NASSAU COUNTY, Fla — Expert testimony gave an inside look Tuesday into the mind of a man on methamphetamine – a man now facing the death penalty for the murder of a Nassau County Sheriff’s deputy.
Patrick McDowell testified he was on meth when he shot Deputy Joshua Moyers during a traffic stop in 2021 in order to not go back to jail.
On Tuesday, Clinical Pharmacologist Dr. Daniel Buffington told jurors how meth affects the brain. He testified because McDowell was on a meth "binge" before the murder, there is evidence he was experiencing psychosis. Buffington explained psychosis is a detachment from reality where one's surroundings are misinterpreted.
There was some back-and-forth with prosecutors in which prosecutors argued Buffington had never seen McDowell on meth and it affects people differently. They argued McDowell understood his surroundings since he gave Moyers a different name at the traffic stop and prosecutors say McDowell's understanding then that he could be arrested makes sense because there was a warrant out for his arrest.
Jurors also heard from a forensic psychiatrist Tuesday, Dr. Ryan Chaloner Hall, who testified he believes McDowell was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder when he shot Moyers and that his PTSD attributed to the shooting. McDowell served in Iraq with the Marines then later returned to an Iraqi war zone with the private military company Triple Canopy.
Hall testified McDowell told him while working for Triple Canopy, he had to shoot at people with masks on, some of whom he believed may have been adolescents.
According to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, about 30 percent of the people who served in Operations Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom experience PTSD.
People who were in veteran’s treatment court transitional housing with McDowell also testified. One man said he could have been sitting where McDowell was in the defendant’s seat, had he not worked as hard handling his addiction.
Multiple people testifying Tuesday mentioned that McDowell seemed to be especially impacted by the children he saw in Iraq who appeared intentionally burnt or injured. This was soon after he became a father.
