A 20-year-old Annapolis man was sentenced to life without parole yesterday for stabbing a woman to death and showing off her severed thumb to friends.
Mickeen Holland was sentenced by an Anne Arundel Circuit Court judge, who said that she was horrified by the brutality of the slaying and by Holland's use of the victim's thumb as a trophy.
"You commit this crime, and you remove this woman's thumb, and then you go around the neighborhood and brag about this crime," Judge Pamela L. North told Holland. "It is like gloating over having committed the most horrendous of crimes."
A jury convicted Holland of first-degree murder March 18 in the slaying of Katherine E. Brodie, 34, of Miami Beach, Fla., in December 1995.
Assistant State's Attorney Frank Ragione had requested life without parole for Holland, arguing that his nine criminal convictions make him as hardened as any convict twice his age.
"In terms of criminal years, your honor, he's a Methuselah," Ragione said.
North agreed, noting that Holland's record goes back to the age of 10 when he was arrested in a series of thefts and carrying a concealed weapon.
Holland has been convicted of battery, sex offenses and a handgun violation in the two years since he turned 18.
He has also consistently rejected counseling or therapy that has been offered to him, North said.
"I see just no hope of rehabilitation in this case," North said.
Jurors convicted Holland after hearing testimony from Cawana Cook, a friend of Holland's, that Holland had kept the victim's thumb in a plastic sandwich bag and was showing it off to her and other acquaintances on an Annapolis street corner a few days after the murder.
The victim's family declined to comment after the sentencing.
Holland's fiance said that she wasn't surprised and that she has hired a Baltimore lawyer to appeal seeking a new trial.
"We expected this. We're not really worried," said Crystal Bryant of Odenton, who is the mother of Holland's 9-month-old daughter.
Brodie, who was raised in Chestertown, was visiting her boyfriend in Annapolis at the time of the murder. On the night she was killed, she left her boyfriend's apartment alone looking to buy cocaine, according to testimony.
Holland and an accomplice met Brodie for the first time that night near the Giant supermarket on Bay Ridge Road and went with her into some woods, apparently to share cocaine, according to testimony.
Holland became angry, beat Brodie and stabbed her nine times.
Her body was found Feb. 12, 1996, off the 7400 block of Edgewood Road, by children playing there.
The accomplice, Tremayne Deon Howard, 19, of Annapolis, was sentenced to 10 years in prison on April 2 after he pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and agreed to testify against Holland.
Pub Date: 5/15/97
