Community remembers Holly Bobo 5 years after disappearance

DECATUR COUNTY, Tenn. — Five years ago Wednesday, a nursing student from Decatur County went missing. Investigators said hunters found Holly Bobo’s remains more than three years later. The three men accused of killing Bobo now face the death penalty.

“It still seems not real,” Angie Britt, a friend of the Bobo family, said. “You know, you can’t imagine that five years ago today everything was OK.”

Pink and green ribbons line the court square in downtown Decaturville. “It’s just a reminder that we won’t ever forget what happened five years ago today,” Britt said.

Bobo disappeared from her Decatur County home on April 13, 2011. Britt goes to church with the Bobo family and helped search after Holly went missing. “Who would have thought five years ago that somebody would just take such a beautiful person,” she said.

Don Franks, pastor of Corinth Baptist Church in Darden, said the family takes it one day at a time. “It’s a tough day,” Franks said. “It’s tough on the family and the whole community.”

People in Decatur County said Bobo’s disappearance is something that changed their community. “Nobody in this community was untouched,” Britt said.

Brothers Dylan and Zach Adams along with Jason Autry are charged with kidnapping, raping and killing Bobo. They are expected to go to trial in 2017.

“We’re going to wait patiently,” Franks said. “Whatever it takes, however long it takes, we’re in it for justice for our beloved Holly.”

Britt wore a pink ribbon Wednesday, something she said reminded her after Bobo’s disappearance that they had to keep searching. She sympathizes with the family. “We want them to know that we support them, we love them and that we haven’t forgot either,” Britt said.

Judge Creed McGinley said in March he expects the three men charged with killing Bobo to go to trial April 3, 2017. The clerk’s office said the court is expecting a status update on June 1.