Man Tells Jury He Killed Woman for Insulting Him

Against the advice of his attorney, convicted killer Alan Brett Holland took the stand Tuesday to tell the jury that he did not kill a 65-year-old woman in a Ventura mall parking lot to steal her purse and car.

He shot her through the heart because she insulted him, Holland claimed.

“She got out of the car and I thought she was going to give me some money,” testified Holland, who said he was panhandling at the Poinsettia Pavilion parking lot in Ventura at the time.

“And she started saying, ‘I’m sick and tired of people beggin’ and borrowin’ ’ and on and on. . . . She wouldn’t leave me alone. She put her finger on my chest . . . so I pulled out the gun and shot her.”

He said that as Mildred Wilson toppled into the parking lot flower bed he panicked, jumping in her car to flee.

Holland’s intent at the time of the crime is important: 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.

In December, a jury ruled that Holland, 31, committed the July 1996 murder so he could steal her car and purse.

Now in the penalty phase of the trial, jurors must decide whether Holland should live the rest of his life in prison or be executed.

Holland first alluded to his motive in killing Wilson in a letter he sent to prosecutors over the Christmas break. In that letter, Holland for the first time, said he did not kill Wilson for her money or her car.

“I killed the ol’ goat because she didn’t shut up,” Holland wrote in a letter to Deputy Dist. Atty. Don Glynn.

Although his attorney advised him against testifying, Holland insisted on taking the stand, saying he wanted to clear up the lies his mother and others told about his childhood.

Holland’s attorney, Willard Wiksell, said at least some of Holland’s six hours of testimony could help him.

“If he’s believed by the jury, he’s a pitiful person who never had a life, saw things in a messed-up way, who has no judgment,” Wiksell said outside the courtroom. “He did a horrible thing, but that is not on the same level as a deliberate, cold-blooded killing.”

Chained to his chair with his feet shackled, Holland burst out in sudden fits of laughter throughout his testimony, often when recounting particularly grisly scenarios.

When he spoke of returning home in 1995, after being away from his family in Florida for 15 years, he began sniffling and wiping away tears. But he continued to laugh as well.

“He’s got brain damage,” Wiksell said. “His laughter is absolutely inappropriate. It’s because he can’t help himself.”

In cross-examining Holland, Deputy Dist. Atty. John Blair asked if he didn’t make up the claim about killing Wilson out of anger to persuade jurors to spare his life.

“That’s not true,” Holland retorted, adding that he believes jurors had already made up their minds before convicting him.

He turned to the jury.

“I think you’re all a bunch of no-good judging scumbags,” he told them, turning back to address Blair. “If that helps.”

In his opening statements for the penalty phase last week, Wiksell argued that Holland’s life should be spared because he had suffered brain damage as a child from bathing his dog with flea chemicals.

After Holland’s testimony concludes, the defense will call medical witnesses, Wiksell said.

Over and over again, Holland told the jury he was not looking for sympathy.

“I just want to set the record straight,” he said. “If I die, I die. That’s just the way it is.”