[GA] Theresa Parker's body found. Sheriff Wilson: “It’s just a miracle..."

The body of Theresa Parker has finally been found.
The funeral will be open to the public. "The people that's prayed for us and kept searching for her, we're not gonna close those people off"...

People were praying. Thank you God!
“It’s just a miracle that he stumbled upon it and reported it to the sheriff’s office,” said Walker County Sheriff Steve Wilson... But he said, “It’s a day that’s difficult to report”...

From the video below, Sheriff Wilson:
"...I would say that justice has prevailed - that the Almighty has looked down, and for whatever reason, prayers have been answered that she's been found... It's hard to beat justice and Divine intervention."

From below:
...Her husband, former LaFayette police officer Sam Parker, was convicted of her murder in September 2009... The 51-year-old police officer who allegedly had a history of alcohol and domestic abuse and Theresa were in the process of getting a divorce when she disappeared... Theresa’s niece testifies: “He called his badge his get-out-of-jail-free card”... Authorities have finished their investigation... While police said they hope to find a cause of death, Chattooga County Sheriff John Everett said Thursday there are no obvious physical signs to indicate how she died. Meanwhile, Walker County Sheriff Steve Wilson said the family has a flicker of hope that the answers will come. “But all of our questions may not be answered until we see her again,” she said... Now her family and close friends say they must relive the pain again. “We’re trying to recover from the blow again,” said Theresa Parker’s sister Hilda Wilson... “It just brings all the hurt back. This is all just a shock to us. We don’t even know what to do next. We don’t even know when she’ll be turned over to us”... "How the family feels is kind of second to what I think of and we think of as far as what (Theresa) went through"... Theresa Parker began working at the Walker County 911 Center in 1992 and was known and loved throughout the staff...

Video

Previous post:
[GA] EX-SGT. PARKER CONVICTED FOR KILLING THERESA: THE BEST POSSIBLE SAD ENDING, BUT NOT GOOD ENOUGH UNTIL IT CAN'T HAPPEN AGAIN

THERESA PARKER'S REMAINS HAVE BEEN FOUND
WDEF
September 22, 2010
Walker County Sheriff Steve Wilson and department officials held a press conference to answer questions regarding the recently discovered remains of Theresa Parker. Parker disappeared in 2007 and a jury last year convicted her husband, former LaFayette, Ga., police officer Sam Parker, in her murder. He is serving a life prison sentence. [Full article here]

Full Press Conference videos:

• [GA] Theresa Parker Press Conference - Pt. 1
• [GA] Theresa Parker Press Conference - Pt. 2
• [GA] Theresa Parker Press Conference - Pt. 3
• [GA] Theresa Parker Press Conference - Pt. 4

THERESA PARKER INVESTIGATION FAR FROM OVER; SOME STILL HAVE DOUBTS
WDEF
Submitted by Bill Mitchell
September 23, 2010 - 5:34pm.
[Excerpts] The Georgia Bureau of Investigation continues to search for clues in Chattooga county after confirming that remains found there on Monday were those of [Walker county 9-1-1 supervisor] Theresa Parker... Former Lafayette police sergeant Sam Parker was sentenced to jail for life last September for the murder of his wife... Local and state officers announced the remains found by a farmer near the Chattooga river on Monday were indeed hers... State investigators will hold the bodily remains until a cause of death has been determined before returning them for burial and a memorial service. Sam Parker's attorneys are planning an appeal of his life sentence handed down last year. If a judge grants a new trial, prosecutors could ask for the death penalty based on the finding of Theresa Parker's remains. [Full article here]

THERESA PARKER'S BODY FOUND IN GA., 911 DISPATCHER WENT MISSING IN 2007
48 Hours, Crimesider
Posted by Caroline Black 2 comments
September 23, 2010 2:09 PM
[Excerpts] Teresa Parker's family and friends will finally be able to put the Georgia 911 dispatcher to rest... a sad and final ending that they have feared since Teresa mysteriously vanished in 2007. According to Walker County Sheriff Steve Wilson, the investigative team received a call Monday from a farmer who had been combing an area in Chattooga County near the state border of Alabama for driftwood and instead found a jawbone. Even though it had been quite some time since her disappearance, numerous law enforcement agencies have continued to work together to investigate the case and were searching another area at the time when they received the call... Further details of the crime scene have been withheld, but Wilson did say a forensic review will be necessary in order to determine the cause of death... The 51-year-old police officer who allegedly had a history of alcohol and domestic abuse and Theresa were in the process of getting a divorce when she disappeared March 21, 2007. David Ashburn, director of the 911 center where Theresa Parker worked, said friends and co-workers were notified. "It's great we have an answer," Ashburn said, "but it's terrible it's not the answer we wanted." [Full article here]

