'Postpartum' Mom Stabs Kids, Husband in Disturbing Knife Attack: Police

She's a Texas mom now in jail accused of horrific crimes against her own family. Two charges of attempted capital murder and one charge of aggravated assault and deadly weapon. Holly Flores is now in custody after allegedly stabbing her husband and two young children. Her husband allegedly told police she suffers from postpartum depression. We'll talk about the new information coming out as police try to figure out what happened inside this family home in the early hours of the morning. We're on the case presented by Law and Crime. I'm Chris Stewart. What police say happened inside of a house near Dallas in the early hours of an October morning is really scary. And now you have two young children who are recovering from stab wounds allegedly caused by their own mom and her husband is also recovering after he was allegedly stabbed in the head. This is the mom who we're talking about. And it's hard to believe that we're talking about the same person when we break down these allegations. The mom's name is Holly Flores. And these are images we found on the Instagram account for her business. She makes big balloon displays that people use to celebrate birthdays, graduations and other parties like really cool stuff. Now, what we know about Holly Flores is that she's married and she has two children. Pictures on Facebook of her family. It shows a lot of people being happy. She and her husband have, a three year old girl and a 10 month old boy. Now, obviously pictures only tell part of the story of surface level version of someone's life. And it appears that inside the couple's home in North Lake, Texas, there were serious concerns about Holly, which go back months. And we're going to talk more about that history in just a moment. But before that, I want to talk about what police say happened on October 6th, around 420 in the morning. Officers dispatched her residents in the regarding a stabbing in progress. Didn't county sheriff's office communications advised that a male subject was reporting that his wife had a knife and had stabbed him. That is the police chief of North Lake, Texas, giving an update per Fox four news in Dallas. And this is the house they responded to. We have the police affidavit and it says that dispatch told officers on the nine one one call, they could quote, hear a female screaming. And at the residence, there has been a call history involving welfare concern and overdoses. Imagine being a police officer. And you respond to this situation. And this is what you see when you arrive. Holly's husband, quote, emerged from the front door of the residence and was walking down the driveway, holding a knife in his hand. Officers immediately observed the husband who had visible blood emitting from his forehead. Officers provided verbal commands to the husband to drop the knife, which he complied with officers commands. The husband then informed officers that his children were safe. And he was able to get out of the car. He was able to get out of the car. the residence and so was his wife later identified as Holly Leanne Flores. Officers completed a protective sweep of the residence and discovered two small children who had also had stab wounds. Fire and EMS personnel were all reading around our officers rendered aid to the children until paramedics arrived and took over care. The adult male and two children were taken to a Fort Worth hospital for their injuries and an adult female was transported to Denton hospital for observation and possible injuries. The following people are reported to have injuries. An adult male, 34 years of age, suffered injuries to his head. A child female, three years of age, suffered stab wounds to the chest. And an infant male, 10 months old, suffered a stab wound to the chest. When police got inside that home, they say they saw Holly moving from the living room to the master bedroom and then she tried to make her way back to the living room. Officers told her to stop and they say she complied and they were able to get her in handcuffs. Police say at that point she was unarmed. Now the next part of the story is really hard, so I'm going to warn you. These details are tough. Police say they entered a back bedroom and they could hear children screaming and that's where they say they found Flores' children who had allegedly been stabbed. Police say that Flores' son had a deep puncture wound to his chest. He's just 10 months old. Flores' three-year-old daughter had allegedly been stabbed in the stomach. Now the children were rushed to the hospital and I have an update on their condition which we'll talk about here in just a moment. But police say they went to talk to Holly, who at that point was on the couch. She was handcuffed and police say she started to resist officers on scene. They say that she got her handcuffs to the front of her body and it took two officers to get them behind her back again. And at one point they say she grabbed onto an officer's handcuffed key. She was transported to the hospital because she had a cut on her chest. Now on her way to a hospital, police read Holly her rights. And she told them that she was married, that she had two children and when she was asked if she knew why police had responded to her house, she said quote "I would like to speak to my lawyer." And she also made a statement about wanting to take her own life, police say. Now when an officer asked Holly why officers were at her house, she said that it was due to her children being stabbed according to the arrest affidavit. Now Flores was treated at the hospital