News - Local

Thursday, Nov. 05, 2009

Husband tells psychiatrist he remembers picking up gun

PASCAGOULA — Murder suspect Frank Patton told a psychiatrist that he remembers grabbing a gun from his room and cocking it the night he’s accused of fatally shooting his wife at their Moss Point home.

“Then,” psychiatrist Stephen Massong said, “he doesn’t remember anything after that. I’m very confident there was no premeditation at all.”

Massong was hired by the defense to evaluate Patton, 30, who is on trial this week for the Feb. 23, 2008, shooting death of his wife, Remika Patton, 30, at their home on Hilma Street in Moss Point.

Massong and another psychiatrist who testified Thursday said Patton suffers from a major depressive psychotic illness that sometimes causes him to hear voices.

Until Thursday, relatives and friends of the murder victim knew nothing about Patton’s confession to Massong that he did recall picking up the gun, a .380-caliber handgun later determined to be the murder weapon, the night of the shooting.

Patton’s siblings also took the stand, describing him as quiet man who always kept to himself. They said he became even more subdued after his mother died of cancer while he was still a young boy.

Also Thursday, Massong talked about another incident involving an ex-girlfriend in Patton’s life, in which Patton allegedly went after her with a gun, put it to her head and pulled the trigger, though the gun didn’t go off. Patton was arrested in that incident, but the charges were not pursued.

Patton, Massong said, has two sides to him, one where he’s the happily married family man who works hard but is quiet, and the other where he’s the man who’s “depressed, fragmented and in dire straits.”

Massong said Frank Patton’s depressed psychotic personality likely surfaced after he learned of the pending divorce plans.

Relatives and friends of Remika Patton said she was talking about moving forward with the divorce the week she died.

The couple had separate bedrooms, and friends and family said that Remika Patton felt like she had more of a roommate than a husband. Both Remika and Frank Patton worked at Northrop Grumman Ship Systems.

Defense Attorneys Brice Kerr and Beau Rudder on Thursday played more than two hours of taped police interviews with Patton after the killing to show his mental state. He was crying and said little, though he alleged an intruder came in the home.

The defense for Patton is based on his alleged diminished mental capacity.

District Attorney Tony Lawrence questioned whether that meant Frank Patton didn’t know the difference between right and wrong when he allegedly shot his wife and then shot himself in the chest area.

Testimony resumes this morning.