part
of that was doing more interviews with Jason Autry and
someone with Zach Adams team didn't interview.
And I understand it's all on video,
which I have not seen.
You heard some of what he said in my story
there.
And all of a sudden Jason Autry is saying he
made everything up,
that he was able to make up all those details
because his attorney provided him discovery,
all right. And with that discovery,
he was able to sound very convincing at trial.
And he was every bit as convincing at trial as
he was when he sat down with me and talked
with me,
denying any involvement. And this is produced now,
the writ of Air Coram Novus,
which is basically a writ that's been filed by Zach
Adams,
saying that there's testimony that now has been recanted
and that was the key testimony.
And it's, it's a given,
OK? Zach Adams is not convicted without Jason Autry's testimony.
He was the key to the entire case because there
was no physical evidence.
Now he's recanting, and that's a big part of what
Zach Adams now is pursuing in court.
Wow. And Nick, tell us,
please, what do you think could have been the motivation
if he did make this up,
if he did give this false story,
what might have been a motivating factor for it at
the time?
OK, the motivating factor at the time of the trial
was that,
remember, he was a Co defendant potentially looking at life
in prison,
OK. He cut a deal to testify.
They had to decide to give him a deal.
And here's the thing. I don't know if you agree
with me on this,
Julie, but I mean, when you heard him testify to
the fact that he was there,
that she was on this this truck,
that he held her down,
that they threw it to me,
he's every bit as guilty as Zach Adams of committing
murder.
Well, Adams got life in prison.
He got eight years. The bigger question is why is
he changing his story now?
Seven years after the trial,
he got his deal. My understanding he's still locked up
on separate charges,
unrelated federal gun charges. But why is he changing his
story?
Now is a better question,
right? No, that was going to be my follow up.
Nick, you you took the words right out of my
mouth.
I I mean, is there anything indicating a reason why
now?
OK, some people say, well,
maybe he has a conscience.
I don't believe it. Zach.
Jason Autry is a bad dude.
You look at his best hit.
I don't buy that there's something in it for him
here.
I'm not sure if he's still angling for some kind
of deal,
maybe to lessen the charges of the time he's going
to serve on these separate federal gun charges.
I don't know if he just likes the attention.
I don't have the answer.
It's not as clear cut because at trial it was
very clear cut.
Yeah, he got a deal.
He was offered eight years instead of possibly life in
prison for testifying.
That made sense to me.
Now I'm not sure why what his motive would be,
which in a way gives him more credibility.
There's nothing apparent for him to gain here except maybe
he decides he really wants to tell the truth.
Now you know the attention thing that's interesting,
it's it's really interesting. I'll be curious to see if
there was any kind of mental health evaluation done by
a professional recently.
Certainly at the time he would have hit the prison
there would have been one.
But you know at this point I who knows?
And Nick, tell us. You really know the story better
than anybody and it's helpful to talk to you because
some of our, our viewers aren't familiar with the case.
Many are depending on if you followed it at the
time.
We're going back some years
when you started covering this from its inception.
Have followed it since then.
What has been the most
puzzling thing to you about it all?
Wait, there's several parts. One of the things when she
originally disappeared in 2011,
one of the more puzzling things is there was no
evidence,
no, no, no body, nothing.
And then it wasn't until several years later that they
found her skull and some other remains that led them
to the trial.
But the other big thing is that there was just
no physical evidence,
all right? I mean, there's indicators that Zach Adams,
you know, was involved and knew her,
but there was never any blood evidence,
never any clear physical evidence linking him
to her death. And and so this was a circumstantial
case that came against him,
built largely on the testimony
of a witness that in my opinion,
lacked an awful lot of credibility.
But the the jury bought this.
And keep in mind, many people in this community,
I believe, made-up their mind well before trial.
And they did change the venue,
but they just moved one county over,
which in my opinion was not far enough to get
to a place where people didn't know much about the
trial.
A lot of minds were made-up,
a lot of people. Everyone's heart went out to the
family.
When Holly Bobo disappeared, she had a wonderful family that
was heartbroken over this.
They wanted justice and that's the way it played out.
But keep this in mind over all these years,
there was an incredible amount of pressure on investigators and
the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation to close it.
And it took a long time.
And you wonder sometimes with that pressure how things played
out,
you know, and they had to make a deal with
the devil and Jason Autry to get a conviction.
And now it's coming back at them that he's claiming
he made it all up at trial.
This, this is just head scratching.
It really is. Nick, you have done,
as I said, a tremendous job following this case from
its inception.
We look forward to talking with you more,
especially once a hearing date is set
for Zach Adams and and we see what else comes
out.
Perhaps we'll get a an answer to the question of
the the motivation that may exist now for Jason Autry.