Grace Holland Supported Her Fire Captain Fiancé. Her Violent Death, Under Allegedly Suspicious Circumstances, Has Put the Spotlight on the Captain's Secrets.
Despite the alleged years of abuse by her fiancé Rob Daus, and his bizarre behavior around her death, the “blue wall of silence” has prevented Grace Holland’s family from learning any real information about the shooting death of the 35-year-old mother of four in July 2020.
This story includes depictions of domestic violence. If you or someone you know needs help getting to safety please call 1-800-799-SAFE (7233) or visit the domestic violence support hotline’s website.
Creve Coeur, Missouri — On the morning of July 22, 2020, Laura Holland woke up to a chilling Facebook message: “Is it true your sister is dead?”
The message was from a teacher at Laura’s niece’s school. The teacher had heard the news of a parent’s death from the school’s resource officer.
This is how Laura first heard the news that her twin sister, 35-year-old Grace Holland, the best friend she’d known her entire life -- sat next to for 12 years through Catholic school and shared all her birthdays with -- was dead.
Twin sisters Laura Holland and Grace Holland in an undated photo (Courtesy of Laura Holland)
“I was in shock,” says Laura. She called her other sister who works in drug rehabilitation and who put her on the phone with a crisis counselor. She called her parents and heard men’s muffled voices in the background. She knew they had just been told the news. Laura remembers hearing her mother’s voice on the phone, begging her over and over: “Don’t drive anywhere.”
That same day, one of Grace Holland’s four daughters was eagerly waiting for her mom to come home so they could go shoe shopping together. But Grace never showed up, and her daughter never saw her mother alive again.
At about 5 a.m. that morning Grace had been fatally shot in the head in the Creve Coeur, Missouri home she shared with her fiancé, 47-year-old Robert “Rob” Daus. Daus was calling the death a suicide. Grace’s family wasn’t so sure.
The Fire Captain
Grace Holland was a petite woman with deep brown eyes, a huge glittering smile and a perky demeanor. When Grace first met Rob Daus, she had four daughters from a previous marriage, and she was impressed by the Porsche-driving Maryland Heights Fire Captain who was well-known and liked throughout the tight-knit community, including among law enforcement and other first responders who often work hand-in-hand. Daus, who has a son of his own from a previous relationship, had even once served as the district’s interim Fire Chief, the highest command position on the force.
Maryland Heights Fire Captain Rob Daus (Source: YouTube)
According to its official website, the Maryland Heights Fire Protection District encompasses eighteen square miles of St. Louis County, Missouri.
Daus comes from a family of first responders, with his position as Captain previously held by his own father, Robert Daus Sr. The Daus family also owns Liberty Art Works, a local company that makes memorials for the police and fire departments, which Daus Sr. launched in his spare time.
As recently as September, Daus was heralded on social media for participating in events like the 9/11 memorial stair climb, and in June of this year he was quoted in an article about a boy who drowned in Creve Coeur, a tragedy to which his department responded.
At a time when our country’s first responders have been under fire in the court of public opinion, Grace was “a police wife,” says her sister Laura. “She had this profound respect for law enforcement, had been a police explorer as a teen and held a degree in criminal justice. She supported Gun and Hoses, Stair Climbs, and was an active member of the Community.”
(In fact Daus’ house was full of guns, including the Glock that would ultimately be used to take Grace's life.)
Grace Holland as a teenager with the Police Explorer program (Source: Laura Holland)
Around 5:10 a.m. on July 22, 2020, Rob Daus called 911 and calmly identified himself as a Fire Captain with Maryland Heights. He told dispatch that Grace had shot herself in the head in front of him.
Despite being a trained first responder, Daus made no attempt to revive Grace, who had been shot through the left frontal lobe from a downward angle. Grace was right-handed, says Laura.
Almost immediately Daus also called the attorney for the Maryland Heights Fire district, Neil Bruntrager, with whom he conferred before providing a signed written statement to the police. Daus was lawyering up.
