Kidnappings, Assaults, & Murders at Fort Ord

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DNA evidence can crack even the coldest, hardest-to-convict cases, including the 1998 murder of 13-year-old Christina Williams. Investigators suspected just one man from the beginning, but it wasn’t until 2017 that they had finally had enough evidence – through a DNA match – to make an arrest. Charles Holifield is a repeat sex offender with links to more assaults, disappearances, and murders that are still unsolved. Although there may be no such thing as “closure” after losing someone so tragically, pursuing their cases until someone is held responsible is worth it, and Christina’s story is a case-in-point.

The events in today’s episode take place within the Monterey Peninsula, located on the north-central coast of California and the United States’s Pacific coast. The area includes Pebble Beach golf course, considered one of the best golf courses in the country, and the Monterey Bay Aquarium, considered one of the best aquariums in the country. Author John Steinbeck, of Salinas, was one of the region’s most well-known residents. In 2000, population on the peninsula was around 53,000.

The area is also home to Fort Ord, a US Army base that shut down operations in 1994 as part of a national cost-cutting measure. At that time, about two-thirds of Fort Ord’s 28,000 acres was rugged, undeveloped, open space. Most of that land was given to the University of California, Santa Cruz, and the rest was returned to the state for public use. Several hundred military families continued to live and move to the base after it closed, but thousands of boarded-up buildings remained.

Earliest crimes

Charles Holifield, born January 10, 1961, grew up at Fort Ord where his Army sergeant father was stationed. Charles last appears in Seaside High School’s 1978 yearbook as a junior, and he committed his first sexual assault during what would have been his senior year.

On May 29, 1979, 18-year-old Charles jumped a 17-year-old classmate of his, who we’ll call “D.B.” from behind while she was walking on a bike path in Fort Ord between Marina and Seaside. D.B. was a young-looking girl with straight, brown hair, and she was on the smaller side, just over five feet tall with a slim build. Charles threw D.B. to the ground, choked her, and then held her down with a knee in her back. He brandished a knife, but when she asked him to toss it away because it scared her, he did.

Charles pulled down D.B.’s pants and underwear and attempted to penetrate her, but he wasn’t successful and demanded oral sex instead. D.B. refused, and instead of becoming more violent, Charles stopped the assault. He asked D.B. to help him find his knife and walk with him for a while, and she complied. D.B. shared that she had gone to Fitch Middle School and was attending Seaside High School. Charles said he recognized her from school and confirmed that they knew some of the same teachers. They also talked about music, discovering that they were both fans of the Beatles.

Eventually, Charles let D.B. go home, and she would later page through her yearbook to identify him and report the assault to police. Charles had already enlisted in the Army and started his basic training at Fort Knox, Kentucky. He was sent back to California and Fort Ord’s troop quarters to face charges of assault with the intent to commit rape.

Less than six months after his first assault, on November 10, 1979, Charles Holifield ambushed a 14-year-old girl who was taking a shortcut through Fort Ord while walking home. Like D.B., the girl was short and thin with straight, brown hair. Charles raped her behind Marshall Park Elementary School and then talked to her, mostly about school, until he heard sirens and fled the scene.

The girl spotted Charles at the Fort Ord library two weeks later and alerted her father, an Army specialist, who reported Charles and the incident to military police. Army investigators searched Charles’s belongings and found incriminating evidence of the attack, but they decided not to press charges since he was already being prosecuted for D.B.’s assault. In January 1980, Charles was found guilty and sentenced to 19 months in prison. He claimed that he was framed and innocent of both crimes.

Not out for long

Charles Holifield was paroled in 1982 and required to begin reporting his address to authorities as a registered sex offender. Not long after Charles’s release, on January 24, 1983, 20-year-old student Jennifer Morris of Pacific Grove disappeared during a late afternoon shopping trip. In 2011, her skeletal remains were discovered in a wooded area near the Del Monte Shopping Center where she was last seen. Investigators working on Jennifer’s case announced in 2015 that they have reason to suspect that Charles could be her killer, however, it’s not enough to press charges and her case is still unsolved.

