Brittany Marlowe Holberg (born January 1, 1973) is a woman currently on death row in the U.S. state of Texas. On Friday, March 27, 1998, Holberg was convicted of the November 13, 1996, robbery and murder of 80-year-old A. B. Towery Sr. (1916–1996) in his southwest Amarillo home, and was sentenced to death by 251st state District Judge Patrick Pirtle. The victim had been stabbed nearly 60 times with such weapons as a paring knife, a butcher knife, a grapefruit knife and a fork. He also suffered blunt trauma to the head from a hammer, and a foot-long lamp pole had been shoved more than five inches (127 mm) down his throat.
Holberg was working as a topless dancer and was hired by Towery. During the trial, defense attorney Catherine Brown Dodson argued that Towery was wrongly portrayed as an innocent elderly man, and that Holberg acted in self-defense when Towery attacked her. Dodson said A.B. Towery became angry and violent when he found a crack pipe on Holberg. She told the jury that Towery struck Holberg twice in the head with a metal pan while her back was turned, and then threatened her with a knife. Holberg reacted by stabbing him with her own knife, and the fight escalated until Holberg put the lamp post in his mouth to attempt to end the struggle. Holberg believed she would have little legal recourse because of her status as a drug-abusing prostitute and fled to Tennessee. Testimony showed that A.B. Towery, the victim, also had a problem with drugs.
Holberg filed an appeal in the Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas (No. 73,127), but on November 29, 2000, the appeals court upheld the decision of the trial court.
In 2015 James Farren, the district attorney of Randall County, stated that due to the legal complications involving the Holberg case and the resulting legal expenses—he estimated the cost was about $400,000—and time expended, he would pursue life imprisonment without parole for future capital murder cases unless exceptional circumstances occur.
As of March 24, 2020, Holberg is still on Texas Death Row with no execution date scheduled.