and then she was booked into the Denton County Jail. That's where she is right now. Holly's husband, he had been stabbed in the head, according to police. He was still able to speak when officers tried to talk to him at the hospital. He was reluctant to give any information at first. I think it was just a poor concern for his children. He was more focused on them. I haven't spoken to the detective since. He's left the hospital and processed the house, so that's something that we'll look into later. Police say when Flores' husband did speak to them, he told officers that his wife had been diagnosed with postpartum depression. He said her behavior had changed recently and they were no longer sleeping in the same bedroom. In fact, he said that he was sleeping on the couch to be closer to the children out of concern for his wife. Now here is his recollection of the night, according to police. Now we're not saying his name and we're protecting his identity. And Holly's husband said that he saw his wife carrying a candle into the bedroom and he said that she had the children with her. Now something about that, he said, stood up, stood out as odd to him. He slept on the couch and he said that he woke up sometime between one and two in the morning because he heard his wife trying to use a lighter in the children's room. And according to police, the kids were inside the bedroom with Holly. The husband then goes to check on the children in the bedroom and he allegedly sees his wife lighting the candle and there's a knife on the dresser and that quote freaked him out. I mean, you just think of this picture playing out in the middle of the night in this house, and at this point, Holly's husband said that he asked his wife, what are you doing? And that's when he says they get into a verbal argument and Holly closed the bedroom door, according to the affidavit. Now, the next part of the story is where things get even more disturbing. The husband tells police that Holly closes the door and then he goes back to sleep. Remember, the children are in the bedroom with his wife, who also, he said, had a knife. Now, obviously you read that, and with what is alleged to have happened a couple hours later, it does raise some questions about why Holly's husband would go back to sleep and frankly be able to go back to sleep considering everything he had witnessed, but obviously we weren't there. Police say Holly's husband woke up to the sound of crying children hours later, and that's when he knocks on their door. And he says when Holly opened the door, she allegedly attacked him with the knife, allegedly stabbing him in the forehead. He was able to get that knife from his wife. There's this physical altercation, he says, between the two of them. And then when he gets outside the house, he apparently called 911 along the way. And when he gets outside the house, that is when officers arrive. And police say he was not able to go check on the kids before he escaped the home. I listened to the 911 calls. He was trying to get to the children, but the children were in another room and she was actively trying to stab him. So he had to retreat outside to get away. Police say in the 911 call, you can hear the husband saying, quote, my wife is stabbing me. He also said that he was being chased around the house. Officers can also hear the husband ask Holly during this 911 call if she thinks this is a quote postpartum thing. A few minutes ago, we did talk about this not being the first time. Police though had been called recently to the Flores home. Have y'all ever been called to this house before, familiar with these two adults? We have been called there about five times previously, starting in March of this year. Most of it for welfare concerns. Can you elaborate? I don't want to say anything out of context right now. So some of that information will probably come out later. Police say all of those welfare calls came from inside the house. They did not come from, for example, a neighbor who might have heard an altercation from outside and called police. Now, the good news is, and if there's any good news, is that Holly's children are physically okay. Police say the children are out of the hospital and they're currently in the care of the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services. It is unclear at this point why they're with social services as opposed to family members. Holly's husband is also out of the hospital, but again, he's recovering from a stab wound to his forehead. Holly Flores is now charged with two counts of attempted capital murder on a person under the age of 10, and she is facing one count of aggravated assault, with a deadly weapon. She is being held on $2 million bond at this point. Join us now to talk more about this. Retired detective commander with the Chicago Police Department, Will Svilar. Um, always great to have you on long crime. You know, this story is just horrific beyond words. Um, you know, and, and it, it appears that there was a, for, for as nice as this family looks in pictures. Um, and I don't know anything about their relationship. I don't know these people personally, but you have five welfare calls, um, to this address, I think going back to March, what does that tell you? Like, as you're, if you're one of the investigators who's there on the night, you know, early morning hours of October 6th, like how do you look at those welfare checks and trying to figure out exactly what happened? Well, you have to see what the nature of the calls were. I mean, check the wellbeing. We used to get them all the time. Check the wellbeing can mean we haven't