Patrick Dowell pleaded guilty to shooting and killing Nassau County Sheriff’s Deputy Joshua Moyers, 29, during a traffic stop in Callahan.
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Editor’s note: Watch the livestream of Day 2 of the sentencing phase in the above video player or YouTube video below.
On Tuesday, jurors got an inside look at the SWAT team and federal law enforcement intelligence that went into the apprehension of the man who pleaded guilty to murdering a Nassau County Sheriff’s deputy and leading law enforcement on a nearly five-day manhunt in 2021.
Patrick Dowell pleaded guilty to shooting and killing Nassau County Sheriff’s Deputy Joshua Moyers, 29, during a traffic stop in Callahan. He also pleaded guilty to shooting a police K-9 during the manhunt.
Jurors and both Moyers’ and McDowell’s families were in the courtroom learning new details about McDowell’s capture in a Callahan baseball concession area.
The courtroom was silent as jurors were shown video of McDowell crawling out of the concession area during his surrender and being attacked by Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office K-9 Huk as law enforcement officers surrounded him.
Defense attorneys argued in the cross-examination of multiple law enforcement witnesses called by the prosecution that McDowell was told to crawl before being attacked by Huk for one minute and 10 seconds. Huk’s handler, JSO Sgt. Cheth Plaugher, testified McDowell was crawling in a way that his waistband did not touch the ground, leading him to believe McDowell could be armed.
“We don’t know if he has an explosive device,” Plaugher said on the witness stand. “We don’t know where his guns are. He’s pretending that he’s injured? He’s pretending that he can’t walk?”
Plaugher testified he believed McDowell was going to try to attack again and said many of “these suspects” don’t stop fighting.
“In that situation with the information that I knew, I thought that he was gonna try to ambush us again or to take another one of us with him,” he testified.
Defense attorneys pushed back, arguing that in Plaugher’s report, he stated he gave loud verbal commands for McDowell to crawl on his stomach and that’s what McDowell did.
Defense attorneys questioned the prosecution’s witness ATF Special Agent Damon Cavender, who testified before Plaugher, about McDowell coming out of the concession stand area. Defense Attorney Alan Chipperfield questioned Cavender on why he announced he was a federal agent and not with the Nassau County Sheriff’s Office.
“Is that because you were thinking he might be afraid to come out to Nassau County Sheriff’s officers?” Chipperfield asked.
“Yes sir, it’s a potential,” Cavender responded.
“Because they might shoot him?” Chipperfield asked.
“That’s typically one of the fears that people have when they’re surrendering to an agency where they are a suspect in the murder of one of those officers,” Cavender said.
Moyers’ parents left the courtroom for the medical examiner’s testimony in which graphic photos were shown.
Victim impact statements are expected in the afternoon portion of the trial.
In the early afternoon, jurors heard testimony from McDowell’s friend, Patrick Fowler, whom McDowell met at a firearms store in the early 2010s and recruited McDowell for airsoft team competitions, which are realistic combat scenarios.
Fowler testified McDowell was a dependable friend with no outward signs of substance abuse, but he noticed a change in McDowell years into their friendship after they’d lost some contact when McDowell began dating someone new.
Fowler testified when he met with McDowell at a Jacksonville restaurant, McDowell appeared frail and shaking with sores on his body and said he was living in a stolen van. Fowler testified he offered to pay for his friend to go to rehab or get him a hotel, but that didn’t happen.
Prosecutors say it was Fowler’s name McDowell gave to Moyers at the traffic stop instead of his own.
Defense attorneys argued McDowell got along with the police officers he encountered while working a security job in violent Jacksonville neighborhoods. Defense attorneys pointed out Fowler was not qualified to recognize the signs of PTSD.
The court also heard from McDowell’s probation officer. Prosecutors say McDowell was on probation for a third-degree felony when Moyers stopped his van. Defense attorneys argue a third-degree felony is the lowest felony and his crime was nonviolent, forging checks on his grandparents’ checking accounts.
First Coast News will be in the courtroom throughout McDowell’s trial.
