MARION COUNTY, Fla. — As the country celebrates America's Independence this 4th of July weekend, a man is celebrating his newfound freedom.
At 41 years old, Ryan Holle was recently released from prison after spending more than half of his life locked up.
The ABC Action News I-Team first sat down with Holle two years ago, while investigating the law that put him behind bars — Florida's "felony murder rule". Under that state law, someone can be sentenced to life in prison even if they did not kill someone, even if they weren't at the scene of the crime, and even if they didn't know about it.
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I-Team Investigator Kylie McGivern asked Holle in April 2022 how he describes why he is in prison.
"I'm in prison because I loaned my keys to my roommate," he said.
Holle made that fateful decision in 2003, the morning after a party at his house in Pensacola.
Holle said he went back to sleep after telling his roommate he could borrow his car. When he woke up, and his car still wasn't back, Holle said he called his roommate, who said he and three other men were about to break into a friend's home.
"If I really would have taken it serious, I would have called the police," Holle told the I-Team. "They were just saying they were going to go rob her mom for a safe that was in her house, that supposedly had drugs and money inside of it."
The men took the safe and beat 18-year-old Jessica Snyder to death with a shotgun, then drove back to Holle's house.
"The officers came to the house, I wanted to tell them everything that happened," Holle told the I-Team.
At trial, prosecutors argued that the crime wouldn't have happened without Holle's car — "No car, no crime." Holle was sentenced to life in prison, the same sentence as the man who killed Snyder and the three other men who were there. But in a rare move, then-Governor Rick Scott commuted Holle's sentence in 2015 to 25 years, giving Holle mercy that led to his release on June 30.
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Sylvia Garnett captured the moment she and her son waited 21 years to feel — Holle walking out of prison, getting in her car, and beginning to drive home.
"It's amazing," Holle said, hugging his mom when he met the I-Team near the entrance to Marion Correctional Institution. "Just hugging my mom and getting in the vehicle with her, it felt natural. Like this is the way life should be."
On one of the biggest days of his life, the I-Team saw Holle taking the small moments he had missed locked up.
"I just heard a rooster?" Holle asked, his mom, who said, "Yeah, there's chickens back there," referring to a nearby home.
"It's incredible, it’s a lot to take in already, the cars driving around, it’s like — you’re so used to looking around all of the time and being cognizant of your surroundings that it’s just – now that I know, wow, you know, I’m free," Holle said, smiling.
Holle said his mom told him from the beginning that if he did what he was supposed to do in prison, meaning stay out of trouble and educate himself, she would do everything she could to fight for him.
"We worked towards that goal," Holle said, who now has his Bachelor's degree in Communications.
The I-Team followed Holle as he sat down for his first meal at a nearby breakfast spot — banana caramel pecan stuffed French toast with a side of bacon.
"So many choices," Holle said, looking over the menu. “What I ate for lunch and dinner, every day I pretty much did the same thing for years."
Holle's mother Sylvia said she was ready to look ahead.
"This is going to be new. The new chapter," she said.
Holle said he will never forget his time in prison.
"Not only do I never want to come back, but I know there’s people who have other situations who aren’t blessed like I am, who have a mom who fights for me out here, that have these situations where they have no voice for them and they’re still stuck," Holle said.
Many of Florida's 80,000 inmates, sentenced under Florida's felony murder rule, are still in prison. So far, efforts to cap sentences under that law rather than give life sentences have failed.
“We want to get people to know about the felony murder rule. People don’t know about it," Garnett said.
Holle said he wants to be a voice for others.
"There’s something inherently wrong with this law that put me in prison where – unless the Governor would have made this move to graciously allow me to get out of prison, I would still be in prison right now.”
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