heard from the people in several days. We're concerned about somebody's mental state. So you have to analyze what the calls were. I think I read in that affidavit, there was a cause there, they had some calls about overdose. Right. The question I have is who was overdosing? Was it the husband or the wife? And, and, you know, what, what was the action after the call? Is it, was it a, a, you know, you cleared out the call, everything was fine. You went back into service with somebody transported to a hospital or a mental health facility. These are all things you have to analyze as you move forward into this, in this case. You know, and, and I'm sure welfare checks, I mean, it's, you know, there are police officers doing them as we speak right now, countless of times throughout every single day. But then when you have a situation like this and the allegations are so terrible you wonder like, what are the red flags that could have been picked up? Like when you do a welfare check. Um, you know, especially in this case, because the calls came from inside the house, meaning it was, you know, supposedly it was either, you know, the husband or Holly Flores who were making these calls. We don't know, but it wasn't like a neighbor heard an altercation. It could be a miscommunication or whatever misunderstanding. And then they call the police. Like these were, this was coming inside the house. Like, what does that tell you? Well, it tells me that somebody had a problem in there. Either one or both of them had a problem there. And you say that, you know, we talk about it. It went back since March. Yeah. Around the March. If I, if I read this right, the baby, the baby is 10 months old. So around March would be about what, seven months ago, the baby would be three months old. So you're wondering, is this something that started happening? Um, you know, after, after the birth of the second baby. So the fact that it came from the house is who's calling? Is it, is it the husband calling or, you know, is a wife calling saying I've had some problems. Could somebody come help me? I don't know. We'd have to hear what the calls were. Right. And we'll see what Northlake police in Texas released because it doesn't seem like there were previous arrests though. You know, it's like you have police come into the house because of whatever was going on, you know, apparently a history of overdoses, according to the affidavit or what, you know, she, you know, according to the husband after, um, this incident that happened on the sixth, like she was dealing with postpartum depression, but like, there's no, no one was ever arrested. No one was ever charged. Like how common is that where you can have so many, you know, you have these two young children in the house and yet it seems like nothing was really done, even though police had been called, you know, a good amount of times. Again, it all depends on what the nature of the call was. Like I said, a check, the wellbeing could be so many different things. There's a door, a jar, somebody left the door open. There's, you know, but you're right. You're, you're right about, you know, five different calls since March. What, what's the nature of the call? Is it a mental health thing? But you also have to understand what kind of information are the police getting from the people that make the call? What kind of information is being provided when the police get there? Do they get there? And then both of them appear at the door and say, you know, everything's fine. We just had a misunderstanding. It's, you don't know what kind of information you're getting. And, you know, you, you, you, can you be intrusive? Can you go inside their home based on a call? Depends on what you see when you get there. Well, and it, it seems like, I mean, just the way that this affidavit lays out, you know, police responding thing was around four 20 in the morning. And it's like, you respond and here's this man who is bleeding from his forehead. He has a knife in his hands. You know, that there was some sort of altercation going on inside. I mean, how do you like, you know, if you're one of those officers, you know, you're not going to be able to, you know, you're not going to be able to who's, who's rolling up on this. Like, how do you, like, what do you make of just kind of the narrative that was laid out in this affidavit? Cause it just sounds terrifying first and foremost, like to see that. And then you're thinking about all these different dynamics, but then you have a woman who ends up according to what police said, like resisting them when they get inside the house. So you have, you get the call, the call says the husband makes a call saying my wife is stabbing me. You get on the scene. The first thing you do is you have to aid the injured. You have to, you have to eliminate a threat or you have to mitigate a threat and you have to aid the injured. Now he comes out of the house and he says the knife in his hand, they do correctly tell him, drop the knife. And then they go in based on what he said, secure her. And then they find the babies, which is, which is rough. And what you got to do in that situation, you got to make sure you get the first aid going as soon as you can and get EMS out there. She's handcuffed. She fights the police. She gets her handcuffs in front. They have to restrain her and cuff her again. That's just all part of, you know, making an arrest sometimes. But the first thing you do is mitigate the threat and make sure those babies are okay. When it seems like we're a long way away from any sort of plea, you know, is this an insanity plea