Son guilty of third-degree murder for killing mother - Bucks County (PA) Courier Times

By LAURIE MASON
03/28/08

A mentally ill Abington man who stabbed his mother in his grandmother's Bensalem home to save her, he claimed, from a painful death from anorexia was found guilty Thursday of third-degree murder.

Patrick Hughes-Bygott, 22, will be sentenced next month and could serve up to 40 years in prison. He will serve at least part of that sentence in a locked mental health treatment facility.

“This is an extraordinarily sad and tragic case,” said First Assistant District Attorney Dave Zellis. “Ellen Hughes-Bygott was a caring daughter, a kind sister and a caring mother. For her to have met her end in this horrific way is just heartbreaking. The sadness is just compounded by the fact that it was her son who did this to her.”

Bucks County Judge John Rufe handed down the verdict following a three-day degree of guilt hearing in Doylestown.

Although lawyers on both sides agreed that Hughes-Bygott was mentally ill when he stabbed his 55-year-old mother more than 60 times in the head, neck and chest on Aug. 16, they disagreed on his state of mind at the time of the slaying.

Zellis argued that the murder was a premeditated first-degree killing, motivated by anger. That verdict would have netted Hughes-Bygott a life sentence.

His defense attorneys, Wallace Bateman and Robert Adshead, argued that the slaying was voluntary manslaughter. They brought in mental health experts who testified that their client was delusional and flew into an irrational rage when he attacked his mother.

The knife wounds on the mother's face underscored Hughes-Bygott's mental illness, Adshead told the judge. One of the blades went through the victim's eye and into her brain.

“It was an attempt to obliterate her face. It was overkill,” he said.

Hughes-Bygott did not react as the verdict was read. His father sat in the audience with his head in his hands. He declined to comment after the verdict.

Bateman said his client, who is taking medicine to control his mental illness, spent most of the legal proceedings in a daze.

“After it was all over he asked us what the verdict was,” he said, noting that the judge had just spoken a few feet away from him.

Hughes-Bygott was arrested within minutes of the stabbing at the Wildman Avenue home where the victim had been living with her mother. He told police that he had to kill his mother because she was sick, saying she looked like a “stick figure” and was “razor thin.”

Family members said the victim did not have anorexia.

Mental health experts who testified during the hearing said Hughes-Bygott was in the midst of a psychotic episode when he set off around 3 a.m. from his home, heading toward his mom's house with three hunting knives in his pockets.

Unable to sleep and convinced that he was being pursued, Hughes-Bygott asked his mother to give him a sedative or to take him to a hospital, according to court testimony.

Ellen Hughes-Bygott refused to do either, and they argued, police said. While he was slashing his mother, Hughes-Bygott's 91-year-old grandmother tried to intervene and was slightly injured.

Defense expert Gerald Cooke, a psychologist, testified that Hughes-Bygott believed that he was Jesus and that his mother wanted him to help her die.

“He lost control and began to stab her in a psychotically based emotional outburst,” Cooke said.

But Zellis said the mental health experts did not have a true picture of the defendant. He played for the judge two phone conversations between Hughes-Bygott and his father after the slaying, in which the defendant ranted about what a bad mother the victim was and said he was glad she was dead.

“I blame her for pretty much everything,” Hughes-Bygott said in the call, which was recorded because it was made from the county prison. “It's like God said a painful death is too good for [her]. I don't blame myself. Who the [expletive] does she think she is, treating her son like that?”

Zellis said that in addition to the stab wounds, the autopsy showed blunt force trauma, meaning Hughes-Bygott beat his mother before killing her.

Rufe will sentence Hughes-Bygott on April 24, following a hearing in which his family members and other witnesses might testify. He remains in the county prison until then.
Laurie Mason can be reached at 215-949-4185 or lmason_court@yahoo.com.