Husband accused of killing owner of Pompano bar. Jury now weighing the case

There was no way to tell with any certainty, from her remains, when Sherry Palmer died. Her body was left to decompose for days under several layers of tarp underneath a wheelbarrow in the backyard of her home in April 2018.

But prosecutor William Sinclair told jurors Wednesday that Palmer, 63, died shortly after 3 p.m. that April 13, a conclusion drawn not from expert medical testimony but from a handy piece of technology — the smartwatch on the victim’s wrist.

Palmer’s watch showed her heart beating regularly until there was a sudden spike in her heart rate, followed almost immediately by nothing, Sinclair said. And phone records show she was not alone. Her husband, Patrick Palmer, was with her .

Jurors began deliberations Wednesday in Patrick Palmer’s first-degree murder trial. If convicted, he faces a mandatory sentence of life in prison.

The defendant, 57, originally told police that he shot his wife during an argument about his continued drug use — she had threatened to leave him if he relapsed again.

On the stand this week, he retracted his confession and said he could not specifically remember the circumstances surrounding his wife’s shooting.

The victim was shot twice in the head. The first shot did not penetrate the skull, according to trial testimony.

Palmer admitted his drug addiction and the argument with his wife, but defense lawyer Dione Trawick told the jury that he was incapacitated by drug use and blood loss after a suicide attempt when he gave his first statement to police.

“He was on a binge,” Trawick said. “He told you that. He doesn’t know what happened, but that doesn’t mean he killed his wife. He doesn’t know because he doesn’t remember because he was on a binge.”

Palmer had no financial motive to kill his wife because they were married and legally co-owners of their Pompano Beach home and the Chit Chat’s business , she said.

Sinclair scoffed at her account and the notion that someone else, perhaps Patrick Palmer’s drug supplier, could have committed the murder. There was too much cash lying around in the house, thousands of dollars that would certainly have been stolen if someone other than the defendant committed the murder, Sinclair said.

“So a drug dealer went into this home, loaded with cash, and didn’t take a dime?” he asked incredulously. “And killed her with a gun that was already in the home?”

Patrick Palmer used his wife’s phone to send phony messages to her friends to fool them into believing she was still alive after April 13, 2018, Sinclair said. But worried friends asked the Broward Sheriff’s Office to conduct a wellness check on April 17. It was then that the body was discovered. Patrick Palmer was found lying face down on his bed, his wrists slashed, holding a wooden heart that read, “Pat and Sherry Forever Soulmates.”

Jurors deliberated for about 90 minutes on Wednesday and will return Thursday.

Rafael Olmeda can be reached at rolmeda@sunsentinel.com or 954-356-4457.