The Abuse
When Laura heard Grace had been killed, she immediately thought of the recordings. In the months leading up to her death, Grace had been recording Daus’ abuse, believing if she exposed it, she’d be able to get him help. The abuse was escalating and Grace was often covered in bruises, Laura recalls. Grace even played one of the tapes for Daus, to show to him how he treated her without any provocation. Her family says this would prove to be a tragic mistake.
Grace told her family she had even contacted Maryland Heights Fire’s Deputy Chief Medical Officer Mark Russell out of concern for Daus’ behavior because he was “blowing up at home.” That cry for help was ignored, perhaps because Russell is one of Daus’ closest friends in the department.
Laura shared with Crime Scoop a video Grace had secretly recorded of Daus’ escalating abuse prior to her death. Daus can be heard -- and briefly seen -- berating Grace, who is trying to shield the phone with a blanket.
“She really thought she could get him help,” says Laura. “She thought she could fix him.”
Grace had even sought counseling for her and Daus in the weeks leading up to her death.
According to Laura, Daus controlled every aspect of Grace’s life and how she spent her time. He controlled how much gas money she was given, who she could see, and when she could see her children.
“How many adult friends showed up at her funeral? Zero,” says Laura. “She was no longer allowed to have friendships.”
Grace’s own best friend had severed ties with her shortly before her death, after having dinner with Daus and Grace.
Daus also forced Grace to quit her job and instead work for him at his family’s business, says Laura. Daus had his staff pay him for her work, but she was never added to Liberty Art Works’ payroll; instead Daus was paid for her work directly and “under-the-table,” says Laura.
Before Grace’s family had time to process the news of Grace’s death, it seemed Daus wanted to pretend she never existed. He immediately purged his social media of any memory of her.
He no longer lives in the house where Grace died, and which she was painstakingly preparing for sale at the time of her death. Daus now instead lives in their new house, the house for which Grace picked out floating fireplaces and every last light fixture. Though the couple had worked hard to renovate the new home, after Grace’s death, Daus seemed to be telling people around town he’d been “one foot out” of his relationship with Grace. The couple were engaged with a marriage license pending when Grace was killed. Now he seemed intent on painting her as desperate and delusional instead.
In a twist, however, it was revealed Daus was allegedly having affairs with men and women, throughout his relationship with Grace, according to his own redacted text messages provided to the police by his attorney.
Daus’ other actions after Grace’s death troubled her family. Daus claimed Grace’s engagement ring present at the crime scene was his property. Later he reported the ring missing and filed an insurance claim, explaining the ring found at the scene was in fact a duplicate he’d had made of her engagement ring.
The ring’s disappearance is being investigated by the police as larceny after Grace’s family repeatedly put pressure on the Creve Coeur police department to investigate. However the family is skeptical such an investigation will go anywhere, as the principle witness to verify the ring’s ownership (Grace) is dead, per the prosecuting attorney’s office.
Daus never reached out to Grace’s family nor asked to be a part of her burial; he instead abruptly cut ties with his four future stepdaughters, and hired an attorney. Members of the Maryland Heights Fire Department were directed not to contact the family.
Attorney Neil Bruntrager called and spoke to Grace’s parents about the case, without ever disclosing he was representing Captain Daus, two days after an exchange between Fire Chief Steve Olshwanger and Grace’s father, in which her father asked about the investigation into the domestic violence aspects of their relationship.
Daus has yet to be officially interviewed by Creve Coeur Police department concerning the investigation into Grace’s violent death and allegations of domestic violence. The original interview tape, recorded when he worked on his written statement, has inadvertently been destroyed by the Creve Coeur police department, in violation of Missouri state statutes.
“The original interview tape, recorded when he worked on his written statement, has inadvertently been destroyed by the Creve Coeur police department, in violation of Missouri state statutes.”
Tapes secretly recorded by Daus' biological son of Grace and Daus allegedly “arguing” have also been destroyed despite assurances by a Maryland heights police officer (Daus’ son's stepfather) that he would maintain them as evidence.
The Blue Code of Silence
Domestic violence is inherently difficult to report. It’s even harder when the abuser is a member of the law enforcement community, and studies have shown that law enforcement officers are statistically more likely to be abusive partners than the general population.
