The woman found floating in the Atlantic Ocean off Boca Raton once served time in prison for killing her mother.
A boater came upon the body of Patricia Brennan, 63, on Aug. 4 about two miles offshore. Investigators believe the Fort Lauderdale woman was in the water for one day but have declined to say what condition her body was found in, what her suspected cause of death is, and whether her death is being investigated as a homicide.
While the circumstances surrounding Brennan’s death remain unclear, Broward County court records offer a glimpse into the tumultuous last decade of her life.
Police: Brennan killed mother after fight about late father
Neighbors called 911 in May 2014 after finding Brennan’s 76-year-old mother, Regina Suknaic, bloodied and bruised outside their shared home in Broward County. Suknaic said Brennan had stabbed her, beat her with a vodka bottle and held her captive for 13 hours.
Suknaic said she escaped only after Brennan fell asleep. Hollywood Police arrived and found a blood-stained butcher knife wedged in a lounge chair and an empty vodka bottle, also bloody.
A neighbor told officers he’d heard Brennan yelling at her mother the night before, shouting and sobbing about her late father. The neighbor said he’d heard Brennan call Suknaic a “horrible mother” and scream that she blamed her for not being there when her father died.
Brennan, who struggled with bipolar disorder, initially denied attacking Suknaic. She told detectives she’d fallen asleep and didn’t know who brutalized her mother, though she suggested it was two nameless men who, according to her, had burglarized their home two days earlier.
Brennan hadn’t reported the burglary, and detectives found no evidence that it happened.
Patricia Brennan was released from prison four years before ocean discovery
Suknaic died days later, paving the way for Brennan’s arrest on one count of murder. Brennan made a deal with prosecutors the following year and pleaded “no contest,” meaning she didn’t admit guilt but agreed not to fight the charge.
She cried and apologized at her sentencing hearing in 2016, adamant that she hadn’t realized how badly she’d hurt her mother. A judge, moved in part by her struggle with mental illness, sentenced her to 10 years in prison and 10 more of probation.
Brennan was released from prison in November 2022. Court records indicate she soon became homeless.
In October 2023, employees at a hospital in Pensacola called 911 to report Brennan for refusing to leave the property. An Escambia County deputy told Brennan she needed to leave or else she’d go to jail. She said she’d prefer jail.
The deputy arrested Brennan for trespassing, triggering a probation violation. She was booked into the Escambia County Jail and held without bond, then driven back to Broward County in January 2024 to answer for the violation.
A judge declined to send Brennan back to prison and ordered her release with 14 days’ worth of medication. How she wound up in the ocean two years later, just shy of her 64th birthday, is under investigation.
Hannah Phillips is a journalist covering public safety and criminal justice at The Palm Beach Post. Reach her at hphillips@pbpost.com.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Woman found off Boca coast was a convicted murderer. What the records show
Reporting by Hannah Phillips, Palm Beach Post / Palm Beach Post
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By Hannah Phillips, Palm Beach Post | USA TODAY Network
