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A jury in Key West convicted Brittany Nicole Holbrook of second-degree murder on February 24, 2025, in the fatal shooting of her boyfriend, 30-year-old Tyler Kinnon Nulisch, after deliberating under an hour.

Her lawyers argued that she suffered from battered woman's syndrome after abuse by her father, earlier boyfriends and Nulisch, and that Nulisch had choked her against a wall. Florida law sets a 25-year mandatory minimum for second-degree murder with a firearm. On April 11, 2025, Judge Mark Wilson sentenced Holbrook to 40 years in state prison, with credit for 665 days of time served. No appeal has been publicly reported.

Nulisch lived in a rented home on Big Coppitt Key in the Florida Keys, Monroe County, Florida, with Holbrook and a male roommate. Holbrook, 33 at the time of her arrest, owned a paddleboard rental and tour business at a local hotel. The couple had dated about nine months. Deputies noted that she had moved from Stuart, Florida, more than nine months earlier.

At about 2:45 a.m. on June 17, 2023, after an argument, Nulisch was shot once in the lower back. The roommate told deputies the three had been drinking after work and gone to bed. He woke to Holbrook screaming his name and found Nulisch bleeding on the living room floor, with Holbrook holding him. The roommate called 911. Deputies found Nulisch unconscious but breathing, and he was taken to Lower Keys Medical Center, where he died. A 9mm handgun and a 9mm casing were found nearby. The roommate said Nulisch told him Holbrook had shot him in the back, using a profanity. Holbrook told deputies Nulisch made no statements while lying on the floor.

The Monroe County Sheriff's Office investigated. Deputies took the roommate's statements at the scene, and investigators interviewed Holbrook. She said she did not remember how Nulisch was shot, said she was not a murderer and loved him, and described him as trying to strangle her. An investigator asked whether she might have picked up the gun during the fight.

According to the arrest affidavit, Holbrook first described a gap in her memory, then said Nulisch returned from the bathroom "like a different person" and squeezed her throat. Deputies saw no marks on her throat and no petechiae in her eyes. She had bruising on several knuckles of her right hand. The affiant called her statements inconsistent and found probable cause based on those statements, the roommate's account and Nulisch's reported words. Holbrook was arrested on a second-degree murder charge and held without bond, with an arraignment set for June 28, 2023. The roommate was not charged.

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