Hearing Begins in Slaying of Warners Exec

A preliminary hearing began Thursday for a high school senior and her boyfriend on charges they murdered her mother.

Amber Merrie Bray and Jeffrey Glenn Ayers are accused of killing Dixie Lee Hollier for her $300,000 life insurance policy.

The hearing is expected to continue today. When it concludes, the judge will determine whether Bray, 18, and Ayers, 21, will be bound over to Superior Court for trial.

Authorities accuse the couple of spending more than two months planning to kill Hollier, who was shot, stabbed and beaten to death Jan. 16.

Bray is accused of purposely leaving the door to the family’s Burbank home unlocked to allow Ayers to enter as part of the plan. Police officers said they found Ayers crouched over Hollier’s battered and slashed body with his arm raised in mid-strike. Cash and an ATM card from Hollier’s purse were in his pocket, the officers said.

Hollier, a single mother who worked as a Warner Bros. Records manager, was not wealthy, but had taken out a life insurance policy valued at about $300,000, sources said.

The couple pleaded not guilty at their arraignment in February.