A three-judge panel in New London ruled Thursday that the Norwich man accused of fatally stabbing and then burning the body of his pregnant wife in 2016 is not guilty “due to mental disease or defect.”

As a result, 46-year-old Patrick Antoine will be committed to Whiting Forensic Hospital, the state’s maximum security psychiatric facility, and under the care of the state Psychiatric Security Review Board. The length of his committal will be announced after a hearing scheduled for Nov. 14 in New London Superior Court.

Antoine had faced up to 110 years in prison if convicted in the June 2, 2016 killing of his wife, 37-year-old Margarette Mady at the couple’s Norwich apartment.

After deliberating for less than an hour on the evidence presented over two days of trial, Judge Shari A. Murphy announced that the state has proven its case beyond a reasonable doubt and that the evidence showed Antoine did commit the crimes of murder, first-degree arson and assault on a pregnant woman resulting in the termination of pregnancy.

Murphy, one part of the three-judge panel that included judges Hillary B. Strackbein and Ernest Green Jr., said there was also unanimous agreement that the defense, led by attorney Robert Kappes, proved that at the time of the murder Antoine lacked the capacity to appreciate the wrongfulness of his actions or control his conduct due to his mental illness.

Antoine, standing beside his two attorneys and a Haitian Creole interpreter, had no visible reaction to the ruling.

The basis for the judgment was the findings of three mental health experts, two for the defense and one for the prosecution, who testified Antoine was suffering from schizophrenia and that his condition has worsened in the months leading up to the murder.

Antoine was under the belief his wife was poisoning him, was pregnant with a baby born out of a deal with the devil and that his wife was a voodoo priestess trying to kill him, they said.

“Mr. Antoine’s psychotically motivated actions were associated with strong affect stemming from his fear that he was in danger of being killed by his wife whose intentions were harmful, especially in the context of her progressing pregnancy,” wrote Dr. Marina Nakic, assistant professor of psychiatry at Yale School of Medicine, in her report to the court for the defense.

Nakic said Antoine’s actions after the killing also support the conclusion Antoine suffered a psychotic episode. Antoine drove to police headquarters to confess the crime.

She added in her report that “there is no apparent motive for (Mady’s) murder other than psychotic; Mr. Antoine did not make any attempts to conceal the crime; avoid detection; conceal the weapons; dispose of evidence in an effort to avoid apprehension; and he confessed to killing his wife to numerous police officers within minutes following the homicide.”

Evidence of Antoine’s schizophrenia dates back to his time in Haiti, prior to moving to the U.S. with his wife in 2014. When he was in his teens, Antoine took a year off of school after he became ill because of a “hex” placed on him. In 2015, he reported his suspicions of being poisoned to his primary care doctor, reports show.

Just four months before Antoine killed his wife, on Feb. 11, 2016, Antoine showed up with his wife at the William W. Backus Hospital’s emergency department to report an inability to sleep, severe headaches, abdominal and chest pain, vomiting and dehydration. He was agitated, hostile and at one point pulled an intravenous line out of his arm, repeating that he did not know why he was there. Mady reported to hospital staff that Antoine was being paranoid and thought she was trying to kill him by poisoning his food, Nakic said in her report.

An excerpt from a note signed by a hospital doctor contained in Nakic’s report said “(Mady) does say that at one time (Antoine) has said that he would kill her first before she killed him, but she does not think he meant this (literally), and was laughing when she told me this.”

The doctor suspected a “non-diagnostic manic condition” and referred Antoine for a psychiatric evaluation. During his evaluation, Antoine told a clinician “there has been stuff going on in his household that has to be related to the devil,” and that his wife and coworkers at Foxwoods were also trying to harm him by poisoning his food.

Mady left a note with the hospital staff summarizing Antoine’s alarming change in behavior writing that Antoine had “conveyed others wanted to harm him with witchcraft and he sought help in finding an apartment to move away.”

After an overnight stay in the Psychiatric Emergency Department, however, Antoine never did seek mental health treatment.

Forensic psychiatrist Dr. Catherine Lewis, professor emeritus of psychiatry at the University of Connecticut, testified for the prosecution that “this wasn’t a sudden onset.”

“In my opinion, Mr. Antoine has been sick for a while. People didn’t recognize how ill he was,” she said.

In the months leading up to the killing, Antoine was under the belief that his wife’s baby was not his and that he would be killed on July 1, 2016 as a sacrifice. He discussed moving out and divorcing his wife.

“At the time of (the murder) he was out of options,” Lewis said. “He couldn’t sleep because he was terrified of his wife, even though he loved her.”

During an argument on the day of the murder, Lewis said Antoine brought up divorce and Mady’s response was something to the effect of “marriage is until death due us part.”

“He took this as a threat and attacked her,” Lewis testified.

At that point, Lewis said Antoine believed he was acting on an “imminent threat.”

Even the act of setting the home on fire with Mady’s body inside was done not to cover up the crime, Lewis testified, but instead done to rid the home of evil spirits.

Dr. Madelon Baranoski, a licensed clinical psychologist and professor at the Yale School of Medicine, testified that Antoine still suffers symptoms of schizophrenia, such as hearing voices, even though he is on powerful anti-psychotic drugs. Baranoski said she administered a series of tests to verify that Antoine was not faking his mental illness.

Following Thursday’s decision, State’s Attorney Paul Narducci said the judges made the appropriate decision and that based on expert testimony Antoine’s mental illness was incontrovertible.

Kappes, who represented Antoine at trial with attorney Dawn Bradanini, said he was satisfied that Antoine would get the specialized treatment available to him at Whiting as opposed to prison.

G.smith@theday.com