State prosecutors withheld evidence favorable to Brittany Marlow Holberg during her 1998 murder trial that resulted in her being sentenced to death, a federal appellate court panel ruled Friday.

A Texas appeals court on Tuesday halted the execution of a man who has spent more than 30 years on death row and had been set to die by lethal injection this week over the killings of six girls and young women found buried in the desert near El Paso.

The federal appeals court said the prosecution failed to disclose that a key trial witness was a paid informant.

Brittany Marlowe Holberg was convicted in 1998 of robbing and murdering an 80-year-old man in his Amarillo home. The appeals court said critical evidence was withheld.

The order came just over 48 hours before David Leonard Wood was set to be executed by lethal injection on Thursday.

A federal appeals court tossed Brittany Holberg's death sentence after it found that prosecutors failed to reveal that their primary trial witness was a paid informant.

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals did not clarify why it halted the execution of David Wood in its order granting the stay.