Kris Wernowsky of the PNJ is reporting that Patrick Gonzalez Jr. – who Sheriff David Morgan identified as the organizer of the Billings crime – claimed at his first court appearance this afternoon that the authorities are relying on the “confession of a mentally ill man with a history of giving false confessions.” The PNJ should have video of the hearing on their website soon.
Gonzalez asked to release on his own recognizance. Instead Escambia County Judge Thomas Johnson ordered that Gonzalez and Wayne Coldiron be held without bond.