About three months later, on April 11, 1983, a small 14-year-old girl with brown hair, who we’ll refer to as “D.J.,” was walking home near sunset in Pacific Grove. Charles Holifield, now 22 years old, grabbed D.J. from behind, choked her, and dragged her away from the road to some bushes where he raped her. Afterward, Charles forced D.J. into his car, where he tied her hands and feet together with her own shoelaces, and he used another shoelace to tie her to his car door by her neck. She would later say, “I felt like he was going to kill me if I didn’t comply.”

Charles drove D.J. to a wooded area near Seaside High School and raped her a second time. He didn’t leave right away, so D.J. started talking to Charles about God and forgiveness. She asked him to pray the sinner’s prayer with her, and he did. Charles also agreed to take her to the local Salvation Army where her youth pastor worked when she asked him to. There, he talked to a social worker and confessed to raping D.J. This is the only crime Charles ever plead guilty to, and in June 1983, he was sentenced to 17 years in prison for rape and kidnapping.

Escalating violence

Charles Holifield was paroled in 1992 after serving about half of his sentence. He moved in with his parents in Marina upon release, and then rented an apartment in Monterey. In 1996, 35-year-old Charles began dating two women – Linda Silver and Lisa Johnson. His relationship with Linda was more casual, while he and Lisa sometimes lived together.

Both women reported that Charles was physically and sexually abusive. He had already been convicted of two serious felonies, and a third conviction would send him to prison for a minimum of 20 years to life according to California’s three-strikes law. Linda and Lisa both claimed that Charles threatened to kill them if they were the reason he got a third strike, adding that he knew where to hide their bodies so they would never be found.

In 1996, Lisa Johnson recalled having consensual sex with Charles in his pickup truck when he suddenly started choking her with some of her clothing. That lasted for “at least one minute,” and Lisa thought Charles might kill her before he stopped and then anally raped her. In 1997, Lisa was awoken in the middle of the night to Charles anally raping her again. Charles became aggressive and violent whenever Lisa tried to leave him. Between January and March 1997, police responded “to numerous domestic violence incidents between” the couple. Lisa later took out a restraining order against Charles, and he was ordered to serve 30 days in jail for battery, but they kept reuniting despite these violent cycles.

In June 1997, a local newspaper published several Megan’s Law fliers on its front page, one of which identified Charles Holifield as a repeat sex offender and revealed his address in Monterey. As a result, Charles lost his job and was evicted from his apartment. He became essentially homeless, sometimes staying with Lisa Johnson at her mother’s apartment in Pacific Grove or her sister’s mobile home in Prunedale when he wasn’t living out of his own truck and motorhome.

In August 1997, Charles was hired by a cabinetmaker in Sand City because his brother made a personal referral. Within a year of working there, the owner allowed Charles to live out of his vehicle in the warehouse parking lot. Charles also spent time at his brother’s home in neighboring Seaside. That house was just a few blocks away from where 13-year-old Ekaterina Shcherbakova disappeared while walking home on April 5, 1998, around 8:00pm. “Katie,” as her family called her, was considered a runaway until 2010, when cold case investigators announced their “strong suspicion” that Charles Holifield was involved in her disappearance based on newly developed evidence. Katie also had physical similarities to Charles’s other victims – she was a small girl with straight, brown hair.

New to Fort Ord

Katie had attended Fitch Middle School along with 13-year-old Christina Williams. Christina’s family had just moved to Seaside in November 1997. Her father, Michael Williams, was a meteorologist for the US Navy, so their family moved to follow his assignments. Michael met his wife, Alice, in 1979 while stationed in the Philippines. They had a daughter, Jennifer, in 1980, and then moved to Hawaii together when Michael was restationed. A son, Michael Jr., was born in 1982, and the family moved to Japan next. That’s where Christina was born on May 1, 1985.

California was Christina’s first big move, but she seemed to adjust well despite being sad about leaving her friends in Japan behind. She joined her new school’s chorus and kept up good grades up through the seventh grade. Her family describes her as “close to…perfect,” “innocent,” “courteous,” “conscientious,” “hardworking,” and “reliable.” She spent a lot of time online, but she would ask permission before doing things like joining a Beanie Babie collectors chat room. Christina listened to pop music like Janet Jackson, Ace of Base, and the Spice Girls, but Mariah Carey was her favorite. Her favorite movie was My Best Friend’s Wedding, and she was hoping to see Titanic with her dad before it left theaters.

