Teenager Robert Erik Denney Causes Horror
(‘A Room With a View,’ Forensic Information)
On Forensic Information, having a smile that lights up a room means, sadly, that the viewers goes to listen to a couple of horrible crime towards you.
Corey Parker match that sample. The 5-foot 11-inch tall pupil was heat and sunny and tried to be type when she needed to flip away undesirable admirers.
One among them was a teenage drifter named Robert Erik Denney. He didn’t go away any trilobal carpet fibers on the scene (one other frequent Forensic Information element), however he left behind different materials proof that allowed investigators to place collectively a case.
For this submit, I looked for details about Corey Parker’s brief life and a few background on Robert Denney in addition to his brother, who dedicated murder at a good youthful age than Robert did.
So let’s get happening a recap of “Room With a View” together with additional info from web analysis:
Corey Parker won’t have found out precisely what she wished to do along with her life, however she knew the place — away from the snow belt.
Someday after graduating from Brighton Excessive Faculty, she left the upstate New York city of Rochester, the place winters can final 5 months, and headed to Jacksonville Seaside, Florida.
There she enrolled in faculty, waited tables, and bought great mates drawn to her candy, fun-loving character.
Oddly, regardless of intensive protection in print media and no less than 4 true-crime TV reveals, no supply offers the title of the college Corey attended. It was variously referred to solely as a college, a neighborhood faculty, or a group faculty.
By November 1998, Corey was 25 and residing in Atlantic Seaside, about 12 miles from downtown Jacksonville. She had just lately began a relationship with a good-looking blond whom Forensic Information calls David Wilt, however newspapers determine as David Tippens.
For Thanksgiving in 1998, David went to go to his household in Pensacola and Corey stayed in Jacksonville.
She had been busy baking for the vacation, which she could be celebrating with some native buddies, in accordance with the Christmas Killings. Pies had been her specialty and he or she had borrowed a cooking thermometer to verify the filling turned out excellent.
After Corey didn’t flip up for work on time as she often did (on Forensic Information, a popularity for promptness will increase your probability of victimhood by virtually as a lot as a pleasant smile), her colleagues on the Ragtime Tavern grew to become fearful.
The supervisor despatched a prepare dinner to examine on her. By a window of her condominium, he noticed Corey coated in blood, along with her physique posed in a suggestive means.
The garments she had worn the evening earlier than to the Ritz bar had been folded neatly. Police believed somebody hid in her home and attacked her after she went to mattress.
Investigators decided the killer stabbed Corey 84 to 101 instances (sources fluctuate). The attacker in all probability hadn’t anticipated Corey to battle again so exhausting. Defensive wounds prompt that she had blocked the knife along with her knee and likewise grabbed the knife blade.
The deadly lower severed two arteries in her neck. The perpetrator continued to stab her after she died.
Whoever killed her didn’t sexually assault her though he in all probability tried.
Blood on the kitchen window prompt the assailant used it to enter and exit.
A gold-plated Zippo lighter left on the scene was a tantalizing clue, but it surely didn’t repay till a lot later.
Some promising suspects quickly got here to investigators’ consideration — a rebuffed co-worker who mentioned below relentless questioning that he had rape fantasies about Corey. Officers famous scratches on his fingers.
There was additionally a feminine good friend whom Forensic Information calls Tiffany Smith however newspapers determine as Tiffany Zienta. She appeared to admire Corey to the purpose of obsession. She had details about the homicide scene that police didn’t launch to the general public.
Tiffany lawyered up, making it a problem to get a DNA pattern from her, in accordance with the Murder: Hours to Kill episode “The Case of Corey Parker.” Quickly after the homicide, Tiffany picked up and moved to Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
DNA in a international hair discovered on Corey didn’t match a specimen from the unsuccessful suitor or the specimen that David Tippens gave.
