Alyssa Burkett, a 24-year-old mother, was killed outside her workplace in Carrollton, Texas, on October 2, 2020.
A Brief Relationship and a Custody Dispute
Alyssa met Andrew Beard through a dating app in 2019, when she was 22. Beard was almost nine years older and well established. He had a good job at a tool company, a nice house and a plane. The two had a brief, casual relationship that was never serious.
Soon afterward, Alyssa discovered that she was pregnant. Her roommate, Shelby, remembered the moment Alyssa handed her a positive pregnancy test.
Alyssa was crying hysterically and could not speak, and Shelby said she had no words to offer in response. As the pregnancy progressed, Alyssa’s fear gave way to excitement, particularly after she learned she was expecting a girl.
The relationship between the parents became strained before the baby was born. A friend, Brandi Reagan, said Beard began asking for full custody of the child while Alyssa was still pregnant. Alyssa’s reaction, Reagan said, was that he had to be kidding.
On July 23, 2019, Alyssa gave birth to a daughter and named her Willow Ann. The parents shared joint custody, and Willow stayed with Beard for several days each week. Beard nevertheless kept pushing for primary custody.
The dispute dragged Alyssa through repeated court hearings and emptied her bank account. She was terrified that he would succeed, because he earned more money than she did and owned a house and other comforts that she did not have.
Beard’s mother, Lizette Bowers, described her son as a loving and warm person who acted from the heart. She said he often carried Willow strapped to his chest, read to her and wanted her to see the whole world. He felt, she said, that he could provide the child with more stability.
In March 2020, when Willow was eight months old, the parents agreed on terms for visitation and child support. The conflict appeared to quiet down.
A Dispute Reopened
In the spring of 2020, both parents began new relationships. Alyssa started dating a man named Ben, and Beard began seeing Holly Elkins.
Bowers welcomed Elkins warmly, saying she felt like a daughter from the first minute because of her charm and energy. Alyssa was glad that Beard had found a new partner, and a friend said she hoped Elkins would be supportive of the child’s mother.
Elkins sent Alyssa a text message saying she looked forward to having a “super healthy relationship” with her and Ben. Alyssa replied that she hoped Elkins’s influence would help, adding that she would love nothing more than for everyone to have a healthy relationship.
Despite the friendly exchange, Beard grew hostile toward Alyssa. He again demanded primary custody of Willow and pulled Alyssa back into court. People close to Alyssa described his messages as short, rude and hateful, and said the way the two communicated changed completely.
Alyssa also developed an uneasy feeling that she was being watched. She told family and friends that Beard always seemed to know what she was doing, where she was, where Willow was and which other places she had been.
One night she was out with a friend at a bar in downtown Dallas and sent a text message saying that Beard was there. The person who received it thought the odds of such a coincidence were close to zero.
Alyssa did not know how he was tracking her. She knew only that he was. Those close to her described this period as “hell,” a time when she felt she had to watch over her shoulder every day. She told her family that she believed Beard was the kind of person who would try to kill her.
In September 2020, about a month before her death, the conflict took a more serious turn. A man who identified himself as Frank Marrow called 911 and reported that Alyssa was selling drugs from the trunk of her car at the Greentree apartment complex, where she worked as an assistant property manager.
The caller said he could see and smell the drugs. He described the vehicle as a small Toyota Corolla and offered the license plate number.
Carrollton police officers went to the leasing office and confronted Alyssa. She handed over the keys to her car, and officers opened the trunk. Inside they found drugs, a pistol and cash, exactly where the caller had said they would be.
Alyssa’s mother, Teresa Collard, said her daughter feared being arrested, losing her job and having the incident used against her in court, which would cost her Willow.
After questioning Alyssa, police concluded that she knew nothing about the items and that they had been planted. Alyssa was convinced the caller was Beard. That day she texted Shelby that he was going to try to get someone to kill her next.
Shelby said her heart dropped, because fear was not in Alyssa’s nature, and asking for help showed how scared she was.
Alyssa also wrote to her sister, Madison Grimes, asking her to come over while she walked inside, asking her to lock the door behind her and asking whether she saw anyone around.
The Attack at the Greentree Apartments
At about 9 a.m. on the day she died, Alyssa pulled into her usual parking space at the complex. Detective Michael Harding, one of the lead investigators, said a black Ford Expedition SUV parked beside her. The driver got out holding a gun. Alyssa’s window was up, and he fired through the glass.
Darin Ickeler, the maintenance supervisor, was sitting at his desk about 15 feet away. He heard the blast and turned around to see the SUV starting to back out of its space. Investigators believe the shooter thought Alyssa was dead.
The shot had destroyed her left eye and part of her face, but she was alive. She climbed out of her car and walked toward a landing near the offices, hoping to reach co-workers who were inside.
The attacker, whom some witnesses described as a Black man, got out of the vehicle again and ran toward her. This time he carried a large hunting knife. Witnesses saw the knife in his hand as he began to stab her.
Alyssa kept fighting, and a bloody handprint remained on a window where she had tried to get someone to come out and help.
Her co-workers feared an active shooter and stayed inside. The attacker stabbed and slashed her 44 times. Alyssa was still breathing when he fled in his vehicle.
