It was a hot Sunday afternoon in July 2013 on a lonely stretch of four-lane highway outside tiny Jonesville, South Carolina, when a car rolled up at Charles and Gretchen Parker’s house. People came up their driveway often—Charles Parker, 59, was a mechanic.
He was also on the sex offender registry.
The car door opened and 30-year-old Jeremy Moody, muscular and bald with tattoos on his neck and head, got out and popped the hood. Parker came out to see if he could help and chatted with Moody and his wife Christine, 36, who’d gotten out of the passenger side.
Then Jeremy Moody pulled out a .38 handgun and pointed it at Charles Parker.
“We don’t have any money,” Parker told Moody, backing away.
“You think I’m here to rob you. I’m not here to rob you. I’m here to kill you because you are a child molester,” Moody told him.
The Moodys marched Charles Parker into the house.
When Gretchen Parker came into the front room, they ordered both Parkers to get on their knees.
Then they shot both of them–Charles through the neck and chest and Gretchen through the chest. Next they stabbed the Parkers repeatedly. Christine Moody would later brag that she’d slit Gretchen Parker’s throat.
At their trial in May 2014, Christine Moody said that “killing that pedophile was the best day of my life.” That wasn’t quite right, as it turned out—Charles Parker had served five years in prison for having sex with a mentally challenged 31-year-old woman in 2003. Gretchen Parker had no record.
The Moodys told police that they were looking to murder someone else on the registry that day. They’d planned to go on a killing spree intended to “drive sex offenders out of Union County.”
Twenty miles away lives a family who know they might have been next on the Moody’s list.
Next: A Teen Romance Turns Into Life as a Target
The murders of Charles and Gretchen Parker had taken place about a month prior to our going to the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) in Atlanta Georgia where we had an exhibit. At that event we talked about the Parkers to the legislators and referenced the article on their murders. WAR has revealed these type of collateral consequences experienced by our registrants and their families and will continue to do.
Legislators were particularly taken aback by the metal signs placed in the yards of registrants in Broward County Florida which places everyone in that dwelling in danger.
Thank you Steve for keeping this discussion active for our families.
Vicki
Murder is murder. Even if Mr. Parker’s victim would have been under the age of 12, it would not have necessarily meant he was diagnosed as, and considered a pedophile. Would this double homicide been more justified if Mr. Parker’s victim was under age 12?
Society forgets that people required to register have families, wives, husbands, children and parents. Registered citizens are not only listing their addresses, but anyone living in that household. It is a dangerous tool, given to a naive general public.
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Jeremy and Christine Moody will burn for eternity. Not for murder, but for blasphemy against the power of the Holy Spirit/Ghost. They claimed that the Holy Spirit/Ghost told them to do it.