Lawyer: Man ‘was hearing voices’
Trial begins for Patrice, who is accused in 2015 of assaulting wife, baby.
WEST PALM BEACH — In February 2015, police said, Bryan Patrice dragged his then-wife by her hair as she clutched her 2-month-old daughter in their West Palm Beach apartment, screamed “Jesus” and “Jehovah” several times and submerged the baby’s head under water.
What a jury will now decide is whether Patrice acted under the influence of designer drugs or had a psychotic breakdown stemming from mental illness.
Patrice, 41, is charged with aggravated child abuse, attempted second-degree murder, domestic battery and resisting an officer without violence stemming from the incident. More than three years later, and after several competency hearings, Patrice’s trial started Thursday before Circuit Judge John Kastrenakes.
Michael Salnick, one of Patrice’s attorneys, asked the jury to find his client not guilty by reason of insanity. He argued that at the time of the incident, Patrice did not know what he was doing and that he didn’t understand the consequences of his actions.
“He was acting strange. He was hearing voices and believing things were that were not true. He was having a psychotic episode,” Salnick told the jury.
Assistant State Attorney Jo Wilensky told the jury that when Patrice spoke with a psychiatrist soon after his arrest, he explained that he smoked “bath salts” before the incident and “lost control.” Bath salts are a synthetic drug, much like flakka, that puts users in a euphoric state in which they have hallucinations.
West Palm Beach police said they were dispatched to an apartment on Clematis Street on Feb. 24, 2015, to an excited delirium call. The dispatch call was common at the time due to the prevalence of flakka.
Excited delirium has been described as an acute psychotic episode that can be triggered either by drugs or extreme stress. Those suffering from excited
delirium can display violent and incoherent behavior as well as exhibit symptoms of elevated body temperatures — prompting many to strip their clothes off — and superhuman strength.
As police made their way to the apartment, they ran into Lelia Patrice, Patrice’s wife. She said her husband had dragged her by her hair as she held her daughter. Once her husband grabbed the girl from her, she ran out for help.
Once inside the apartment, Officer Chris Chase, who testified Thursday, said he heard “religious chanting from the bathroom.” Then, he said, he heard a baby crying from behind a locked bathroom door. Once the baby stopped crying, Chase said he kicked open the door to find Patrice, naked and sweating profusely, holding the baby’s head under water in the sink.
Police used a Taser on Patrice, and Chase said he
‘He was acting strange. He was hearing voices ... He was having a psychotic episode.’ Michael Salnick one of Bryan Patrice’s attorneys
was able to take the baby away. After a brief struggle, Patrice was arrested and the baby and her mother were taken to St. Mary’s Medical Center, police said.
When Leila Patrice was shown photos of her and her child from that night in court Thursday, she started crying. She said she was begging for her husband to let them go. The photos show chunks of hair missing from her head and bruises on her back.
She explained her husband had acted strangely for several days before the incident. Leila Patrice, who said she married Bryan Patrice in 2012 and divorced him in 2016, said that at one point during that week, her husband had locked himself in the bathroom for hours, and that when she eventually broke into the bathroom, she found him standing in the tub with the water running and his cellphone wet.
In the weeks before, she said, he had told her that Jesus was speaking to him. She said she finally called his mother and asked her to come down from New York to try to help him. Her mother-in-law arrived the evening of the incident.
On that night, she, her husband, his mother and their nanny were supposed to watch a movie together, she told the jury. At one point, Patrice excused himself to the bathroom and he started yelling. His mother tried to get him to come out, and when she couldn’t, she went to the bedroom where she would be staying.
“She grabbed her Bible and started reading,” Leila Patrice said.