'I Just Remember Getting Mad;' 16-Y-O Confesses to Murdering Parents in Gruesome Attack Because They Took His iPod
A 16-year-old 10th grade honor-roll student at Norview High School in Norfolk, Virginia, confessed in court Wednesday that he simply snapped and murdered his mother and father because he had grown tired of their routine punishments, such as, "my dad taking away my iPod and stuff."
Vincent Parker, described as a "smart young man" by his grandfather, Allen Taylor, told police that he doused his mother, Carol Parker, with pepper and stabbed her in the eye as she emerged from an upstairs bathroom in the family home, according to a WTKR report. He then beat her in the face and head with a baseball bat and crowbar "until she stopped breathing." Some 25 separate smashes and stab wounds were identified by a local medical examiner on Carol Parker's neck, face and head.
When his father, Wayne Parker, arrived home the teenager hit him with a crowbar and stabbed him repeatedly.
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His father stayed alive long enough to tell police what the couple's only child had done.
Family members and psychiatric experts have no idea why a smart teenager, who had no record of criminal behavior, would suddenly snap and kill his parents over routine punishments.
"He is a smart young man," said his grandfather. "He is smart in school. I don't know what happened."
Vincent tried to paint his father as the aggressor before finally coming clean to police.
"I just remember getting mad," the teenager told investigators. "It's all from my dad. All this stuff like my dad taking away my iPod and stuff."
He pleaded guilty to two counts of second-degree murder in adult court on Wednesday and is expected to be sentenced in Norfolk Circuit Court in September.
Defense attorney Emily Munn said a psychiatric evaluation showed Vincent was both sane and intelligent at the time of the attack.
She has asked the judged to consider letting him serve part of his sentence in a juvenile facility even though he was tried as an adult. He stands to spend decades in prison for the murders; but his grandfather who says he has forgiven him, is hoping his punishment will be much shorter.
"I want him to get some type of counseling," he said. "Help him to grow up and be an understanding man. Be sorry for what he did do. I told him to ask God to forgive him for what he did."
Responding to a question on whether or not he forgave his grandson, he said: "Well, yes, I have. Because if I don't forgive him, who will?"