Co-workers then went outside to give aid. One called 911 and told the dispatcher that someone had come up and shot the assistant manager and had driven away only seconds earlier.
Fire department crews arrived first and began working on Alyssa, but it was too late. Police, fire trucks and ambulances filled the lot, and family members began arriving.
Harding, who has worked in law enforcement for 32 years, called it one of the most brutal scenes he had attended. He said the viciousness of the attack suggested that the killing was personal. Investigators quickly learned that Alyssa had a history with the father of her child.
Teresa gave police a name at once: Andrew Beard. Madison said she knew immediately that Beard was responsible, because she could think of no one else who would want Alyssa dead.
Within an hour of arriving at the scene, detectives agreed that Beard had to be found. Teresa was alarmed for another reason. Beard had visitation with Willow that day, and she feared he might harm the child.
Evidence and Two Arrests
Within hours of the attack, police pulled over Beard’s Ford F-150 pickup for an alleged traffic violation. Beard and his fiancée, Elkins, were asked to step out of the truck. Willow was in a car seat in the back.
Harding said the couple were cooperative and that Beard seemed unfazed and did not appear nervous. Because Beard had court-ordered visitation rights, officers allowed him and Elkins to leave with Willow. They seized the truck and told him not to return home. The couple and the child went to a hotel.
That night, detectives searched Beard’s house. In the living room, inside one of his backpacks, they found an envelope covered in handwritten notes.
The notes matched the 911 call made by “Frank Marrow”: Alyssa’s license plate number, the color and model of her vehicle and the caller’s name. Detective Jeremy Chevallier said it was everything someone would need to make the call.
Detectives also found a GPS tracker box in plain view, along with charging stations and batteries that matched the tracking device found on Alyssa’s car after the murder.
Chevallier said the device was part of Beard’s plan to catch her doing something he believed she should not be doing, in order to gain an advantage in the custody dispute.
A search of the F-150 turned up makeup vials in one of the bags, including a very dark foundation called Java.
Investigators believed it was used to disguise Beard’s face so that he would look like an African American man. Police had recovered a knife sheath at the scene, but they never found the knife or the gun.
The following day, officers located the black SUV, abandoned less than a mile from Beard’s house. Investigators learned he had bought it specifically to carry out the killing. Footage from a home security camera showed Beard running through the neighborhood away from the vehicle on the morning of the attack.
Inside the SUV, detectives found several spots of blood that testing confirmed as Alyssa’s, along with a fake beard from a Halloween costume. The findings led to an arrest warrant.
Beard was staying at an Airbnb with Elkins and Bowers when he learned by phone that he would be arrested. Three days after the murder, Willow was sent back to Teresa, and Beard turned himself in. He was charged with murder.
Elkins volunteered to speak with Chevallier and Harding. “I want to help, I really do, but I don’t have any answers,” she told them. She said she could not believe that the man she planned to marry was capable of harming a woman or anyone else.
She said she had told everyone she was engaged to the most wonderful man on the planet, and now people wanted her to believe he was not. The detectives interviewed her for about an hour, hoping to turn her into a witness for the prosecution.
She stood by Beard and insisted he had an alibi: he had been home with her when the murder took place.
The detectives told her there were hours when he was not in the house. Elkins answered that she would have known if he had left, calling herself a “total stage five clinger” who was always with him.
Elkins and Bowers continued to live together in the Airbnb. Bonded by their shared belief in Beard’s innocence, they became extremely close and agreed never to go anywhere without one another.
After two weeks in jail, Beard was released on bond, and Bowers was overjoyed. Elkins, however, had already packed.
The day before Beard was due home, she stood holding a suitcase, told Bowers she was going home, ordered an Uber and never returned. About two and a half weeks after the murder, she was back in Michigan, her home state.
Chevallier was concerned about Willow’s safety and asked the federal government to take over the case. Officers had found an unregistered silencer in Beard’s home, which brought the case under federal firearm laws.
Federal authorities agreed, and Beard was arrested again eight days after he left jail on bond. He was charged with cyberstalking using a dangerous weapon resulting in death.
A Guilty Plea and New Evidence
In Michigan, Elkins appeared to be starting over. Her best friend since childhood, Stephanie, saw her about seven months after she returned and found her with a new condo, a new Lexus and a new boyfriend. Elkins never mentioned Alyssa or Beard.
One year and eight months after the murder, Beard called his mother and told her he planned to plead guilty. Bowers answered that he should not plead guilty to anything he had not done, because she did not believe the crime fit his character.
Beard then admitted that he had killed the mother of his child. Bowers said she felt as if she had been punched in the stomach and sometimes dropped to her knees, and she told herself that the killing was one heinous, out-of-character moment.
Beard pleaded guilty, but the investigation continued. One year and nine months after the murder, he spoke with the FBI as part of a plea agreement.
He told agent Hansen that he came back to finish Alyssa because he knew she was still alive and believed he was doing her a favor out of mercy. He also said the killing had been planned and that Elkins had directed the planning.
