Deadly Charm: The Story of a Deaf Serial Killer

27. 1995–2000: The Attorney and the Carpenter

27 1995–2000: The Attorney and the Carpenter He was very personable. But he was more like a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Statement about Patrick by State’s Attorney Anne Colt Leitess Following his parole from prison, Patrick McCullough returned to Annapolis. By the following February, he was in trouble again, this time for forging checks he had stolen to support his cocaine addiction. With no money to hire an attorney , he once again needed the services of a public defender. By then, his many brushes with the law had made him a familiar figure to the public defender’s staff . . . especially the young females. According to a woman who worked in the Public Defender’s Office, Patrick would breeze in, handsome in tennis sweater and shorts, charming the women in the office and entertaining them. One of the attorneys who represented Patrick during his trial in the Riley case was Deborah Fallon (pseudonym). Like many other women throughout Patrick’s life, she was taken by his good looks, his debonair personality, and his neediness. 200 Despite his admission that he had murdered Clint Riley, Fallon felt Patrick deserved sympathy and understanding. She described him as “a poor guy, an unfortunate guy who had met bad circumstances and was trying to improve his life.” After successfully defending Patrick against the forgery charges, Fallon helped him obtain employment with a construction company. She also gave him odd repair jobs around her home and allowed him to stay there briefly. The exact nature of the relationship that developed between Fallon and Patrick is unclear. In an interview later with reporter Michael Amon of the Washington Post, Fallon claimed that they were nothing more than friends. However, it appeared that Patrick frequently introduced her to others as “his future wife.” Another reporter, Mary Allen, described the pair as “having once been romantically linked.” Whatever their relationship may have been, at one point Fallon tried to end it. Patrick, seeing this as rejection, became enraged. Twice in October 1996 he broke into Fallon’s home, burglarized it, sliced up her clothing, and, in one instance, left a lit candle in an apparent attempt to set the house on fire. In all, his rampages did over twenty thousand dollars’ worth of damage. Both times, Fallon pressed charges. A DNA test of blood found in her home was identified as Patrick’s and entered into evidence. Again, Patrick’s deafness and his troubled past won him sympathy from a judge and kept him from jail. Despite evidence of Patrick’s having committed the burglaries and the destruction of property, he received only a suspended sentence and was released under his own recognizance. By then, Ms. Fallon realized the man she’d befriended had a dark side to his “big lovable teddy bear” persona. She also saw that there was a very real possibility her life was in danger . To protect herself, she hired Detective Neill Burke, who had, by then, retired from the Annapolis Police Department and was working as a private investigator. Burke, like other Deadly Charm 201 202 McCay Vernon and Marie Vernon law enforcement officers, felt tremendous frustration at the light sentences Patrick had received for his crimes. He was firmly convinced that Ms. Fallon’s pursuer was both dangerous and violent, and he was well aware that anytime a woman rejected Patrick, he reacted by setting fires, destroying the woman’s possessions, and/or physically attacking her. But there was little Burke or anyone else could do unless or until Patrick directly assaulted Fallon. (More recently, stalking and domestic violence have been studied and discussed more openly, increasing awareness on the part of the general public as well as law enforcement. As a consequence, the laws regarding these behaviors have become stricter and the cases easier to prosecute.) Burke was aware that Patrick had once taken revenge by killing a woman’s pet dog. Since Fallon had a pet horse stabled nearby, he felt it likely that Patrick would try to get back at her by harming the animal. Consequently, he suggested to Fallon that she move the horse to a different stable. Fallon agreed, and Burke accompanied her to the stable, where she arranged for the horse to be transferred to another farm. Afterwards, as they were returning to town, Fallon in her tiny sporty Miata and Burke following in his own car, they were stopped at a...