Facts of the Crime:
On the night of January 9, 1987, Brett Patterson and Ronnie Cauthern drove to the home of Patrick and Rosemary Smith, who were both captains in the United States Army assigned to Fort Campbell as nurses. The defendants wore masks and gloves, and each carried a loaded revolver. After severing the telephone line, the defendants broke a door pane, unlocked the door, and entered the Smiths’ house. They were after a large sum of money thought to be kept in the bedroom. Once inside, the defendants discovered that the Smiths were at home asleep. They awakened them and pulled them out of bed.
Patrick Smith tried to fight them off, while Patterson made repeated attempts to subdue him by applying a “sleeper,” a wrestling hold designed to cause unconsciousness. Failing this, Patterson strangled Mr. Smith with a length of “880” military cord. Investigators later recovered similar cord from the defendant’s residence when they searched it. Mrs. Smith was strangled with a silk scarf into which a narrow vase was inserted to form a tourniquet. The medical examiner found that the cartilage in her throat had been fractured, an injury which would have resulted only from application of great force. Mrs. Smith had also been raped.
Cauthern was sentenced to death on March 18, 1988.
Patterson will be eligible for parole on June 4, 2047.
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