According to Beard, she decided what he would do, when and how, and the plan to plant drugs in Alyssa’s car was hers. She made it clear that his earlier methods were not working and that he had to prove himself worthy of her love.
He said he was emotionally drained, agreed and became submissive to whatever she wanted him to do. After the killing, he said, Elkins asked him to describe the murder to her while they were in bed together.
In one text message to Beard, Elkins wrote that she did not want a “pushover” and wanted a man who “protects his women and child before anyone.” She traveled to Mexico about a week and a half before the murder.
On September 25, 2020, a week before the attack, she wrote to Beard, “I hope you handle it. I’m not coming home to BS.” Beard replied that this was his goal. Elkins responded that it would be a “whole different conversation” if she felt he was “ride or die.”
Alyssa’s family saw many of the couple’s messages. In them, Elkins used harsh words about Alyssa, calling her ugly, fat and a bad mom. She had saved Alyssa’s contact in her phone under the name “Baby Mama.”
The custody dispute had also produced a confrontation between Elkins and Teresa. Beard and Elkins had failed to return Willow at the appointed time, so Teresa and Alyssa drove to the couple’s home.
Elkins was on a golf cart near the end of the driveway with Willow in her lap. Teresa got out, took Willow, handed her to Alyssa and drove away. Elkins called police, and officers arrived with body cameras recording.
She told them Teresa had assaulted her from behind and lifted her shirt to show scratches on her stomach. Teresa said she never touched Elkins.
The officers concluded that the injuries looked self-inflicted. Chevallier said the couple’s efforts to win custody of Willow were not working at that point.
In May 2023, Beard was sentenced to 43 years in federal prison. On July 6, 2023, federal agents arrested Elkins at the Miami airport as she returned from a trip to the Dominican Republic.
She pleaded not guilty to conspiracy to stalk, stalking using a dangerous weapon resulting in death, and brandishing a firearm in relation to a crime of violence. Alyssa’s sister Madison said she had begun to believe the family would never see an arrest and felt relief when it came.
Chevallier said the FBI had built a strong case. Elkins’s phone contained searches related to tracking devices, and its data indicated that she and Beard were together when the ammunition and the knife were purchased. Investigators also tied her to the makeup Beard used to disguise himself.
Elkins went on trial in April 2024, and cameras were not permitted in the courtroom. Prosecutors from the U.S. attorney’s office said Beard may have committed the murder alone but did not plan it alone.
They described a woman who would stop at nothing to get what she wanted, and said what she wanted was Willow. The trial lasted one week, and the jury deliberated for 90 minutes before finding Elkins guilty on all counts on April 17, 2024.
On August 15, 2024, Judge Jane Boyle sentenced her to two consecutive life terms, a much longer sentence than Beard’s.
Members of Alyssa’s family said they were thrilled but heartbroken at the same time. They were happy that Alyssa was getting the justice she deserved, but the verdict meant their fight was over.
On December 10, 2025, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit overturned Elkins’s conviction for brandishing a firearm and the second life sentence, ruling that the cyberstalking offense does not qualify as the “crime of violence” that the firearm count required.
The court upheld her other convictions and sentences, so she remains sentenced to life in prison on the cyberstalking count and to five years on the conspiracy count.
Remembering Alyssa
Before she became a mother, Alyssa was a young woman who loved eating turkey legs at state fairs and was still working out what she wanted from life.
Those who saw Alyssa with Willow said motherhood suited her and described the bond between them as everything. Her sister Madison said Willow clung to her mother every second of every day.
After Willow’s birth, Alyssa returned to college. Madison said everything Alyssa did in that period of her life was for her daughter. She wanted to be successful for Willow so that Willow would never have to struggle and could have an easy life.
Alyssa left behind a video she never posted, recorded during the custody dispute and found after her death. In it, she said the past year had taken a toll on her mental and physical health, but that she had become a lot stronger in the process.
Her message was that people should stick it out and stay strong, no matter what they were going through.
In the months after her death, Alyssa appeared to Teresa in a dream. Teresa knew in the dream that her daughter was gone, but she was overjoyed to see her and thought she was back. Alyssa answered that she was not back and did not want to return, because she had always been afraid there.
Madison said it had always been the two of them. Alyssa was her best friend and her person, and having her for only 20 years was not fair.
After the trial, Teresa was allowed to remove belongings from Alyssa’s car. Among them was the mirror Alyssa had used to see Willow from the driver’s seat. Teresa said it was emotional for the family to know that the car was the last place Alyssa sat.
Willow, who was with Teresa, cried for her mother for the first time that day. She asked whether her mother could be brought back so that she could see her one more time, and whether she had a phone number in heaven.
The family keeps Alyssa present in Willow’s life. Teresa has since adopted Willow. They show her photographs and tell her, “This is your mom.”
Every Mother’s Day, they visit the grave with flowers and cards, and they decorate it for every holiday, including Valentine’s Day and Christmas. The headstone reads “Mother of Willow.” Teresa and Madison say they talk about Alyssa all the time.
One day Willow will learn the full story of what happened to her mother. The family hopes that when that day comes, she will see the beauty in Alyssa’s life rather than the tragedy of her death, and will feel the love her mother sincerely had for her.
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