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A federal appeals court has overturned the murder conviction of a Texas woman who spent decades on death row, ruling that she did not receive a fair trial in 1996.
Last week, Brittany Marlowe Holberg’s death sentence was revoked after a judge threw out her 1998 conviction.
The decision came after it was revealed that key testimony in her trial came from a paid informant—information that prosecutors failed to fully disclose, according to NBC News, The Texas Tribune, and KVII.
Holberg, now 52, remains in custody as a lower court determines the next steps in her case. She was convicted of murdering 80-year-old A.B. Towery inside his Amarillo, Texas, apartment on November 13, 1996.
Prosecutors claimed she followed Towery home from a grocery store, gained entry by asking to use his phone, and then stabbed him 58 times.
Court records show officers found Towery’s body with multiple stab wounds and a broken lamp lodged in his throat.
According to The Texas Tribune, the main testimony against Holberg came from her former cellmate, who was secretly working for the Amarillo Police Department as a paid informant.
In 1998, the informant claimed Holberg confessed to killing Towery for drug money but later recanted in 2011.
During the trial, Holberg admitted to stabbing Towery but argued it was in self-defense after he hit her on the head.
However, prosecutors insisted she killed him for money to support a drug habit. To support their claim, they used testimony from her cellmate, Vickie Kirkpatrick.
The Tribune reported that Kirkpatrick was released on bond the same day she provided testimony, yet prosecutors presented her as an impartial witness acting in good faith.
Holberg’s case gained national attention and was featured on FOX’s America’s Most Wanted before her arrest in Tennessee, KVII reported.
