Episode 157: Grace Holland

August 25, 2025

When a woman dies in her fiancé’s home, her family must fight for the truth. What really happened to Grace Holland?

Episode Media
Grace Alexandra Holland (Facebook)
Robert Daus and Grace Holland (Facebook)
Grace & Laura (Facebook)
The house on Fairways Circle where Grace died (Creve Coeur Police Department)
Episode Sources
Episode Transcript

Welcome back to Bite-Sized Crime. This week I’m bringing you a case that is as frustrating as it is mysterious, one that is not as straightforward as it may seem. This episode discusses sensitive topics, so listener discretion is advised.

Grace Alexandra Holland was born and raised in the suburbs of St. Louis, Missouri. She and her twin sister Laura and their older sister Sarah grew up in a loving home filled with laughter. Grace’s family described her as bold and vibrant, someone who loved with her whole heart and wasn’t afraid to take big leaps.

Grace had big dreams for herself, and she wanted to use those dreams to help her community. In high school, she joined the Police Explorers, a program designed to provide young people with opportunities to develop character and citizenship and learn about possible careers in law enforcement. After graduation, Grace pursued a degree in criminal justice. She wanted to make a difference.

In the early 2000s, Grace married Christopher Kuhn, a police officer, and they had four daughters together. Grace loved being a mother and took pride in each of her girls. When Grace and Chris divorced in 2016, they worked hard to co-parent in a way that would provide stability for their daughters.

After the divorce, Grace began dating Robert Daus, a firefighter at the Maryland Heights Fire Department. The Daus family was well-known in the community; Robert’s brother was a cop and their father, Robert Sr., had been the fire captain at Maryland Heights before his son stepped into the role. Grace was charmed by Robert’s confidence and self-assured manner. He had a son from a previous relationship and seemed to be a good father. Eventually, Grace moved into Robert’s house in Creve Coeur, a cozy four-bedroom home in a quiet neighborhood. In 2018, Grace and Robert got engaged, and it seemed as though they would get their fairytale ending.

Sadly, it would all come crashing down.

In the early morning hours of July 22, 2020, a call came into 911.

[911 call transcript]
Robert: Um… My fiancée just shot herself.
Dispatcher: Shot… Your fiancée just shot herself?
Robert: Yeah.
Dispatcher: Okay… is… okay…
Robert: She… She… It’s a mortal wound.
Dispatcher: Okay.
Robert: I’m a captain with the fire district in Maryland Heights.
Dispatcher: Okay.
Robert: She… She shot herself.
Dispatcher: Okay. Let me connect you over to Central County, okay? Hang on one second.

When first responders from the Creve Coeur Fire Department arrived at Robert and Grace’s home on Fairways Circle, they found Grace Holland lying on the bedroom floor, a gunshot wound to her head. She was pronounced dead at the scene.

For some reason, police detectives didn’t arrive on the scene until 7am, two hours after the initial response. When they did arrive, they spoke briefly to Robert, then contacted the office of the medical examiner at 7:25am. According to the ME’s report, Detective Kurt Schneider reported that Robert had been in the living room when Grace came in to give him a hug. She then went back to the bedroom without a word. Robert heard a single gunshot; he raced to the bedroom and found Grace dead. He called 911 and waited for EMS to arrive.

According to Detective Schneider’s statement to the medical examiner, Grace had been found lying on her back with her hands across her stomach. She was dressed in pajama pants and a t-shirt. A .380 caliber handgun was found on the floor near her right hand. Schneider observed a small circular defect on the right side of her head, but he didn’t move or manipulate her body to check for additional trauma. However, when Detective Schneider called the medical examiner again later that morning, he said that he had observed another circular defect on the left side of Grace’s head. He hadn’t found any suicide notes in the house, but there didn’t seem to be any reason to suspect that Grace’s death was anything other than self-inflicted.

Detective Schneider took the gun and Grace’s cell phone into evidence and closed the crime scene. He did not swab Grace or Robert for gunshot residue or bag Grace’s hands, which is standard protocol. Robert was asked to submit a written statement of the incident, but he was not asked to turn over his own cell phone, clothing, or any other items for evidence.

In his statement to police, Robert said that Grace had been struggling with depression after a series of devastating events in their personal lives. Their wedding had been delayed due to the Covid-19 pandemic, and Grace had suffered two miscarriages that year, the second just weeks before her death. She hadn’t been consistent with her medications, and she would often spiral into deep depression. Robert also said that Grace had attempted to take her own life before, and she had been talking about it again in the weeks leading up to her death.

