Lies, Betrayal, Murder, Corruption, and Cover-Up
Patric with a “C”
Five people were involved in what happened to my son. One of them—Patric—is dead. The other four are liars.
From the very beginning, their lies misled law enforcement. Family members repeatedly gave conflicting accounts when questioned by investigators. Their stories changed again and again, yet those inconsistencies were never fully examined.
FBI interview reports—FD-302 documents from 2008—state that these individuals admitted they had lied to investigators for the previous five years. Even so, no one was charged.
Why?
The evidence should be presented before a Grand Jury. U.S. Attorney John Kacavas, U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz, and Assistant U.S. Attorney Laura Kaplan have the authority to bring this evidence forward.
Stephen McCarthy claims he cannot remember when he last saw our son alive. Think about that for a moment. A father cannot remember the last time he saw his child before that child disappeared and died.
Not one eyewitness ever saw Stephen McCarthy searching for Patric that day.
Stephen insists everyone else is lying—everyone except him.
But the witnesses tell a different story.
Miwa Robbins and a friend saw all three boys together around 1:00 p.m. Later, at approximately 1:45 p.m., Rico Nottoli also saw the three boys together. Neither witness saw Stephen McCarthy looking for Patric. Neither heard him calling for him.
On October 13, 2013, the Cape Cod Times published an article by Terry O’Connell that raised serious questions about the early handling of the case. O’Connell spoke with a former New Hampshire State Trooper who was present when Patric’s body arrived at the water tower.
According to the trooper, the officers immediately realized something was wrong.
Once they saw the body, the signs of foul play were obvious.
The trooper said several officers knew right away that a mistake had been made. They should have gone directly to the scene. Instead, a series of phone calls followed—calls that went very high up the chain of command.
Then an order came down.
“You are authorized to work a hypothermia case only.”
That decision shaped everything that followed.
The FBI should be asking a simple question: Who gave that order?
New Hampshire State Police Sergeant Michael Marshall arrived at the autopsy on Sunday morning at 8:10 a.m. He relayed the message that had come from “very high up”—this was to be treated as a hypothermia case only.
The death certificate would later reflect that conclusion.
Dr. Thomas A. Andrew performed the autopsy. Yet he failed to document all of Patric’s injuries in his report.
When the full evidence is considered—the interviews, photographs, examinations, and witness statements—the conclusion becomes difficult to accept. Gabe Fritz admitted to an assault. Stephen McCarthy’s statements were filled with contradictions. Experts who later reviewed the evidence raised serious concerns.
And yet the official determination remained the same.
Hypothermia.
To anyone who studies the evidence closely, that conclusion is astonishing.
Dr. Andrew was never provided the crime scene photographs during the autopsy. He never reviewed the detailed four-page examination conducted by Assistant Deputy Medical Examiner Rosemary Swain.
Those omissions alone raise troubling questions about the reliability of the autopsy findings.
At the time of Patric’s death, several powerful officials held authority in New Hampshire: Attorney General Peter Heed, Deputy Attorney General Kelley A. Ayotte, Chief of the Homicide Unit Michael A. Delaney, and Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Andrew. Within the New Hampshire State Police were Colonel Quinn, Lieutenant Conte, Lieutenant Scarinza, and Sergeant West.
Despite the seriousness of the case—and despite the injuries to my son—the death certificate was signed without a full investigation.
That decision sent a powerful message.
And it closed doors that should never have been closed.
One question remains: what exactly did Sergeant Marshall tell Dr. Andrew that morning?
There is an old saying in medicine: falsifying a death certificate can end a medical career.
In my view, the New Hampshire State Police and the New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office concealed critical evidence in the death of Patric McCarthy. Their actions allowed those responsible to walk free.
Stephen McCarthy was directly involved in the circumstances surrounding our son’s death. His statements were inconsistent from the beginning. Again and again he provided misleading information to investigators—local, state, and federal.
Yet no agency ever fully confronted him about those contradictions.
Gabe Fritz presents another deeply troubling figure in this story. By many accounts he was volatile, violent, and prone to deception. He was prescribed medications including Ritalin and Wellbutrin but did not take them consistently. At one point he had been removed from playing hockey because of his physical abuse of other players.
