13x29 - Room With A View

[bunniefuu]

Up next... a m*rder
that stumps even veteran

detectives...

It was a nasty, nasty crime
scene.

And a crime that
offers few clues.

There were no signs of any
struggle or fight.

Was this a sex
crime by a jilted lover?

Her body was positioned in a
way that was very sexually

suggestive.

It's hard to imagine that
anybody's capable of something

like this.

Until one man's
words reveal a twisted motive

and a k*ller with a bizarre
past.

Jacksonville, Florida, with its
warm, Sandy beaches and

subtropical climate, was the
perfect place for 25-year-old

Corey Parker to attend college.

She liked it a lot better than
the cold winters of her hometown

of Rochester, New York.

Corey was beautiful.

She was very tall.

She had a presence about her.

Some of our best times together
was a girls' night in... you

know, rent movies and go hang
out at the house.

Corey worked her
way through college as a

waitress.

During the Thanksgiving holiday
of her junior year, she didn't

show up for work, so her fellow
employees were concerned.

They thought immediately that
something was wrong.

So the manager directed one of
the cooks to go by her apartment

to check on her.

Her apartment door
was locked, but her co-worker

looked inside and saw her body
on the bed, covered in blood.

This crime scene was one of
the worst that this county has

ever seen in terms of its just
gruesomeness.

There was blood all over her
bedroom, all over her body,

almost as if it had been painted
on her.

The scene appeared to be staged.

Corey's body was positioned
in a way that was very sexually

suggestive.

She was nude, her legs were
spread apart.

There's every indication that
there was a sexual motive to

this crime.

Interestingly, the
autopsy found no evidence of

sexual as*ault.

Corey Parker was stabbed 101
times.

Of those 101 s*ab wounds, I
believe 54 were postmortem.

Overkill does indicate to
investigators a relationship

between victim and perpetrator.

Police learned that
the night before her m*rder,

Corey spent the night at a local
bar with friends.

Witnesses said she left around

The clothes Corey wore to the
bar were folded neatly at the

bottom of her bed.

We also know that she had
prepared herself for bed and

crawled in her bed, so we know
that she wasn't att*cked until

after she was in bed.

So either he was waiting in her
bedroom closet...

Or he let himself into the
apartment.

Investigators found
a gold-plated zippo lighter in

Corey's bedroom.

Although Corey smoked, none of
her friends recognized it.

Investigators dusted the
lighter for fingerprints but

none were found.

It became apparent to us that
there was no way that that was

Corey Parker's lighter.

Inside the kitchen
of Corey's apartment, police

found a bloodstain on the
kitchen counter next to the sink

and on the windowsill above the
sink, both inside and outside.

This led police to believe the
k*ller entered and exited the

apartment through the kitchen
window.

The reason, we believe, the
k*ller didn't go out the door

was because of the light that
was outside.

The kitchen window offered the
suspect a way to both get in and

out of the apartment without
being illuminated.

Corey's phone
records revealed that a former

co-worker, 27-year-old
Eric Jones, had been calling her

repeatedly before her death.

He had been asking Corey out
for some time.

She had been telling him no.

Employees at the restaurant
told us that he had an obsession

or an infatuation with her and
was continuously talking to her

when she'd come to work or
trying to ask her out.

Jones had no
criminal record but acted

bizarrely when interviewed by
police.

Not only did he have a
history of mental illness, by

his own admission, but he told
police officers that he had

fantasies about raping and
k*lling women, which clearly

jumped out at law enforcement.

He described sexual fantasies
that he had about Corey.

Some were fairly violent.

He even told
investigators how he would have

m*rder*d Corey had he been given
the chance.

He described how he would
have slit her throat early in

the m*rder so that she couldn't
scream for help.

And that description was similar
enough to how she was really

k*lled that it again raised the
police suspicion.

The medical
examiner who performed

Corey Parker's autopsy found no
signs of sexual as*ault, but

Corey had been stabbed over 100
times.

There were numerous defensive
wounds on her hands and arms,

proving...

There had been an intense
struggle.

Our theory was that
Corey Parker fought for her life

in order to prevent a sexual
as*ault.

Investigators found
several foreign hairs in Corey's

hands.

One had an intact root.

The fact that the hair had
root material on it and was not

from her would allow you to at
least presume that that hair had

to be obtained forcefully.

DNA testing
revealed the blood in the

kitchen came from the same
person as the hair in Corey's

hand.

Surprisingly, this DNA did not
match the prime suspect,

Eric Jones, Corey's co-worker,
despite his bizarre behavior.

I think it's fair to say he
was mentally unstable at this

time, and while prescribed
medication to control his mental

illness, he was not taking it.

And so I think at the time that
he gave these statements, he was

mentally unstable.

