Lexington Park, MD: Suspect in murder faces federal charge, Man arrested after wife's death and his claim that they had been abducted

Friday, Nov. 27, 2009

By JOHN WHARTON
Staff writer
E-Mail This Article | Print This Story


A former air traffic controller stationed at Patuxent River Naval Air Station has been indicted by federal grand jurors, five months after he was arrested on the Eastern Shore upon the discovery of his wife's dead body.

Ryan Dave Holness, 28, was taken into custody last June in Kent County and later indicted on a charge of first-degree murder in the death of 26-year-old Serika Sandra Dunkley, whom he married six years ago.

Holness claimed that his wife was attacked by a masked gunman who abducted the couple at a travelers' service area in New Jersey, where the couple stopped while driving home from visiting relatives in New York. Maryland State Police reported finding "inconsistencies" while investigating his claim, but their probe took a new twist when they learned that the couple's car had turned up in Washington, D.C.

Holness' trial in Kent County Circuit Court has been postponed to next January after a series of courthouse conferences and a motions hearing, which recently led to his waiver of his right to be tried within 180 days after his arraignment. Court papers state that defense lawyers have sought sanctions while pursuing pretrial discovery issues with county prosecutors, and that DNA records have become an issue in the case.

On Tuesday, the U.S. Attorney's Office obtained an indictment accusing Holness of traveling in interstate commerce with the intent to kill his spouse, and committing a crime of violence against his spouse.

U.S. Attorney Rod J. Rosenstein said Tuesday through a statement that the decision to use the federal interstate domestic violence statute to prosecute Holness "was made jointly by federal and state authorities."

A conviction for the offense carries a maximum penalty of life in prison. Holness remains in custody on the original charges filed in Kent County.

Police found Dunkley stabbed to death on June 5 along a state highway on the Eastern Shore county. Holness told police that the carjacker forced the couple to drive to a dirt lane near Crumpton, ordered them out of the car and assaulted him and bound him with duct tape — before chasing, catching and assaulting his wife as she tried to run away.

Holness told police that he tried to assist his wounded wife, and that their assailant knocked them down in a field, stabbed the woman and kicked Holness in the head.

Holness later appeared at the doorway of a nearby home, and he told police that he'd been struggling to free himself from the duct tape before he walked to the house.

He was treated at a hospital in Chestertown for a wound on his left arm and other cuts, and a nationwide lookout was broadcast for the car, before police further questioned him and charged him with the homicide.

Charging papers filed by a police investigator state that the area where Holness said the attacks occurred was very muddy and wet, but police found no signs of a struggle there, and the condition of the woman's clothing showed no evidence of an attack in a muddy field. The woman's purse was found zippered shut on the ground, court papers state, and its contents were intact.

Holness was accused in 2007 in court papers of digitally recording a sexual encounter with a girlfriend at the couple's home in Lexington Park. Court papers state a former girlfriend found the incident's video file while babysitting his children.

Holness admitted to police investigators after his wife's death that he'd recently been exchanging cell phone text messages with a girlfriend, court papers state, and police determined that Holness affirmed during one of those text message conversations that he would divorce his wife. He told police that he and his wife were "somewhat separated," court papers state, but he had no plans to get a divorce.

The charges filed last year against Holness, including a "peeping tom" offense and the illegal use of a camera in a private residence, were placed on an inactive docket after he requested a jury trial in the case.

Holness told police that he was having sex with the girlfriend when he might have accidentally touched a remote control that activated the video recorder in his bedroom, court papers state, and that he later tried to delete the video file.