For about an hour Thursday the man who shot and killed Nassau County Deputy Joshua Moyers expressed his remorse and explained his actions to the family, law enforcement, jurors, the courtroom and community.
“The first thing is I want to take the opportunity to apologize to the family of Deputy Moyers, the deputies that he works with, all the people that I took something I can’t give back," Patrick McDowell said at his sentencing hearing. "If I had my way, if my death would bring him back, I wouldn’t be here today. I want to apologize to everybody that was affected by what I did, both my family, the residents of Callahan who were afraid for the children while I was on the run. All the people I put in danger.
"I feel like it’s not fair for everyone to get up here and speak for me about what I did," he continued. "I feel like these people deserve to hear what happened and why. And I feel like I should be the one to tell them that.”
Late on Sept. 23, 2021, Moyers pulled McDowell and a female passenger over in what later was learned was a stolen minivan and the pair had been doing drugs and had guns inside. He was on drug-offender probation and recently learned that his misdemeanor charges in a Georgia case were being upgraded to felony and he now faced 30 years in prison. He said he was determined not to go back to jail and shot the deputy instead.
Chief Assistant Public Defender Alan Chipperfield asked him, “Who was the coward that day?”
“That would have been me," McDowell replied. "Deputy Moyers, he did his job so well that I wasn’t doing anything overtly and he took one look at me and knew that I was up to no good. The way that he interacted with me was polite. It was friendly, there was nothing that he did that provoked what I did to him. What I did was cowardly. What I did was something that for me myself I believe that there’s really nothing worse than you can do than take a man’s life for doing his job.”
How did watching the officer-worn body camera video make him feel, Chipperfield asked.
“The video, watching myself do what I did, it breaks my heart that I did that to that man, just for no reason, for no reason at all, out of selfishness," said McDowell, 37 of Jacksonville. "I remember everything that happened that night, I remember everything he said. It makes me sick to think that I did that. I’ll never forget. I’ll play that video, I’ve played that video for three years over in my head. I played what I saw what I did over in my head, it makes me physically sick to think about it.”
He also said it was difficult hearing the family's victim impact statements and testimony from co-deputies.
“It was hard to listen to. But I feel like I don’t think that there’s anything that I can say or that I can do to alleviate that pain, and I wish that I could," he said. "I mean that sincerely, I wish I could take it all away. I took the life of a man that was better than me. I’ll never forgive myself for that. Even if they do find forgiveness for me, I’ll never forgive myself for that.”
McDowell said his own family now has to deal with this shame probably forever, but the people most affected are the Moyers and the deputy's fiancee.
Patrick McDowell manhunt: Suspect in the shooting death of Nassau County Deputy Joshua Moyers caught near Callahan
“I don’t know how I can make that better," he said, maintaining a calm and clear tone throughout the questioning. "That’s why I am up here today because I feel like they need an explanation, they at least need to know why.”
He also understands that whether the jury decides to recommend life or death, he will die in prison. He just wants to try to make things right.
He said it’s been a long time since he’s had a positive relationship in his life, and now “I plan to spend the time that I do have left, whether it be on death row or whether it be spending the rest of my life in prison, trying to better those relationships. I’ve burned a lot of bridges with people. I want to start repairing those."
McDowell said he doesn't know how to deal with what he's done and thinks about it every day.
"I don’t know how to make it better, but I’m going to do everything I can to try to make right what I’ve done," he said.
How did Patrick McDowell respond to the cross-examination?
Under cross-examination by Chief Assistant State Attorney Mark Caliel, he went over all the help McDowell received particularly from the Veterans Treatment Court. McDowell was a U.S. Marine veteran deployed to Iraq twice and honorably discharged and later diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. He became addicted to drugs and his life unraveled.
But the decision to use drugs was his, Caliel said, and McDowell said yes 100%. He said he relapsed when COVID-19 shut down the courthouse and thus the program.
“Once an addict finds a loophole, they’re very quick to go through. And that’s exactly what I did,” McDowell said.
Insights on Patrick McDowell: Documents in Nassau Deputy Joshua Moyers' death explain suspect's past and what happened that night
The night of the shooting, Caliel confirmed that McDowell saw Moyers at the gas station where he had been doing drugs before driving off and being pulled over. He said he even nodded to the deputy before leaving.
When pulled over, McDowell said he was first going to try to talk his way out. He also never put the van in park. He said it’s clear in the bodycam video that he never took his foot off the brakes because the lights never shut off. He had no intentions of staying there and was only looking for an opportunity to get away.
When Moyers’ attention was diverted by a railroad crossing activating nearby, Caliel said McDowell swiveled to get his gun and shot the deputy.
McDowell responded yes and then apologized to his defense team for what he was about to say, but he said he swore to a lieutenant at the hospital after his arrest that he would tell the truth about what happened.
He said on that night he was open to the possibility he was going to have to shoot the deputy because he was intent on not going back to jail. His first option was to run, but he understood that didn’t make sense in the minivan. He also knew it wasn’t likely he would be able talk himself out of it. So when the train was coming, he said he even checked the chamber of his gun to make sure it had a round loaded.
He knew if everything failed, “I was willing to do whatever I needed to do to get away, and that included shooting the deputy. And I did that without a single, single thought of taking a man’s life. I was 100% focused solely on myself.”
He again repeated that Moyers didn't do anything to provoke him and was actually more polite than he expected.
“He actively put himself between someone he thought was up to no good, was doing wrong, and the people he swore to protect," McDowell said. "… He followed me into a dark area. He put himself in harm’s way, which is something you would expect from police officers and deputies.”
“He did give me the benefit of the doubt for almost six minutes,” McDowell said.
But he did say at a certain point during the ensuing search for him after letting his passenger go, he went passive and didn’t want to hurt anyone else despite deputies firing at him. He even refrained from firing back.
“I started to feel pretty awful about what I had done to the deputy, and I had no intention of doing that to anybody else,” McDowell said.
He said he was even amazed he wasn’t already dead after how many shots they fired.
What did Patrick McDowell conclude with in his testimony about killing Deputy Joshua Moyers?
When Caliel finished, Chipperfield was offered an opportunity to redirect questioning. He asked again about McDowell passing on the opportunity to do more harm.
McDowell reiterated he didn’t want to hurt anyone else, and that he had already taken the life of the 29-year-old deputy.
"As contradictory as it’s going to sound, I was raised by a police officer, my brother was a police officer — he’s an FBI agent now — I have several friends that are police officers back home," he said. "I grew up around them, they used to come watch wrestling at the house. I know what they do for a living. I know the risks that they take.
"Of all the people I that could have hurt, for me to have hurt a police officer or a deputy doing the exact same job as some of my closest family members and friends do, something that at the time … would have angered me to the point where I would have loved to have chased down and shoot the guy that hurt one of my brothers," McDowell continued. "I don’t know where in my life things changed to where I would kill someone serving a role that is one of the most respectable things in my eyes. I don’t understand where that happened, where I became capable of doing that.”
