HomeCLIPSFlorida Nurse's Murder Solved 13 Years Later With New DNA
Florida Nurse's Murder Solved 13 Years Later With New DNA
TV-14 | CLIPS | Season 1 | 2026
Melissa Howard, a 33-year-old nurse and mother from Crestview, Florida, told her attorney that her ex-husband Brian Howard had sent "one of his men" to scare her into giving up custody of their son Taylor. Two days later, on January 6, 2006, the very day she was to assume primary custody, she was found beaten, stabbed, and with her throat cut in her own home. The case went cold for nearly a decade until new DNA testing on the sweatshirt she was wearing linked the murder to David Russell Holbrook Jr., a friend of her ex-husband, who was arrested in 2016 and convicted of first-degree murder in 2019. Watch 24/7 Court TV LIVE Stream Today Join the Investigation Newsletter Court TV Podcast Join the Court TV Community to get access to perks: FOLLOW THE CASE: Facebook Twitter/X Instagram TikTok YouTube WATCH 140 FREE TRIALS IN THE COURT TV ARCHIVE WHERE-TO-WATCH