A plea agreement appears to have been reached for a 21-year-old Cortez woman charged with first-degree murder. Nykhona Holiday and 34-year-old Robert Salt Jr., also of Cortez, face multiple charges related to the brutal beatings of three men in Veterans Park the evening of August 20 of last year.
One of the men, Curtis Benally, who was 40, died in the park that night. Two other men were seriously injured, one of whom died months later. The three had been repeatedly beaten and kicked in the head.
Holiday and Salt both have pleaded not guilty to the murder charges in the case.
On Tuesday, Holiday pleaded guilty to a charge of third-degree assault related to a different incident in 2025 and also admitted to a probation violation.
Her attorney, Stephen Singer, and District Attorney Jeremy Reed said sentencing for those cases will come after she is sentenced in the homicide case. They said they had paperwork outlining a plea agreement in that case.
Holiday has told police that Salt forced her to take part in the assaults, threatening her life, according to a police affidavit. She admitted to kicking all three men multiple times, the affidavit says.
Salt is scheduled for a hearing on Sept. 24 to set future court dates in the homicide case.
Gail Binkly is a career journalist who has worked for the Colorado Springs Gazette and Cortez Journal, and was the editor of the Four Corners Free Press, based in Cortez.