In a matter of days, two people in two different states were dead, a woman was hospitalized after she was shot in the face and a man had his car stolen from him at gunpoint, authorities said.
Patrick Tirrell Brockman, 43, is the suspect in all of the crimes, according to West Palm Beach Police. Brockman, who lives in West Palm Beach, was arrested earlier this month and is now facing additional charges of second-degree murder with a firearm and felon in possession of a firearm.
Brockman was arrested on Oct. 3 on charges stemming from the armed carjacking and the attempted murder of the woman he allegedly shot in the face.
The crime spree started in Valdosta, Ga., on Sept. 29, police said. A murder there followed on Oct. 1, but details of the crimes in Georgia were not available Friday afternoon.
By the night of Oct. 2, Brockman was back in West Palm Beach, walking the streets with a 9mm gun. About 9:30 p.m., Brockman shot a woman in the face inside of an abandoned house in the 600 block of Douglass Avenue, police said.
A witness to the shooting told police that someone named Patrick wearing a black jacket shot the woman without being provoked before running away, a probable cause affidavit says. As of Friday, police said the woman was recovering from her injuries.
As officers investigated the shooting on Douglass Avenue, a 911 caller shortly before 11 p.m. reported that an armed man in black clothes ran toward the caller and said, “What’s up! Let me get something!”
Officers checked the area of Eighth Street and Clearlake Avenue but found no suspicious person and cleared the call after six minutes of searching, the affidavit says. But then an officer who was still in the area heard a gunshot.
Dispatchers received an alert shortly after 11 p.m. from ShotSpotter, a gunshot detection system, in the 14500 block of 9th Street — a block away from where the 911 caller reported the suspicious person, the affidavit says. At that address, officers found a person shot dead in the neck, the affidavit says.
The next morning, Brockman had approached another victim shortly before 9 a.m. in the 900 block of Sixth Street. A man told officers he parked his car in his driveway when a man came up and took his car after pointing a gun at him, the affidavit says.
Officers pursued the stolen car after spotting it in the area of 42nd Street and North Australian Avenue, but they lost track of it “due to traffic conditions,” the affidavit says. But the victim was able to see the address where his car was at because he had an Apple AirTag on his wallet and car keys.
That led officers to Brockman’s address — 5405 Eadie Place. Officers set up a perimeter around the house and saw Brockman attempting to run away, but he was taken into custody, the affidavit says.
Officers and Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office deputies obtained a search warrant and found the black clothes Brockman was said to be wearing inside his home, along with a 9mm black and tan gun in a canal behind the house, the affidavit says. The bullet casings and fragments from the earlier shootings matched the gun.
Earlier this week, investigators determined the ballistic evidence from the West Palm Beach crimes also matched the home invasion and murder in Georgia, the affidavit says.
The Valdosta Daily Times reported that Brockman formerly lived in Valdosta and that local police said the victim who was murdered in Valdosta on Oct. 1 was at his home when an argument ensued and the victim was shot to death. Valdosta Police obtained an arrest warrant for Brockman on Tuesday, the newspaper reported.
