Pubdate: Wed, 04 Jul 2001
Source: Victoria Times-Colonist (CN BC)
Copyright: 2001 Hollinger Canadian Newspapers
Contact:  http://vvv.com/home/timesc/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/481
Authors: Kim Westad and Richard Watts
Related article: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v01/n1049/a03.html

PATTEN GUILTY OF MURDER: EMOTIONS RUN HIGH AS DRUG USER TRIES TO APOLOGIZE 
FOR GIRL'S BRUTAL KILLING

A prosecutor broke down Tuesday as he read a statement from the father of 
Jessica States just moments after a jury convicted her killer of murder.

Reading the victim-impact statement of Robert States, prosecutor David 
Kidd's voice cracked and his voice halted. He was reading the father's 
memory of tucking Jessica into bed when she asked a question.

"Daddy, are there really such things as monsters?"' Robert States 
remembered his daughter asking. "'No honey, they're just make believe.'

"I've never been so wrong in my life."

Roderick Patten was convicted of first-degree murder. The jury took less 
than three hours to reach a verdict.

Before he was sentenced to life in prison, Patten was asked if he wanted to 
comment.

The 23-year-old, whose face remained impassive when the jury gave its 
verdict, stood up to say he wanted to apologize.

"I would really like to apologize about what has happened. I'm very 
ashamed," he told the court.

As he started to say he hoped the healing could begin for the family, he 
turned to look at Robert States and Diane States, Jessica's mother. At that 
moment he caught the full blast of a father's rage.

"Don't you dare look at me, you bastard. Talk to the court," said Robert.

Diane States started sobbing the moment the jury gave its guilty verdict, 
and continued throughout the reading of the victim-impact statements.

The parents recalled the horror of learning their child had been murdered. 
They kept Jessica's room intact for two years after her body was found in a 
shallow grave. They would enter her room simply to sniff her scent on her 
pillow.

Eleven-year-old Jessica disappeared from her favourite Port Alberni haunt 
- --the local fast-pitch softball park -- on July 31, 1996. Her body was 
found the following day, raped and beaten to death, hidden in a wooded area 
close to the playing field. News of her death shocked the town. In the 
following months, local citizens erected a small memorial at the park 
commemorating the death of their "Angel in the outfield."

Autopsy evidence, recited for the jury during the trial, revealed the child 
died from a massive beating about the head and neck.

Death was likely hastened by suffocation because her throat was stuffed 
with forest debris. A stab wound to the brain was inflicted, according to 
Patten's statement, by a stick.

At the time of his arrest Patten provided the statement and in an interview 
with RCMP admitted hitting, sexually assaulting and killing Jessica States. 
The interview was videotaped and played for the jury early in the trial.

But throughout the trial, defence lawyer Jim Heller never disputed that 
Patten actually killed Jessica.

Heller led a defence based on the idea Patten was too high on a mixture of 
alcohol, marijuana, hashish and a massive dose of LSD to understand what he 
was doing. Instead of a murder conviction, Heller asked the jury to return 
with a verdict of manslaughter.

Crown counsel Derrill Prevett contended Patten's actions -- the beating, 
the killing and hiding the body -- were the actions of a man who was in 
strong touch with reality. He knew what he wanted -- sex. He knew how it 
achieve it -- beating Jessica into submission, and he knew how to cover up 
his crime -- kill the only witness.

Patten appeared to have no friends or family in the courtroom when the 
verdict was given. He sat in the prisoner's dock in an ill-fitting brown 
suit and white prison-issue runners. He looked at no one as he was led out 
of the courtroom in shackles to begin serving his life sentence.

Patten is not eligible to apply for parole until he has served at least 10 
years of the sentence. The parole eligibility is 10 years because he was a 
youth at the time of the murder. He must also give a DNA sample, which will 
be kept for the rest of his life in a DNA data bank.
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MAP posted-by: Beth