The DNA from
Corey's apartment did not match

any of the DNA profiles in
either the state or national

criminal databases.

In the search for Corey Parker's
k*ller, investigators discovered

that she had just started dating
someone new.

His name was David wilt.

But it didn't take long for
investigators to eliminate him

as a suspect.

He was out of state at his
parents' house for Thanksgiving.

And so, you know, he had a very
solid alibi.

Investigators
interviewed everyone Corey spoke

with at the ritz bar on the
night of her m*rder.

Most of the people Corey saw
that night left the bar before

she did.

But one friend, Tiffany Smith,
stayed with Corey until 1:00 in

the morning.

Tiffany told police they both
left the bar at the same time

in their own cars and went their
separate ways.

But Tiffany told friends that
wasn't the only contact she had

with Corey that night.

She said she called Corey
from her cellphone around


phone.

She said when Corey answered the
phone that Corey was asleep.

And she asked her what she was
doing.

Corey said, "I'm sleeping."

Tiffany also told
friends she drove to Corey's

apartment around 4:00 A.M. and
knocked on her door but no one

answered, so she left.

Her statement that she went
by Corey's house puts her at the

crime scene during the time that
Corey could've possibly been

k*lled.

And that added to that suspicion
that she could possibly be

involved.

But when
investigators checked Tiffany's

cellphone records, they made a
startling discovery.

Tiffany didn't call Corey after
they left the ritz bar.

Obviously, investigators were
curious as to why she would say

that she had called and actually
spoken with Corey when it wasn't

true.

But why would
Tiffany make up a story like

that?

Everybody was talking about
the possibility that maybe she

was sexually interested in
Corey.

Tiffany mentioned to me in just
a very casual conversation that

she had been bi-curious.

Tiffany had a real, true
affection for Corey.

In addition,
Tiffany told friends things

about the crime scene that had
not been released to the general

public.

She was describing the state
of the victim's body and this

scene without having been privy
to either photographs or a

walk-through of the scene.

They thought it was certainly
suspicious.

I thought it was really
strange that she would have any

idea of how Corey had been
k*lled.

Tiffany denied any
involvement in the m*rder but

when asked to provide a DNA
sample, she refused.

The fact that she did not
willingly give up DNA or hair

samples led the police to
believe she had something to

hide.

Even though
Corey Parker's friend

Tiffany Smith insisted she had
nothing to do with Corey's

m*rder, she made untruthful
statements about her activities

on the night of the m*rder.

She also refused to provide a
DNA sample.

She actually put herself at
the crime scene in one of her

statements.

But scientists
found a surprising piece of

information in the blood
evidence left by the k*ller.

They found the telltale "y"
chromosome.

A "y" chromosome is present only
in men.

We did develop a male profile
from this particular sample,

which was a blood sample from a
point of entry or exit into the

apartment.

We were optimistic that this
could be from the suspect.

So Tiffany was
eliminated as a suspect.

They believed that Tiffany
was saying things to kind of

inject herself into the
investigation to make her seem

more important than she was.

Investigators
believed Tiffany learned details

of the crime scene from a friend
who worked on the emergency

crew.

Police were forced to consider
the possibility that Corey's

m*rder was a random act
perpetrated by a man with an

uncontrollable hatred for women.

Eventually, police performed DNA
tests on 38 men... co-workers,

fellow students, former
boyfriends... with no success.

I was very concerned that
they would never solve the case.

What I learned from watching
other crimes is that the longer

it goes on, the less likely it
is to solve a crime.


and police continued to work the

case, poring through the file,
re-reading the police

interviews.

To generate new leads, police
offered a reward for any new

evidence which would lead to a
conviction, and it generated a

lead.

Some employees of a local
steak house a few miles from

Corey Parker's apartment called
police to report that a

co-worker, Robert denney,
behaved suspiciously after

Corey's m*rder.

He just seemed to be upset
and was crying, had come into

this restaurant one day and told
them that his child had been

k*lled in an automobile accident
in Texas and that he needed to

get back home.

Denney's co-workers
responded generously by raising

money so he could return to
Texas to attend his son's

funeral.

After collecting that money,
the owner of the restaurant went

over to give the money to his
sister, when he was told that

Robert denney did not have a son
and that that story was

fabricated.

And there was
something else about

Robert denney.

He lived in the same complex as
Corey Parker, with a direct line

of sight into her apartment.

Robert denney told some
co-worker about this woman that

lived in an apartment below him.

And he began to talk about how
he would watch her and even went

so far to graphically describe
that he would masturbate while

watching her.

When police decided
to question denney again, his

sister told police that he'd
left the area.

She had actually kicked him
out of the home she shared with

her husband, because of his odd
behavior... staying up all hours

of the night, his... what she
described as an addiction to

pornography.

