Suspect Admitted Killing Widow, Prosecutor Says

Bleeding from self-inflicted cuts to his forearms, slaying suspect Alan Brett Holland allegedly made a desperate jailhouse admission last year about the death of a 65-year-old Oxnard widow at a Ventura mall:

“I didn’t mean to shoot her,” Holland allegedly told a sheriff’s deputy guarding him at the Ventura County Jail. “I didn’t know that she would die when I shot her. I don’t want to go to jail. I just want to die.”

The evidence was disclosed Monday during opening statements on the first day of Holland’s first-degree murder trial. The 30-year-old former North Hollywood resident is accused of killing Mildred Wilson during a carjacking at Ventura’s Poinsettia Pavilion on a Saturday afternoon in July 1996. If convicted, Holland could face the death penalty.

Holland’s defense attorney, Willard Wiksell, gave no opening statement. Such a statement can be made before Wiksell presents the defense’s case.

Prosecutors said that Holland intentionally cut himself in his jail cell in November 1996. After the incident, deputies had to restrain Holland by strapping him into a chair so that he could be treated by a doctor. It was while he was waiting for treatment that Holland allegedly admitted to the deputy that he shot Wilson.

On Monday, Holland was chained to a swivel chair in the courtroom. The restraints were not visible to jurors, but authorities had requested the additional security measures because of Holland’s alleged combative behavior while in custody.

Wilson, who lived in a mobile home park in Oxnard, was pronounced dead about 45 minutes after the shooting. The single bullet had passed through her heart, a lung, a kidney and her spleen, Deputy Dist. Atty. Don Glynn told the jury Monday.

During his brief opening statement, Glynn detailed for the jury a series of events in the July 20, 1996, slaying.

Using maps and photographs, Glynn outlined for the jury a quick timeline from Wilson’s first screams for help to Holland’s arrest six days later--following a high-speed chase by Newport Beach police--with the gun allegedly used to shoot Wilson stuffed in his waistband.

Glynn told the jury that Holland’s fingerprints were found inside Wilson’s white Ford LTD, and that Holland used Wilson’s stolen credit cards to buy auto parts two hours after the shooting.

Holland used one of the stolen credit cards to buy six sparkplugs for $6.37 from an auto parts store near the mall, Glynn said. Holland allegedly signed his own name on the receipt and used his own driver’s license for identification.

Wilson’s car was found a few hours later a short distance from the mall. Her purse was found nearby as well, but her credit cards were used at least 13 times at four gas stations in midtown Ventura, Glynn said.

Six days after the shooting, a Newport Beach police officer spotted Holland sitting in a car in a parking lot at the beach. Holland wasn’t wearing a seat belt and a back taillight was out so the officer approached Holland and asked for his license, Glynn said.

When the officer tried to speak to him, Holland gunned the engine of his Datsun 280Z and sped off, leading police on a 20-minute high-speed chase through Newport Beach and Huntington Beach, Glynn said.

Holland eventually jumped out of his car and tried to run, he said. When two patrolmen finally tackled him, Holland put his hand on his waist and yelled: “I got a gun. I got a gun,” Glynn said.

Holland was arrested with a .25-caliber handgun that Glynn placed in front of the jury. Glynn told the jury that investigators would show that the gun was the same weapon used to kill Wilson.

Because Wiksell asked few questions of the prosecution witnesses, the trial proceeded quickly with nine witnesses testifying Monday.

Wiksell did object to the way an elderly neighbor of Wilson’s was questioned. During Dorris McCarthy’s testimony, Glynn showed McCarthy an autopsy photograph of Wilson’s corpse and asked her to identify her friend. McCarthy gasped quietly and started to cry, saying only “Yes, that was her.”

Outside the presence of the jury, Wiksell called Glynn’s questioning unnecessary.

“It was just for an emotional response to prejudice the jury,” Wiksell told Superior Court Judge Vincent O’Neill.

The jury also heard from Ventura County Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Ronald O’Halloren and Ventura Police Det. Bill Dzuro, who discussed finding Holland’s fingerprints in Wilson’s abandoned car.

Three witnesses also testified about seeing Wilson in the mall parking lot.

Rayna Bochuma told the court that she heard Wilson scream, “Help! Help me!” and then she saw Wilson fall. When Bochuma ran to the wounded Wilson, she initially thought the retired nurse was having a seizure.

As she was running to Wilson’s aid, Bochuma testified that she also saw a large late-model Ford pull out from where Wilson had been standing. Bochuma said the driver of the car, which prosecutors said was Wilson’s, looked to her to be a Latino man.

The trial is set to resume today with testimony from Ventura police investigators and officers from the Newport Beach Police Department.