For Christmas 1997, Christina got an aquarium with angelfish. She proved to be an exceptional pet owner and told her parents that she wanted to become a veterinarian. For her birthday the following May, Christina was allowed to adopt a dog. She picked a nine-month-old Collie and Australian Shephard mix at the local pound and named him Greg. Christina took full responsibility for Greg’s care, taking him for walks on Fort Ord’s many trails and bike paths. She favored a loop that started on the Parker Flats Cutoff, just behind her home on Nijmegen Road, and took 15-20 minutes to complete.

There and gone

At about 7:30pm on June 12, 1998, Christina took her dog on one of these routine walks. It was a week into summer vacation, and the sun wouldn’t set for another hour or so. Christina’s mother was taking a nap after dinner, her brother was playing computer games, her father was at a work event, and her sister was spending time with her boyfriend. It was Michael Jr., Christina’s 16-year-old brother, who realized around 8:00pm that Christina still hadn’t returned. He woke their mother, Alice, who searched the house from top to bottom while Michael Jr. set off looking for Christina on his bike. Neither of them found her, but they did locate her dog walking nearby, trailing his leash. A few minutes later, Christina’s father, Michael, arrived home from work. By about 8:45pm, Michael reported Christina’s disappearance to police.

Alice and Michael Williams say that responding officers told them to wait 24 hours and try not to worry in the meantime. They assured the family that the area is safe, and that Christina would most likely return home soon. Unhappy with this response, Michael called his base commander, who was able to mobilize volunteers and get the FBI involved, since Christina went missing on property that was recently owned by the federal government. Michael also called three nonprofit organizations that specialize in searching for missing children. Alice said, “that’s when the police started moving seriously, and the media came.”

However, the local police chief said he entered Christina as a missing person / abduction case right away, not a runaway, and he requested a search dog. A few official searches were conducted in the immediate area until about midnight. Michael Williams searched the trails near his home with Chrstina’s dog. That night, there was a sighting of a girl matching Christina’s description – a small girl with straight, brown hair – at a 7-Eleven in Marina. The store clerk saw her along with two other girls and a boy around 10:30pm, causing some officers to believe Christina had run off voluntarily, despite her family’s insistence that it was out of character.  

Community effort

The Monterey County community quickly rallied behind the Williams family. Christina’s siblings put their summer plans on hold and her parents took leave from work to dedicate themselves to finding her. Hundreds of volunteers joined officials in searching the area. One tracking dog traced Christina’s scent to a wooded area behind her home, and then a couple hundred yards down the road, but it lost her scent after that. The FBI and local fundraising efforts brought the reward for information to $100,000.

Even some local celebrities chipped into the reward fund and filmed public service announcements on the family’s behalf, including professional athletes, Clint Eastwood, and Christina’s favorite singer, Mariah Carey. Local baseball teams made announcements before the start of their home games pleading for information leading to Christina’s whereabouts. Alice and Michael Williams made themselves available to as many media interviews as possible, appearing on America’s Most Wanted, CBS This Morning, Larry King Live, and Oprah, in addition to local news outlets. They feared that without continued publicity, Christina’s case would be forgotten over time.

Multiple eyewitnesses came forward within the first week, and one of the earliest of these provided a promising lead. Fort Ord resident Stacey Murray was jogging two to three hours before Christina went missing in the same area when two men in a primer gray car pulled up next to her. They asked her age, then commented that she was “too old” after she told them she was 29. They drove off, but Stacey got a good enough look at them and their vehicle for investigators to create sketches that they quickly shared with the public. Several more residents came forward to report similar sightings of two men, both in their 20s, possibly Hispanic or Asian – specifically Filipino, like Christina’s mother – one of them thin, and the other heavyset, driving a late 70s or early 80s model Mercury Monarch or Ford Grenada.

