Defendant: ‘Figure’ killed woman, child
He says he was hiding when girlfriend stabbed
Patrick D. Fowler told jurors Thursday he was a coward, but not a killer.
Testifying in his own defense at his double homicide trial, Fowler, 33, said he was hiding, scared, in the bathroom as someone murdered his girlfriend Jessica Ellenberger, 28, and her 4-year-old daughter Madyson Marshel at their home on N. 68th St. The three of them had been enjoying a day preparing Easter baskets, he said, when he went into the bathroom.
As he exited a minute later, he said, he saw “a figure rushing at me.”
He said he raised his hand in defense and was badly cut, before jumping back into the bathroom and leaning against the door. Then he said he heard screams.
When he finally emerged, Fowler said, he found the victims dead in Madyson’s bedroom.
He said he knelt and lifted them each to pray, then left — grabbing the bags of Easter baskets and candy on the way out — and began walking aimlessly.
He said he felt “like (expletive), like a coward,” while crying.
He said he got a text from Ellenberger’s phone that read, “Thanks for coming over.” He said it scared him and he thought someone might be following him.
He called the mother of his children to come pick him up.
Fowler described his decision to leave town for Texas, despite his mother’s urging that he contact the police. He said he told her it was too late.
“I had already left (Ellenberger’s house). I had their blood on me. I looked guilty as hell. I couldn’t go to (the police).”
He bought a bus ticket to Houston but was arrested during a layover in Arkansas, where detectives say he eventually confessed in detail to how he repeatedly stabbed Ellenberger for jilting his deep love, and killed Madyson with just one or two cuts.
He told them he set their bodies on fire with flaming coloring books he had ignited from the stove, then walked out with the Easter baskets and candy they had all shopped for together earlier in the day.
Jurors saw a recording of the interview on Wednesday.
When detectives asked Fowler why he burned his victims, he suggested that if they listened to “Space Bound” by Detroit rapper Eminem, they might understand, and then recited the first verse of the song, about a man’s frustration about a woman who won’t return his love in the same degree, and his ultimate decision to strangle her.
On Thursday, Fowler said he decided to confess because he learned his mother, his children’s mother and her friend — all people who had helped Fowler leave town and not called police — were in jail back in Milwaukee.
He said his brother had told him in a phone call that whatever he had done, now their mother was wrapped up in it and Fowler had to get her out.
During his cross-examination, prosecutor Michael Lonski took an aggressive stance, holding up a photo of Madyson and asking, “Do you want this little girl’s killer out there free?”
Fowler replied, “I don’t expect you to understand my thinking at the time.”
Lonski asked why Fowler didn’t try to escape out a ground-floor bathroom window, and why he waited so long in the bathroom if a killer knew he, a witness, was in there.
He asked why, if Fowler’s hand had been cut so bad, there was no blood found in the bathroom, and pointed out that while he cried often during testimony, he didn’t seem upset when he described killing his victims for detectives.
Lonski noted all the opportunities Fowler would have had to call police, or tell anyone he was in danger as he walked to the south side.
“But I guess it would have been hard to flag down a car carrying all those Easter bags in your hands,” he said.
The jury is scheduled to hear closing arguments and begin deliberations Friday.