There is a now-familiar phenomenon called “the blue code of silence,” and despite Grace Holland’s respect and reverence for law enforcement, that code has prevented her family from getting anything approaching justice. Though Grace was killed in July 2020, the investigation into her death remains open and un-worked, according to Laura, who believes Grace’s case is not moving forward because of the influence Daus yields in the local law enforcement community.
Laura is not merely an aggrieved sister wielding baseless accusations; she has been carefully and meticulously compiling notes on the various inconsistencies, oversights and serious conflicts of interest/chain of command violations around her sister’s death.
In one recording that was released to the family, a Creve Coeur Police detective can be heard on a phone call coaching Daus on which text messages between he and Grace would be more likely to be evidence consistent with a narrative of suicide.
Laura adds she’s been contacted by some of Daus’ colleagues, offering support but who are “afraid to come forward.”
In an open letter to the Creve Coeur Police Department, Laura, with the assistance of her attorneys and PIs, lays out more than 20 points showing how law enforcement and other responders bungled aspects of the investigation into Grace’s death, from their mishandling of the crime scene to losing or failing to collect critical evidence to their treatment of Daus, who was by his own admission standing next to Grace when she died. (Creve Coeur Police informed the coroner’s office he was in another room at the time of her death, per the medical examiners report.)
“Creve Coeur police have failed us at every level since Grace’s death and their failure to collect evidence means we will likely never get answers,” writes Laura in the letter.
Excerpts from the letter have been copied below, including the ways investigators have allegedly mishandled the investigation:
1. They failed to correctly identify an entry vs exit wound; which also means these wounds do not correlate with the position of the body.
2. They misinformed the medical examiners' office as to the location and position of Robert Daus at the moment of her death. He was, by his own admission, standing next to her.
3. They failed to call crimes against persons.
4. They failed to remove friends of Captain Daus from the police investigation.
5. They closed the crime scene before reaching out to our family.
6. They failed to investigate her stolen property and lied about not investigating it.
7. They allowed Captain Daus to be present when picking up her property despite saying otherwise to the family.
8. They failed to collect and bag evidence properly - such as bagging her hands, testing Captain Daus’ hands for residue, and collecting his clothing.
9. They failed to address the large pool of blood on the right side of her head and identify the cause of that injury.
10. They failed to address the bruises on her body shown in the autopsy photographs.
11. They managed to “lose” multiple video recordings.
12. Personal police cellphones were used and not recorded. One officer refused to supply his phone records as part of a sunshine law request.
13. They failed to collect Captain Daus’ phones stating: “he needed them for work”.
14. I was told by a Creve Coeur Police detective that if I wanted answers I needed to hire a lawyer.
15. They extended “professional courtesy“ to Captain Daus well beyond what any other citizen would be given.
16. They failed to verify her handwriting in a suicide note written with language outside her recursive writing patterns.
17. They failed to question Captain Daus at the time and have yet to question him 14 months later.
18. They failed to contact her therapist.
19. Creve Coeur detectives took almost 2 hours to arrive at the crime scene.
Seeking Justice
Grace’s family has had to take it upon themselves to get answers due to being stonewalled by the police and fire departments.
All Grace Holland’s family wants is a thorough and unbiased investigation into the death of a woman who wholly supported a community that has turned its back on her.
They want investigators to consider the domestic abuse evident in Daus’ text messages and the recordings Grace made, as well as the numerous post-mortem injuries detailed in the autopsy report. They want investigators to consider what Grace may have been attempting to expose about a man who maintains a careful and curated control over all aspects of his life.
As of now, the case remains open and is being classified as a “violent death.” Laura doesn’t have much hope for a satisfying resolution anytime soon.
“People tell me to look out for my safety,” says Laura of her ongoing push for the truth to come out, knowing she’ll never again have a happy birthday without her twin. “Really, what else can he do to me?”
Crime Scoop has reached out to Rob Daus’ attorney for comment and will update this story accordingly.
Grace Holland and one of her four daughters (Courtesy of Facebook)