Woman arrested in connection with fatal home invasion

MIDVALE — A woman who police believe was the leader of a home-invasion robbery that resulted in the shooting death of one of the intruders has been arrested, thanks to the work of several police agencies.

Police arrested Debbie Elaine Holland, 53. She was booked into the Salt Lake County Jail Friday for investigation of six counts each of aggravated kidnapping, aggravated assault and aggravated burglary, and one count of attempted murder.

Early Tuesday, six to 10 people forced their way into an apartment at The Springs of Country Woods, near 1030 East and 7000 South. Six people inside the apartment, including a 13-year-old girl, were forced into a back room. During a struggle between one of the tenants and one of the intruders, Blake J. Anderson, 31, was shot three times in the torso and killed.

More details of the home invasion were revealed Friday in a probable-cause statement on Holland from the jail. Victims told police that Holland "was in charge and giving the other suspects command(s) and direction(s)," the jail-records state.

All of the intruders, according to jail records, were members of the Soldiers of Aryan Culture, a violent white-supremacist gang in Utah, whose origins trace back to the Utah State Prison and whose members are typically heavily tattooed.

Holland allegedly knocked on the apartment door about 1:30 a.m. while the men hid on the stairwell out of sight. When a man in the apartment opened the door, the men rushed forward and pushed their way in, stabbing the tenant in the hand in the process, according to police.

All of the invaders were armed and threatened to kill the occupants, according to jail records and police. Two of the victims were pistol whipped.

One of the tenants ran out the door and tried to escape. One of the intruders followed, firing at least three shots at him, "almost hitting him," according to jail records.

At one point, police say, Holland punched one of the victims in the mouth. That person was able to grab the gun away from one of the other intruders and fire several rounds in self-defense, hitting and killing Anderson.

Investigators had been searching for the remaining intruders since Tuesday. The big break in the case came from an outside agency.

After reports of the shooting were publicized, an officer from another agency recalled that a couple of days earlier on a routine traffic stop, he had pulled over a vehicle that had a woman and several men inside, said Midvale Police Sgt. John Salazar.