A 29-year-old Fremont County man who accidentally stole a 3-month-old baby when he took a running vehicle from a Riverton apartment complex in February was sentenced Thursday to between eight and 10 years in prison for kidnapping.
For Patrick Dushane Brown, there’s also what officials described in a Thursday sentencing hearing in Fremont County District Court as an uncertain shot at a shorter sentence.
District Court Judge Jason Conder, in accepting a plea agreement Brown established with Fremont County Chief Deputy Attorney Tim Hancock, recommended Wyoming’s Youthful Offender Program for Brown.
If Brown completes the program successfully, he may come back to ask for a sentence reduction.
But Hancock specified that he’s not sure if he’ll request the sentence reduction, and Conder emphasized that he’s not sure if he’ll grant one.
“I’m looking for real change, something that shows you have turned a new leaf,” said Conder. "If you just stay the same old you with the same bad thinking, you’re not going to get a sentence reduction.”
Brown has credit for 172 days he’s already spent in jail.
Though the baby’s mother was not in court Thursday, Brown apologized during the hearing to her and the family from whom he took the baby the night of Feb. 9.
“I apologize that the family had to go through this pain that I put them through,” said Brown, who had pleaded guilty to one count of kidnapping in June. “Please forgive me. I hope they can accept my apology.”
A likely reason the mother was not in court, said Hancock, was that people on social media who read about the kidnapping verbally attacked her over the situation.
Conder said later that it was a shame that people ridicule others “from the cheap seats.”
Public defender Valerie Schoneberger emphasized, and Conder agreed, that Brown did not intend to steal the baby. She described the vehicle theft as a stupid, drunken mistake Brown made while he was “essentially homeless.”
The right thing to do would have been to return the baby rather than leave it in the cold on a night with 19-degree weather, said Schoneberger, but Brown was drunk and panicked and believed he was leaving the baby near a “nice house” on Riverview Road after he discovered her presence, turned off the vehicle and fled on foot.
Kidnapping is punishable by up to 20 years in prison.
That Night
Brown took the Ford Escape at about 7:58 p.m. on Feb. 9, one minute after the mother exited the car at the apartment complex on College View, which is on the west end of Riverton.
He drove down Hill Street and turned right onto Riverview Road, as if to cut across to the Wind River Indian Reservation, Hancock said Thursday.
At some point, Hancock related from the investigation, Brown heard something in the back, turned and saw the baby. Then he left the baby and the car and fled, later getting a ride from someone.
The call came in to the Riverton Police Department around 8:09 p.m., Conder noted.
A U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs agent happened to be in the area, knew of the ongoing search for the baby and found it in the car at 8:36 p.m., Hancock added.
The baby was gone from her mother for roughly a half hour, and Brown’s ride in the stolen car lasted about six minutes over the course of 4 miles, according to time data given in court.
On Scene
Cowboy State Daily was on scene as emergency medical and law enforcement personnel converged on the abandoned vehicle and baby.
A woman with dark hair arrived near Blue Spruce Lane and Riverview Road, running and shouting, “My baby! My baby!”
She gathered a crying baby wrapped in a blanket into her arms and walked toward an ambulance that arrived on scene at the same time.
An emergency medical responder carried the baby’s car seat carrier to the ambulance a few paces behind the distraught mother.
Investigators caught Brown weeks later when a confidential source described to RPD Detective Sgt. Eric Smits about hearing Brown talk about stealing a vehicle then hearing a baby breathing inside it.
Clair McFarland can be reached at clair@cowboystatedaily.com.
