Does anyone remember this case? I watched it today and hoped for an update to see if a killer had been caught. Sadly, they are still trying to solve the case.

Basically, Patrick somehow ended up in Tiajuana, Mexico and as he ran across a busy street he was hit by a motorcycle and after several days in a coma he died. His family believes he was murdered.

What are your thoughts?

My impression of the Mexican authorities is they don't want to get involved, even though they should. The part that made me angry was when the official that was interviewed speculated that Patrick "could have given his ATM card and pin number to a friend". Yeah, right. That explains why, when Patrick is comatose in a hospital bed, the friend is going around using the ATM card instead of being with him. Baloney!

Can't find anything relevant on google right now.

Oh yeah, this case got my juices stirring! Why did he leave with no wallet or passport? why did he drive so far away and go to the atm machine? I think he maybe was suppose to meet someone? Its just so odd this case and I found hardly anything online. I swear UM is missing something.

One angle I was looking at was the possibility he met someone and was kidnapped and forced into Mexico. With the drug wars happening on the boarder and people going missing it wouldn't surprise me.

I saw this segment again right after seeing a story on the missing family who's van was found on the Mexican boarder and it made me think.

Does anyone remember this case? I watched it today and hoped for an update to see if a killer had been caught. Sadly, they are still trying to solve the case.

Basically, Patrick somehow ended up in Tiajuana, Mexico and as he ran across a busy street he was hit by a motorcycle and after several days in a coma he died. His family believes he was murdered.

What are your thoughts?

To me, the facts that it was the end of the semester, a Saturday morning, and that he brought his passport and ATM card, at least, suggest he and a friend went on a spur of the moment trip to Tijuana for some fun. Nothing unusual there.

I think it's a simple matter of him bumping into the wrong person(s), who did him harm.

What's frustrating about this theory, of course, is that the person he's with at the convenience store (presumably, in this theory, the friend he's going to Mexico with) is unidentified.

Sadly, I have no confidence at all in the Mexican "police" doing anything to solve this crime.

ok but he didnt bring his passport they were at home. his wallet too. am I not correct??? Who would take a trip to Mexico and not take any ID with him? After all these years some friend would have showed up or someone heard anything if this person was someone Patrick was familiar with.

ok but he didnt bring his passport they were at home. his wallet too. am I not correct??? Who would take a trip to Mexico and not take any ID with him? After all these years some friend would have showed up or someone heard anything if this person was someone Patrick was familiar with.

No, the segment clearly stated he had his passport with him. He left his wallet at home, but obviously brought his ATM card. This seems wholly consistent with a quick trip to a sketchy place; just the essentials.

You would think the person would have been identified by now; the convenience store video clearly shows Kelly and the unknown male were together, however, and there was absolutely no evidence Kelly was being held against his will. Perhaps the male is deceased or the nature of his relationship was one Kelly's other friends wouldn't have been familiar with (I'm not trying to blacken the man's character here, just presuming Kelly's friends and family didn't know him).

Not a lot of discussion about this case and it's very strange.

This other thread (http://www.sitcomsonline.com/boards/showthread.php?t=202255&highlight=%22patrick+kelly%22) has information on Matthew Stuparyk, who was a suspect in the case. The info is dense, so I'll sum up the best I can:

I believe he was suspected to be the person with Patrick Kelly in the convenience store security footage. They had a mutual friend. He was a Canadian who at one point went to school at USC. He returned to Canada after developing paranoid schizophrenia.

He returned to the U.S. after learning through UM he was a suspect in the Kelly case (I have no idea why he would do this voluntarily). There were other charges pending against him (attempted rape, etc) from his time at USC, but I don't ever think he was charged in the murder of Patrick Kelly, and I don't think he ever could have been legally due to the fact that it's not clear that a crime occurred in the U.S. He was held in jail in L.A. for a few months, all charges were dropped he was released, and then returned to Canada. His family claimed that he was not in California at the time of the crimes.

A quick google search indicates that he may have passed away shortly upon returning to Canada. I'm not 100% sure this is him (http://webhome.idirect.com/~jstuparyk/matthew.html), but the ages match up. I can't find anything that confirms how he died or if he did, in fact, die.

