The•Qwill•Pen
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Unsolved Pt. 2
Vicki Parent
Date: Dec. 15, 2002
Method: Gunshot
Location: 2903 Floyd Ave.
The Richmond Police Department has a policy of posting the photos of each murder victim from a calendar year in its headquarters. When 18-year-old George Mason University honors student Vicki Parent was killed during a street robbery on quiet, residential Floyd Avenue in the Museum District on Dec. 15, 2002, her photo was added to the wall.
“Vicki was up for two weeks and – poof! – She’s gone! These pictures should stay up until they’re solved,” says attorney Betty Layne DesPortes, whose law firm, Benjamin and DesPortes, is representing Vicki’s mother, Patti Parent, pro bono in her search for justice. Some might say the quick disappearance of Vicki’s photo could be a metaphor for how Richmond Police have handled Vicki’s case from the very beginning.
On the night of Vicki’s murder, she left her mother’s house in Prince George County at 9 p.m. to spend the night with her best friend, 21-year-old Sarah Wheatley, who lived at 2903 Floyd Ave. Sarah was on her way home from work, and she and Vicki called each other by cell phone shortly before 10 p.m. to confirm that they would be arriving at the same time for safety.
Sarah pulled into her off-street parking space, and Vicki had parked on the street and was heading up the walkway to Sarah’s apartment building when a man approached Vicki. From inside her car, between a garage and her apartment building, Sarah heard “yelling or a scuffle. … I looked up and saw Vicki take a step forward and I saw her get shot and fall down.” She didn’t get a look at Vicki’s assailant, who fled the scene, stealing Vicki’s purse. Sarah called 911 and rescuers took Vicki to the hospital, where she died the next morning of a gunshot wound to her head.
Other eyewitnesses in the area described hearing two gunshots and seeing a man around 5-foot-8, with a slim build and wearing a hooded sweatshirt with the hood up, flee the scene down Colonial Avenue toward Carytown. Another witness claimed to see three people flee the scene.
Since then, Patti Parent has been a severe critic of how police have handled the investigation of her daughter’s murder. “I have gone so far out of my way to cooperate, to be helpful, to be patient, but quite frankly I’m at the end of my rope here,” she says.
Richmond Police refused comment about the Parent case for this story.
A week after the murder, the lead detective in the case, Vernon Vaughn, went on vacation, and Patti Parent says she was told by a supervisor that Vaughn had taken the file home with him and no one else was working on it. A couple weeks later, Vaughn informed Parent that he had recovered a small vial of perfume from the scene, which he said might be important since Vicki worked in a perfume store. But Vicki had never worked in a perfume store; she worked at Outback Steakhouse and was scheduled the morning after her murder to begin a seasonal job at Abercrombie & Fitch at Regency Square.
On Jan. 25, 2003, a little more than a month after the murder, a Richmond policeman called the Parent home asking to speak to Vicki because her ID, credit card and calling card had been turned in to First Precinct by a person who said they found them in North Side in a vacant lot in the 2900 block of Fourth Avenue near Brookland Park Boulevard. The policeman didn’t know Vicki had been murdered or that he was handling evidence in a murder case because he hadn’t turned the evidence in to the property department or entered it into a police database as required by department policy.
On Jan. 29, 2003, Richmond Police Chief Andre Parker called Patti Parent and admitted to “irregularities” in the handling of the case, she says. Patti Parent then began calling witnesses whose names had been entered into the police report by responding patrol officers at the murder scene. Patti Parent found that, in the six weeks following the murder, only Vicki’s friend Sarah had been interviewed by Vaughn, the detective. Neither he nor any other detectives had interviewed any of the other witnesses who gave their names and numbers to police at the shooting scene.
Patti Parent says Parker later told her that Vaughn was subjected to an administrative review because of his handling of the case. Parker would not tell Parent the outcome of the review, but Vaughn now serves as a patrolman, according to a phone operator at
Third Precinct. In a March 7, 2003, letter, Parker apologized to Parent “for the manner in which things were initially handled,” and wrote, “I have taken appropriate steps to address the personnel related issues you raised.”
“When you see that detectives fail to interview eyewitnesses to capital murders in even the good parts of town, I’m left to conclude they don’t care,” says lawyer Steve Benjamin, who’s also representing Patti Parent. “Most ordinary citizens would do a better job of investigating. An ordinary citizen would know to interview witnesses.”
On Feb. 3, 2003, Vicki’s case was reassigned to Detective Louis “Boo” Quick, who that same day traveled to the location in North Side where Vicki’s cards were reported found 10 days earlier. Quick recovered Vicki’s purse, eyeglasses and other belongings, and a suspect fled from Quick at the location where the purse was found. Quick later interviewed a thief known to discard property in North Side but didn’t get anywhere. As of July, investigators could find no match on the shells in a ballistics database and had no leads.