Grace’s autopsy revealed that the bullet had entered her skull through the left temple and had tracked slightly backward through her brain. A toxicology report found alcohol in her system, nearly twice the legal limit. Her death was ruled a suicide, and the case was closed.

But Grace’s family believed it wasn’t that simple. Grace and Robert’s relationship hadn’t been as picture perfect as it seemed.

According to the Holland family, the relationship had been marred by abuse, both physical and psychological. Robert was domineering and wanted to control every aspect of Grace’s life. He pressured her to quit her job so she could work for his father’s company, and every paycheck went directly to Robert. In January of 2020, they had bought a new house together, but only Robert’s name was on the deed. Grace worked for months to renovate and decorate the house on Conway Road so they could move in, but it became a point of contention in their relationship.

Grace’s sister Laura told the US Sun that the family had tried to help her get away from Robert. “I had taken Grace away from him four times. I’d move her in and out of his house, and he’d always come back. She’d block him and he’d email her… it was this controlling relationship of love bombing and tearing her town.”

Over their four-year relationship, Grace had documented multiple incidents of physical abuse at Robert’s hand, recording their conversations and photographing her bruises. It was also clear from their text messages that by the spring of 2020, the relationship was hanging on by a thread. Robert constantly belittled Grace, telling her how much he hated her and her kids, and that he didn’t want to be with her anymore. When Grace learned she was pregnant, Robert offered to pay her $600 to terminate the pregnancy. Grace refused, begging Robert to marry her, but Robert wouldn’t budge, saying that he couldn’t wait until she was gone. One text read, “Get out of my house. I don’t want to be married. I don’t want a baby.”

In between the angry conversations, Grace and Robert would send normal messages about getting milkshakes and buying faucets for the new house. It was an emotional rollercoaster every day.

On July 1st, Grace texted Robert, “Please stop saying I should kill myself.” Robert responded, “You asked me and I do not want to marry you and do not want this baby with you.” Grace accused him of telling her to get the gun out of the nightstand, but Robert said she was delusional.

In the weeks before Grace’s death, her conversations with Robert got even more disturbing. They argued about everything, from Grace’s refusal to get a job to Robert’s sexuality. Grace accused him of having secret relationships, but she also kept begging him to stay with her. When she lost the baby in mid-July, Robert called her ridiculous and crazy. Grace called him cruel and selfish.

Reading through all of their messages, I was struck by how sad and angry both Grace and Robert were during the last few months of their relationship. They were toxic together, and it went on much longer than it should have. I can’t help but wonder if things would have been different if they had just broken up like they both threatened to do multiple times.

The text messages paint an interesting picture of Grace’s last hours. On the night of July 21, 2020, Grace and Robert visited the new house on Conway Drive. At 10pm, Grace took a selfie of the two of them in bed – although the picture has not been released, reports indicate that Grace was smiling and happy. But at 11:30, Robert texted Grace that he was leaving. It appears that Grace wanted to try for another baby, but Robert refused. That set off another angry text thread in which Robert accused Grace of ruining the evening, saying, “I want you out of my life / Don’t ever contact me again”.

Shortly before 4am, Grace texted again, asking Robert where he was. She begged him to come back, but he said, “I want nothing to do with you.” She tried to call him over and over again, but she got no response.

An hour later, Robert called 911 from the house on Fairways Circle. Grace was dead.

Grace’s family knew about her struggles with depression and previous suicide attempts, but they felt strongly that Grace had not taken her own life this time. They began digging into the case on their own, getting her phone records and hiring a private investigator to help them navigate the system. What they uncovered was a shoddy investigation, a failure to get answers and justice for Grace.

Robert’s written statement to police was slightly different from what he told Detective Schneider at the scene, the version which was ultimately passed on to the medical examiner. In the written report, Robert claimed he was in the bedroom, not the living room, when Grace approached him for a hug. Robert said he was standing at his closet getting ready for work and that he couldn’t return the hug because his arms were full of folded uniforms. He told Grace that he didn’t have time to hold her because he had to get to training. Grace then moved to his side, pulled his face towards hers, and said goodbye. He heard a shot, and Grace fell to the ground. Robert claimed that he never saw a gun in her hand until it was too late.

If Robert’s written statement is true, it means that Grace was in his arms, her cheek against his, when the gun went off. Robert would likely have been covered in blood and gun residue, his ears ringing from the sound of the gun firing, but there is no mention of that in the police report, and no testing was done at the scene. It appears that Detective Schneider simply took Robert at his word, believing that Grace had taken her own life.

