NEWS

Judge: Wal-Mart attacker was insane

Douglas Walker
dwalker@muncie.gannett.com
  • A Muncie man has been found not guilty by reason of insanity of charges stemming from a stabbing.
  • Rodney G. Patterson was accused of wounding the manager of the southside Wal-Mart store last fall.
  • He was also accused of waving a knife during a disturbance at the same store in July 2014.
  • A judge told prosecutors to file a petition to have Patterson committed to a state mental facility.

MUNCIE – A Muncie man was insane when he stabbed a manager of the southside Wal-Mart store, a judge has ruled.

Rodney G. Patterson, 42 — also known as Kenan Fortune Abraham — was charged with aggravated battery, battery with a deadly weapon and resisting law enforcement in the attack last November in the store, at 1501 E. 29th St.

Authorities said Patterson became agitated while completing an employment application, and wounded the manager with a knife, cutting his victim's chest, left arm and right wrist.

At the conclusion of a recent bench trial, Delaware Circuit Court 3 Judge Linda Ralu Wolf found Patterson not guilty of those charges by reason of insanity.

The same verdict was returned on an unrelated intimidation charge, filed after Patterson displayed a knife in the same Wal-Mart in July 2013, threatening to harm store employees so he could “have their job.”

Evaluations of Patterson’s mental status, prepared by a local psychiatrist and psychologist, were admitted as evidence by Chief Deputy Prosecutor Judi Calhoun and Patterson’s public defender, Amber Neal.

At a December hearing, Neal said her client had “significant mental health issues.”

Judge Wolf asked Calhoun to prepare a petition to have Patterson committed to a state Department of Mental Health facility. In the meantime, he will remain in the Delaware County jail.

Patterson was convicted of criminal recklessness after he stabbed his sister in Kokomo in 2007. He was also found guilty, but mentally ill, of two robbery counts in Howard County in the mid-1990s.

Contact news reporter Douglas Walker at (765) 213-5851. You can also follow him on Twitter @DouglasWalkerSP.