A 49-year-old woman arrested Sunday in the killing of her daughter’s boyfriend at their home in Old East Dallas told police years of domestic abuse led up to the deadly shooting, according to an arrest-warrant affidavit.
Patricia Conlon was arrested immediately after the shooting. She did not appear in jail records Wednesday; it was unclear whether she had an attorney.
About 1:50 p.m. Sunday, officers responded to a home in the 4800 block of Ash Lane, near Interstate 30, and found the victim, 34-year-old Joshua Troutte. He died from his injuries.
Conlon, her daughter and a roommate were also at the home when police arrived.
Conlon’s daughter told police she and Troutte had been in “an ongoing domestic disturbance” since December 2021, the affidavit says.
She said she had asked her mom to come to the home that day to help her pack and leave because she was injured in a physical altercation with Troutte the previous day, police wrote in the affidavit. No official report was made on that incident.
Both Conlon’s daughter and the roommate told police, according to the affidavit, that when Conlon arrived she entered through a side door with a gun in her hand.
Conlon initially told police the gun was in her purse but later confirmed she came into the home with the firearm in her hand, the affidavit says.
According to the interviews in the affidavit, Conlon approached Troutte, who was in the bathroom, then there was shouting followed by gunshots. The roommate told police he heard Troutte say, “Just shoot me.”
During Conlon’s interview with detectives, she said she only intended to keep Troutte in the bathroom until police arrived so he could be arrested, according to the affidavit. She said in previous instances of abuse, he left the home before officers arrived.
She also told police that Troutte grabbed her arm and pulled her hair before she forced him backward and he fell on the floor, the affidavit says. She then fired multiple shots and “indicated she was afraid for her life,” the document says.
An officer wrote in the affidavit that police believe Conlon entered the home with the intent of restraining Troutte at gunpoint, which “provoked” him and instigated an altercation between the two before Conlon shot him. Because of that, police wrote, Conlon cannot justify self-defense “due to her provoking the complainant … and the lack of reasonableness in her actions in involved in the use of deadly force.”
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