A Florida woman will never walk free again after she killed her sister and laughed as she was sentenced in court.
A Hillsborough County Circuit Judge, Robin Fuson, handed 72-year-old Debra Patton a life sentence in prison for the shooting death of Karen Pais. Patton was found guilty and convicted by a jury of second-degree murder with a firearm and abuse of a dead human body.
Patton, who laughed as her sentence was handed down, claimed she was innocent and told the court she would fight the conviction.
“You say you stand here blameless. Nobody else agrees with you. And I certainly don’t. The jury certainly [didn’t]. You will be judged someday. If you’re a God-fearing person, then you should fear God at this time. When I watched the video and saw you just calmly take the shovel and walk back into the house to bury your sister's body, it's unfathomable,” said Fuson, according to Oxygen True Crime.
In May 2021, officers arrested the defendant (then 67 years old) after they responded to the Carrollwood-area home of the victim, after her friends reported her missing. Coincidentally, a sheriff’s deputy lived next door and caught the victim working in her yard on May 24, 2021. The surveillance camera showed Pais entering her garage, and she was never seen again. In addition, Patton was captured getting a shovel in the garage.
Upon a search of the premises, investigators later found Pais’ body in a shallow, freshly dug pit in the backyard. An autopsy report showed the victim suffered a gunshot wound in the chest.
Prior to the fatal incident, Pais, who was a retired Verizon engineer, had allowed Patton to live with her rent-free, but over time, the relationship between the siblings had become estranged. As a result, the victim had told friends that if anything happened to her, they should know that Patton did it.
For months before her death, Karen said, 'If something happens to me, tell them it was my sister, she is going to kill me. What else could we have done as friends to save our friend's life?" said one of the victim’s friends, Jan, during the sentencing hearing, reported WTSP.
Initially, the case was delayed because Patton was declared legally incompetent to stand trial. However, she was later declared competent in January.
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