situation? Because, you know, the husband had said that his wife had been diagnosed, you know, and this is just, you know, to our understanding, like just what he is alleging based off what was going on, you know, what he was saying in the hospital that she had been diagnosed with postpartum depression. I've been struggling with that. He talked about it apparently on the 911 call the same time. It seems like she had some awareness of where she was when, um, police took her into custody. Like she was, she was aware, you know, husband has two kids. You know, she apparently said that, you know, she, her kids had been stabbed. Um, and then she also had the, the wherewithal to ask for a lawyer, which is certainly her right. But what do you make of just like of that part of it, of, of where it's like you do have, and I know like post Lindsay Clancy, so many, you know, there's kind of this awareness of insanity, please, what those may look like in certain States. But like here, it does seem like she had a bit of an awareness of what was going on around her at the time police took her into custody. And so, you know, I think that's, I think that's took her under into, uh, took her into custody. You know, Chris, I don't like it. I don't like what we're seeing, uh, across the country. Now, even here in Will County, we had a situation like this and it's been since the Clancy case. I have no doubt that there is postpartum depression. Absolutely. No doubt. How does it manifest into violence? That's what we've been seeing. And you, and you, you report on these things too. You see this, an escalation of violence against these children. Is it because of the Clancy case? Is it because of the, um, insanity plea and how things work up there in Massachusetts? I can tell you that Massachusetts is not Texas. Um, there, there's going to be a little different, uh, procedures as far as the court cases go, but I don't like it. I don't like this, this violent uptick in, in the postpartum cases. It it's, it's disturbing to me. And I don't know if it's got anything to do with the Clancy or not, but it's, it's disturbing that we're seeing more of this, um, since the Clancy case. Again, I don't deny a mental illness. I don't certainly don't deny just what makes it take the step from being depressed and needing a little help or needing a break to violence against the children. It's, it's something that needs to be looked into for sure. Well, and I, I also think like, it's important to know, like the difference between like postpartum psychosis, which is what, um, you know, Lindsay Clancy's defense, you know, argued in their case. And then you have postpartum depression and like the difference between, um, you know, people who are of mental health issues like depression. And it's not just like a postpartum thing. Like we see people who are struggling all the time, who were accused of crimes, but then the difference is like in a psychosis case, you know, there's kind of this like lack of awareness of, of what you're doing. And like, that's, that's the big question. And it just seems at least from what police are alleging at this point, like there was somewhat of an awareness of, of what was going on. I haven't seen the body cam video. I haven't seen the 911, but yeah, to your point, like there's been, you know, the one in Will County, Illinois, South of Chicago is, uh, is Corey Walsh and she's accused of a terrible crime. There's a woman, Justine May in South Carolina, um, you know, as well, who was in some sort of a days, I mean, I'm not comparing them to Lindsay Clancy, but like we are seeing, um, some really tough cases recently. Um, and then you have this one and fortunately these kids are alive. Um, the husband survived as well. Um, typically when it comes to punishment and I know each state is different, like how does the law look at an, uh, an attempted murder case as opposed to, um, you know, and unfortunately in other cases when we see murder. Well, in a city or a state like Texas, where you have capital punishment, uh, she's charged with a capital murder, um, because the kids were under 10 years old. And I think because there's multiple victims, the Texas to make a case capital in Texas, there has to be, it can't just be a solo murder or solo attempt. And she's charged with attempted capital murder. I mean, the only difference in is running the case is the fact that the, uh, the kids survived and the husband survived, but it's a serious, I mean, we would call it a class X where you get like the, you know, uh, uh, uh, I'm sure Texas is every bit as, as strict as that, maybe probably more so. Uh, but you approach it just like you would approach any other case. You build it, you build the case, uh, you present it and you, and you, um, you know, you hope, you hope you get a prosecution, a successful prosecution. The husband has said, you know, and we aren't saying his name or showing his face. I mean, he's not, um, accused of a crime and certainly as a victim of just a terrifying situation, according to what we know at this point. Um, you know, he says his wife, Holly Flores has been diagnosed with postpartum depression. As an investigator, you know, cause that's something that could come into play, you know, once this, this makes it into a courtroom, but like as an investigator, how much does that actually matter as you're, you're kind of building your case and trying to understand what happened when you're talking about the investigation, you're talking about what happened, what happened, uh, who did it, what it's, what's the evidence, what do we present to trial? Now, when you're a prosecutor, you