Documents in Nassau Deputy Joshua Moyers' death explain suspect's past and what happened that night

About 200 pages of court documents released Wednesday by the State Attorney's Office reveal new details and insight into the Sept. 23 fatal shooting of Nassau County Deputy Joshua Moyers.

Notable is the firsthand account of the passenger who was there during the traffic stop when it happened. Information from family and friends also explains issues that Patrick Rene McDowell, the 35-year-old charged in the deputy's death, faced in the military and beyond as the case awaits trial.

But in her own words, the 24-year-old woman who had gone out with McDowell that day in a stolen minivan described what happened late that night and early into the next morning. She is not being named because of the state's Marsy's Law and since she has not been charged.

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She told investigators that McDowell, whom she met through mutual friends about a year ago, picked her up at her Jacksonville home about 8 p.m. They then met up with a couple behind a Southside Big Lots store to purchase methamphetamine, according to one of the supplemental reports.

They headed for Georgia where McDowell said "they could ride trails and shoot guns." En route they realized they needed to gas, so they looked for an open station before finding one on U.S. 1 and headed back out.

Then about 11:45 p.m. on Sandy Ford Road, south of Callahan, something caught the deputy's attention and he activated his emergency lights, the Sheriff's Office previously said.

After McDowell realized they were being pulled over, the woman said he told her "I'm not stopping, I'm not going to jail," according to the report. She said she told him, "You should probably stop."

So he stopped the minivan — later determined to have been stolen in Jacksonville —  near railroad tracks west of U.S. 301.

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When Moyers spoke with them and asked for registration and IDs, McDowell gave him a bogus name. Once that was learned, the deputy asked McDowell whether he had any weapons and to get out of the vehicle, according to the documents. Moyers was then shot in the face, collapsed to the ground and was shot again.

Saying she can't believe what she saw, "or maybe just wish I didn't," the passenger wrote that "Pat pulls a gun out from behind him and shoots the poor innocent man with his whole life ahead of him. I then see Pat reach out of the window and shot him again like the first time wasn't enough??"

He kept telling her he was sorry, that "It was either him or me" as they fled briefly in the van before abandoning it.

She said they hid for a while until she convinced him to let her go. Once she was far enough away, she called 911 and a deputy saw her walking down the road and she cooperated, according to the reports.

During the ensuing multi-agency search, officers and McDowell exchanged gunfire and he and a K-9 were wounded. McDowell, however, remained at large for several days.

He had contacted another friend through social media but was being monitored by investigators. He was apprehended outside Callahan Intermediate School on Sept. 28. Breiana Elizabeth Tole, 28, also was charged as an accessory after coming to his location and trying to get him out of the area.

Recently engaged and only 29, Moyers died a couple of days later on Sept. 26.

McDowell, who was on drug-offender probation at the time, remains behind bars in the Duval County jail on charges of murder and injuring a police dog as well as eight more of aggravated assault on an officer, according to his arrest report.

Brother speaks of Patrick McDowell's troubled past

An FBI report details law enforcement interviews with McDowell's family and reveals information about McDowell's military past..

One is an interview with McDowell's brother, Timothy Jones, who is also an FBI agent in the Norfolk Division. Jones states that McDowell had been combat-deployed to Iraq in 2009 as a U.S. Marine and was honorably discharged in 2010 or 2011. He had severe post-traumatic stress disorder, the brother said.

McDowell worked for a private security firm as personal security for dignitaries and others in Iraq for about a year. Coming home, he sought help from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and was put on anti-psychotic medications at one time, his brother said.

During one VA session, the counselor told him that the friends he had lost in Iraq were dead and "he needed to get over it," the report said.

"McDowell attacked the counselor and was banned from the property thereafter," the report said. "This occurred prior to 2012."

The brother said McDowell then began using cocaine, progressing to heroin, fentanyl and methamphetamine, "his drug of choice for the past year," the report said.

"Jones described McDowell as being highly aggressive, even prior to his drug use," the FBI report said. "McDowell is a hunter and fisherman and is comfortable with Florida swamps. Jones has never seen McDowell scared of anything or anyone. He has an aggressive demeanor."

If he is backed into a corner, Jones said his brother "will not surrender." But he told the agent he did not think his brother was the type of person to shoot a police officer either.

McDowell also had been in contact with his mother over the previous month about trying to get straightened out.

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More on training and drugs

In a Florida Department of Law Enforcement interview, another friend and former co-worker provided more insight into McDowell's training, addictions and frame of mind.

Patrick Fowler said they worked for the same security company, State Protective Group, where they trained in munitions, survival, target acquisition, weapon retention, disarming, force on force and medical. He said they trained with AR platform rifles, shotguns and handguns, but that McDowell also did additional private training to include long-range and moving-target shooting.

He also said McDowell was contracted by security company Triple Canopy with additional training as well as overseas contract work in Iraq in 2012.

Fowler advised he has only seen McDowell in person a few times in the past 10 years but kept up with him over the phone.

When he met with him last Aug. 31, he said McDowell appeared to be under the influence of drugs and confirmed he was using methamphetamines and pain pills. Fowler said he looked "very sickly, malnourished, fidgety and just not himself."

McDowell told him he was out of work, homeless and living out of a stolen van. So Fowler said he offered to get him into a hotel and a drug rehabilitation facility. McDowell agreed and was supposed to turn in a handgun in his possession before getting admitted. But then he never showed.

Fowler also told the investigator McDowell had a close friend from his time in the Marines who committed suicide a couple of years ago and that hurt him mentally. He also was dating a woman addicted to drugs around the same time and thinks that's when he went on a downhill spiral.

dscanlan@jacksonville.com, (904) 359-4549

This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: New details in case of Patrick McDowell, Nassau Deputy Joshua Moyers