Investigators had their work cut out for them – there were more than 6,000 vehicles in the region matching that description, not to mention other compelling eyewitnesses who provided conflicting details. Over the next 20 years, the FBI would receive more than 10,000 tips about Christina’s case. After Christina was featured on America’s Most Wanted, FBI agents and Michael Williams travelled to Greensboro, North Carolina, following up on two sightings of a girl matching Christina’s description at a Sam’s Club there. Like the two men in the car and most of the other leads, this one didn’t pan out either.

Back on the radar

In a 2006 interview with CNN’s Anderson Cooper, John Walsh reflected on his coverage of the Christina Williams case. He suggested that investigators “should look at the registered sex offenders and people with track records.” He referenced other cold cases in which “sex offenders who had jumped their parole and probation” were responsible. The FBI did start interviewing all 576 registered sex offenders and 800 state prison parolees in the area right away, including 37-year-old Charles Holifield.

On July 14, 1998, agents showed up at Charles’s last registered address, but he had already moved out and failed to register his new address in Sand City. They tracked him down about a week later living out of the RV he parked at his work. Charles said he hadn’t registered a new address because he was “basically homeless.” Agents searched his RV and pickup truck but found nothing suspicious. Sand City police officers had recent encounters with Charles though – his ex-girlfriend, Lisa Johnson, requested their help retrieving some of her belongings from Charles after their most recent breakup. They helped her on June 27, two weeks after Christina Williams disappeared, and again on July 4.

Charles claimed that he couldn’t remember his whereabouts on June 12. His employer, Steve Neff, recalled that Charles left early that day – around 2:00pm – to look at an apartment in Carmel Valley. Charles didn’t return to work and didn’t show up the next day either. Lisa Johnson confirmed that she and Charles had an appointment to look at an apartment on the evening of June 12, but they couldn’t make it because Charles was running late.

Lisa said Charles arrived at her mother’s place in Pacific Grove around 6:30pm, and they watched tv together for a while. Her mother, Joy Smith, was also home at the time and confirmed her daughter’s statement. However, that contradicts what Lisa told her friend, Mary Church, during a phone call that night. Lisa called Mary to complain that Charles made her miss the apartment showing, that she hadn’t heard from Charles in a couple days, and she didn’t know where he was that night either.

Rick Stemple, the Carmel Valley apartment building owner, agreed to show Lisa and Charles the apartment on June 13 instead. The couple arrived separately, and Rick overheard them arguing about where Charles had been the night before. He specifically remembered Charles telling Lisa, “It’s none of your business.” Lisa called her friend Mary Church again to vent about the argument. She shared details about their previous physical fights and how much Charles’s violence scared her. Rick ended up renting the apartment to the couple, but only Lisa moved in. She was evicted after about one week due to numerous complaints from her neighbors.

Third strike

On August 7, 1998, Charles Hollifield was arrested at his job for failing to register his address when he moved to Sand City, but he was released on bail the next day. A little over a month later, Charles pulled up alongside 23-year-old Melanie Padgett, a local student, while she was jogging in Marina. Melanie was also on the small side, with straight, brown hair. Charles ordered her into his truck at gunpoint, but Melanie was able to escape by running into a nearby apartment complex. She identified Charles and his truck, leading to his arrest on attempted kidnapping charges. Charles plead not guilty, knowing that a conviction would result in his third strike. Once he was arrested, Charles gave his truck to girlfriend Lisa Johnson, who quickly sold it. The FBI was never able to locate or search the vehicle again.

Grim discovery

Christmas 1998 marked six months since Christina Williams went missing, and it was her family’s first Christmas without her. Their prayers were answered a few weeks later, but not in the way they hoped.

On the afternoon of January 12, 1999, Erica Murphy, a botanist and employee of the University of California at Santa Cruz was conducting an invasive species survey on an undeveloped nature reserve the university owned between Reservation Road and Imjin Road in Fort Ord. Near a grove of trees approximately 500 yards off a dirt road, and a quarter mile from the nearest houses, Erica stumbled upon skeletal remains. As she approached them, Erica noticed hair and shreds of clothing and quickly decided to call authorities.

The remains were about three miles from Christina’s home, and the clothing matched what Christina was wearing when she disappeared. Two days after the discovery, dental records officially identified the remains as Christina’s. Her mother, Alice Williams, received the bittersweet news on her birthday. On one hand, it was a relief to finally know where Christina was, but now her loved ones had to grapple with the reality that she was gone.

