Autopsy Shows Northport’s Karen Hollis Was Asphyxiated, Suspect’s Charges Upgraded to Murder

A Tuscaloosa man has been charged with murder after a preliminary autopsy found that a woman whose body he allegedly dumped in Greene County died by asphyxiation.

As the Thread has reported, 23-year-old Karen Hollis was missing as of May 8th. In a Tuesday press conference, the commander of the Tuscaloosa Violent Crimes Unit said evidence shows she was killed early that morning.

The suspect is Randall Lendell Dejourney, a 44-year-old Tuscaloosa man who was already arrested and charged with abuse of a corpse for disposing of Hollis' body on the side of Interstate 20/59 in Greene County.

Captain Jack Kennedy, the commander of the VCU, told local reporters that Dejourney and Hollis were acquaintances and police do not believe they were in a romantic relationship.

He said on Tuesday that investigators had plenty of evidence that Dejourney disposed of Hollis' body, but until the autopsy was conducted, they could not say definitively that he killed her.

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With no capable forensic facilities in the area, autopsies for Tuscaloosa cases are generally conducted at the Alabama Department of Forensic Sciences lab in Montgomery, a process that can take a few days.

Kennedy said the preliminary results came in earlier Tuesday and showed Hollis died of asphyxiation, likely in her Northport apartment, before Dejourney took her body out in a trash bag before driving west to Greene County.

That's enough evidence to charge him with murder, which happened on Tuesday.

After more than a week of searching, Hollis’ loved ones found her remains encased in a black trash bag a few feet off the road near Knoxville, Alabama, in Greene County this weekend.

Kennedy said surveillance footage at the apartment and phone records from both Hollis and Dejourney helped put the case together and narrowed the search enough for loved ones to eventually find her body.

The VCU commander expressed regret that Hollis' family had to find her, and that a law enforcement officer didn't do so first, but said there were limitations on manpower and resources for the search.

"We had a large amount of electronic data that we obtained by search warrant from multiple phones - the victim's, the suspect's and some other phones as well," Kennedy said. "That data is not what people see on TV. You don't get pinpoint locations. A lot of the time, you get a rough, general area that may be off by kilometers or miles. You may have a bubble with a five-mile radius."

As the Thread reported Monday, a Life360 crash alert led searchers to Hollis' cell phone where it was thrown on the side of the road, but Kennedy said that was 10 or 12 miles from where she was ultimately found. It was data from Dejourney's phone that led to Knoxville.

That gave police, friends and family a large area to search, and Kennedy suggested investigators did not expect Hollis to be discarded only feet from the interstate’s active travel lanes.

"It’s a terrible thing that the family is the one who found her, but I’m glad they did," Kennedy said. "There was a competing investigative theory going on because of some other possible evidence that was recovered, so law enforcement was spending time considering searching other sites that weren't even connected, which would have been a huge undertaking.  That was in process this weekend when the family, unfortunately, found the body, but I'm glad they did. It enabled us to go ahead and move on this guy, make the arrest and keep him off the streets."

He said the case was a top priority for the VCU since they came on to assist with the missing-persons case early in the investigation.

"We’ve been working on it around the clock, and we take it seriously," Kennedy said.

Dejourney, who was being held on a $15,000 cash bond for the abuse of a corpse charge, will now be held without bond since he is now charged with murder. Under Alabama law, a judge can, but need not, grant him bond at a later hearing.

By the count of the Tuscaloosa Thread staff, this is the third homicide the VCU has investigated so far this year and the second murder.

For more exclusive coverage of crime and courts in West Alabama, stay connected to the Tuscaloosa Thread.