When Patti Parent noted in an e-mail in summer 2003 to the chief of police and detectives how massive resources were devoted to the murder of Officer Doug Wendell that were not devoted to her daughter’s murder, Chief Parker responded in an e-mail to Patti Parent that “despite the tone and tenor of your correspondence, please know that we will continue to seek the person or persons responsible for your daughter’s death.”
As a result of local media coverage, Benjamin and DesPortes offered their services for free to Patti Parent and so did a private investigator.
“This is not just about giving Ms. Parent closure,” says DesPortes. “It is about the fact you have someone willing to commit capital murder who is still out there.”
However, since Benjamin and DesPortes took on the Parent case, police have been more open, DesPortes says. “It needs to be acknowledged that they are treating Ms. Parent with more respect, and they appear to be working on the case with more enthusiasm.” In fact, after the Richmond Times-Dispatch published a story revisiting Vicki Parent’s murder in late 2003, police received a tip and, working from that tip, identified and questioned a suspect in March, Benjamin says.
Says DesPortes, “We are committed to finding the answers in this case for Vicki and Ms. Parent and bringing the person who did this to Vicki to justice.”
Benjamin and DesPortes want to speak with the person who turned in Vicki’s belongings to the police. They are also searching for a couple named Adrienne and Kenny whose last name may be Hamilton. They lived near Floyd and Colonial and could have been in position to see the killer flee. If you have any information, call 788-4444.
Richmond VA > Police > Home
A few years after the murder, the man who bought the property adjacent to the crime scene learned of the murder and decided to design and build an urban garden in Vicki's memory, which I thought was quite a beautiful thing to do:
Garden grows in Richmond's Museum District to honor slain teen
~~~~~~~~~~
There isn't much information out there, and the detective at the time really dropped the ball on this one. Chief Parker, who was hired a couple months prior to the murder, held themselves accountable and personally apologized to Vicki's mom, but Vicki's murderer has yet to be brought to justice close to 18 years later.
ETA: here is a thread for another robbery/homicide a few years later, just 4 blocks from this one. No connection has been officially or unofficially announced by LE, but I figured I'd link it because of the proximity: VA - VA - Michael Dobbs, 18, Richmond City (Carytown/Museum District), 5 February 2006
Vicki Parent
Date: Dec. 15, 2002
Method: Gunshot
Location: 2903 Floyd Ave.
The Richmond Police Department has a policy of posting the photos of each murder victim from a calendar year in its headquarters. When 18-year-old George Mason University honors student Vicki Parent was killed during a street robbery on quiet, residential Floyd Avenue in the Museum District on Dec. 15, 2002, her photo was added to the wall.
“Vicki was up for two weeks and – poof! – She’s gone! These pictures should stay up until they’re solved,” says attorney Betty Layne DesPortes, whose law firm, Benjamin and DesPortes, is representing Vicki’s mother, Patti Parent, pro bono in her search for justice. Some might say the quick disappearance of Vicki’s photo could be a metaphor for how Richmond Police have handled Vicki’s case from the very beginning.
On the night of Vicki’s murder, she left her mother’s house in Prince George County at 9 p.m. to spend the night with her best friend, 21-year-old Sarah Wheatley, who lived at 2903 Floyd Ave. Sarah was on her way home from work, and she and Vicki called each other by cell phone shortly before 10 p.m. to confirm that they would be arriving at the same time for safety.
Sarah pulled into her off-street parking space, and Vicki had parked on the street and was heading up the walkway to Sarah’s apartment building when a man approached Vicki. From inside her car, between a garage and her apartment building, Sarah heard “yelling or a scuffle. … I looked up and saw Vicki take a step forward and I saw her get shot and fall down.” She didn’t get a look at Vicki’s assailant, who fled the scene, stealing Vicki’s purse. Sarah called 911 and rescuers took Vicki to the hospital, where she died the next morning of a gunshot wound to her head.
Other eyewitnesses in the area described hearing two gunshots and seeing a man around 5-foot-8, with a slim build and wearing a hooded sweatshirt with the hood up, flee the scene down Colonial Avenue toward Carytown. Another witness claimed to see three people flee the scene.
Since then, Patti Parent has been a severe critic of how police have handled the investigation of her daughter’s murder. “I have gone so far out of my way to cooperate, to be helpful, to be patient, but quite frankly I’m at the end of my rope here,” she says.
Richmond Police refused comment about the Parent case for this story.