Christina’s remains were split between two spots. Investigators believe that her killer originally placed her body in a grove of trees and covered her with branches. Animals, likely coyotes, pulled some of her remains away to a second site. There had been too much decomposition to determine a cause of death. The medical examiner estimated that Christina died three to nine months earlier, so she could have been killed around the same time she disappeared.

Prime suspect

Charles Holifield was already the prime suspect in Christina’s disappearance given his record, problems with his alibi, and the fact that investigators found no evidence pointing to others suspects. Now, they were also able to tie Charles to the area where Christina’s remains were found.

In 1997, Charles was cited twice for illegally fishing a pond accessible from the same dirt road that led to Christina’s remains. On one of those occasions, officers noticed that Charles was carrying a BB gun that resembled a Colt .45 automatic handgun. Both of Charles’s girlfriends at the time – Linda Silver and Lisa Johnson – confirmed that they frequently joined Charles on those fishing trips, Charles admitted to FBI agents that he was familiar with the area.

In March 1999, the FBI tested Christina’s underwear, recovered with her remains, for a protein found in semen. The result was negative, so they didn’t conduct any further testing at that time. On June 1, 1999, Charles Holifield was found guilty of Melanie Padgett’s attempted kidnapping back in September. Along with his failure to properly register his address as a sex offender, Charles was sentenced to 27 years to life in prison.

In September 2009, the FBI raided the home of Charles’s brother looking for letters they believed Charles wrote to him from prison asking him to provide an alibi. They never found the letters – his brother claimed that he never opened mail from Charles – but they did find a marijuana grow operation in the garage. Through his attorney, Charles’s brother claimed that the marijuana plants belonged to his roommate and that the FBI was pressuring him to change his previous grand jury testimony so they could indict Charles.

Charles’s father called the ongoing investigation a “witch hunt” and a “nightmare” for his family. He accused the FBI of harassing his family for years trying to find a way to convict Charles with Christina Williams’s murder. Both of Charles’s parents testified before a grand jury, but neither of them publicly defended their son. In fact, his father sent Michael Williams, Christina’s father, an email expressing both sympathy and shame. “Christina was not my daughter, but I can imagine my granddaughter,” he said, and being a fellow military veteran intensified those feelings of grief and loss for Michael. He also felt ashamed that his son may be responsible: “I still don’t know if Charles is guilty…he may be, in which case, if you can prove it, yes, he’s my son, but give him the death penalty.”

Change of tune

During an interview with the FBI in 2002, Charles Holifield admitted that he never liked his long-time girlfriend, Lisa Johnson, but he stayed with her so that she would continue to advocate for him outside of prison. In 2008, Lisa told a local newspaper that she believed Charles was framed by police for his previous crimes, except the 1983 assault he admitted to. She and her mother said they felt “threatened” and “harassed” by FBI agents after providing an alibi for Charles. Lisa claimed, “They tried to coerce me and break me down and get me to lie…I would never, ever stick up for Chuck if I thought he did it. I’d be the first one to pick up the phone.”

The FBI case agent at the time denied Lisa’s claims, explaining that she was subpoenaed as part of the overall investigation. He told the same paper, “I don’t make threats. If I’m giving a subpoena to someone, I will explain how the process works…that they’re being questioned under oath and that…there have been many circumstances where people have been prosecuted for making false statements under oath. If they find that threatening, that’s not the intention.”

In September 2011, after Jennifer Morris’s remains were found and police publicly suspected Charles Holifield of her murder, they reinterviewed Lisa Johnson. They questioned her about Christina Williams’s case again, but Lisa stuck to her original testimony and re-signed her official statements.

Two months later, Lisa surprised everyone by recanting her grand jury testimony. Now she claimed that in late June 1998 – a week or two after Christina disappeared, and around the same time Sand City police helped her collect her belongings from Charles after a breakup – Charles asked her to provide an alibi for him. Lisa says she refused at first because Charles wouldn’t tell her what he did, but then he threatened to kill her and hurt her family because he faced a third strike and life in prison without her cooperation.

