Keith Holt (Blackwell Police Department).
A pastor briefly lost his cool after police investigators interrogated him for allegedly abusing eight children in his home.
Keith Lynn Holt, a 58-year-old resident of Blackwell’s House of Prayer, was seated, muttering to himself, leaning back in his chair, sighing, and crossing his legs in visible frustration.
“Wife turned against me. You’re the one who caused it,” he whispered while all alone in the room.
He currently faces a trial set for Feb. 25, 2025, in Kay County, Oklahoma, for three counts of child abuse and one count of child neglect.
Below, you can see excerpts of police on Jan. 17, 2024, interrogating him and his wife, Candy Denise Holt, 53.
Allegations by the police suggest that the children residing in the household were subject to severe abuse. For instance, a girl was found with bruises on her legs and arms, along with a black eye. Additionally, a boy reported incidents where Keith Holt allegedly punched him and threw him down the stairs.
Legal documents indicate that Candy Holt entered a plea of no contest to three charges of enabling child abuse and one count of child neglect. She received a sentence on December 13, sentencing her to 10 years of imprisonment, with nine years suspended, leaving her with a one-year term in the Kay County Jail, taking into account time already served. She is also required to provide truthful testimony according to official records.
In January, she admitted striking one of the children when he was 4, and that her husband spanked his two biological children, but she was emphatic that he never left a mark.
Police confronted her with one of the girls having bruises across her legs and arms, as well as a black eye.
“A black eye?” said Candy Holt. She denied that Keith ever struck the girl.
She denied witnessing her husband striking them with wood, only striking them with a belt.
She laughed when confronted with a claim that one of the girls was locked in a bathroom for three days.
“No, never happened,” she said.
For his part, Keith Holt claimed he never “corrected” certain children — over whom he and his wife had legal guardianship — because their mother never wanted them subjected to corporal punishment.
“Why would anybody say that?” Holt said.
The officer said that the allegations came from the five older kids, and that they provided the board, which had been behind the TV.
