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.

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

After the woman spent 27 years on death row for killing an 80-year-old man, the court found that prosecutors failed to reveal their primary trial witness was a paid informant.