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, 58, of the city of Blackwell’s House of Prayer muttered to himself, leaned back in his chair, sighed, and crossed his legs in obvious 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.
Police claim the children in the home suffered substantial abuse. For example, one girl suffered bruises across her legs and arms as well as a black eye. A boy claimed Keith Holt had punched him and thrown him downstairs.
Records show Candy Holt pleaded no contest to three counts of enabling child abuse and one count of child neglect. She was sentenced on Dec. 13 to 10 years behind bars, but the judge suspended nine, so she only has to serve one year in the Kay County Jail with credit for time served. She is also on the hook to “testify truthfully,” records show.
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.
“So if someone said that you beat the kids with a 2 by 2 board, would that –” asked an officer. Holt gasped, putting a hand to his mouth. “Why would someone say that?”
“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.
