A 17-year-old girl charged with murdering her mother and stepfather looked as though she didn’t have a care in the world, smiled broadly when she arrived at court for her bond hearing, Daily Mail’s exclusive photos show.
But those smiles turned to sobs as Sarah Grace Patrick was denied bail, surrounded by her father and family members who came to support her.
Her arrival at court was the first time the angel-faced teen was seen since her arrest on July 9. She was snapped arriving at the Carroll County Superior Court after getting out of a police cruiser at 8am, wearing a neon green prison-issued jumpsuit with her wrists in chains.
The teenager, her hair pulled back in a tidy braid, smiled and laughed with another young inmate in an orange jumpsuit, clutching a yellow folder as they waited to be called into the courtroom.
But the lightness vanished as she took her seat beside public defender Latoya Williams, her expression crumbling as the judge prepared to rule on whether she’d be released on bond to the care of her family, who sat just feet away.
Patrick was arrested last month and charged with two counts of murder and two counts of aggravated assault back in July after her mother, Kristin Brock, 41, and stepfather, James Brock, 45, were found with multiple gunshot wounds inside their home in Carrollton, 45 miles west of Atlanta, Georgia, on February 20.
In the months before her arrest – which cops said was sparked by ‘a mountain’ of digital and physical evidence – the high school graduate curated a chilling portrait of grief on social media and even contacted TikTok true crime creators for help in ‘solving’ her parents’ brutal murder.
Although Patrick has yet to enter a formal plea in court, she is understood to deny the charges and has protested her innocence through her family members and her lawyer.
Her biological father, Doniel ‘DJ’ Patrick, has staunchly defended his daughter on social media, insisting she did not commit the brutal killings, with his girlfriend, Katie, exclusively telling Daily Mail: ‘Sarah Grace maintains her innocence, we believe her’.
Exclusive Daily Mail photos previously captured Doniel and Katie visiting Patrick in jail, shortly after attending a Sunday church service at the Catalyst church, where the Brocks had also been members.
An emotional DJ, girlfriend Katie and Patrick’s other supporters were seen arriving at court this morning wearing grey t-shirts emblazoned with the message ‘I stand with Sarah Grace’.
Amid a packed courtroom, filled with press and loved ones of the victims and Patrick, some of Patrick’s supporters were directed by deputies to sit outside.
Friends and family of the Brocks and Patrick were seen arriving at court, including Patrick’s maternal grandfather, Dennis Nolan, who has repeatedly protested his granddaughter’s innocence.
It comes as Daily Mail obtained text messages purportedly sent by Patrick from jail to family friend Carrie Jenson, who shared them with a supporters’ Facebook group.
In an apparent screenshot of one message, Patrick thanked her loved ones, saying: ‘…If I could say anything, I’d say I’m beyond grateful [sic] for the support and prayers and for y’all giving me a voice, it means more than anyone could imagine (sic).’
In another message to Jenson, she wrote, ‘Yes maam and it was good news yesterday. I love yall and im so beyond proud of you and miss you guys so dang much.’
Daily Mail previously exclusively revealed the often chaotic childhood of Patrick, during which her biological father accused her mother and stepfather of abusing drugs and being ‘unsafe’ to care for her as part of a bitter custody battle.
Authorities have not yet revealed a motive, but the late couple’s loved ones have hit out at ‘victim-blaming’ and denied their pasts had anything to do with their murders.
But court documents unearthed by Daily Mail provided an insight into the accused teen’s often chaotic childhood, which appears to have been blighted by her mom and stepfather’s alleged drug use.
In 2018, Doniel Patrick filed for divorce from his wife, Kristin Nolan Patrick, after a 10-year marriage during which they had Sarah Grace and her younger brother, Donnie, 12, while living in Acworth, Georgia.
In court papers, Doniel, 43, demanded joint legal custody of the kids with ‘primary physical custody of the parties’ minor child’ and that any visits between his estranged wife and the children be supervised until she could prove she was clean and sober.
Under their July 2018 divorce order, the pair agreed on joint legal custody of the children, with primary physical custody given to the mother, and the father seeing them on alternate weekends and holidays.
Police say Kristin and James Brock were both shot dead as they slept in their home in Carrollton.
Patrick, who was 16 at the time, was inside the house during the killings and called 911 after her then-five-year-old half-sister Jaley discovered the lifeless bodies.
There were no immediate suspects or leads, and the couple’s death at first seemed like a mysterious tragedy that had left two young girls without a family.
For months, Patrick played the grieving daughter who was coping with an unimaginable loss, delivering a tearful eulogy at the funeral and sharing heartbreaking TikTok videos about her slain parents.
Cops and loved ones of the victims said Patrick’s tearful eulogy made them suspicious, but her supporters say it was a natural reaction to her grief.