Girl, Boyfriend Held in Mother’s Slaying

A Burbank teenager let her boyfriend into her family’s home before dawn Tuesday, and then stood by as he killed her mother by repeatedly shooting, beating and stabbing the woman, police said.

The boyfriend was still crouched over the woman’s body, stabbing her, when officers arrived, a Burbank Police Department spokesman said.

Dropping his knife as ordered, officers said, he threw up his hands and conceded: “OK, you got me.”

The dead woman was identified as Dixie Hollier, 42, a single parent and manager of international special projects for Warner Bros. Records in Burbank.

Arrested on suspicion of murder were Hollier’s daughter, Amber Merrie Bray, 18, and Jeffrey Glenn Ayers, 21, who were being held without bail at Burbank City Jail.

Bray helped plan the slaying and admitted Ayers to the family’s beige, stucco duplex in the 2300 block of West Oak Street about 5 a.m., as Hollier and her two younger children--a 15-year-old girl and a 5-year-old boy--slept, police said.

Ayers found Hollier in her bed and began the attack by shooting her with a pistol. He then followed her as she tried to crawl away, hitting her and stabbing her, police said.

A woman’s screams and the sound of gun shots inside the house roused neighbors, who called police.

Lt. Larry Koch said investigators had gleaned information about “minor disagreements” between Hollier and her older daughter, “but nothing that would explain such a vicious murder.”

Koch said authorities may ask that “special circumstances” be applied in the case, which would qualify Ayers and Bray for the death penalty.

Hollier’s younger children were taken into custody by the Los Angeles County Department of Children’s Services, which was trying to place them with relatives or in a foster home.

Bray, a senior at Monterey Continuation High School in Burbank, was described by her guidance counselor as an extremely bright young woman who had enrolled there in September after transferring out of another Burbank high school because of poor attendance.

“I wish I had 150 more like her,” said Dan Mangani, the counselor. “She’s one of the brightest students I have in this school.”

But Mangani said he knew virtually nothing about Bray’s personal life because she tended to be a loner.

Hollier had worked at Warner Bros. Records since 1982, but a company spokesman would not comment further. Co-workers described her as extremely capable and one of the smartest people they knew.

“I found her extremely articulate, and really up on her job and just really quick,” a colleague said.

Hollier, who favored jeans and wore her brownish-blond hair long and straight, sometimes brought her children to screenings at Warner Bros. Studios.

She “seemed like a very dedicated mother,” a co-worker said. “They seemed very happy.”

But in the family’s modest neighborhood off busy Olive Avenue, one neighbor said he heard shouting at the home almost every weekend. Others said they heard shouts occasionally, but nothing out of the ordinary between a mother and her children.

Another neighbor, Ken McKnight, said he not only heard frequent, early-morning arguments at the house but last year heard a man there threaten, “I’m going to kill you,” which prompted him to call police.

McKnight also recalled that Hollier and her family briefly moved out of the house last year after a small fire caused smoke damage.

Times staff writer Beth Shuster contributed to this story.