And it was male DNA, which dominated out Tiffany. She had labored at a bar that first responders patronized, and had in all probability heard them speaking concerning the homicide scene. Tiffany would later inform Dateline that she preferred Corey however had no romantic emotions towards her. Tiffany additionally mentioned that she wasn’t homosexual and that the suspicion authorities subjected her to drove her to drink.
In the meantime, greater than a yr handed with no strong suspect however detectives stored at it. After Corey’s father provided a $20,000 reward for assist, some staff from the Barbecue LTD restaurant in Jacksonville Seaside advised police {that a} dishwasher there had turn into noticeably upset across the time of Corey’s homicide.
Robert Erik Denney was simply 17 years previous when the murder occurred.
Colleagues knew him as hardworking and likable, in accordance with reporting from the Florida Instances-Union, however that they had caught him in a troubling lie.
Robert had defined in 1998 that he was emotional throughout that vacation season as a result of his child son died in a automobile accident in Texas.
His co-workers collected $200 to pay for his airfare to attend the funeral. However after they requested his sister for an deal with to ship flowers, she advised them that Robert by no means had youngsters.
The truth is, it turned out that the sister had just lately kicked Robert out of the home that she and her husband shared. Robert stayed up all hours of the evening, was hooked on pornography, and would even leer at her, she mentioned.
That’s when Robert moved into the condominium constructing throughout from Corey Parker’s at Fourth Avenue and fifteenth Avenue North. The unit had an virtually direct line of sight into Corey’s condominium on the bottom ground.
So, who was this younger suspect?
Robert Erik Denney was born on July 15, 1981 and grew up in El Paso because the youngest of 5 youngsters. In line with the ID present Betrayed “Lethal Crush,” Robert wasn’t too athletic and didn’t like faculty a lot. He dropped out within the ninth grade. His father, Mike Denney, would later say that Robert struggled with medication and alcohol however was by no means violent.
Oh, and yet one more factor about Robert. His brother, Patrick McCoy Denney, was in jail in Texas for murdering a lady in 1990. The 15-year-old, who had simply give up his job as a paperboy, went to the house of former buyer Theresa Kathryn Latimer. He gained entry by telling her that she nonetheless owed him cash — after which stabbed the 27-year-old bookkeeper 97 instances with a pocketknife, in accordance with the El Paso Instances. He didn’t sexually assault her. Mike Denney believed that police browbeat Patrick into making a false confession with no lawyer current.
Paul Pinkham, a journalist who adopted the case for the Florida Instances-Union and gave interviews to true-crime TV reveals, prompt that Robert wished to outdo his brother by stabbing his personal sufferer extra instances and raping her.
Police picked up Robert’s path in Easton, Maryland, the place he was working in a pc retailer and residing with a married couple with two youngsters.
He had met the girl, 52, in a poker chatroom, and each of them lied by giving their ages as 25, in accordance with Murder: Hours to Kill. However apparently it didn’t matter after they met in particular person, as a result of they ended up having an affair “proper below the husband’s nostril,” Forensic Information mentioned.
It’s not clear when investigators discovered about Patrick’s historical past, however police had initially discounted Robert as a suspect due to his younger age.
When police caught up with Robert in Maryland, they questioned him a couple of totally different crime in order that he would let his guard down. However he by no means did. Robert foiled makes an attempt to get his DNA by refusing to drink from a bottle of water and declining to lick an envelope. He accepted the detectives’ supply to smoke however he stored the stubs both in his pocket or behind his ear.
After observing him exterior of J&B Laptop Gross sales and Service the place he took frequent smoke breaks, police scooped up a few of his saliva from the bottom. It matched the DNA of the hair and blood present in Corey’s condominium.
Robert denied ever being in Corey’s residence. Prosecutors mentioned that he was fixated on Corey and masturbated whereas watching her by means of the window.
The authorities believed that Robert hid inside her condominium after seeing her go away for her night of drinks and dancing with mates on the Ritz bar.
