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PASCAGOULA — Remika Patton was talking about ending her marriage to her husband and murder suspect Frank Patton the same week he’s accused of shooting her to death at their Moss Point home, witnesses said Wednesday.
Frank Patton, 31, is on trial for murder in the Feb. 23, 2008, shooting death of his wife, 30, at their home on Hilma Street. Patton also suffered a gunshot wound to his right chest area, a wound authorities believe was self-inflicted.
Frank Patton called to report the shooting, saying he’d been shot before later telling a police dispatcher that he’d also found his wife shot on a couch in her bedroom. Remika Patton’s two young children, then ages 3 and 8, were at home at the time.
On Wednesday, Remika Patton’s family broke down in tears when they saw pictures of her dead, lying face-up on a couch in a bedroom at the home.
Remika Patton’s mother, Tammy Tate, told the jurors that her daughter talked to her about the couple’s marital problems for months before her death.
She said the couple had separate bedrooms, and her daughter told her that they no longer shared rides together to their jobs at the Pascagoula shipyard..
She described Frank Patton as quiet, and said her daughter felt that she really didn’t have a marriage with her husband.
She said the marital problems started within the first year of their marriage. They married in April 2004, she said, and by November, her daughter was telling her that Frank Patton at one point just left the home for several days without telling her where he was going.
Tate also recalled the last conversation she had with her daughter.
She said she was talking about ending the marriage, and she told her daughter “if she ever needed me, to call me anytime. I told her that I love her, and she told me she loved me too.”
Sabrina Austin, Remika Patton’s best friend and co-worker at the shipyard, described Frank Patton as “anti-social” and said her friend talked a lot in the week leading up to her death about putting an end to the marriage she already felt was over.
“She told me she felt like a roommate,” she said. “She told me she never felt like a wife.”
A forensic pathologist also testified Wednesday, saying that Remika Patton died of a gunshot wound to the head.
He said the wound was not self-inflicted based on blood splatter.
Remika Patton, former Moss Point Police Detective Jeff Smith said, appeared to be sleeping when she was shot.
When asked if he shot his wife, Frank Patton said: “No. Why would I shoot my wife? I love my wife. I want this to work. I never had anything (in) my life. She gave me a child. She gave me a house, and my credit was messed up. She went and put her name on (a)...truck,” before later adding, “I think she shot herself.”
Police testifying Wednesday pointed out that there were no signs of forced entry into the home.
In addition, police said that the home alarm was set, but didn’t go off until after Frank Patton opened the door for police.
Testimony resumes today before Circuit Court Judge Robert Krebs.
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