Dog beaten and stabbed to death
Denville, NJ (US)Incident Date: Friday, Oct 6, 2006
County: Morris
Disposition: Acquitted
Person of Interest: Patrick M. O'Connor
Case Updates: 2 update(s) available
A troubled former Morris County sherriff's officer, who is facing animal cruelty charges, will be taken into custody without bail after his release from St. Clare's Hospital, a superior court judge ruled on Oct 13.
Morris County Chief Assistant Prosecutor John Redden and a county probation officer were in court on Oct 13 to ask Superior Court Judge Salem Vincent Ahto to issue an arrest warrant for former Sgt. Patrick M. O'Connor for violating his probation when he was charged with animal cruelty.
O'Connor returned to St. Clare's Hospital on Oct. 6 after a he was hospitalized after a road rage episode in the summer.
As soon as the hospital deems him fit for discharge, he will be taken into custody without bail on the arrest warrant that Ahto agreed to issue Friday. The judge said he may send O'Connor to a jail outside of Morris County because the ex-officer worked for the county for 14 years, but said the decision on placement will be made when O'Connor is released from St. Clare's.
In giving the judge a rundown of the once-popular officer's behavior in the past six weeks, Redden said his office is concerned for the safety of the public and for O'Connor's wife and two young daughters.
"It's rather obvious he has some deep-seated mental problems that could put his family in danger," Redden said.
A former Morris County sheriff's officer, who was charged last week with stabbing and beating his family's Golden Retriever to death, told Denville police that he "just killed the devil," authorities told the court Friday.
Six weeks before he was charged on Oct. 6 with animal cruelty and unlawful possession of weapons,O'Connor was involved in a "road rage" episode in Mount Olive and voluntarily entered the psychiatric unit at St. Clare's Hospital in Denville.
But he walked out after a short stay, saying that Satan was in the hospital, Redden told a judge on Friday.
O'Connor, 40, forfeited his job as a sheriff's office sergeant in January when he was sentenced to five years' probation for pointing a loaded handgun at a Denville police sergeant, who talked him out of committing suicide on Nov. 16, 2004. During the standoff 23 months ago, O'Connor spoke of wanting to die of "suicide by cop," and was in the grip of a mental breakdown and paranoia at the time, authorities said.
Besides probation, he was ordered in January to continue psychiatric treatment and perform 500 hours of community service.
On Aug. 29, Redden said, O'Connor tailgated and bumped several times into the rear of a van on a road in Mount Olive, and at one point got out of his car to chase the van. Responding officers located O'Connor afterward kneeling in the bed of a stranger's pick-up truck and he appeared to be praying. He told officers, Redden said, that he was "following the light of the Lord and his Savior, Jesus Christ."
O'Connor entered St. Clare's Hospital the day of that incident, and no charges were filed. But he walked out, telling people that he believed "Satan was in the hospital and he doesn't want to be there," Redden said.
Around 1:30 a.m. on Oct. 6, Denville police found O'Connor by his house on Holly Drive after he had been running around the neighborhood ringing doorbells. He told police he fought with his wife, and was trying to find a house with lights on so he could call his brother to pick him up, Redden said.
Redden said the domestic argument was over O'Connor's wife trying to persuade him to keep an appointment with a neurologist.
"He told his wife that as far as he was concerned there was nothing wrong with him," Redden said. O'Connor's brother did pick him up, but the morning of Oct. 6, O'Connor somehow returned to his home -- when his wife and two children were gone -- and beat and stabbed his Golden Retriever multiple times outside the house. Police, responding to a report of animal cruelty, found O'Connor washing blood off the sidewalk and he told officers, "I just killed the devil," Redden said.
Hired in January 1990 as a sheriff's officer, O'Connor was promoted on Oct. 7, 2004, to sergeant. Three weeks after the promotion, he suffered head trauma when he crashed a sheriff's vehicle into a tree in Randolph on Oct. 28, 2004. The standoff with the Denville officer occurred a few weeks later in November 2004. O'Connor's lawyer, Alan Zegas -- who could not be reached Friday -- contended in January at O'Connor's sentencing that the head trauma, combined with other stress in O'Connor's life, led to the breakdown in November.
Case UpdatesA former Morris County sheriff's officer who believed he "killed the devil" when he savaged his dog with a knife and bat during a psychotic episode in October 2006 was found not guilty by reason of insanity on Dec 13, 2007.
Superior Court Judge Thomas V. Manahan cleared 41-year-old Patrick O'Connor of four weapons charges and animal cruelty for the Oct. 6, 2006, killing of the golden retriever at his Denville home. O'Connor had been on probation at the time for a November 2004 suicide-by-cop attempt, but Manahan also threw out a probation violation charge because of the insanity finding.
Diagnosed with bipolar disorder with psychotic features, O'Connor has been back home with his wife and two daughters since April. He spent six weeks in inpatient psychiatric care following his arrest, and then five months in the Morris County Jail, until psychiatrists for both the state and the defense found he was not a danger to himself or others as long as he was medicated.
The two medical experts agreed O'Connor was insane when he killed his dog, which he had raised from a puppy and trained to be a therapy dog serving area nursing homes. O'Connor crushed the dog's skull with a bat and stabbed him more than 50 times, before dumping the body and the weapons in a Dumpster at a neighbor's property.
When police arrived, O'Connor said, "I just killed the devil."
He said he felt the presence of God in his home and that the dog was the devil. He expected the officers to commend him for what he did, Manahan noted.
O'Connor's mental health problems began after an Oct. 28, 2004, car crash in which he suffered a brain injury. About 2 1/2 weeks later, he went to a neighbor's home with two handguns, and pointed a .44-caliber revolver at the Denville sergeant who answered the 911 call. O'Connor told Sgt. Ron Nametko to shoot or die, but Nametko eventually coaxed O'Connor to put down the gun.
O'Connor did so well in treatment that his psychiatrist in June 2006 cut in half his dosages of anti-depressant and anti-psychotic medication, and two months later, he took him off the anti-depressant altogether and further reduced the anti-psychotic dosage, Manahan said.
While Manahan accepted the doctors' findings that O'Connor is no longer a danger to himself or others, he required him to continue with treatment, and ordered him to undergo a new psychiatric evaluation, which the judge will review in February. O'Connor remains on probation for his 2005 terroristic threat conviction stemming from the attempted suicide incident. | Source: Star-Ledger - Dec 14, 2007
Update posted on Jan 2, 2008 - 11:40PM |
An emotionally-troubled former Morris County sheriff's officer was indicted on Dec 6 on charges of killing his family's Golden retriever with a knife and baseball bat outside his Denville home in October.
Formalizing charges originally filed against him on Oct. 6, a Morris County grand jury indicted Patrick M. O'Connor, 40, on charges of animal cruelty, possession of a knife and a baseball bat for an unlawful purpose, and unlawful possession of those weapons.
Authorities said O'Connor claimed he "just killed the devil" when police arrived at his home on Holly Drive.
At the time of the killing, O'Connor was on probation in Morris County for holding a loaded gun to a Denville police officer's head, in what authorities have described as his attempt to die "suicide by cop." O'Connor wound up forfeiting his job with the sheriff's office and was sentenced in January 2006 to five years' probation and counseling.
Besides the animal cruelty charge, he was hit in October with a charge of violating his probation. He spent more than two months at the Ann Klein Forensic Hospital in Trenton before being transferred to the Morris County jail on Nov. 21. | Source: Daily Record - Dec 6, 2006
Update posted on Dec 8, 2006 - 12:51PM |
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