As soon as she returned and acquired into mattress, he attacked. She pulled out a few of his hair whereas preventing again, investigators alleged. Robert left a few of his personal blood on the scene from unintentionally slicing himself.
The trial kicked off in 2004. On the stand, ex-girlfriend Heather Champion recognized the gold-plated Zippo lighter engraved with the Nationwide Air Site visitors Controllers Affiliation’s acronym as Robert’s. She testified that Robert defined the presence of his DNA in Corey’s condominium by saying {that a} cat might need dragged it in.
Robert’s boss from the barbecue restaurant advised the court docket that Robert had admitted to fantasizing a couple of lady in a close-by condominium constructing. He additionally famous that Robert was a troubled younger man.
On the stand, Robert calmly denied all prices. He mentioned that he owned a gold Zippo lighter but it surely had the Celtic cross on it. Assistant state legal professional Angela Corey countered that Zippo didn’t begin making these fashions till years after the homicide.
Assistant public defender Patrick McGuinness identified that Tiffany Zienta, who had been with Corey the night of the murder, gave conflicting info to the police concerning the timeline and what occurred on the bar that evening. Tiffany mentioned she was upset and confused in gentle of the tragic occasion.
The protection additionally argued that it could have been too tough for Robert to enter and exit through Corey’s window with out anybody noticing. McGuinness maintained that Robert’s hair may have ended up in Corey’s residence by switch and famous that the sufferer and the accused used the identical laundromat.
“There are a substantial variety of folks on this courtroom,” McGuinness mentioned. “By the tip of the day, there can be hairs from totally different folks in several properties by means of switch.”
He additionally alleged that Heather Champion, who labored as a stripper, had a $500-a-day cocaine behavior that would have affected her reminiscence about occasions from six years earlier.
Ron Webber, Robert’s roommate on the time of the homicide, testified for the protection, saying that he hadn’t seen a Zippo NATCA lighter in Robert’s possession and that he by no means noticed him got here residence bloody.
McGuinness forged doubt on the DNA proof, suggesting that it was mishandled whereas in police custody and that saliva scraped off the sidewalk lacked authenticity.
After closing arguments, Robert confidently shook his lawyer’s hand, in accordance with a Florida Instances-Union account.
When the jury returned with a responsible verdict in lower than one hour, Robert “hung his head and pursed his lips.” Corey Parker’s members of the family pumped their fists in victory, the newspaper reported.
“The one who dedicated this heinous crime is lastly going to pay for it,” mentioned Liz Parker, Corey’s mom, throughout the victim-impact statements. “It actually doesn’t change something, but it surely’s the final massive hurdle we needed to recover from earlier than we are able to put all this apart.”
As a result of he dedicated the crime as a minor, Robert was ineligible for the loss of life penalty and as a substitute acquired life with out the potential of parole.
By 2015, Robert had a brand new lawyer, Rick Sichta, who would later inform Dateline NBC that there have been unidentified prints and genetic materials on the homicide scene that forged doubt on Robert’s conviction. His 2015 try at profitable a brand new trial failed, as did a 2021 attraction.
Robert, nonetheless trying like an adolescent in his interview with Dateline for the episode “Rear Window,” denied committing the homicide and mentioned that his brother’s guilt shouldn’t have been projected on him. He mentioned that investigators might need mishandled the DNA proof — and that the police framed him.
Right this moment, Robert Denney is 44 years previous and lives within the Okeechobee Correctional Establishment in Florida, the identical jail the place Bobby Kent homicide conspirator Donald Semenec occupies a cell. The Florida Division of Corrections notes that Robert’s customer standing is suspended.
Robert’s brother Patrick, 50, is within the Allred Unit in Iowa Park, Texas and likewise ineligible for visitation.
It’s unhappy that the brothers threw away their lives at such younger ages, however their incarceration prevents them from taking away the intense smiles from different harmless ladies and their family members.
That’s all for this submit. Till subsequent time, cheers. — RR
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