Grace’s family has been vocal about law enforcement’s failure to properly investigate the case. Not only did investigators not correctly process the scene, they also failed to address important clues such as the large pool of blood on the right side of Grace’s head and the bruises found on her body during the autopsy. Robert’s friends in the police force were allowed to work on the case, and he was giving professional courtesies throughout the investigation that would not have been afforded to anyone else who had been found at the scene of their fiancée’s death. In fact, multiple video recordings – including video of Robert’s later interview at the police station – were mysteriously lost, although the department claims it was due to an error in their recording system. Robert, a trained first responder, didn’t appear to render any lifesaving aid to his fiancée, and his demeanor on the 911 call is casual and conversational. When Robert suddenly supplied detectives with two suicide notes that he supposedly found in his briefcase two days later, they did not verify the handwriting, which family members say is very different from Grace’s usual style. Robert’s cell phone wasn’t collected until August 4th – two weeks after Grace’s death – and a police detective called Robert ahead of time to tell him they needed to take pictures of his text messages with Grace. Anything could have happened to those messages in that time.

One of the biggest points of contention for Grace’s family was the position of her body at the scene. She was found lying on her back with her hands on her stomach, which doesn’t seem to be a natural way for someone to fall after a gunshot to the head. Grace was shot in the left temple, but she was right handed, and the gun was found lying by her right side. The family has said that Grace had firearm training and always shot with her right hand. However, there is a photo that Grace took of herself at some point in the past, in which she was lying on the bed, holding a gun in her left hand, pointing it at her head. Although it’s unlikely for a right-handed person to shoot with their left hand, it is possible, and it appears that Grace may have tried it before.

Grace did have a history of suicide attempts, one of which took place just two months before her death. When Grace wasn’t responding to her family’s calls, her sister and her boyfriend, who was a doctor, broke into Robert’s house on Fairways Circle and found Grace huddled crying in the bathroom, a gun in her hand. They were able to get the gun away from her and discovered that it was thankfully not loaded, but it was clear that Grace was struggling and needed help.

Unfortunately, no matter how much Grace’s family fought for answers, the Creve Coeur Police Department was certain that Grace had died by suicide, and that was that.

In 2021, Grace’s family asked police to look into Grace’s missing engagement ring along with several other pieces of expensive jewelry that disappeared after her death. When police brought Robert in for questioning, he told them that during one of their fights, Grace had thrown the ring at him, but text messages indicated that he had given it back to her. Robert tried to tell police that a week before her death, she had called her father to help her move out of the house, taking all of her belongings with her, but this was not true. Robert then claimed that the ring had gotten lost and he had filed an insurance claim, but he couldn’t provide any paperwork to prove it. The ring was clearly visible in crime scene photographs, but Robert said that it was a fake that Grace used when they were traveling. There was no proof of this, either.

Grace’s family spoke with local news station KMOV in 2021, speaking passionately about their frustrations with law enforcement and how they felt their concerns had been dismissed. Laura said, “I feel like [Robert’s] being protected because of who he is.”

Laura may not be completely off-base in her suspicions. In June of 2020, Grace had called her mother for help during a violent argument with Robert. When her mom urged her to call the police, she heard Robert say in the background, “My brothers in blue are not going to do anything to me. I’ve already taken care of that. You’re the crazy girlfriend, remember?”

In 2022, the St. Louis County Police Department opened an investigation into Grace’s death at the request of the Creve Coeur police chief. Sergeant Tracy Panus told the US Sun, “At this point, the case is still classified as a suspicious death and remains active.” Their findings were turned over to the St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office to determine if any further action would be taken, but after that, it was radio silence.

In 2023, Grace’s family officially filed a wrongful death suit against Robert Daus. The suit claims that Robert either shot Grace or that Grace shot herself after years of physical and psychological abuse at his hands. In the petition, the family laid out everything they knew about Grace and Robert’s relationship and about the events of July 22, 2020. Laura told the US Sun that they hoped the suit would give them new insight into the investigation. “We’re just trying to use it to collect evidence.”

Grace’s story had largely faded from the public eye until January of 2024, when another woman was found dead in Robert Daus’ home, sparking new theories about what may have happened to Grace. But we’ll talk about that case next week.

As of this recording, the wrongful death suit against Robert Daus is still making its way through the court system. Grace’s family is holding out hope that they can get answers, that they can finally get justice for Grace.

If you or someone you know is struggling with depression or suicidal thoughts, please reach out for help. Call or text 988 or visit 988lifeline.org to chat with a trained counselor who can connect you to the support and resources you need. If you are experiencing domestic abuse, please contact the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233 or text START to 88788 for free and confidential help. You don’t have to suffer alone.