Man gets life sentence in strangling of McAllen High graduate

An Austin man received a life sentence Tuesday for the May 2009 strangling of a McAllen High School graduate.

Jurors convicted Nathaniel Briscoe, 30, of murder and tampering with evidence Tuesday in Travis County state District Court.

Austin police arrested Briscoe in May 2009 for his connection to the murder of Amy Dickey, a 28-year-old who graduated from McAllen High School in 1999.

A landscaping crew discovered Dickey’s body buried in a wooded area in southwest Austin the morning of May 21, 2009. The crew told Austin police investigators they noticed her hand poking out from beneath a pile of debris.

Dickey’s fingerprints linked her to a burglary earlier that month, and the other suspect in the case said she had been working as a prostitute. Call records from Dickey’s cell phone led detectives to Briscoe, who was arrested on suspicion of her murder.

Steven Brand, the Travis County assistant district attorney who prosecuted the case, said a three-hour interview Briscoe gave to police investigators implicated him in the case.

In the footage, Briscoe told investigators that Dickey had asked for him to “lighten up on my neck” while they had sex at his apartment, Brand said. Briscoe told police he choked her for about five minutes before he stopped, later claiming that Dickey left his apartment.

Testimony from a local medical examiner revealed that a person can fall unconscious after about 20 seconds of strangling and it generally takes about three minutes for someone to die, Brand said.

“It just added up,” the prosecutor said of Briscoe’s guilt in the case. “He didn’t confess, but he certainly put himself in an unenviable position.”

Briscoe showed little emotion when he learned of the life sentence Tuesday afternoon, the Austin American-Statesman reported.

Evidence presented during sentencing included how Briscoe had spent a year in federal prison for possessing a live grenade and how he had improper sexual contact with a 7-year-old relative when he was 19, Brand said.

“You factor all that into the equation, you’ve got a live grenade, taking advantage of a 7-year-old … he’s pretty dangerous,” he said. “I’m just proud the system worked.”

Briscoe received a 25-year sentence that will run concurrently for the evidence tampering conviction. He will become eligible for parole May 25, 2039.  

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Jared Taylor covers courts, law enforcement and general assignments for The Monitor. You can reach him at (956) 683-4439.