Registered Sex Offender Charged With Killing Ex-Wife

ELLIJAY, GA — A registered sex offender has been charged with murder after his ex-wife's remains were found at his home in Gilmer County. Ellijay resident Charles Michael Patrick, 72, was arrested by agents with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation Gilmer County sheriff's deputies and charged with murder in the death of Drusilla Patrick, 68.

The investigation into the circumstances surrounding Patrick began on Wednesday, April 18 when the Gilmer County Sheriff's Office asked the GBI to help them investigate a report of a missing person. According to the GBI, a federal probation officer supervising Charles Patrick "became concerned about the whereabouts of his wife," Drusilla Patrick.

The probation officer received information that Patrick re-married unexpectedly and when he asked the suspect about his so-called wife, his questions were met with "conflicting statements," the GBI added.

The probation officer compared information that a GCSO Sex Offender Compliance officer received about Patrick and found there were more details that didn't add up. GBI agents and Gilmer County sheriff's detectives began investigating and learned Drusilla Patrick was last seen alive between December 2016 and January 2017.

Patrick told varying accounts about why Drusilla Patrick disappeared to several people, none of which added up, the GBI said. In another bizarre twist, detectives and GBI agents learned Drusilla Patrick had not been Charles Patrick's legal wife, as they divorced in 1970.

A search warrant was executed on Wednesday, April 25 at Charles Patrick's home on Ridgemont Drive in Ellijay. That search, which extended into Thursday, unearthed human remains on the property authorities believe belong to Drusilla Patrick. An autopsy was conducted Friday and shows Drusilla Patrick died from a gunshot wound. The manner of death has been ruled as a homicide. A formal forensic identification of the woman is pending, the GBI said Friday.

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According to a search of the GBI's Sex Offender Registry, Patrick was convicted in 2009 of having obscene telephone contact with a child under the age of 14.

Gilmer County Sheriff Stacy Nicholson said on the agency's Facebook page that Patrick was taken into custody at a local motel. He was a registered sex offender in Gilmer County and was being supervised by federal probation officers.

Nicholson praised the excellent "heads up" work provided by federal probation officers and the GCSO Sex Offender Registry Compliance officer for their diligence in "solving the murder and missing person that had never been reported."

“I can not begin to give adequate praise to Corporal Jason Reed and the federal probation officers," the sheriff added.

Patrick is currently being held without bond at the Gilmer County Detention Center on felony murder charges, and the GBI notes additional charges are forthcoming. Once the investigation is complete, the case will be turned over to the Appalachian District Attorney's Office for prosecution.

Images via Gilmer County Sheriff's Office/Facebook