Patti Gadd, a 73-year-old White woman, died from gunshot wounds in Forest Hill, West Virginia, in September 2015. Her death was part of an unusual double-fatality investigation involving her husband, Wayne Gadd. Although September 11, 2015, is recorded as the date Patti was killed, Summers County deputies did not discover the couple until Monday, September 14.
Sheriff Garry Wheeler said investigators believed the two had already been dead for at least three days and possibly longer by the time authorities entered the home.
Inside, deputies encountered a disturbing and bloody scene. Investigators confirmed that Patti had been shot twice. Wayne had also been shot, with authorities initially confirming at least one gunshot wound and considering the possibility that he had been struck twice. Patti apparently had not remained where she was originally shot; Sheriff Wheeler said her body had been moved into a bedroom, leaving a blood trail through the residence. The movement of her body and the length of time that had passed before police were notified immediately complicated efforts to reconstruct exactly what had happened.
The person who ultimately contacted authorities was the couple's son, John Edward Gadd. He provided investigators with an explanation that, if accurate, meant the two shootings had occurred under very different circumstances. According to the account John gave police, Wayne accidentally shot Patti. John then said that he shot his father in self-defense after the shooting of his mother. The sheriff publicly emphasized that this was John's version of events rather than an established conclusion of the investigation.
Investigators were particularly troubled by what happened afterward. Instead of immediately summoning police or emergency medical assistance, John waited for days before reporting the deaths. Sheriff Wheeler questioned why authorities had not been contacted when the shootings were fresh, noting that an accidental shooting followed by a legitimate act of self-defense could have been investigated much more clearly had it been reported immediately. The delay, combined with Patti's body having been moved and the condition of the crime scene, left investigators with significant unanswered questions about the sequence of events and whether the explanation they had been given was complete.
John Edward Gadd was arrested in connection with what investigators found at the home. He was charged with one count of being a felon in possession of a firearm and two counts of concealing a dead body, corresponding to the bodies of his parents. At that stage, authorities had not charged him with murdering Patti or Wayne. Sheriff Wheeler said murder charges were still a possibility and that investigators were waiting for findings from the state medical examiner before determining what additional charges, if any, were supported by the evidence.
The central question surrounding Patti's death therefore remained whether Wayne accidentally shot her, as John claimed, or whether the physical evidence would reveal another explanation. Contemporary reports clearly identified John as the focus of the investigation and documented his arrest on the firearm and body-concealment charges, but the publicly available online reporting located for the case does not establish that he was subsequently convicted of murdering Patti. Likewise, no reliable online source located in the available reporting documents a later murder trial or murder conviction arising from her death. The known record leaves Patti's fatal shooting tied to a deeply unusual family tragedy in which investigators openly doubted important aspects of the surviving son's account but initially lacked the completed forensic findings needed to determine exactly how criminal responsibility for the two deaths should be assigned.