New evidence

In 2016, Monterey County’s cold case team requested retesting of the physical evidence collected in Christina Williams’s case. While analyzing Christina’s underwear under a microscope, they observed a sperm cell and sent the garment for further testing. Additional sperm cells with DNA were discovered and a single-source profile was developed – it was a one in 46 octillion match to Charles Hollifield.

Charles was charged with first degree murder and kidnapping with the intent to commit rape in April 2017 and plead not guilty. He was now 56 years old and still serving a life sentence for his third strike offense. In 2018, Monterey County officials announce that they would seek the death penalty, noting that this was Charles’s fourth strike and that he had two previous serious felonies. In 2019, Charles’s attorney reached an agreement with the prosecution and Christina Williams’s family in which Charles waived his right to a jury trial and most of his ability to appeal in exchange for removing the death penalty.

Finally found guilty

The court trial began on March 2, 2020. The defense presented alternative theories for how Christina met with foul play, emphasizing the numerous eyewitness reports of two men and a car that didn’t match Charles and his truck.

Lisa Johnson testified for the defense, reverting to her original statements that Charles was with her on June 12, 1998. She claimed that the FBI threatened her with prison time if she continued to provide an alibi for Charles and that he never asked her to lie for him. Lisa’s mother, who had always claimed that Charles was with Lisa at her home the night Christina disappeared, passed away in 2018 and wasn’t available to testify.

Lisa also insisted that Charles never abused her. Upon cross-examination, the prosecutor played a 911 call from November 1997 in which Lisa said Charles had hit and pushed her. In the call, Lisa said, “He’s tearing up everything in the house” and “I’m afraid of him.” Charles could be heard yelling at her in the background. Several witnesses for the prosecution contradicted Lisa’s testimony, and the court heard from Charles’s surviving victims as well.

In response to the spread of COVID-19, the Monterey County courthouse closed and suspended most public services beginning March 17. Charles Holifield’s murder trial was the only thing they allowed to continue. On March 20, the judge rendered a guilty verdict on both counts. Charles was handed two life sentences, one without the possibility of parole, along with “enhancements” – additional consecutive time he needed to serve for things like causing “great bodily harm” and being a repeat offender. That amounted to an additional 52 total years added to his sentence, as well as $540 in restitution, fines, and court fees.

Closure

Charles maintains his innocence. Based on the evidence, investigators theorize that Charles abducted Christina about 10 minutes into her walk, either by jumping her from behind or ordering her into his truck at gunpoint. He drove her to the spot where her remains were located and most likely raped and then choked her until she died. If Christina had survived the attack and identified Charles, it would have been his third strike. If his next victim had complied instead of running away, she might have been his next murder victim. Instead, her actions ended Charles’s assaults on young women and girls in Fort Ord.

When John Walsh talked about Christina Williams’s case with Anderson Cooper in 2006, he called closure a “TV word,” not something that’s a reality for the families of victims. It seems that Michael Williams, Christina’s father agrees. After the guilty verdict came down, Michael said, “It’s not a final closure because we’ll never get our daughter back. That’s always going to be stuck with us forever, but at least now we don’t have to worry about who did it and what those people are doing.” Michael still hasn’t watched Titanic, because Christina never got the chance to either.

There is a plaque in Seaside near where Christina’s remains were found. Navy volunteers from where Michael worked help keep the memorial cleans and well-cared for. It reads, “A gift from God, Christina will always be remembered as a loving daughter to her parents and a compassionate sister to our community. May each of us do everything possible to prevent this from happening to any of our children, ever again.”

Like John Walsh, whose show America’s Most Wanted came about after he lost his son, Adam, in 1981, Christina’s parents have dedicated a lot of their time to helping other families locate their missing children. Ekaterina Shcherbakova, Christina’s schoolmate who disappeared two months before her, is still among the missing. Jennifer Morris’s remains were found, but her case is still unsolved. Investigators have yet to charge Charles Holifield in either case, but he remains their prime suspect.

And of course, unfortunately, there are many more missing children and unsolved homicides in the area. If you have any information that could help resolve these cases, we encourage you to contact the Monterey County Sheriff’s Office by submitting a tip online or calling (831) 755-3772.

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