Background: Tyler Holman appears in Marion County court in Salem, Oregon (KPTV/YouTube). Inset: Ashley Gandolfi (KGW/YouTube).
Nearly a year after crashing his girlfriend”s car, only to have authorities find her dead body in the trunk, an Oregon man has sealed his own fate.
Tyler Holman, 40, pleaded guilty this week to second-degree murder with a firearm in the death of 35-year-old Ashley Gandolfi, the Marion County District Attorney’s Office announced. As a result of Holman’s plea, his other charges — including unlawful use of a weapon and abuse of a corpse — were dropped.
Authorities noted that a conviction for second-degree murder in Oregon results in a life sentence in prison, with Holman needing to serve at least 25 years before he can become eligible for parole.
Holman and Gandolfi had been in a romantic relationship for more than 10 years when, in March 2024, she accused him of domestic abuse, per court documents reviewed by Portland-based CBS affiliate KOIN. She told investigators that, at one point, when he “grabbed and threw her down,” she hit her shoulder and back on a metal lawn chair. When she tried to leave, he “threw a cooler at her back causing her to fall again.”
“All of a sudden we’d hear yelling, like, ‘I can’t believe you did this, you cheated on me,'” Gandolfi’s neighbor recounted. “Just a lot of yelling back and forth.”
Ashley’s uncle added, per the outlet: “What I heard from her was that he was drinking too much and it got out of hand. Then he left the premises for a while.”
Holman faced assault charges, but they were ultimately dropped because authorities said they lost contact with the victim.
Fast-forward to January 2025. Holman is believed to have shot Gandolfi, stuffed her body into the trunk of her car, and driven away. In the early morning hours of Jan. 27, 2025, he crashed the car while driving on the 10000 block of Corvallis Road in Polk County, with the car rolling over.
When authorities rushed to the scene, they found a body in the trunk — Gandolfi’s body — and an “autopsy later determined her death was not related” to the crash, the Marion County District Attorney’s Office said. Holman was treated at a nearby hospital and arrested on Jan. 30, 2025, upon being released.
Video shared by regional NBC affiliate KGW and Fox affiliate KPTV showed Holman wearing a neck brace and using a walker as he appeared in court to face his charges. In February 2025, Gandolfi’s mother — Donna Gandolfi — pleaded with the judge to not release her daughter’s then-suspected killer.
“I am asking the court and begging the court to please not release him on bond,” she said while holding a picture of her daughter. “I’m terrified of the things he could do.”
KGW noted at the time that Holman and the victim shared a 7-year-old daughter. Donna Gandolfi and her husband had custody of her since May 2024.
“He will hunt us down and kill us to get at his daughter,” Donna Gandolfi added.
Another man was also arrested in the case. Logan Wilkins, 38, was accused of helping Holman move Gandolfi’s body. He pleaded guilty in March 2025 to second-degree abuse of a corpse and tampering with evidence, per The Statesman Journal. Wilkins is set to be sentenced now that Holman’s case has concluded.
