Accessory sentence remains
Published 12:00am Friday, August 7, 2009NATCHEZ — After entering a guilty plea last week and accepting a charge of accessory after the fact to aggravated assault, Patrick Conner is now awaiting sentencing.
Conner, 49, is the nephew of Mary McQuarters, who was convicted of manslaughter Wednesday for the September 2007 death of her longtime boyfriend Pete Jackson.
At the time of Jackson’s death, Conner was living with the couple at their Dumas Drive residence.
District Attorney Ronnie Harper said preliminary statements given by McQuarters shortly after Jackson’s death implicated Conner in the crime.
“However based on our investigation, we found that to be untrue,” Harper said.
As the investigation into Jackson’s death progressed, charges against Conner changed.
Harper said Conner was initially charged as an accessory after the fact for murder, then with murder and eventually charged as an accessory after the fact to aggravated assault.
“We came to believe that he was just not there at the time the crime was committed,” Harper said. “And based on what we learned we don’t think (Conner) was involved in Jackson’s death. We did not have the evidence to support that.”
However, Harper and law enforcement officials believe Conner did aid McQuarters in moving Jackson’s body to make it look as if he was murdered, which is what McQuarters told the first law enforcement officials at the scene.
Additionally, Harper said he believes Conner helped McQuarters to clean Jackson’s bloody body.
During McQuarters’ trial she testified she cut Jackson’s arm with a piece of broken glass during a fight.
A forensic pathologist testified that it was that wound, which severed Jackson’s radial artery, caused his death.
Law enforcement officials and the county coroner testified that the wound and fight left the kitchen, living room and hallway covered in blood.
But in the bedroom where Jackson’s body was found, on his knees at the foot of the bed, the scene and body were clean.
“There was no doubt (McQuarters) had help in there,” Harper said.
Conner did not testify during the trial.
Harper said Conner is facing a maximum sentence of five years in prison and expects Circuit Court Judge Forrest “Al” Johnson to issue the sentence before the end of this month’s term, which ends Aug. 14.
Wednesday Johnson sentenced McQuarters to 15 years in prison and five years of post-release supervision.
McQuarters was also originally charged with murder, but that charge was changed to manslaughter when Johnson found the state did not adequately prove that McQuarters intended to kill Jackson.
