Man guilty in deaths of sister, grandparents

By Matt Pordum (contact)

Monday, March 14, 2005 | 10:57 a.m.

A jury convicted a 21-year-old of three counts of murder Saturday for killing his pregnant sister and their grandparents.

The same jury will hear arguments Tuesday to determine whether Dante Pattison should be sentenced to death for the February 2001 deaths of 32-year-old Carrie Adric-Pattison and their grandparents, Yoshio Kato, 82, and Sally Kato, 75.

Pattison was also found guilty for one count of manslaughter with use of a deadly weapon for the death of Adric-Pattison's unborn child, who was 7 months old. A fetus is considered viable for birth 28 weeks after conception.

Pattison faces either death, life without the possibility of parole, life with the possibility of parole after 40 years or a set term of 40 to 100 years in prison.

Pattison's attorneys have said that all of his family wants his life to be spared. Several of them, including his mother, Rae Pattison, are expected to plead with the jurors to forego the death penalty.

The jury took 1 1/2 days after a weeklong trial to determine he was responsible for the slayings. They rejected the defense contention that he was not guilty because he was insane at the time of the killings.

His defense attorneys argued Pattison suffers from schizophrenia. Prosecutors, however, used doctors' reports to make their case that Pattison's strange behavior was a result of his abuse of methamphetamine.

Under Nevada law for someone to be found not guilty by reason of insanity they must both be found to have a mental illness and also commit the crime as a result of believing they are facing an imminent threat.

Pattison's lawyers argued that Pattison was so delusional that he believed his relatives were assassins who were about to kill him.

Pattison's case marked only the third time the not guilty by reason of insanity defense has been used in a trial since the Legislature reinstated it in 2003.

Aspiring R&B singer Alfonso "Slinky" Blake unsuccessfully used the defense and was sentenced to death for the March 2003 triple shooting that left two women dead.

Michael Kane was under the influence of LSD in October 2001 when he stabbed John Trowbridge. A Clark County jury acquitted Kane of the murder charge by reason of insanity. Under state law Kane is receiving treatment at the state mental facility in Sparks.

Pattison has said that on the night of the killings he believed he was the Emperor of Japan and his sister and grandparents were assassins.

Doctors from Lake's Crossing, the state mental facility in Sparks, testified during the trial that Pattison did not suffer from schizophrenia, but instead suffered a possible drug-induced psychosis.

Pattison allegedly told doctors that he used the drug once a week during the year of the killings and almost every day in year preceding the killings, when he was 17. Pattison's sister was found with methamphetamine in her system at her autopsy. Police, however, never tested Pattison for drugs.

Prosecutors said that perhaps if Pattison had shot his sister once, the self-defense theory might be plausible, but he fired the fatal shot into the back of her head when she was on the ground and could no longer be perceived as a threat.

They said Pattison didn't proceed to run around his grandparents' house in a frantic state to prevent assassins from killing him, but instead took roughly five and a half minutes and in a "cold and calculated manner" shot his grandmother and grandfather twice each in the head.