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RIVERTON – Even after hearing the news Saturday that Josh Holt was on his way home to the United States, those who know him still can’t believe it.
I’ve known the family for quite a long time,” said Roger Shulze. “We just got done with a hike this morning and I was kind of reading my news feed and I was like, 'Holy cow! Josh is actually coming home after two years.'”
Shulze and his wife, Adrienne, live just a few houses down the road from the Holts in Riverton, where the hashtag Justice for Josh has been a constant.
You could see it on a small red, white and blue pallet on the front steps outside the Holt family home.
That message was also on a sticker on the back of Holt’s white Nissan Maxima, which has stayed in the family driveway since he left.
“It’s been an interesting story in the neighborhood, you know? You have this component of love and going down and getting married and things like that,” said Roger Shulze.
However, it was a story without a happy ending.
From messages of desperation to videos of a riot in the prison he was staying in, it seemed as if hope might have been fading.
“To not know what’s going on with your kid and not ... I don’t know how much information or what was said back and forth, but just from a mom's standpoint, as a parent's standpoint, it’s just got to be so incredibly helpless,” said Adrienne Shulze.
Related:
Utahn jailed in Venezuela for 2 years arrives in US
Joshua Holt, who traveled to Venezuela from Utah in 2016 to marry a Spanish-speaking Mormon woman but soon found himself jailed and later branded the CIA’s top spy in Latin America, was set free by the anti-American Maduro government on Saturday in what his family called “this miracle.”Now, though, all that uncertainty is seemingly over.
“This is great news,” said Adrienne Shulze with a laugh. “And it ends up being a great ending.”
Adrienne says she’s looking forward to seeing Josh again, and even though he’s the main guy in the middle of a big international story, to her he’s still the nice kid down the road, always willing to help.
“He would just pop on by and see me pulling weeds and would just sit down by me and start helping to pull weeds,” she said. “I thought it was the greatest thing to have some teenage boy to help a neighbor out in pulling weeds. I know he was very heavily involved with the Scouts, and so we’d always see him out in the neighborhood doing projects.”
And as for Holt’s white car in the driveway?
Holt’s older brother, who said he couldn’t talk at this time, was washing it and getting it ready for Josh.
After two years of not knowing, finally, they do.
Josh Holt is coming home.
“Oh, it’s awesome. On Memorial Day? Everything about it,” said Roger Shulze. “It’s a great story.”
