Leakesville man to serve life in prison in capital murder case

A Leaksville man will spend his life in prison after a jury convicted him Thursday of capital murder.

39-year-old Michael Anthony Holder was convicted in the 2023 murder of 22-year-old Logan Wainwright. The victim was killed during a burglary of a house in Greene County.

Judge Calvin Taylor sentenced Holder to life without possibility of parole or early release and another 20 years for aggravated assault in the shooting of another person during the attack. Those sentences will run consecutively.

The jury heard evidence that Holder went to his ex-wife’s house armed with four weapons, broke into the house and waited for his ex-wife and her new boyfriend, Wainwright, to return. He then ambushed Wainwright and fired at least 46 rounds from an AK-47 into the car, hitting him multiple times.

A family member, Gary Lockley, came out of a nearby house and exchanged gunfire with Holder, who returned fire and then shot himself.

Holder claimed self defense.

District Attorney Angel Myers McIlrath said, “The evidence in this case exposed Mr. Holder’s unrelenting efforts to control and manipulate his ex-wife, despite being divorced for a year prior to this crime.

“As we always see in cases arising from current or former domestic relationships, Mr. Holder tried to blame everyone else for his actions. He sent hundreds of texts to his ex-wife in the hours preceding this crime, demanding she answer him, threatening to teach her a lesson and ultimately sending her a veiled text of “on you.” To be clear, this was a planned and calculated murder/suicide, where Mr. Holder’s suicide attempt failed.”