Teen, Boyfriend Plead Not Guilty in Mother’s Slaying

High school senior Amber Merrie Bray and her boyfriend, Jeffrey Glenn Ayers, pleaded not guilty Thursday to charges that they killed Bray’s mother as part of a plot to secure a $300,000 life insurance policy.

Appearing for their arraignments in Burbank Municipal Court, Bray, 18, and Ayers, 21, never looked at each other as they sat three seats apart in a jury box during the proceedings. Their public defenders entered the pleas.

Friends and relatives of the two defendants packed the courtroom to catch a brief glimpse of the pair, who have been held since Bray’s mother, Dixie Lee Hollier, 42, was shot, stabbed and beaten to death early on Jan. 16.

Among the more than 20 who came in support of Bray were her father, maternal grandmother and 15-year-old sister, who was at home with Bray and their 5-year-old brother when the slaying occurred. A family friend, Mary Byers, passed out photocopied signs bearing red hearts and the words, “Amber Merrie Brey [sic] is innocent,” as television cameras rolled.

“All of us support Amber,” said Betty Miles, mother of the slaying victim and Bray’s grandmother.

Based on documents seized from Ayers’ apartment, Burbank police say Bray and Ayers spent more than two months planning to kill Hollier so they could split Bray’s inheritance. Hollier, a single mother who worked as a Warner Bros. Records manager, was not wealthy but had taken out a life insurance policy valued at about $300,000, sources said.

Police said Bray purposely left the door to the family’s West Oak Street duplex unlocked to let her armed boyfriend inside the morning Hollier was killed. Officers--summoned by neighbors and an emergency call from the home--allegedly found Ayers crouched over Hollier’s battered and slashed body. Police said his arms were raised in mid-strike and cash and an ATM card from Hollier’s purse were found in his pocket.

At the court hearing, both suspects appeared relaxed in T-shirts and Windbreakers, but they kept their eyes trained directly in front of them, never even glancing at relatives in the audience.

Their only words came when Judge Alan S. Kalkin asked if they agreed to waive their rights to the speedy preliminary hearings at which prosecutors would attempt to prove there is enough evidence to keep them in custody. Their attorneys requested a delay in the hearings so they would have more time to review the police evidence, said Bray’s attorney, Joy Wilensky.

Her eyes masked by dark glasses throughout the hearing, Ayers’ mother, with whom he lived, left the courthouse without making a statement. But about a dozen of Ayers’ friends expressed anger at what they perceive to be efforts by Bray’s family to make him single-handedly shoulder the blame for Hollier’s death.

“There is no way he did this on his own,” said John Dekle, 20.