The man indicted on a murder charge in the shooting death of TCU student Wes Smith in a Fort Worth entertainment district was legally insane at the time of the 2023 killing and suffers from a fetal alcohol spectrum disorder, the defense intends to argue at trial when the case goes before a jury in July.
Matthew Purdy suffers from schizophrenia and an antipsychotic is among the medications he has been prescribed at the Tarrant County Jail. Purdy’s defense attorneys had hoped to call his mother to the witness stand to present evidence of her history of mental illness, drug addiction, alcoholism, schizophrenia and alcohol abuse during her pregnancy with Purdy.
An investigator working with defense attorneys David Owens and Brian Salvant searched databases for months to try to find her. The defense team recently learned that Purdy’s mother, Melissa Cooley Waggoner, is dead. The University of North Texas Health Science Center harvested her unclaimed body for medical research, Owens and Salvant wrote in a motion, filed on Friday, requesting a continuance…