know, the investigators and prosecutors obviously are working together to get a conviction. That's, that's what we want in cases like this. As far as INVESTIGATION INTO HER MENTAL STATE. that's more of a trial thing and and the defense is going to have to be put up the plea is going to have to be you know not guilty by reason of insanity or temporary insanity or second degree charge second degree because sudden and intense passion but that's more trial strategy than it is investigation it's part of your investigation the medical records will be subpoenaed and all that stuff will be part of the trial but as an investigator you want to know who what when where why uh another thing this is this is kind of speculating as well like she is she's acute there's two counts of attempted capital murder um for allegedly stabbing her two children but then it's aggravated assault on the husband where you know this was a guy who according to police like he was stabbed in the forehead and it's just like to me like a question would be like why would that not be attempted murder as well good question i mean it could be the fact that he was able to defend himself and and disarmed her because i think he disarmed her that's why he walked out with the knife i believe i don't know to be sure um but you also have don't you have an assault on the police as well true yeah because that's the other part is like she was and i don't know if she had been i think it's like one count of of aggravated assault but it's like clearly like she was able to get the handcuffs i guess to the front and then they had to kind of wrestle her down to to get into the back how is the husband as a witness here um and we don't know him don't know him personally don't know the account we do know the 911 call he talked about postpartum depression on that he was in a fight it sounds like the fight of his life you know and he's he's also you know has these two young children in the house he's also awake and he's asleep for periods of time like how important is he to this case that you're trying to build up the kids can't be a witness i mean their baby maybe maybe the younger one but but you don't really want to use the victims as witnesses in this case uh he's really the only witness but what did he witness was he was he under attack he heard the baby's crying he was under attack he fought her off he made the call he got out of the house did he know his kids were hurt um so he's a witness is to the behavior before the incident and when he got attacked and then you know you build the rest of your case based on the injuries to the child and the statements made by the the mom how do you question someone you know this husband again like you can't imagine what this guy just went through right it's terrifying um and and it sounds like you know based off you know he says that his wife was diagnosed with postpartum depression like i'm i'm sure it's not true but i'm sure it's not true but i'm sure it's not true it was a daily struggle in a lot of ways you know dealing with you know some of those issues when you have a partner who's struggling um but as a police officer like how do you approach questioning him as opposed to questioning a suspect uh two different i mean when you talk about questioning the suspect and questioning a uh a witness it's two different types of investigation you're asking a lot of similar questions but when you talk about an interrogation as far as an as opposed to an interview the interrogation is adversarial you know so you're it's adversarial so you're asking questions to try to to get an admission or to to find elements of a crime for that you have to provide somebody with miranda and i know i read in the affidavit they said she wasn't under arrest but she was being transported from point a to point b and she couldn't leave uh and they gave her miranda that to me is an arrest i mean call it what you want but when you transport somebody against her will from one spot to another that's that's a physical arrest and you gave miranda so you're it was your intention to try to elicit a confession or you know you're not going to get a confession and you're not going to get a confession you know elements of a crime that you're trying to prove so you gave that person miranda when you do an interview unless the person incriminates themselves during the course of the interview you're not going to give miranda yeah and and we'll see what happens next in this case there are still a lot of questions unanswered i think those welfare checks you know what was exactly going on there no doubt though just a terrible terrible story out of uh north texas retired detective commander will spieler of the chicago police department i know you have a podcast of your own you know you often come on our show which is great but if people want to hear more about it you can find it on our website at the chicago police department website at the chicago police department where can they go uh we we have a podcast on youtube and also on spotify now called big city crime inside the red tape and it's it's me and uh three others uh there's a retired fbi agent who worked irt or the investigative uh uh evidence recovery ert i should say and two retired homicide detectives that i work with for for years and you know we just kind of try to figure out what's going on in our experience it's not a bad watch i don't think no not not a bad watch at all will spieler always great to have you on long crime thanks for being here thanks chris that will do it for on the case presented by law and crime i'm chris stewart we'll see you next time