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Patricia Donnelly


Inmate Name: Patricia Donnelly Charge: first-degree murder Sentence: 30 years Prison: Gatesville Unit, Texas Patricia Donnelly was born in 1976 and was raised in El Paso, Texas. She grew up believing that her grandmother was her mother and her mother was her sister. At 7 years old, her grandmother told her the truth. For most of her childhood, her grandmother raised her because she felt Patricia’s mother was too unstable to care for a child. According to Patricia, her grandmother was an alcoholic who gave her granddaughter alcohol from an early age. Patricia, who in addition to an early alcohol problem, was depressed, but did not feel comfortable confiding in her grandmother about her depression. Patricia also alleges that she was sexually abused as a child. These factors contributed to her suicide attempt at age 10. By the time she was in her early teens, Patricia moved from one relative’s home to another until she ended up in foster care. When she was 17, she met Jason Donnelly, a plumber’s assistant. Within six months they were married, and Jason enlisted in the Air Force. By 1995, the couple was living on an air force base in Texas, and Patricia gave birth to a baby boy named Kneeland. But the young mother suffered from postpartum depression and acted out by drinking, sniffing paint fumes and cheating on her husband. The marriage did stabilize for a while when Patricia went on medication for depression, and she gave birth to a second son named Joseph. But soon after Joseph was born, Patricia became smitten with Michael Karl Wade and by November 1999, Jason and Patricia were divorced with Jason getting custody of the two boys, and Patricia and Michael moving in together in Denton, Texas. But according to a neighbor, the couple always fought. On one occasion, after the neighbor’s phone call to police, Michael was charged with assault and put in jail with a bond of $250. Patricia desperately tried to raise the money to pay the bond but to no avail. The only way she could think of to get the money was to hire herself out for sex. On the night of June 15, 2000, Patricia and a friend went to a swinger’s club in Dallas looking for someone to pay Patricia for sex. Carey Taylor, a clean-cut neon sign installer was game. Patricia took Taylor back to her apartment and tied his hands as he allegedly requested but then, unable to go through with the sex, she snapped and strangled him with her bra. The following day having just killed a man, and still without cash, Patricia called a friend to help her pay Michael’s bond. Michael was released from jail. Police believe about a day or two later, Patricia and Michael put Taylor’s body in the back of Taylor’s Dodge Intrepid and dumped it in a ravine in Athens, Texas. Patricia kept Taylor’s car for almost a month until she was stopped in Denton for stealing gas. The authorities were able to connect Patricia to Taylor’s murder and after five days, she confessed. On July 14, 2000, Patricia was charged with murder and Michael was charged with evidence tampering. A jury found him guilty and he was sentenced to two-and-a-half-years in prison. Patricia pled guilty to first-degree murder and was sentenced to 30 years in prison. She feels great remorse and accepts full responsibility for her actions.