48 Hours Mystery: The Secret

(CBS)  "Life still goes at a small pace here in LaFayette, Walker County. You can be to work in just a few minutes…. be home in a few minutes," according to Sheriff Steve Wilson. "We're located right in the heart of the Bible Belt.

"Being able to go on Friday night to watch your children play football or watch your daughter cheerlead as I did, that's what small towns are all about."

"She was the middle sister and I was the youngest," Christina Hall told "48 Hours Mystery" contributing correspondent Tracy Smith of her sister, Theresa Parker. "Theresa loved everybody. She loved family - that was the most important thing to her. …You think of the best sister you could have and she was definitely…"

"She's one of our own. She's a 911 dispatcher," said FBI Special Agent Marc Veazey.
"She's that person on the other end of the radio when you're in need, she's there."

"When I hugged her that night, it was just the strangest thing," Hall recalled. "It was almost like just this feelin' of I was never gonna see her again.

"I just, you know, kept tryin' to call her…I just called her over and over, and over, I was panicked… She is nowhere to be found, you know. And you don't wanna think the worst, but, I mean, you do."

"This case is about a 911 dispatcher and a city police officer …a married couple and one had turned up missing," said Sheriff Wilson.

"It's like a horrible dream I can't wake up from," said Theresa's husband, Sam Parker. "I miss her, I miss her a lot."

"People came out in hundreds to search for her," said Sheriff Wilson. "We covered about 175 square miles of landmass. The community as a whole was very concerned about Theresa Parker missing."

"I am hopeful they'll find her. I hope they find her in good health," said Sam Parker.

"Every mornin', when I open my eyes, I think about her," said Hall. "You know, at night, when I lay my head down, to go to sleep, I think about her. You know, 'Theresa, where could you be?'"

"I don't believe that she would have just vanished off the face of the Earth," said Veazey.

"We knew this was not the typical missing person's case in Walker County," the sheriff said. "This was gonna be bigger than Walker County when it was all said and done."

• 1
• 2
• 3
• 4
• 5
• 6
• Next Page »

[Mysterywriter10]

In the state of Georgia- you do not need a body or a murder weapon to be convicted of murder . Circumstantial evidence can put you in prison faster than physcial evidence in this state. If you have a history of strange behavior- you will be convicted of a crime. Case in point: The Dionne Baugh-Lance Herndon Murders. This woman was convicted 6 years later of her lover's murder on circumstanial evidence. No murder weapon was ever found but his head was smashed in. lance had called in police reports on her for stalking him in his own house when he was with other women and she also used his credit card the day of the murder to buy herself a china cabinet sighning her name to the recipt as Dionne Herndon-Big Mistake!

[stef08713]

I'll admit this one wasn't written that good. The "big secret" was not really that big. And unless they left out alot of pertinent info this does not add up to reasonable doubt. He probably did do it though. And I bet he is sitting in jail thinking the same thing we are, "how the hell did I get convicted!"

[lucie69nelson]

what was her deadly secret? you people really know how to lure the audience in to listen to this story. it's a whole lot of hype. this is poor news reporting. there was no evidence to link him to any disappearance, much less a murder.

[thejoker12]

If the husband choked the victim why was the blood spot on the bumper of the SUV reported as evidence? They needed a clean death to justify the lack of crime scene. Why would the victim return to the house alone if she feared her husband. The husband claimed he was cruising but the neighbors claimed the husbands truck was there all night. Did he or didn't he go out with Bellflower? Why reporting rwo people in the cabin? Was she trying to make her husband jealous or did she really have a rendezvous arrainged? Why would a woman who was supposedly abused want to add kerosine to the fire by making him jealous? She went to Cancun with out her hubby? Scandlous! She appears to me a shady character herself. Well traveled alone. Private or suisidal. She left to murder herself. To rid the pain in her heart of another failed marriage. Two time loser. She didn't want to hurt her family so she went away to some quiet spot in the mountains. Possible.

[glbgirl]

Did Theesa fear Sam? Heck ya she did. But they had been living together for 13 years and she believed he wouldn't acctually kill her. She was moving everything out the nex day. She was going to go home, get some sleep and wake up early the next morning to finish moving. He did go out with Bellflower. And as for the two people being at the cabin I'm not sure but I do know that she was still 100% in love with Sam but his drinking and abuse was just to much. She was in the wrong...bye not leaving him soom enough. And the Cancun trip was a trip for her two neices and her to have some fun. Her neices and her two nephews that live in Fort Ogalthorpe were her life, and it wasn't the firts time her and her neices went somewhere. They havegone to Gatlenburg just the three of them before. And she was NOT a loser thats why she was leaving his sorry butt!!!!!! She would NEVER put her friends go through this. And for your information her remains were found October 19, 2010. A farmer found them while looking for driftwood and he saw something that resembled a jaw bone and called the Walker County police. They wee not able to determine a cause of death. But she was found less than 5 miles from the place Sam grew up and within 12 miles of her and Sam's home. They were within 12 feet of the riverbank which flooded a year and a half after she want missing AND the river runs through his dad's property. So he probably took her there and dumped her. So you are sadly mistaken that she ran off somewhere but we all knew that wasn't true to begin with because Theresa would NEVER EVEVER do that to her friends, family and the citizens of Walker County, or her pets. That was her life. Sam needs to just grow a pair and tell us what he did to her!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[jmiller1079]

I missed the deadly "secret" she had. What was it?

