Austin Holeman, a 22-year-old White male, was found dead inside his home in the Scotland community of rural Yazoo County, Mississippi, on January 2, 2023. Family members discovered Holeman that Monday morning and called 911 shortly before 10:00 a.m. Pafford paramedics responded to the residence, where Holeman was pronounced dead at the scene. Yazoo County Coroner Ricky Shivers reported that Holeman had suffered multiple gunshot wounds.
Authorities treated the death as a homicide, and his body was sent to the State Medical Examiner’s Office in Pearl for an autopsy. The Yazoo County Sheriff’s Department opened the investigation with assistance from the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation.
As investigators reconstructed what had happened inside Holeman’s home, they determined that he had been shot twice in the back. The investigation also revealed that firearms were missing from the residence, indicating that property had been taken during the encounter. Investigators began following leads that included information obtained through cell-phone conversations. Those leads quickly directed authorities toward Elijah Curtis Savell, who was 44 at the time.
Savell was arrested at his home on the afternoon of January 2, the same day Holeman was discovered. According to Yazoo County Chief Deputy Terry Gann, investigators recovered firearms that had been taken from Holeman’s home while searching Savell’s residence. Authorities also recovered a weapon they believed had been used to kill Holeman. Savell was subsequently charged with capital murder in connection with the shooting. At the time of his arrest, investigators said they were still working to establish the precise motive, although the removal of guns from Holeman’s residence became an important part of the criminal case.
Investigators also identified another person whom they believed had been present at Holeman’s residence during the incident. The Yazoo County Sheriff’s Department questioned that individual and initially indicated that additional charges were possible depending on what the continuing investigation established. Public reporting from the early stages of the case did not identify that second person by name, and the available reporting reviewed for this synopsis does not establish that the individual was subsequently charged in connection with Holeman’s death.
The prosecution against Savell continued for more than two years. By April 2025, the case had moved away from the original capital-murder charge through a negotiated plea agreement. Savell pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and armed robbery, resolving the principal criminal case arising from Holeman’s killing without a capital-murder trial. Yazoo County Circuit Clerk Robert Coleman confirmed the guilty pleas. The armed-robbery conviction corresponded with investigators’ earlier findings that firearms had been removed from Holeman’s home and later recovered from Savell’s residence.
The plea brought a measure of legal closure to a case that began with Holeman’s family finding him shot to death in his own home. What initially appeared publicly as an unexplained shooting developed within hours into an arrest after investigators followed communications evidence to Savell, searched his home, and recovered both property taken from Holeman and what they believed to be the murder weapon. Savell ultimately admitted guilt to second-degree murder and armed robbery, replacing the capital-murder accusation that had been filed immediately after the killing. Publicly available reporting reviewed for this synopsis confirms the arrest, original capital-murder charge, recovery of the stolen firearms and suspected murder weapon, and Savell’s later guilty pleas, but it does not provide a clearly documented sentence or establish that the second person questioned by investigators was ever prosecuted.
