Dunlap, Tennessee, cold case to be featured on ‘Cold Justice’ TV show

A Dunlap, Tennessee, woman missing since June 2018 will be featured on the TV show "Cold Justice" at 8 p.m. EDT Saturday on the Oxygen True Crime channel.

Tiffany Diane Holbert, 42, was last seen by family on June 13, 2018, according to police in Dunlap. She vanished after she left her home on Creek View Lane to go for a walk and was last seen walking toward U.S. Highway 127.

Creek View Lane is a dead-end drive on the north end of Dunlap, population 5,400. The route Holbert is believed to have taken to Highway 127 is a somewhat circuitous path, less than a mile, along narrow blacktop roads passing no more than 10 homes.

As the investigation continued in 2020, detectives said the person of interest in the case was a man described as her boyfriend at the time. Authorities made contact with him, but they said he did not agree to a formal interview with police.

That man, now the lone suspect in Holbert's disappearance, has been identified as Geramie Campbell, Dunlap Police Chief Randy Phillips said Friday in a phone interview. Phillips said Campbell is in his 20s.

  photo  Dunlap Police Department / Tiffany Diane Holbert, 42, of Dunlap, Tenn., was last seen June 13, 2018.
 
 

"He is the only suspect," Phillips said. "There's a couple of others that we have ruled out. The boyfriend is the only suspect now."

Campbell's mother cooperated with investigators but wouldn't provide information on his location, Phillips said.

Campbell and his mother no longer live in Tennessee.

"He and his mother have fled out to California," he said.

Phillips said the "Cold Justice" show has its own homicide investigator, Steve Spingola, and the show host, Kelly Siegler, is a former prosecutor. According to the news release and video previews for the upcoming episode, Holbert was last seen alive on ATM security camera footage that shows her walking across Highway 127.

Siegler and Spingola talk in a video preview about meeting with former Chattanooga police cold case investigator Bill Phillips, who was hired by Dunlap officials in 2020 to assist investigators on the Holbert case.

Since spring, Phillips was elected sheriff in Sequatchie County, where Dunlap is the only incorporated town.

Chief Phillips said he and first-cousin Sheriff Phillips will work together as the case develops.

The show's team, which worked 10-12 days on the case in the spring of this year, brought with them a digital forensics expert, Eric Devlin, to review Holbert's cellphone records and other digital evidence, Randy Phillips said.

Devlin was able to retrieve phone messages between Holbert and Campbell on the day she went missing, according to the "Cold Justice" preview. Samples of text messages between Holbert and Campbell released by the show seem to show them in the midst of a breakup.

Any other texts or other information will be part of the episode on Holbert, Phillips said. Phillips is contractually barred from discussing new evidence revealed in the "Cold Justice" episode.

(READ MORE: Search for information ongoing in 2020 Grundy missing person case)

Phillips said he, the family and show officials hope a fresh look at the case and some new information might lead to the break police need.

Kayla Orafferty, Holbert's oldest daughter, said her mother deserves justice.

"She was a great mom. She was always there when we needed her," Orafferty said Friday in an email. "She loved her kids and grandkids."

Orafferty applauded show officials and investigators.

"My family and I are appreciative of all the show has done," she said. "We are hopeful that all of their efforts help bring justice to my mom and she gets the justice she deserves and we all get closure."

Phillips said he and Dunlap police Detective Wallace Cunningham, the Dunlap investigator on the case, are grateful for the help and plan to present all the evidence collected so far to District Attorney Courtney Lynch for review.

Meanwhile, Dunlap police are happy to have help from the public, too.

Anyone with any information on the investigation involving Holbert is urged to contact Dunlap police at 423-949-3319.

Contact Ben Benton at bbenton@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6569. Follow him on Twitter @BenBenton.

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