'Please Check My Husband': Texas Wife Wrote Chilling Message Before She Was Killed, Stuffed into Freezer

Curtis Allen Holliday was arrested for violating his wife’s no contact order. Then investigators found her body

In January 2020, Curtis Allen Holliday was arrested and charged with continuous assault of his wife. He was ordered to have no contact with her.

Months later, his wife’s body was found stuffed in a freezer, her body “frozen with frost on the skin,” per her autopsy report cited in court documents reviewed by PEOPLE.

Then Texas investigators found something else: a letter typed by Chi Thi Lien Le before her death: “If suddenly nobody can find me, or find me dead,” she wrote. “Please check my husband.”

In the letter, transcribed into an appellate opinion filed in 2021, the Houston woman said that her husband had threatened “many times” that “he will murder me.”

The 29-year-old said she “especially” feared for her life because they were in the process of getting a divorce.

On Monday, June 10, Holliday, now 62, pleaded guilty to his wife’s murder in exchange for a 10-year prison sentence, ABC13, KHOU11 and Click2Houston report. (Holliday already served two of those years, per ABC13.)

Holliday’s lawyer, Dick DeGuerin, told ABC13 that they took the plea deal to avoid a potential life sentence but that they consider it “guilty with an asterisk” and that his client maintains his innocence.

"We believe this was actually suicide, but he panicked after he found her,” DeGuerin told the outlet. “Instead of calling police, he put her in a freezer and that's bizarre. And I don't know if a jury would have liked that too much.”

Holliday was charged with assault for twice assaulting Le – once around the Thanksgiving holiday and again on Christmas Day 2019, per court documents obtained by ABC13.

Le went missing sometime in April. She was last seen April 3, a witness told investigators, per the outlet, but family members reported her missing in late April after being unable to contact her for several days.

Want to keep up with the latest crime coverage? Sign up for PEOPLE's free True Crime newsletter for breaking crime news, ongoing trial coverage, and details of intriguing unsolved cases.

Prosecutors theorize that Holliday, who had violated his no contact order with Le, choked his wife to death, then stuffed her body in the freezer, per court documents reviewed by PEOPLE. But by the time his bond was revoked in the family violence case, his wife was already dead.

While at Harris County Jail on the bond violation, he was interviewed about his missing wife, per Click2Houston.

Le was found that same month, per ABC13, wrapped in plastic and stuffed in a commercial freezer at Holliday’s business.

Investigators tracked down “an invoice for a freezer alleged to be the freezer in which Le’s body was discovered,” along with “two photographs allegedly showing [Holliday] buying the freezer,” according to the court documents reviewed by PEOPLE.

The medical examiner’s office ruled her death a homicide, per ABC13, and Holliday was subsequently arrested for her murder.

The couple had a daughter together.

"He'll be out in time to continue to raise his daughter,” DeGuerin, told ABC13.

Holliday is slated for formal sentencing on July 19, per Click2Houston.

If you are experiencing domestic violence, call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233, or go to thehotline.org. All calls are toll-free and confidential. The hotline is available 24/7 in more than 170 languages.

For more People news, make sure to sign up for our newsletter!

Read the original article on People.