Kidnap Victim’s Body Is Found

A college student whose abduction was captured by a surveillance camera as she was leaving her clerk’s job at a Wal-Mart was found shot to death Friday, and a suspect was arrested, authorities said.

The body of Megan Leann Holden, 19, was discovered in a ditch along a highway in western Texas. Police said she died at the hands of a man who went on a multistate crime spree before he turned up Friday at an Arizona hospital with a gunshot wound. Police in Willcox, Ariz., took him into custody.

The suspect, Johnny Lee Williams, 24, was being held on a $1-million bond on an aggravated kidnapping charge from Texas, authorities said, adding that Williams was driving the woman’s pickup, which was parked outside the hospital.

The abduction was captured on tape Wednesday after the student at Tyler Junior College clocked out from the Wal-Mart just before midnight.

The apparent abductor -- a man in a long, dark coat -- was seen loitering around the front entrance of the store “for a good period of time,” Tyler Police spokesman Don Martin said.

The man was also seen on another tape about 90 minutes before the abduction, emerging from a bathroom and walking around inside the store.

A tape later shows Holden getting into her truck and the man “running up behind her and either hitting her or pushing her,” Martin said.

Two days later, her body was found near Stanton, about 380 miles west of Tyler.

Tyler Police Chief Gary Swindle provided little detail about the killing but said Holden died of a gunshot wound and added that “we have every indication that she was shot at the location where her body was found.”

Authorities said the suspect kept heading west as he continued his crime spree, attempting a robbery at an Arizona RV park. It was during the robbery attempt that a store worker fired the shot that landed Williams in the hospital, authorities said. His condition was not immediately known.

Police said Williams, who was honorably discharged last year after four years as a Marine, was arrested last month in Tyler on a cocaine possession charge. He was released the same day on $2,000 bond.

Police said Williams also was involved in an armed robbery at a convenience store in Texas on Thursday.