FOX 13 Tampa Bay reporter Evan Axelbank framed it as something Karen Pais’ loved ones have been holding their breath for since 2021: relief, finally, after a case that dragged on and left them feeling like time was being wasted.
Axelbank said the people closest to Karen, including longtime friends Cathy Wyncoop and Joel Wyncoop, believed Debra Patton “slow-walked” the legal process. In their eyes, it felt like delay after delay while the same awful fact stayed planted in the ground: Karen Pais was found buried in the backyard of her own Carrollwood home.
In the end, Axelbank reported, the jury didn’t take long to reach a decision. The deliberations lasted under an hour, and the verdict came back guilty.
And just like that, a five-year nightmare turned into a courtroom certainty.
Axelbank described Patton as being “out of lifelines” as the verdict landed.
In court footage included in the FOX 13 report, the judge delivered it plainly: Patton was adjudicated guilty and remanded to the Hillsborough County Jail without bond.
For the people who cared about Karen, that moment wasn’t just procedural. It sounded like a release valve.
Cathy Wyncoop told Axelbank she was grateful the jurors “saw through” what she believed was happening, and she described a “huge weight” lifting off her shoulders.
That’s the kind of sentence that tells you this wasn’t only a murder case to them. It was years of carrying anger, fear, and exhaustion.
“If Something Happens To Me, Debra Did It”
Axelbank’s reporting leaned heavily on the perspective of Karen Pais’ friends, because they weren’t guessing from a distance.
Cathy and Joel Wyncoop, described by Axelbank as lifelong friends of Karen, said they felt there could only be one suspect once Karen was found buried at home.
Cathy Wyncoop told Axelbank something that stuck like a warning label: Karen had told them many times that if she ever ended up missing, Debra did it.
That kind of statement doesn’t come out of nowhere.
People don’t casually tell friends, “If I disappear, blame my sister,” unless something has been building behind closed doors.
Axelbank didn’t claim Karen predicted her own death in a dramatic way. He reported it in the careful tone of someone recounting a grim, repeated fear—something Karen apparently said more than once.
And when Karen was found a foot underground in her own backyard, it didn’t sound like a mystery to her friends. It sounded like a confirmation.
That’s also part of what makes this story so unsettling: the idea that the victim may have felt the danger coming, but had no clean way to escape it.
The Scene Under The Backyard
Axelbank made clear that prosecutors never pinned down a definite motive, even though the evidence and circumstances pointed toward Patton as the killer.
He reported that deputies never found Patton’s gun.
But Karen Pais was still found wrapped in bags, buried about a foot underground, and shot through the chest.
Even hearing those details in a news report makes your brain push back, because it’s so personal and so deliberate.
A backyard burial isn’t impulsive. It’s work.
It’s concealment. It’s an attempt to erase a human being from the world while staying inside the normal-looking shell of a home.
Axelbank also noted what friends believed might have been a source of friction: they said Patton was living in Karen’s house cost-free.
That detail doesn’t prove motive on its own, but it does sketch a power imbalance.
Living with family can turn into a pressure cooker, especially when one person is carrying the whole burden and the other person has nowhere else to go—or claims they don’t.
Joel Wyncoop told Axelbank that Karen had “such a great heart,” and he described her as someone who would keep repeating the same line: she loved her sister, she was family, she had nobody else.
Joel’s quote painted Karen as the kind of person who tried to do the right thing even when it was hard and messy.
And Cathy Wyncoop’s reaction followed right behind that, like the emotional punchline: “and that’s how she got repaid.”
That line is simple, but it carries a lot of hurt.
It’s the sound of someone realizing kindness didn’t just fail. It got exploited.
A Long, Twisting Road To Trial
Axelbank emphasized that the verdict didn’t arrive quickly, even though the jury decision itself came quickly once the trial finally happened.
He described the whole case as a five-year saga.
Part of that saga involved Patton spending two years at a mental hospital after a doctor found her incompetent to stand trial, according to Axelbank’s report.
That part matters because it’s one of the reasons families often feel trapped in a legal loop.
Competency issues can be real, and they’re important, because the justice system isn’t supposed to convict someone who can’t understand the proceedings.
But from the outside, it can also feel like the case is stuck in wet concrete, especially for victims’ families who just want a verdict and an ending.
Axelbank also reported that once Patton was deemed competent, she insisted on getting new attorneys.
In court audio included in the FOX 13 report, Patton complained that her attorney wouldn’t do what she asked.
But Axelbank said the judge refused to swap counsel out.
The judge, in the clip Axelbank aired, said the attorney was a professional among professionals and that the court had complete confidence in her representation.
That moment matters because it shows the judge drawing a line: this case was moving forward, and it wasn’t going to be derailed by endless reshuffling.
Axelbank’s reporting made it sound like that was exactly what Karen’s friends believed had been happening – delay, delay, delay – until there were no more places to hide.
Relief, But Not Joy
After the guilty verdict, Axelbank focused on the emotional shift in the people who had been living with this case for years.
Cathy Wyncoop told Axelbank she still had anger toward Debra Patton, and she didn’t try to pretend that feeling was gone.
But she said it didn’t feel as heavy now, because she believed Patton is going where she’s going.
Cathy said she didn’t have to worry about Patton getting out.
That tells you what “relief” actually means in a case like this.
It’s not happiness. It’s not celebration.
It’s the end of a constant, low-grade fear that the person you believe did it might slip through the cracks and return to the world like nothing happened.
Axelbank’s reporting also made a quiet point about time and age. Patton is now 72, and Axelbank said even a minimum sentence would likely mean she never gets out.
That’s a cold, practical reality, but it’s also part of why families sometimes feel the verdict is the only real protection left.
Not closure. Protection. And it’s worth saying out loud: the phrase “no known motive” doesn’t make this cleaner or less horrifying.
In some ways, it makes it worse.
Because if prosecutors can’t point to a simple motive—money, jealousy, some obvious blow-up—then people are left staring at a crime that feels like it came from something darker and harder to name.
Family violence is often like that. It doesn’t always have a neat headline reason. Sometimes it’s years of resentment, dependency, control, and bitterness boiling over in one irreversible act.
What Happens Next In Court
Axelbank reported that the conviction was for second-degree murder, and that Patton faces 25 years to life.
He also reported the sentencing date: February 16.
That’s when the court will decide whether Patton gets the minimum, something higher, or the maximum.
From Axelbank’s framing, the verdict already felt final in a practical way, because the minimum is still huge at Patton’s age.
But sentencing is still its own moment.
It’s when the legal system turns the verdict into a number of years, and that number becomes the shape of the rest of someone’s life, both the defendant’s and the people left behind.
For Karen Pais’ friends, Axelbank made it clear the biggest change isn’t that they suddenly feel healed.
It’s that the question that haunted them since 2021 – will the only suspect ever pay a price? – now has an answer.
And even though “no known motive” still hangs over the case like a fog, the jury’s quick decision suggests they didn’t see this as a close call.
Axelbank’s reporting left the story in that exact space: a guilty verdict delivered fast, after years of delay, with sentencing still ahead – while the people who loved Karen try to breathe normally again for the first time in a long time.
Raised in a small Arizona town, Kevin grew up surrounded by rugged desert landscapes and a family of hunters. His background in competitive shooting and firearms training has made him an authority on self-defense and gun safety. A certified firearms instructor, Kevin teaches others how to properly handle and maintain their weapons, whether for hunting, home defense, or survival situations. His writing focuses on responsible gun ownership, marksmanship, and the role of firearms in personal preparedness.
