A Sitkan last month was sentenced to 25 years in prison for the murder of his father. At a sentencing hearing in Sitka Superior Court, Patrick O’Brien apologized for his actions, and the judge approved on his plea agreement with the state.
31-year-old Patrick O’Brien was arrested in 2021, after assaulting his father, 63-year old James O’Brien, Jr., in an altercation on Kasiana Island, near Sitka. James O’Brien was medevaced to Seattle where he later died.
After an agreement with the state was entered in Sitka Superior Court last summer, O’Brien pleaded guilty to one count of murder in the second degree, and assault in the third degree.
At his sentencing hearing in mid-January, O’Brien’s public defender Nathan Lockwood and state prosecutor Amy Fenske both urged the court to accept the plea agreement. At the center of the agreement were issues that would have been explored if the case had gone to trial – questions about O’Brien’s mental health at the time as well as the role self-defense would have played in the case.
His mother, Tina O’Brien, said she felt her son had been acting in self-defense and thought he should serve less time.
“I think if his dad wasn’t drinking and pulled a gun on him, none of this would have happened,” she told Judge Trevor Stephens.
“I would really like to apologize to my mom for putting her in this situation,” Patrick O’Brien told the judge. “I wish my dad was here to apologize to him. I realize I went too far. I realize it was way blown out of proportion in my head. So I feel really bad that my dad had to pay the consequences,” he said.
Judge Stephens accepted the state’s plea agreement, and O’Brien was sentenced to 25 years in prison.
In other courthouse news, a Sitka grand jury only indicted one person in January– an Angoon man who was arrested after allegedly threatening to hit another person with a wrench in December. On January 4, 37-year-old Robert Teas was indicted on two counts of assault in the third degree, both Class C felonies.
