Revealed: Daughter of polyamorous family, six, found under tarps was 'raped and then smothered with plastic bags by neighbor, 17, who then stole her watch'
By Stuart Woledge and Jessica Jerreat and Snejana Farberov
Published: 17:25 GMT, 2 October 2013
Updated: 21:42 GMT, 2 October 2013
A Texas coroner has determined that the 6-year-old girl who was found dead under a tarp in July was raped and then smothered with plastic bags.
Police believe 17-year-old Tyler Holder acted alone when he abducted Alanna Gallagher, sexually assaulted and killed her, dumping the child's body in the Forth Worth suburb of Saginaw July 1.
Holder was shot in the throat July 23 when he opened fire on police officers as they tried to arrest him, wounding one of them in the groin.
The teenage suspect had survived his injuries and now faces charges of capital murder and attempted capital murder in connection to the shooting of a police officer.
Holder remains in jail on $1million bail and is due back in court Thursday.
According to a report recently released by the Tarrant County Medical Examiner's Office, Alanna's official cause of death determined to be was asphyxiation from the four plastic shopping bags wrapped around her head.
New documents made public in the case and cited by Dallas Morning News show that police believe Holder acted alone, but may have used his mother's car to abduct the child and then dispose of her body.
The documents also state that Holder bought a new cell phone two days after Alanna's murder.
The teen gave his old phone to a friend, who told police after Holder’s arrest July 23 that he had discovered a YouTube search for 'Good kid porn websites' on the device, as well as images of male genitals and pictures of the suspect dressed as a woman.
The 17-year-old accused of brutally raping and murdering his 6-year-old neighbor left a note for his mother that read: 'I love you, I'm sorry,' according to FBI documents.
Duct tape, used condoms and blood-stained toilet paper were also listed as items found by officers when they searched Tyler Holder's home.
However, the first item listed on a receipt of 153 items seized by the FBI, according to KHOU, was a 'sealed letter addressed to Mom with 'I love you, I'm sorry', and a crumpled up piece of paper with the words 'Mom I' on it.
Holder's neighbors had described him as a trouble maker who had been involved in 'criminal mischief', the arrest warrant showed.
Classmates have also described the 17-year-old as 'socially awkward' and in a Google picture of the suspect's home, two obscured people can be seen making obscene hand gestures at the Google car camera. It has not been confirmed if Holder was in the picture.
According to the warrant, Alanna was sexually assaulted and suffocated, before her wrists and ankles were bound with red duct tape, and her body was dumped in a tarp less than a mile from her home July 1.
When investigators later searched Holder's home, they discovered a purple Timex watch with pink and green flowers on it, which matched the description of the timepiece Alanna's parents had given her so the girl would know when to come home while playing outside.
Girls' necklaces and jewelry, latex gloves, computers, digital cameras and a journal were also seized.
Officers were able to trace a roll of toilet paper found with Alanna's body to Costco, which Holder's mother was a member of.
Originally, Saginaw Police had said they had no specific suspects, but the affidavit suggests Holder was under suspicion almost immediately, according to 8 News.
Within hours of Alanna’s body being found, officers reported seeing Tyler Holder 'pacing up and down the sidewalk', the affidavit says.
Residents informed police Holder had told them it was Alanna’s body that had been found, even before the authorities had revealed the identity of the victim.
The next day, as officers searched the Gallagher home, Holder was seen standing across the street watching.
Holder was questioned early in the investigation and told police on the day of Alanna's death he woke up about 2pm, watched television and went to apply for jobs, having recently been made unemployed by Sonic.
The affidavit reads: 'Holder stated that he had no contact with Alanna Gallagher and that she had never been in his house,'
Holder also denied having a tarpaulin in his back garden.
But video surveillance obtained from the north and south ends of Babbling Brook Drive did not show Holder driving his vehicle that day as he had said.
When they analyzed his mobile phone, they found pictures of him with a garden hose in a sexual position.
During an interview, Holder had admitted that he had sex with other men.
On July 5, officers took a DNA sample from his mouth and were later notified that it matched evidence found on Alanna's body.
Four days later, officers arrived at Holder's home in unmarked cars. Neighbors heard them pounding on the door shortly before multiple shots rang out.
Charles Lodatto, an officer who was wounded during the confrontation, was shot in the groin and the bullet hit an artery and broke into pieces.
The probable cause affidavit for Holder’s arrest offered gruesome details about the suffering inflicted upon Alanna, who went missing July 1.
The little girl, who was known for riding on her purple scooter in search of playmates, had been brutally raped.
Her partially clothed body was found by 14-year-old Owen Whiddon bound and wrapped in a gray tarpaulin in the middle of a street about a mile from her home later in the day of her disappearance.
Genetic evidence was matched through DNA tests to a sample that Holder voluntarily provided to police earlier this month, the documents say.
His DNA was also found on the buckle of a belt used to wrap Alanna’s body in the tarp.
Four Walmart bags were taped over the girl’s head with red duct tape secured around her neck.
Her wrists and ankles were bound with the same tape and her body and clothes were wet with an unknown liquid.
Police later found what is believed to be the same kind of duct tape in rubbish bags outside the home Holder shared with his mother just two doors from where Alanna lived with her family.
Alanna lived with her siblings, their parents Laura and Karl Gallagher, and a second male, Miles McDaniel, who was in a polyamorous relationship with her parents.
Police have said that the Gallaghers and McDaniel were home while Alanna played outside alone. They are not sure when she was abducted from the neighborhood.