Testimony Concludes in Murder Trial

After just three days of testimony, the trial of accused killer Alan Brett Holland concluded Wednesday without the defense calling a single witness.

Holland, who is facing a possible death sentence if convicted, is accused of murdering 65-year-old Mildred Wilson last year to steal her car and her purse.

The Oxnard widow was fatally shot in the parking lot of a Ventura shopping center July 20, 1996. Witnesses heard her cries after she collapsed in a planter after being shot once in the chest.

On Wednesday, prosecutors called to the stand Ventura police officers who investigated the killing. Ventura Det. Matt Harvill said he found receipts from Wilson’s credit card inside Holland’s car.

A firearms expert from the Ventura County crime lab testified that the bullet pulled from Wilson’s body matched a .25-caliber gun taken from Holland’s waistband at the time of his arrest.

And the final witness called by the prosecution, Ventura County Sheriff’s Deputy Scott Sedgwick, testified that Holland admitted to shooting Wilson while awaiting medical treatment in jail after a suicide attempt.

“He said, ‘I didn’t mean to shoot her. I didn’t know she would die. . . . I’m not responsible and I just want to die,’ ” Sedgwick said.

Prosecutors rested their case late Wednesday afternoon. Holland’s defense attorney, Willard Wiksell, declined to call any of his own witnesses. Closing arguments are scheduled for Monday morning.

The Ventura County Grand Jury indicted Holland on charges of murder, robbery and carjacking in August 1996. He also faces two special-circumstance allegations--that the killing took place during the commission of a robbery and carjacking--that make him eligible for the death penalty.

The case is the first in Ventura County to be prosecuted using a new law that makes a killing committed during the commission of a carjacking punishable by death.

If Holland is convicted of first-degree murder in at least one of the allegations, the jury would be asked to return after the holidays in January for a penalty trial.