Doyle had visited his mother Edith McGown at her home in Bowling Green, Ky., at the close of spring semester May 2001. Police responded May 9 to a call from his motherıs home on Iroquois Drive and reported that Doyle, shirtless and blood-splattered, showed them to the garage where they found McGown dead with blunt trauma injuries to the head and face.

"I beat him to death with a hammer. I killed him," said Doyle, according to police records.

Doyle was arrested, charged with murder and held in Warrant County Regional Jail where he remained in lieu of a $500,000 bond. Upon arraignment, Doyle pleaded innocent.

The trial was originally set for Feb. 18 but was postponed to await the results of Doyleıs mental evaluation, agreed to by both his attorney John Kevin West and Commonwealthıs attorney Steve Wilson. After a plea bargain offer, Doyle asked to plead guilty but mentally ill.

"I had serious concerns about his competence," West said. "We asked for an evaluation to be performed before allowing him to enter a plea, which is why the trial date was set back."

Shortly after his detainment, the long-time professor showed physical signs of mental distress such as severe weight loss. He underwent extensive psychological evaluation at the Kentucky Correctional Psychiatric Center during a three-month span from June to August 2001.

West said Doyleıs physical condition remains the same and that he has not gained back any weight since he lost it in custody.

According to court reports, Doyle told Warrant County Circuit Judge Thomas Lewis that he did not want his family or the McGown family to endure the agony of a trial, thus, his change of plea.

"[Doyle] stated a number of reasons in court [for entering a new plea] and the main ones he stated were that he wanted to save his family and the victimıs family from having to go through trial but also, he wanted to save the entities he had been involved with from further embarrassment," West said.

KCPC psychiatrist David Capley said in court that Doyle was not mentally capable of entering a plea. He stated that Doyle is highly suicidal, psychotic and suffers from various brain diseases, including temporal lobe epilepsy-seizures in the left side of his brain.

Wilson reminded Capley that under Kentucky law, Doyle could enter a plea of guilty but mentally ill.

Doyleıs mother and brother testified that Doyle had lived a normal childhood. After their testimonies and further deliberation, Doyle spoke, rebutting Capleyıs evaluation, stating that he no longer wanted to hurt his family.

Circuit Judge Lewis agreed and accepted his plea.

"This psychiatrist that evaluated him said that he was not competent to enter a plea, but the judge, nevertheless, said that he was," West said. "It was what Patrick wanted."

West said that under a previous mental evaluation Doyle was found competent and because of his uncooperativeness to perform the Feb. 2003 evaluation, which he eventually did, Judge Lewis determined that he was competent to enter guilty but mentally ill.

Doyle began teaching at UH-Clear Lake in 1975 as an assistant psychology professor. He was promoted in 1978 to an associate psychology professor and taught classes on clinical practicum, clinical psychology, and stress and anger management.

During his tenure with the university, he invented Bioball, a biofeedback software that netted him $1.3 million.

The program, which provides biological feedback-stress, pain or tension-of its subject, sparked an intellectual property dispute between Doyle and the university over ownership rights in 2000.

Katherine Justice, director of Human Resources, said Doyle officially resigned voluntarily from UH-Clear Lake April 30, 2002, almost one year after the murder.

"We really wonıt know what his [Doyleıs] sentence will be until sentencing," West said. "However, because he entered a plea of guilty but mentally ill, he will not be held in a penitentiary. Instead, he will be held in a facility to receive mental treatment." The sentencing trial has been set for March 3 at 1 p.m.

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