Donnell Holland, 44, was found fatally shot outside of the Grub Pub and Patio at around 1:45 a.m. Dec. 28.
Doby faced two counts of murder with gun specifications, but he pleaded guilty last week to two additional charges of having weapons under a disability. Doby has been to prison more than once and has been criminally charged more than a dozen times in common pleas court, mainly on cocaine charges. There are also 114 cases with his name on them in Hamilton Municipal Court, for charges ranging from assault and aggravated menacing to driving without a license.
Holland was a 1986 graduate of Hamilton High School and an assistant coach for Hamilton Little Blue Youth Football. His brother Damon Pugh said he was a family man first and foremost, but he also had worked at the Lebanon Correctional Institution and at the Elks Club. He said his family and Doby’s have been close for years, which makes the situation that much harder.
“That’s what’s so ugly about this whole ordeal,” he said. “You have these two beautiful families hung up in this ugly thing that went down, the fight and then the killing. That’s what I’ll fight for, keeping that closeness there. I’m not going to turn my back some people that I know because this went down.”
Kenny Beaman, president of the youth football organization, said Holland raised his two young sons well and he would do anything for anybody, although he was a man of few means.
“He was probably the best person I have ever met in my life,” Beaman said. “As far as heart and the way that he dealt with people, the way he did things, he was good, he was very good.”
Holland coached Anna McCullah’s son and she, too, was inspired by him.
“He was the light of our team, he taught our boys a lot,” she said. “He was always smiling, he was the smile of our team, that’s what we always said about him.”