A woman who was both a beloved teacher and the mother of a country music star was stabbed to death in her home in Rockingham County, Virginia, according to local police.
Holly Hatcher, whose son is country singer Spencer Hatcher, was fatally stabbed during a home invasion on Sunday, August 3.
Her husband, Michael, 65, was also injured in the incident, but managed to retrieve his handgun and kill the attacker with a single shot, Rockhingham County Sheriff Bryan Hutcheson told reporters.
Deputies identified the suspect as Kevin Moses Walker, 41, of Pikesville, Maryland.
“This is a highly unusual, apparently completely random [attack] with an individual with no known history of violent behavior of any kind, or even criminal behavior of any kind,” the sheriff said.
It’s unclear exactly why Walker traveled nearly three hours southwest from Pikesville to visit New Market, a small town in the shadow of the Shenandoah Mountains.
What deputies did learn was that Walker went camping at Endless Caverns, an attraction in New Market, two days before the attack, and toured the caverns. On the same day, he reportedly bought a sleeping bag and a large knife from a Walmart approximately seven miles away in Timberville, according to CBS 6.
The next day, Virginia State Police were dispatched to investigate reports of an abandoned vehicle on Endless Caverns Road. When they arrived, they found the tourist attraction’s gift shop had broken into, and damage at the scene suggested a vehicle had been rammed into the building.
The state troopers determined that someone had broken into the building and entered the caverns, but they found no evidence of theft. At that point they identified Walker as a suspect and a felony warrant for his arrest was issued. The state police began searching for him with patrols and drones.
The day after that, just before noon, the sheriff’s office received a call from Michael Hatcher reporting the deadly home invasion.
When deputies arrived, they found the injured elder Hatcher standing outside his home. Walker was dead on the driveway, while Holly Hatcher was found inside the house with fatal stab wounds.
“There’s going to be questions that will never be answered, but all I can tell you is we’ve cried, we’ve hurt, and we’ve hugged, and we have found more love than we have ever known has existed between us, and between you,” Michael Hatcher said in a statement to the community.
Spencer Hatcher, who appeared with the sheriff to discuss the timeline of what happened, said he and his family were only interested in discussing the known facts about the case and did not want to engage in speculation about the attack.
The murder hit home for the sheriff, who said that Holly Hatcher was a well known and well-liked teacher who had taught his own son. He admitted that the murder was beyond anything he’d experienced during his time in law enforcement.
“I’ve been in law enforcement for 31 years and I have never seen anything like this in my entire career,”
While no charges will result from the murder as the suspect is dead, the sheriff’s department said an investigation is still ongoing.