The Stuparyk angle just adds a whole new level of weird to this story, and I'm wondering if there really is any chance that he was involved in Patrick's death. His family claims that he was in Canada at the time of the death being treated for mental illness, and from what it looks like, he may have been in Canada for years at that point.

I'm wondering how UM even got his name and who was investigating (the P.I. maybe?)? In the version I watched, he was not mentioned as a suspect.

AND YET, it doesn't seem clear that anyone in LE anywhere will do anything about this case. He was clearly with a companion. Who was it? How did he end up sprinting across a freeway? Why didn't the companion ever come forward?

This case made the Mexican authorities look very stupid and rightly so they botched this one.

This segment really pissed me off when that DA from Mexico tried to explain why Kelly's ATM was used hours after his accident. They definitely weren't doing their job of investigating the case.

Could the GF from Tijuana be somehow involved in his death? Maybe a jealous ex-BF? Rowdy city boys who had the hots for the GF?

I dunno about the love triangle theory... perhaps someone was trying to steal his ATM card. tried to get him to pay for stuff at the store. the perp tells him to "play it cool" and plans on killing him after they leave the store. somehow Patrick gets away and in a panic sprints across the highway trying to flee from his assailant.

I dunno... I spend way too much time on these boards. :/

didnt anyone ever kind of think that maybe patrick was gay?????? or atleast bisexual? Maybe he planned a date with this other man through a local ad and that is why nobody knows who he is???

its strange his debit card was used a few days after his death. I am sure he wasnt extored by some mexican gang for a 4 degit pin. Most likely, he was running from the other person who was running across the highway with him that day. Seems very strange indeed, but maybe patrick was hiding something himself...

Well that is a credible theory as well. I kind of got that feeling. but that was due to the Actor portraying Patrick more then everything. he had a girlfriend. but that of course doesn't mean anything. it's very insulting the Mexican authorties swept this one under the rug to say the least.

One of the better late-season cases.

I'm surprised that this case doesn't get more discussion. It's definitely one of the more bizarre cases profiled. There's so many unanswered questions in the case:
What was Patrick doing in Tijuana and why didn't he tell anyone that he was going there?
Why was his car covered in mud, with some damage to it and the license plate loose?
Why did it appear that someone else was in his car? (Seat pushed too far forward, Spanish radio station on, cigarette butt even though he didn't let anyone smoke in his car)
Why was the car taken out of the lot ten days after he was injured and five days after his death?
Who used his ATM cards the day after he was injured?
Why was the description of Patrick so incorrect in the initial reports? (So incorrect that he was misidentified)
Who was the unidentified person seen with Patrick?

I also found an article about the case which has some interesting details, including:
- The police gave three different accounts as to what happened: First, they said that he was on a motorcycle when they got hit by a car. Then, they said that he was run over by a car. Finally, they stuck with the story that he was running across the street and hit by a motorcycle.
- The police also acted quite suspiciously when they met with Doug Roth, the private investigator hired by Patrick's mother. A police supervisor apparently suggested that they would investigate the case more thoroughly if Roth gave him money. They also alleged (without evidence) that Patrick was involved in narcotics smuggling.
- Los Angeles Police looked at Patrick's car when he was still missing and found what appeared to be blood on it. However, they didn't investigate further when his body was found in Mexico.

There's definitely something more to the story than a simple traffic accident, but I'm not sure what it is. I think Doug Roth might be right when he said that Patrick and his unidentified friend ran into some unsavory characters in Mexico, were attacked and beaten and then escaped, only for Patrick to end up being struck and killed by a motorcycle.

I thought it was interesting that Amazon Prime did not include the fact that Patrick was seen on surveillance video in California with an unidentified man. I assume that's because Matthew Stuparyk was incorrectly identified as the man and arrested.

I was not previously familiar with this case when I listened to RobinW’s podcast about it today. Great job, RobinW!

Two things immediately leapt out at me on listening to RobinW’s recap on The Trail Went Cold:

1. The friend, Mike, noticed Patrick’s passport was missing. Hmmm. If I went missing, and someone was asked to perform a wellness check on me, how long would it take any of my friends to notice my passport was missing? Not my wallet, or my driver’s license, but my passport. Granted, Patrick was a foreign national living in the United States and maybe that changes the equation, but that just seemed a little bit odd to me.

