Prosecutor Lance Pope said during the closing statements of the trial, "This was not a mugging or some sort of robbery gone awry...This is not some random act of violence."
Instead, he told the jury, the person who murdered Ms. Hollingsworth was her estranged husband with a history of domestic violence.
He also noted that there was no forced entry into either her home or the defendant's and that Hollingsworth bought a vehicle on the day the victim disappeared in 1997.
Her son previously testified that he once saw Hollingsworth, angry, pouring gasoline on his mother's face.
On the last day that Ms. Hollingsworth's boss saw her, Jan Prewitt said the victim told her she wanted to end her relationship with the defendant. However, she said she was still helping him out by driving him to work each morning because he did not have a vehicle.
Attorney Pope said, "She's trying to call it off and he doesn't like it. If he can't have her, no one will."
It was on that Monday morning when she left to take Hollingsworth to work that she disappeared. She drove her Mustang to his house before her two children woke up.
Hollingsworth later returned her car to her home. No blood or DNA was found inside the car, but there was a strong scent of gasoline.
Part of a shrub from Hollingsworth's yard was also found on the car.
During his rebuttal, District Attorney Neal Pinkston asked, "How would some random person who klled her know where to bring the car back to?"
He also showed the jury that when the body was found, the victim was wearing a nightgown.
He said, "She never got out of her night shirt because she wasn't going to get out of the car," noting that she was just going to drop Hollingsworth off at work and return home before her children woke.
He said, "The man, her husband, who wanted her dead, killed her."
Forensic anthropologist Dr. Jennifer Love testified that the victim was killed by a stab wound going up through her chin.
Steve Brown of the public defender's office said the state did not have enough proof to convict the defendant, who had remarried and was living in Amarillo, Tex.
The defense put on no proof at the trial.