Michael A. Parker, now 46 years old, a maintenance mechanic, was a ‘hell raiser’ as a young man.
With a conviction for bank robbery and several for drunken driving, he occasionally would indulge in fisticuffs with his wife. This was later designated as wife beating.
In the course of a divorce he was accused of sexually abusing his children in a satanic cult.
These allegations came to light only after the wife went with her kids to live at a local ‘safe house’.
Found guilty at trial he surely didn’t deserve the horrendous sentence that guaranteed that he would die in prison.
The Parkers had lived in a trailer together with their children, girls 9 and 12 years old, and an 11-year-old boy.
Essentially all people living in the trailer park were initially implicated in the cult and nine were indicted, chosen seemingly for their improbability of affording a defense.
At trial, the 12-year-old daughter testified that Parker had taken her from the bed she shared with another child without the other child waking. She was usually taken into the woods adjacent to the trailer park. She was then abused by her father while being watched by a group of people dressed similarly, with emblematic badges, holding candles and chanting, typified by the prosecution as ‘cult like.’ Parker allegedly stuck a spoon in her vagina to make it bleed. Then drained the blood out into a cup and drank it.
He also allegedly screwed a spark plug into the girl’s vagina while in a car parked in the street outside the local police station.
The son made bizarre allegations of rapes in the woods and in a garage. He admitted seeing a ghost. The girl told of a picture on the wall that spoke to her. She also admitted that she had trouble sometimes distinguishing dreams and reality.
At one point one of the boy stopped his testimony and said he’d forgotten what he was supposed to say.
Wife testified that she was never aware of Parker leaving the marital bed to take the children nor when he came back. She never saw blood on the girl’s panties.
One pediatrician (a specialty not noted for making routine inspections of the pudenda) testified that the boy’s rectum was grossly stretched. Another physician said the finding could be explained by an error of examination technique. The testimony of another pediatrician who said the rectum and vagina of the girl were normal was disallowed.
The boy testified that his grandmother while naked lay on top of him. But she had had a mastectomy, a finding that would surely have horrified an eleven year old boy and been incorporated in his testimony.
Teachers told a local reporter that the kids seemed to behave normally in school.
Abuse usually occurred in the woods but on occasion in a garage where a fire was burning on an ‘altar.’ A forensic expert testified that he could find no evidence of fire in the garage. Neighbors testified that they saw no peculiar activity in the woods.
The prosecutor quoted the bible frequently in his summing up to which a juror said “amen” thus violating the Parker’s constitutional right to a trial before an impartial jury.
The jury, apparently not understanding the concept of reasonable doubt, found him guilty of eight counts of first degree sexual offence and four of indecent liberties. The jury took only 55 minutes to decide on the 12 counts, less than 5 minutes apiece.
No doubt the judge regarded Parker as a drunken no-good and thus expendable. He was sentenced to 8 consecutive life terms plus 40 years in prison.
40 years plus in prison for a crime that not only did he not commit but also which never occurred in the first place.
Shortly after Parker was sentenced, the charges against the other defendants were dropped after the children their testimony.
So only Parker remains in prison.
There has been no formal appeal.
The grandmother, who was held in jail for 4 months after her bail was revoked for carrying a concealed knife, has been essentially mute since the sentencing of her son. She spends her days staring out of the window. Psychiatric opinion is that this is the result of senile dementia coupled with psychic trauma of the trial.
The children, now young adults, deny that any abuse ever occurred.
So why can’t the case be reopened? Is it because the case is so incredibly ludicrous that the legal people would be embarrassed by the revelation of their ineptitude?
So how do you weigh a man’s freedom against the comfort, ease and well being of the local legal establishment?
Reportedly an attorney from Greenville was given $25,000 to further the case. In the 2 years following the award he had arranged a polygraph test, which was negative, and supposedly had a conversation about the case with the DA. There have been no further developments. Presumably the attorney hopes to walk off with the $25,000.
Source:Hendersonville Times-News (NC) Jan 18th- Feb 6th 1994
Dr. Geoffrey King
GeoffKing@aol.com