Defendant Wins New Trial in Texas Cheerleader ‘Hit Mom’ Case

A state judge on Friday ordered a new trial for a woman convicted of trying to hire a hit man to make sure her daughter got a place on a high school cheerleading squad.

State District Judge George Godwin said a juror should have been disqualified from the trial of Wanda Webb Holloway because he was under indictment on drug charges.

Holloway, 37, was convicted Sept. 3 of trying to hire a hit man to kill Verna Heath, whose daughter was vying with Holloway’s daughter for a spot on the Channelview High School cheerleading squad. She was sentenced to 15 years in prison and fined $10,000.

“I expect it to be pretty much the way it was the first time,” said Mike Anderson, the Harris County assistant district attorney who prosecuted the case.

No date has been set for the retrial.

Holloway, who has been free on a $75,000 bond pending her appeal, is “looking forward to an opportunity to exonerate herself,” defense attorney Troy McKinney said.

The defense had said that a new witness has come forward who could undermine testimony from the prosecution’s star witness, Terry Harper, Holloway’s former brother-in-law. Harper said Holloway gave him some diamond studded earrings to set up the slaying, but he went to police instead.

In the first trial, the judge did not allow testimony from at least two women who said Harper had offered to kill someone for them.

In January, Harper secretly recorded six conversations with Holloway in which the two discussed killing Heath. Amber Heath was the chief cheerleading rival of Holloway’s daughter, Shanna Harper.

Harper said Holloway believed that Amber would be so distraught over her mother’s death that she would drop out of the competition.