‘Gut feeling’ led deputies to bloody Port Charlotte murder scene

PORT CHARLOTTE, Fla. The first person Deputy First Class Staub saw when entering a Westlund Terrace home was a man with a mop in his hands.

It was covered in blood. So was the man.

Staub, a Charlotte County Sheriff’s Office deputy whose first name was not listed in a report about the incident, then asked the man, identified as Jeffrey Patrick Mulligan, if anyone else was inside the home.

Staub entered the residence through a side door, walked through the kitchen and living room before seeing a large amount of wiped blood on the floor and walls inside a hallway.

The body of Mulligan’s father, Patrick, was found face down in the bathroom. He was wedged between the toilet and bathtub, the report said.

Patrick Mulligan had a faint pulse.

“DFC Staub stated Patrick’s nose appeared deformed, as through it had been broken,” the report said.

Paramedics pronounced Patrick Mulligan dead moments later.

Jeffrey Mulligan, 34, faces a murder charge in the death of his father. He was being held at the Charlotte County Jail under no bond.

A ‘gut feeling’

Jeffrey Mulligan’s sister, Molly Khork, told investigators she returned to the home Thursday morning due to a “gut feeling” and heard screaming while pulling into the driveway.

“As she opened the door, she saw ‘blood everywhere,'” the report said. “She said it looked like a ‘murder scene.'”

Jeffrey Mulligan, standing above his father’s body, said “he will never hurt another woman again,” Khork told deputies.

The report did not detail the origin of his statement.

“Jeffrey was covered in blood and Jeffrey said, ‘look, he got me all dirty,'” the report said.

Jeffrey Mulligan slammed his father’s head to the ground, then punched him in the face several times, the report said.

Khork ran out the home to tell her boyfriend, James Mazy Jr., what happened. Both returned to the residence where the two men got into an argument, the report said.

Mazy, in talking with deputies, said the scene “was like something he had seen (while in) combat in the military.”

“James became upset with Jeffrey because Jeffrey’s two children were in the house watching what he was doing,” the report said. “He said he called Jeffrey a ‘scum bag’ and told him that he was going to prison for what he did. He said Jeffrey told him ‘he (Patrick) was fine and just unconscious.'”

The two children were not injured during the incident.

Mazy then told Jeffery Mulligan to pick his father up. He kept hitting him instead.

“Jeffrey came at him as if to fight and James said he grabbed him by the Adam’s Apple and told him if he touched him, he would make him eat his own throat,” the report said.

Khork removed Jeffrey Mulligan’s two children from the home. She and Mazy drove to a gas station where Khork dialed 911.

“Molly said she never saw any sign of life from her father,” the report said.