FROM: Jody Pickens, District Attorney General, 26th Judicial District

On July 20, 2021, after a three-day trial, thirty-one-year-old Shawn Foutaine Shaw of Jackson, Tennessee, was convicted of First-Degree Murder, Murder in the Perpetration of Especially Aggravated Kidnapping, Especially Aggravated Kidnapping, Aggravated Assault, Domestic Assault, and Tampering with Evidence.

The victim, Patti Hathcock, was nineteen (19) years old at the time of her murder and was originally from Bradford, Tennessee.

On May 28, 2021, the Jackson Police Department dispatched officers to Kate Campbell Park where they found a vehicle belonging to Patti Hathcock, who had been reported missing.

The vehicle had extensive damage and a large amount of blood on it. Through cooperation with members of the community, investigators were able to locate evidence related to the crime and ultimately arrest the defendant.

The defendant and Ms. Hathcock were in a relationship at the time of her murder. Upon interviewing the defendant, he confessed to strangling and beating Patti Hathcock, which the Medical Examiner testified caused her death.

The defendant transported her to a field in a remote area of Madison County where she died. When her body was found three (3) days after her death, her hands and feet were bound. Authorities also determined that the defendant had set fire to her face and fingers in an attempt to obscure her identity.

On January 31, 2022, the Madison County Grand Jury indicted Shawn Foutaine Shaw for aforementioned offenses. On July 17, 2023, the State of Tennessee, represented by Assistant District Attorneys General Joshua Dougan and Matthew Floyd, tried the defendant for all of the allegations in the indictment except for Domestic Assault and Tampering with Evidence, to which the defendant pled guilty before the trial began.

The defendant chose to represent himself at trial. On July 23, 2023, at the conclusion of the third day of trial, a Madison County jury convicted the defendant on all counts of the indictment. Following a sentencing hearing, the jury sentenced the defendant to Life in Prison without the Possibility of Parole, finding that the murder was especially heinous, atrocious, and cruel in that it involved torture or serious physical abuse beyond that necessary to produce death.

“Patti Hathcock was someone’s daughter, sister, and friend who did not deserve to have her life stolen from her,” said District Attorney Jody Pickens. “I appreciate the efforts of Assistant District Attorneys General Joshua Dougan and Matthew Floyd and the Jackson Police Department Major Crimes Unit, particularly Investigator Joseph Williams, who led the investigation.

“This was a very difficult case for those tasked with achieving justice for Patti Hathcock, and it was especially difficult for her family who sat through a trial that included horrible details of their daughter’s murder. As stated during closing arguments: ‘There is no number of years that can be placed on the value of the life of Patti Hathcock, for that reason, the defendant should have no number either.’

“With the jury sentencing him to Life without the Possibility of Parole, he did not get a number of years to serve and will never breathe air as a free man again. Our community will be safer for it, but the loss of Patti Hathcock will leave a wound on her family and friends that will never heal. God bless Patti Hathcock, her family, and her friends.”