MERCER COUNTY Grandma killer gets chance for parole
He said he accepts responsibility for the murder but doesn't remember it.
By HAROLD GWIN
VINDICATOR SHARON BUREAU
MERCER, Pa. -- Anthony Parks was facing life imprisonment when he entered the Mercer County courtroom.
Before he walked out about an hour later, he learned that he could be eligible for parole consideration in less than seven years.
Parks, 40, of Federal Street, Farrell, had pleaded guilty but mentally ill in 1990 to second-degree murder in the Dec. 6, 1989, stabbing death of his grandmother, Daisy Parks, 61, in her Market Avenue, Farrell, home.
Pennsylvania law doesn't permit parole in first- or second-degree murder cases, but Parks said his attorney at the time told him he would be eligible for parole at some point.
When he learned that wasn't the case, Parks began a legal fight to withdraw his guilty plea, arguing that, had he known parole was impossible, he never would have pleaded guilty.
The case went all the way to the U.S. District Court's Western District of Pennsylvania, which ruled in August that Parks had been misinformed by his attorney and should either be released from prison or granted a new trial or given a chance to enter a new plea.
Parks took the latter action Wednesday before President Judge Francis J. Fornelli in Mercer County Common Pleas Court, pleading guilty to third-degree murder and robbery in the death of his grandmother.
What Parks said
"I accept responsibility for killing my grandmother," Parks told Fornelli, although he said he was under the influence of alcohol and crack cocaine and doesn't remember stabbing her.
He said he thinks he went to her house to pick up a Christmas present she wanted him to deliver.
However, he agreed that, based on the evidence against him, it is likely that a jury would convict him of her slaying.
Authorities said Parks and his grandmother argued over money and that he stabbed her to death, put her body in her bed and took money from her purse.
James Epstein, Mercer County district attorney, said Parks' plea was part of an agreement reached with his office in which Epstein agreed not to oppose parole for Parks should he ever be considered for release.
Epstein said other members of the victim's family are in agreement with the new plea, saying they didn't want Parks to serve life in prison.
Fornelli, who made it clear to Parks that he wasn't making any promises should parole consideration be offered, ordered Parks to serve 10 to 20 years for the third-degree murder plea followed by another 10 to 20 years for robbery.
The combined sentence is a 20- to 40-year term, but Epstein said Parks will be given credit for the time he's already been incarcerated.
That would make him eligible for parole consideration in just over six years, he said.
Mental test results
Epstein said later mental examinations of Parks showed that he wasn't mentally ill when he killed his grandmother but was apparently having a paranoid reaction to the effects of crack cocaine.
Parks told the court that he hasn't had any mental health counseling for the past 11 years and has had no problems.
Judge Fornelli questioned him repeatedly on whether he was under any doctor's care for mental or physical problems or was taking any medication before he accepted the new plea.
The judge noted that Parks has had an "exemplary" prison record and urged him to continue to work on learning building trades so he can support himself should he be freed from prison one day.
"The overwhelming tragedy" of this case is that Parks' grandmother loved him and he loved her, Fornelli said.
Her death can't be changed, "But you can control what you do and who you are from that point forward," he told Parks.