An employee of the McCarthy family described witnessing his cruelty toward animals. She said he once wrapped her cat in a blanket and threw it down the cellar stairs.
These details paint a disturbing picture of the environment surrounding my son during those final hours.
Dr. Andrew’s autopsy report, in my opinion, was deeply flawed. The failures surrounding it were protected at the highest levels of the New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office.
This book tells the story of a long and exhausting fight for answers. It describes years spent confronting what I believe is a system that failed my son—a system that should have pursued the truth but instead looked away.
The agencies involved include the New Hampshire Medical Examiner’s Office, the New Hampshire State Police, New Hampshire Fish and Game, the FBI, and the U.S. Attorney’s Offices in both New Hampshire and Massachusetts.
All credible evidence must be brought before a Grand Jury.
Indictments should follow.
A conspiracy is defined as a secret plan by a group to do something unlawful or harmful—a plot, a scheme, an agreement to manipulate the outcome.
In my view, that is exactly what occurred here.
The McCarthy family, along with individuals within the New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office, the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, the New Hampshire State Police, and the FBI, obstructed the course of justice. Their actions reflect an intent to conceal the truth.
The abuse of power by the State of New Hampshire defies logic.
This book is written to expose what happened—not only in the days surrounding Patric’s death, but in the years that followed. It describes the lack of investigation by state authorities and the failure of federal prosecutors and investigators to intervene.
When it comes to my son’s murder, I refuse to live the rest of my life wondering what might have happened if only someone had acted.
Facts are facts.
I believe Stephen McCarthy knew, on Monday night, that our son Patric was never coming back.
It is impossible to believe that Noah Fritz did not tell Margaret—“Mommy Dearest” McCarthy—what he had witnessed when Gabe assaulted and suffocated Patric on October 13, 2003.
The McCarthy family repeatedly provided inconsistent accounts to investigators. Those actions—before and after Patric’s death—amount to obstruction of justice, intent to obstruct, and criminal negligence.
This book is written with one hope: that someone with the resources, integrity, and courage will step forward and investigate my son’s death properly, no matter where the truth leads.
That has never happened.
Patric’s death was not an accident.
And it has never been properly investigated.
I hope this book reaches people who understand the pain of unresolved murder—especially parents and grandparents of children whose deaths remain unsolved.
I hope it reaches law enforcement officers, attorneys, judges, criminal investigators, and cold case specialists. I hope it reaches journalists and documentary producers. I hope it reaches programs such as Cold Justice. I hope it reaches colleges and law schools—places like Harvard Law—where students study the justice system they may one day enter.
Some of these groups have already been approached. Programs such as Cold Justice, including investigator Kelly Siegler, have expressed interest. But they cannot investigate unless the State of New Hampshire formally requests their involvement and agrees to release all case files, including those held by the FBI.
Every event described in this book is true to the best of my knowledge. The narrative is based on official reports, interviews, documents, and the memories of those involved.
The people named in these pages were directly connected to Patric’s death.
All conversations included here come from the best recollections of at least one participant. They are drawn from interviews, transcripts, police reports, witness statements, emails, phone calls, text messages, and newspaper articles. My own notes and reflections appear in italics.
Stephen McCarthy’s disregard for Patric’s health, safety, and welfare—combined with what I believe to be criminal negligence while Patric was in his custody in New Hampshire—directly led to the death of our son.
For years I have maintained that Stephen McCarthy was involved in what happened. His inconsistent statements, false information, and misleading explanations given to investigators leave serious questions that have never been answered.
The lingering issue has always been his lack of truthfulness from the very beginning.
Patric was suffocated and died at the hands of a member—or members—of the McCarthy family, people who either participated in or witnessed what happened.
One conversation from that time still stays with me.
“Me — He can’t even look at me in the face. He doesn’t even know what time Pat went missing.”
“JMC — Because he was up doing drugs and drinking all night. Pat could have been gone for hours.”
“Me — You know that for sure?”
“JMC — I do.”
JMC continued:
“When I got up to the condo in New Hampshire—the one they were staying in—I can’t remember who exactly, but they were talking about everything that had been thrown into the trash.”
He lied about the motive.
He lied about the affair.
And beneath those lies, the truth about what happened to my son remains buried.