The woman charged with murder in the November stabbing death of a Marion man will stay in jail for now, after a nearly two-hour hearing Wednesday, Sept. 2, at which a Perry County district judge found probable cause for the charge and put off a decision on whether she can be released.
Anastassja “Anya” Cooper is charged with murder in the death of Jeffery Holifield, 68, who was found stabbed to death in a trailer on Onrow Tubbs Road in Marion in November.
Cooper turned herself in to state investigators Aug. 19, nine months after a warrant was issued for her arrest.
The hearing was held under Aniah’s Law, the 2022 constitutional amendment that allows judges to deny bail to defendants charged with murder and certain other violent offenses. The judge ruled there was probable cause for the charge and said he would decide the terms of any release at a later date.
According to WBRC’s account of the testimony, a State Bureau of Investigation agent said Holifield was believed to have been killed between Nov. 7 and Nov. 9 and had been stabbed in the head, neck, knee and thigh, with cuts on his hands. A kitchen knife recovered at the scene carried a bloody fingerprint that investigators say matches Cooper’s right ring finger, and a broken silver necklace found near the body matched one Cooper was wearing in game-camera images from the property.
Cooper’s wallet and cellphone were left in the trailer, and bags found on the property held cash, survival gear and her passport, the agent testified.
Prosecutors said Cooper mailed letters to Holifield’s two sons while authorities were searching for her. Copies of the letters, some marked with lipstick kisses, were filed with the circuit clerk Sept. 2 and shown to the judge and the defense, according to WBRC. The writer, signing as “Anya,” told the sons she loved them and had not forgotten them, and one letter said “I’ll be back.” One son opened the letter he received in April wearing gloves and a mask, the agent testified, and the other, whose letter arrived Aug. 1, said he felt threatened by the phrase. Both told investigators they had never lived in Texas with Cooper, as the letters described. None of Holifield’s family attended the hearing.
Cooper’s attorneys said she has no memory of a relationship with Holifield and may have acted in self-defense.
