Patrick McDowell, and Deputy Josh Moyers.
Prosecutors are taking the sharpest possible position for a man who allegedly killed a sheriff’s deputy. The Office of the State Attorney for the Fourth Judicial Circuit announced Friday that they will seek the death penalty against Patrick McDowell, 35. Florida grand jurors indicted him Friday to charges including first-degree murder. This is the man wanted last month for allegedly shooting Nassau County Sheriff’s Deputy Josh Moyers, 29.
He first shot the victim in the face, then again in the back while the deputy was on the ground, said Sheriff Bill Leeper. Authorities said McDowell initially evaded capture for the Sept. 24 incident. Moyers died two days later at a hospital, officials have said. McDowell also allegedly shot a K-9 named Chaos during the during the search.
Authorities got a tip about McDowell’s location and found him at the Kirsten Higginbotham Sports Complex, Leeper said at a press conference, according to The Orlando Sentinel. As the sheriff described it, McDowell did not cooperate at first when SWAT surrounded him but he surrendered after a K-9 bit him in the arm.
Captured: Patrick McDowell
Thank you all for your support in this search.
Please continue to pray for the Moyers family. 💙🙏 pic.twitter.com/zo3lhcO31a
— Nassau County SO (@NCSO_FL) September 28, 2021
“He crawled like a baby, like the coward he is,” Leeper said.
Breiana Elizabeth Tole, 27, is separately accused of offering McDowell help to escape after he reached out through Facebook. She faces a count of accessory after the fact.
“I won’t say anything to anyone,” she wrote, according to Nassau County deputies. “You have my word. I swear. I don’t trust the air around me, enough to gamble with your life. Let alone any person. Just tell me what to do. Where to go. When to be wherever. What arrangement to make.”
Her attorney Phyllis Wiley declined to comment.
Update – Oct. 14, 4:18 p.m.: Tole’s attorney declined to comment.
[Images via Nassau County Sheriff’s Office]
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