2. From what RobinW described in his podcast, I didn’t hear anything to suggest that anyone knows for sure that Patrick was ever alive in Mexico. The last time he can be positively identified as living is at the convenience store about an hour south of USC, but also about an hour north of the border with Mexico. Next time anyone can say for sure where he is, is either dying in the hospital in Mexico (although it is unclear to me he is ever positively IDed in the hospital, or, for sure, in the morgue in Mexico.

For these reasons, I would be interested to know how hard the friend Michael - the last person to see him alive who can be positively identified - was investigated, and whether the possibility that whatever initially happened to Michael happened in the United States, and an injured/dead Patrick was simply transported across the border. This might help to explain some things with the car, particularly the blood. I gather the answers to all of these questions is: No, since the Mexican police had jurisdiction. This potentially what happened here a nearly perfect murder.

On another note, since the two U.S. autopsies contradicted the Mexican one and said not only that the injuries were not consistent with a car crash, but that they were not in and of themselves enough to be fatal (or, “should not have been” fatal), is there any clear indication of what even killed this kid?

I was not previously familiar with this case when I listened to RobinW’s podcast about it today. Great job, RobinW!

Two things immediately leapt out at me on listening to RobinW’s recap on The Trail Went Cold:

1. The friend, Mike, noticed Patrick’s passport was missing. Hmmm. If I went missing, and someone was asked to perform a wellness check on me, how long would it take any of my friends to notice my passport was missing? Not my wallet, or my driver’s license, but my passport. Granted, Patrick was a foreign national living in the United States and maybe that changes the equation, but that just seemed a little bit odd to me.

2. From what RobinW described in his podcast, I didn’t hear anything to suggest that anyone knows for sure that Patrick was ever alive in Mexico. The last time he can be positively identified as living is at the convenience store about an hour south of USC, but also about an hour north of the border with Mexico. Next time anyone can say for sure where he is, is either dying in the hospital in Mexico (although it is unclear to me he is ever positively IDed in the hospital, or, for sure, in the morgue in Mexico.

For these reasons, I would be interested to know how hard the friend Michael - the last person to see him alive who can be positively identified - was investigated, and whether the possibility that whatever initially happened to Michael happened in the United States, and an injured/dead Patrick was simply transported across the border. This might help to explain some things with the car, particularly the blood. I gather the answers to all of these questions is: No, since the Mexican police had jurisdiction. This potentially what happened here a nearly perfect murder.

On another note, since the two U.S. autopsies contradicted the Mexican one and said not only that the injuries were not consistent with a car crash, but that they were not in and of themselves enough to be fatal (or, “should not have been” fatal), is there any clear indication of what even killed this kid?

Thanks, Mozartpc27. I hadn't watched this segment in years before I revisited on Amazon Prime not too long ago and I was surprised to see the case has never gotten much discussion around here, as it's a pretty bizarre one.

I've personally never felt any suspicion about Michael Park. He was the one who told Terri Kelly about the message on his answering machine from his bank informing Patrick that his account had been overdrawn because of the ATM withdrawals in Tijuana. If he was hiding something, I'd think Michael would just delete the message and not tell anyone since without it, I don't think Terri or her private investigator would be able to figure out that Patrick went to Mexico.

But I definitely agree that there's some suspicion about whether Patrick was actually killed by the motorcycle accident. Terri shared her story on this website (https://web.archive.org/web/20041224153241/http://www.thepacc.org:80/Kelly.html) which used to be maintained by Tommy Burkett's parents and here's her exact quote.

The L.A. Coroner's office finally agreed to conduct a private autopsy if I would pay for it. I just received the results this week. That autopsy said my son's injuries could have been caused by a motor vehicle accident but without accompanying accident scene reports, they couldn't be definitive. However, the autopsy also stated that results found in the Mexican autopsy were inaccurate. My son did not have a ruptured spleen, his ribs were not broken, his skull was not fractured,he did not die of septic shock, he did not die of a subdural hematoma. In fact, the L.A. coroner agreed with the private autopsy that none of my son's injuries were fatal. I still don't know what in fact killed him.

An accident definitely did occur since the motorcyclist was hospitalized for his own injuries and confirmed the incident happened, but he did not get a good enough look at the person he hit to say with absolute certainty that it was Patrick. So it's entirely possible that someone else was hit with the motorcycle and Patrick was killed elsewhere, but the authorities either majorly screwed up the paperwork or did so intentionally in order to cover something up.

