JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — A woman who pled guilty to accessory charges for aiding Patrick McDowell during a 5-day manhunt for the accused killer told investigators she was attempting to meet him in Callahan when she was pulled over by law enforcement.
McDowell faces the death penalty for allegedly shooting and killing Nassau County Deputy Joshua Moyers in September 2021. Brianna Tole is charged as an accomplice after the fact.
In a law enforcement interview obtained Monday by First Coast News, Tole tells investigators she thinks he “panicked” the night of the shooting because he knew he could be going back to prison.
“If he did it, I know he only did it because he feared because that was his only way,” Tole told detectives. “He doesn't deserve to be in jail. He doesn't deserve to die. Your cop didn't deserve to die. He knew that. He already told me that. He said that last night that he didn't want to hurt anybody else.”
The interview was part of a trove of new information released by prosecutors in the case against McDowell. He’s charged with first degree murder, eight counts of battery on a law enforcement officer and one count of use of a deadly weapon on a police canine. He has pleaded not guilty.
Tole told investigators she was picked up by law enforcement in Callahan while attempting to meet up with McDowell. She said he sent her latitude and longitude coordinates via Facebook – a location not far from the community baseball field where he was eventually apprehended.
Tole said McDowell said he’d been shot and his wounds were infected. “’If they find me they're gonna kill me,’” Tole quoted him as saying, “’but I'm wounded and I'm hurt. I'm in a lot of pain. And I don't know what to do and I can't trust anybody but you I don't want to hurt anybody else. I just want to get out of here.’”
Officers questioned Tole about clothes and canned goods they found in the back of her car. She claimed she found them by the roadside and “thought it would be good to have them," the investigator retorts. “You’re right. It would be good to have when you're trying to meet a murder suspect to get away.”
Tole denied her boyfriend, who was in the car with her, knew her intentions, a claim investigators did not believe. “You got all the stuff in the car. You're going to Callahan. Everybody and his brother knows what's in Callahan. Pat’s in Callahan and he's stuck somewhere out there because he's shot a police officer.”
She told investigators that McDowell is "not a bad man."
"He just wanted to get to a point where he could be with his son. I have no doubt that he panicked and thought that his life was in jeopardy when he got pulled over," she said.
Prosecutors also released an interview with the woman riding in the car that night.
In the interview, the unnamed woman tells deputies McDowell gave Moyers a fake name after he pulled them over, and shot him soon after. She says McDowell sped off with her in the car, before stopping. She said the pair briefly hid under a trailer together before he allowed her leave.
“I didn't want to be stuck in the middle of it,” she told deputies. She said she was with McDowell because he asked her to go trail riding with him, and said she didn’t know he had a gun in the car.
“I can’t believe he did that,” the woman told deputies. “He’s just not a good guy.”
Prosecutors also released a brief police interview with McDowell at UF Health Jacksonville. After being read his rights and asked if he wanted to talk, McDowell asked to “do it through an attorney.”