[alexaii]

After the trial the jury said they didn't believe the police officer when he said he didn't remember a previous conversation he had with Parker. The same thing happened to me. My son's teacher was murdered one week-end. I had spoken with her on the phone a couple of days before and felt as soon as she picked up the phone that she was in danger. I wanted to ask her if she was alright but didn't since I thought she'd think I was crazy, that moment of panic that I had left me before the end of our conversation, and she sounded relaxed and not in danger. After I heard the news of her murder, I don't remember how long before I remembered that phone call and that feeling that I had. It may have been at least a week. It's like your brain shuts down to protect itself most probably because of the tremendous guilt you feel that you could have saved that person. The prosecution in this case should have contacted a psychiatrist to explain why the officer couldn't remember because his testimony was so important. The jury came back with the right verdict but people will now always think of that officer as a liar and he doesn't deserve that.

[aubfmet]

Why did you call it 'her' deadly secret, or 'his' deadly secret. Why should we have to read thru all these pages to find out what you are talking about? Whose secret was i?

[national1942]

He's guilty as far as I'm concerned and I would have voted that way if I'd been a juror. What about all his comments about how he could kill someone and hide the body where no one would ever find it and he could get away with it. I believe him. He did it and I wouldn't even lose a night's sleep over my decision.

[raydernation]

I'm surprised they let that statment in court, thats strait out hearsay. And its almost always not reliable. I saw this one case on 48 Hours Mysterys where this womans mother was raped and murdered, and her 6 yr old niece was raped as well but survived. When the police questioned the 6 yr old and asked her who did it, she said "it was my uncle" talking about the womans husband. Despite the womans assertions that her niece has got to be wrong, the husband was convicted based soley on this childs eyewitness account, his DNA, sperm blood evidence, fingerprints, none of that matched, just this childs testimony. He was sentenced to life in prison, his wife knew her husband, she knew he wasn't capable of doing this. This woman spent every dime she had, trying to get her husband out, sold their home, she went banbkrupt and homeless, but, after 12 years, this organization that helps free wrongly convicted people decided to lok at her case. They rejected it as well. Than this woman was going thru her things and ran across an article written about that murder and as she read it jumped out at her. When the attack was over the neice ran next door to her neighbors house for help, all bloodied and disoriented, the neighbor opened the door and told the child to wait while she got dressed and get her kids dressed to take her to the police, she left her outside for 35 minutes. All the investigators had overlooked this. The wife went back to her old neighborhood the neighbor was still there, but her live in boyfriend wasn't she talked to the neighbor and found out he was in prison for sexual assault, he was the same guy living with her the night the womans mother was murdered. And had just been paroled from prison for, you guessed it sexual assault. She asked to see his picture, and this guy looked strikingly similar to her husband. And the kicker was, he was in the same prison as her husband, and about to be transferred the next day to a nother prison. She ran to borrow money to get a Greyhound bus to go to that prison where her husband was, told him she found the real killer. But he was going to have to somehow get a cigarette butt or cup or anything that this guy touches. Fist he had to find him, and as fate would have it, this guy was in the same cell block as the husband. He watched him go out for exercise than have a cigarette, he found that discarded butt, flattened it out and smuggled it to his wife who visited him. She took it to the Police in that city where the crime occurred and it was a perfect match DNA sperm cells finger prints everything. The boyfriend confessed, and the husband was freed after 12 years he was awarded 1.5 million for wrongful prosecution. Hollywood could never make up a story like this. So, my point, everything aint as it always appears, circumstantial cases are very delicate. This police officer could be innocent.

[AnnieDanny]

Yes, I was thinking the same thing. Lots of similarities with Stacy Peterson.

[cidaia]

Spoiler: they convict the husband.

It's on pg 6. If you can make it that far.

They describe how the prosecution gets around the very circumstantial nature of the evidence by playing on emotions - how the jury didn't really know, certainly not beyond a reasonable doubt, but it came down to choosing between the chance of an innocent man jailed or a guilty one going free?

I always thought it was supposed to be "beyond a reasonable doubt" but if I'm reading this right - and I admit my impatience with this terrible, terrible writing - if I'm reading this right, there was no talk of "beyond a reasonable doubt" - the jury apparently had ample doubts, but were urged to convict based on some sort of better safe than sorry principle.

Is this correct?

I'm not wading back into that slosh to find out!

[hardknock1]

I think i agree to what you are saying!?I think he is guilty,but wheres the proof?I'm scared if anyone I know is ever in this situation! I see or hear of stories weekly where people have been found guilty then they find out after years in prison and it is harder to get them back out then it was to put them in.All from cercumstantial(?) evidence.I would give him a chance to show us where the body is for a more leanint sentence(as long as the victims family agrees)just to see if he would go for it!