Just saw this one again on Pluto. It is a major head scratcher. Bumping to give us something new to mull over...

I'd be more inclined to believe that this was simply an accidental death if it weren't for someone using his ATM while he was unconscious in the hospital, and that someone other than Patrick had removed his car (after his death) and then returned it the next day and parked it in the same spot. Why would anyone do this? I think it's odd that this case is very similar to the death of Jayson Artis, although this one doesn't get as much discussion, but I do think Patrick's death is much more suspicious than Jayson's.

I'd be more inclined to believe that this was simply an accidental death if it weren't for someone using his ATM while he was unconscious in the hospital, and that someone other than Patrick had removed his car (after his death) and then returned it the next day and parked it in the same spot. Why would anyone do this? I think it's odd that this case is very similar to the death of Jayson Artis, although this one doesn't get as much discussion, but I do think Patrick's death is much more suspicious than Jayson's.

Right?! My thoughts, too....

I also wonder if the guy shown on surveillance with Patrick was the one who was responsible for his death. Maybe this guy robbed Patrick and they got into a scuffle or fight, and this guy takes off running while Patrick gave chase before being struck by the motorcycle? It would explain why the surveillance guy never came forward.

Recently watched the PK segment for the first time (S09). This is another extremely tragic & unsolved case, and this year is it's 25th anniversary.

I do think PK went on an unplanned/impromptu trip to Mexico with a friend & didn't tell many/any other family or friends about this. After the CA convenience store footage - what happened to him is extremely nebulous. In the footage, he doesn't seem to be in any distress - so I suspect everything was OK then. Whether his problems started when he got to Mexico or before is still an open question.

It sounds like he may have been forced to either take money out of his ATM (which cleared his account) to give to someone who was robbing him...or, someone forced him to give out his ATM #, and then this criminal/criminals cleared out his account. I suspect that he may have legitimately gotten money out of his account in the U.S. (for the trip), and then got robbed/kidnapped when he got to Mexico.

As far as the mysterious person/persons?! who was allegedly with PK when he went on the trip & that person's involvement in what happened - it's very unclear. They may have been an innocent bystander(s) who was just with him on the trip. I guess we'll never know. Very strange.

Very sad to see the mother (Terri Kelly) being interviewed. The family that the deceased leave behind is one of the saddest elements to these crimes.

I've personally never felt any suspicion about Michael Park. He was the one who told Terri Kelly about the message on his answering machine from his bank informing Patrick that his account had been overdrawn because of the ATM withdrawals in Tijuana. If he was hiding something, I'd think Michael would just delete the message and not tell anyone since without it, I don't think Terri or her private investigator would be able to figure out that Patrick went to Mexico.

Agree completely with this. There was never any indication MP knew anything about what happened to PK. As he said in the interview, it sounds like they just hung out the night before PK left CA...MP went home because it was getting late, and that was the last time he saw PK. This adds further credence to the idea that the Tijuana, Mexico trip was very unplanned/impromptu. I.e., I suspect that if PK were planning on going when he was hanging with MP, he may have mentioned it...but then again, maybe not.

I think he probably went to Tijuana with an unknown person to buy drugs or something else illegal and then died accidentally while both tried to cross the road. Unfortunately his companion turned out to be a ******* who used his atm card and his car (later returning it) and never had the decency to come forward.

I keep an open mind to all possibilities on this.. but.. Speaking to some of the things from.. 13 years or so ago that were mentioned early in this topic.. Back in 1996.. There was no need for a passport to go into Mexico was there? you could cross with just a drivers license I think.

Someone may have more information than I do on this, but.. Pre 9/11, the Canada and Mexico borders were a bit more 'open' to crossing as I recall.

Anyway.. My best guess here is that he probably went to Mexico willingly and met with foul play while he was there. He had just finished his college film project.. Probably went across the border to blow off some steam.. I presume he was under 21, so, likely popped over the border where the drinking age is only 18 and.. Then there's tons of possibilities.

There was another case of someone going over.. I think with his brother, and wound up being beaten and dying there. And as I recall, it was suspected that the Mexican authorities were behind that one.

Then there was the case, not sure if it was in TJ or not, but guy was beaten to death in jail by Mexican authorities. That one they actually wound up convicting one of the prison guards.