A week after the murder, the lead detective in the case, Vernon Vaughn, went on vacation, and Patti Parent says she was told by a supervisor that Vaughn had taken the file home with him and no one else was working on it. A couple weeks later, Vaughn informed Parent that he had recovered a small vial of perfume from the scene, which he said might be important since Vicki worked in a perfume store. But Vicki had never worked in a perfume store; she worked at Outback Steakhouse and was scheduled the morning after her murder to begin a seasonal job at Abercrombie & Fitch at Regency Square.
On Jan. 25, 2003, a little more than a month after the murder, a Richmond policeman called the Parent home asking to speak to Vicki because her ID, credit card and calling card had been turned in to First Precinct by a person who said they found them in North Side in a vacant lot in the 2900 block of Fourth Avenue near Brookland Park Boulevard. The policeman didn’t know Vicki had been murdered or that he was handling evidence in a murder case because he hadn’t turned the evidence in to the property department or entered it into a police database as required by department policy.
On Jan. 29, 2003, Richmond Police Chief Andre Parker called Patti Parent and admitted to “irregularities” in the handling of the case, she says. Patti Parent then began calling witnesses whose names had been entered into the police report by responding patrol officers at the murder scene. Patti Parent found that, in the six weeks following the murder, only Vicki’s friend Sarah had been interviewed by Vaughn, the detective. Neither he nor any other detectives had interviewed any of the other witnesses who gave their names and numbers to police at the shooting scene.
Patti Parent says Parker later told her that Vaughn was subjected to an administrative review because of his handling of the case. Parker would not tell Parent the outcome of the review, but Vaughn now serves as a patrolman, according to a phone operator at
Third Precinct. In a March 7, 2003, letter, Parker apologized to Parent “for the manner in which things were initially handled,” and wrote, “I have taken appropriate steps to address the personnel related issues you raised.”
“When you see that detectives fail to interview eyewitnesses to capital murders in even the good parts of town, I’m left to conclude they don’t care,” says lawyer Steve Benjamin, who’s also representing Patti Parent. “Most ordinary citizens would do a better job of investigating. An ordinary citizen would know to interview witnesses.”
On Feb. 3, 2003, Vicki’s case was reassigned to Detective Louis “Boo” Quick, who that same day traveled to the location in North Side where Vicki’s cards were reported found 10 days earlier. Quick recovered Vicki’s purse, eyeglasses and other belongings, and a suspect fled from Quick at the location where the purse was found. Quick later interviewed a thief known to discard property in North Side but didn’t get anywhere. As of July, investigators could find no match on the shells in a ballistics database and had no leads.
When Patti Parent noted in an e-mail in summer 2003 to the chief of police and detectives how massive resources were devoted to the murder of Officer Doug Wendell that were not devoted to her daughter’s murder, Chief Parker responded in an e-mail to Patti Parent that “despite the tone and tenor of your correspondence, please know that we will continue to seek the person or persons responsible for your daughter’s death.”
As a result of local media coverage, Benjamin and DesPortes offered their services for free to Patti Parent and so did a private investigator.
“This is not just about giving Ms. Parent closure,” says DesPortes. “It is about the fact you have someone willing to commit capital murder who is still out there.”
However, since Benjamin and DesPortes took on the Parent case, police have been more open, DesPortes says. “It needs to be acknowledged that they are treating Ms. Parent with more respect, and they appear to be working on the case with more enthusiasm.” In fact, after the Richmond Times-Dispatch published a story revisiting Vicki Parent’s murder in late 2003, police received a tip and, working from that tip, identified and questioned a suspect in March, Benjamin says.
Says DesPortes, “We are committed to finding the answers in this case for Vicki and Ms. Parent and bringing the person who did this to Vicki to justice.”
Benjamin and DesPortes want to speak with the person who turned in Vicki’s belongings to the police. They are also searching for a couple named Adrienne and Kenny whose last name may be Hamilton. They lived near Floyd and Colonial and could have been in position to see the killer flee. If you have any information, call 788-4444.
Richmond VA > Police > Home
A few years after the murder, the man who bought the property adjacent to the crime scene learned of the murder and decided to design and build an urban garden in Vicki's memory, which I thought was quite a beautiful thing to do:
Garden grows in Richmond's Museum District to honor slain teen
~~~~~~~~~~
There isn't much information out there, and the detective at the time really dropped the ball on this one. Chief Parker, who was hired a couple months prior to the murder, held themselves accountable and personally apologized to Vicki's mom, but Vicki's murderer has yet to be brought to justice close to 18 years later.
ETA: here is a thread for another robbery/homicide a few years later, just 4 blocks from this one. No connection has been officially or unofficially announced by LE, but I figured I'd link it because of the proximity: VA - VA - Michael Dobbs, 18, Richmond City (Carytown/Museum District), 5 February 2006
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