Police Seek Public’s Aid in Solving Killing

Prosecutors and police asked Wednesday for the public’s help in building a murder case against a 29-year-old drifter who is accused of killing a retired nurse last month during a carjacking in a Ventura parking lot.

Alan J. Holland is waiting in an Orange County jail to be turned over to Ventura police in connection with the July 20 slaying of Mildred Charlotte Wilson, 65, of Oxnard in the parking lot of the Poinsettia Shopping Center.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Donald Glynn said authorities want to talk to anyone who saw the shooting or the chain of events that followed.

Immediately after shooting Wilson, Glynn said, the gunman drove away in her white, 1986 Ford Crown Victoria.

He then stopped the car in the middle of southbound Telephone Road just north of the Barnes & Noble driveway and walked away about 2 p.m. that day, Glynn said.

“That’s a real busy kind of intersection,” Glynn said. “Somebody had to have been ticked off and said, ‘What the hell’s this jerk doing stopped in traffic?’ ”

Glynn said police believe the gunman also used Wilson’s credit cards several times soon after the shooting.

He would hang around gas stations saying he was out of cash, then offer to buy gasoline with his credit card for people if they paid him in cash, Glynn said.

The credit card was used five times at the Shell station on Seaward Avenue on July 20, once there on the 21st and twice on the 22nd, Glynn said.

Wilson’s card also was used at gas pumps at the Chevron station on Seaward twice on the 21st and twice on the 22nd and twice at the Mobil station on Seaward on July 21, he said.

The gunman also apparently used the card soon after the slaying to buy spark plugs at Kragen Auto Parts on West Main Street in Ventura, Glynn said.

Anyone who saw Holland at any of these times is asked to call Ventura police at (805) 339-4465.