She told one law-enforcement
officer that she had awoken to

him looking over her bed and
staring at her.

Then, police
learned another disturbing piece

of information.

Robert denney's older brother
was serving a life sentence in

Texas for stabbing a woman 97
times.

Corey Parker was stabbed 101
times.

What are the chances of two
young men coming out of the same

family committing such heinous,
heinous and atrocious murders?

And did he get that idea from
his brother?

Was he trying to emulate his
brother?


Corey Parker's m*rder,

investigators found
Robert denney 800 miles away in

Maryland, where he was living
with a 52-year-old married

woman.

Robert denney had struck up
an e-mail relationship with a

married woman and eventually had
convinced her to let him come up

there and live with her and her
husband.

He and this woman had a sexual
relationship right under the

husband's nose.

When police
questioned denney, they told him

they were investigating his
possible involvement in a

different crime, hoping he'd
let down his guard.

They told him that they were
investigating a potential

allegation that he had been
involved in a fight in Easton,

Maryland, which they thought
that he would voluntarily give

his DNA to prove that he had not
been involved in the fight.

And we were not leaving
Easton, Maryland, until we got

his DNA.

This proved to be
harder than investigators

anticipated.

Denney smoked during his
interrogation, but always made

sure to keep the cigarette
butts.

Detectives offered him a bottle
of water, but he wouldn't touch

it.

Finally, they asked him to sign
a document saying he refused to

provide his DNA.

We ask him to put the letter
into the envelope and seal the

envelopes.

He refused to seal the
envelopes, and at that point,

basically told us, "look.

You've tried three times to get
my saliva on something.

First the cigarette butt, then
the water bottle, and now the

envelopes.

Seal it yourself.

Is there anything else I can do
for you?"

So investigators
put denney under surveillance at

his home and at the computer
store where he worked.

He took a cigarette break every


keep the evidence.

When he smoked his
cigarettes, he would put out the

butts and then put the butts in
his pocket so they could not be

collected.

Two days passed,
and investigators finally got a

break.

Just after a brief rainstorm,
denney came outside to smoke,

but this time he did something
different.

He walked around and then,
all of a sudden, began spitting

on the sidewalk... not once, not
twice, but six times.

Because of the
rain, the saliva was sitting on

top of the rainwater, making it
easy to collect.

And the barrier helped reduce
contamination.

It was very easy to designate
where it was.

From that point on, it's the
same as testing for a hair or a

bloodstain or a semen stain.

The results left no doubt.

The unknown DNA from
Corey Parker's apartment

belonged to Robert denney.

The fact that he denied ever
having been in her apartment

made this evidence all the more
incriminating.

And there was one
other piece of evidence that

implicated denney...

The gold-plated lighter found in
Corey's bedroom.

He said it wasn't his, but a
former girlfriend told police it

was his lighter.

She was able to identify the
emblem on it.

She was positive that it was his
lighter.

Prosecutors believe
Robert denney was obsessed with

his beautiful neighbor,
Corey Parker...

And monitored her comings and
goings.

He also looked inside her
apartment whenever he could.

Prosecutors believe denney saw
Corey get ready to go with her

friends on the night before
Thanksgiving...

Then, armed with a knife and
wearing gloves, he entered

Corey's apartment through the
kitchen window.

The evidence suggests he hid
somewhere, possibly in her

closet, and waited for her to
return.

Closet, and waited for her to
return.

Corey had no hint that anyone
was inside, and went to bed.

That's when denney att*cked.

But Corey fought back... much
harder than he'd anticipated.

In the process, she pulled out
some of his hair, which

contained his DNA.

His lighter slipped from his
pocket during the struggle.

He stabbed her repeatedly.

At some point, he cut himself
and bled inside his gloved hand.

As he left the apartment through
the kitchen window, he left a

blood smear on the windowsill,
providing his DNA.

Robert denney went on trial for
first-degree m*rder.

The jury deliberated for 45
minutes.

We, the jury, find the
defendant guilty of m*rder in

the first degree as charged in
the indictment.

We, the jury, further find that
the k*lling was done with

premeditation.

Since he was only


committed the crime, denney was
sentenced to life in prison

without parole.

Robert denney is a hard
person to understand.

There was obviously some
dysfunction in his family that

is far greater than most of us
probably know.

He was methodical in cleaning
up, he was careful, and he

almost got away with m*rder, but
for that one drop of blood and

hair that he shed that he didn't
ever expect to be discovered.

This girl was a very
likable, very intelligent, very

beautiful 25-year-old that had a
bright future in front of her.

She came from a good family and
had a good social network, had

everything in the world to live
for, and in one instance, this

cold-blooded k*ller takes her
life.