A foster mom, her disabled son and adopted 11-year-old daughter were killed in a murder-suicide on the outskirts of Cincinnati on Thursday.
Pat McCollum, 77, was a pillar of the strength in the community and described as ‘a local hero’ as she had fostered more than 70 children over a period of 20 years.
She was found dead alongside her adopted son DJ McCollum, 32, and Kaydence McCollum, 11, in the College Hill area of the city after police received multiple calls from concerned neighbors.
By the time police officers arrived, suspect Anthony Mathis, 66, had retreated deep inside the house – still armed with a knife.
It led to a SWAT team being summoned but they were stalled by Mathis and were forced to negotiate with him for several hours before they were able to get inside the home.
Mathis was found with self-inflicted knife wounds, while the McCollum’s had died from stab wounds.
Investigators have not said what led to the killings but court records show seen by Cincinnati.com show that that Mathis was charged with felony strangulation in an alleged incident involving Patricia last year.
Mathis was taken to the University of Cincinnati Medical Center but later died from his own injuries.
Hamilton County’s Coroner Office reported Mathis’s death as suicide while the other deaths are being treated as homicides.
DJ had been adopted by Pat McCollum when he was young child, at the age of seven.
He was severely disabled while still a baby after an older child dropped a lit match into his crib. He was left with burns across 85 percent of his body, lost all of his limbs and was wheelchair bound.
McCollum finally adopted him at the age of 10 in 2002 and persisted with his recovery. Eventually she was able to see DJ walk on prosthetic legs and graduate from Woodward High School.
There was such a strong bond between her and DJ that during an interview in 2012, said she expected him to live with her for the rest of her life.
‘Either I die first, or he does. I will never separate from him,’ she said.
McCollum, a longstanding member of New Jerusalem Baptist Church, specialized in caring for children with special needs.
She adopted at least four children in the more than two decades for which she had been a foster parent.
Such was the experience she had gained looking after children she went on to teach at college where she would train new foster parents.
She herself attained a bachelor’s and master’s degrees in social work from the University of Cincinnati.
McCollum, who never married, had fostered more than 70 children over the course of two decades and adopted at least four.
She was also a longstanding member of New Jerusalem Baptist Church, according to her pastor, Rev. Damon Lynch Jr.
‘She was a great mother and good to children,’ Rev. Damon Lynch Jr. said to The Enquirer, noting how she would often arrive with several children along side her.
Other members of the community praised McCollum for what she did.
‘Ms. Pat truly impacted so many lives; advocating and caring for hundreds of children in foster care, adopting, loving and continuing to love and support those children and their families after they went back home,’ wrote Amy Marie on Facebook.
A GoFundMe page has been set up to help pay for the burials of the three who were killed.
‘Memaw, Pat for the People, Patricia McCollum, social worker, Guardian Ad Litem, advocate, trauma trainer for both City and state, and a trainer of foster parents,’ a tribute to her reads.
‘She was a friend, a former teen mom, the first black playboy bunny in Cincinnati; She was a hero. She advocated for foster youth, trauma victims, the disabled, and teen parents by being a founding board member of Rosemary’s Babies Co.
‘She was the President of The Black Social Workers and a member of POCWA. She helped to license 1,000s of foster parents.
‘She lived her life serving and loving; this is her LEGACY. She leaves this life, less than a week from her 78th birthday.’