THERESA PARKER'S FAMILY WANTS HER FUNERAL OPEN TO THE PUBLIC
newschannel9.com
September 24, 2010 10:34 PM
[Excerpts] We're hearing more from the family of Theresa Parker, the Walker County 911 worker whose remains were found Tuesday three-and-a-half years since she went missing. Parker's brother-in-law Jon Wilson says they always held out hope that Parker was still alive. Now with the news that her remains were found, they're figuring out how to move forward. Wilson says his family had managed to get by since his sister-in-law disappeared March 21, 2007. But then Tuesday, they got the call they'd been dreading. "We were just doing every day things and when you get the call, everything changes," Wilson and his wife Hilda, Parker's sister, dropped everything and drove from their home in Florida to be with their family, and visit the site where a farmer found Parker's jawbone in Chattooga County. "How the family feels is kind of second to what I think of and we think of as far as what (Theresa) went through." Now the family is waiting on investigators to finish examining Parker's remains so she can return to her family and have a proper burial. Wilson says the funeral will be open to the public. "The people that's prayed for us and kept searching for her, we're not gonna close those people off," Wilson said. "If they wanna come they can sure be a part of it"... [Full article here]

'PRAYERS HAVE BEEN ANSWERED': THERESA PARKER'S REMAINS POSITIVELY IDENTIFIED
by staff reports Rn T.Com
1 day 23 hrs ago
[Excerpts] For three years and six months, Theresa Parker’s family, friends, co-workers and law enforcement have wondered what happened to the missing Walker County 911 dispatcher. They received a partial but devastating answer Wednesday. Parker’s remains were found earlier this week about 100 feet from the Chattooga River off Fullerton Road in southern Chattooga County. Her husband, former LaFayette police officer Sam Parker, was convicted of her murder in September 2009... A farmer searching for driftwood off Fullerton Road found a jawbone Monday afternoon, said Chattooga County Sheriff John Everett. A further search of the area by Chattooga County sheriff’s deputies led to the recovery of other bones, including a skull. Dental records positively identified the remains as Parker’s, Wilson said. “It’s just a miracle that he stumbled upon it and reported it to the sheriff’s office,” said Walker County Sheriff Steve Wilson at a news conference Wednesday afternoon in LaFayette. But he said, “It’s a day that’s difficult to report”... “We would always get our hopes up,” [brother-in-law] Jon Wilson said in a phone interview Wednesday afternoon. “It’s been a stressful three years.” The Walker County Sheriff’s Office, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation and other law enforcement officials never gave up either, Wilson said. The day the remains were found in Chattooga County, officials were looking for Parker in another area in Walker County, said Jerry Scott of the Calhoun office of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation... [Full article here]

FAMILY RELIEVED THAT THERESA PARKER'S REMAINS HAVE BEEN FOUND, SHERIFF SAYS
timesfreepress.com
Joy Lukachick
Sept. 22, 2010
[Excerpts]...[Walker County Sheriff Steve] Wilson said the next step is to determine the cause of death before Parker’s remains are returned to the family... PARKER TIMELINE -March 21, 2007 — Theresa Parker, a Walker County 911 operator, is reported missing... April 13, 2007 — Parker is fired for having explosives in his locker at the LaFayette police station. Police go to his home that night after a caller says Parker was trying to harm himself. Feb. 4, 2008 — Parker is arrested on charges of killing his wife... Feb. 26-27, 2008 — At Parker’s bond hearing, Theresa Parker’s former sister-in-law Tabitha Thomas testifies: “[Sam] told me, ‘I have killed before, and I will kill again’”... Aug. 18, 2009 — Harbin Chaffin, a former LaFayette police officer and friend of Sam Parker, testifies: “[Parker] said he’d [killed his wife] or was really going to do it. He said he had a place [to hide a body that was] hard to find and that he’d shot Theresa through the head”... Aug. 27, 2009 — Theresa’s niece, Arica Patterson, testifies: “[Parker] called [his badge] his get-out-of-jail-free card”... Sept. 3, 2009 — Sam Parker is found guilty and sentenced to life in prison... [Full article here]

FAMILY OF THERESA PARKER GETS CLOSURE 3 1/2 YEARS AFTER HER DISAPPEARANCE
WDEF
Submitted by Nordia Epps
September 22, 2010
[Excerpts] After three and a half years some closure for the family of Theresa Parker... Sheriff John Everett, Chatooga County, "We responded we secured the scene we assembled a search team around 5:49 pm that evening we found other skeletal remains." The Georgia Bureau of Investigation used dental records to identify the remains as those of Teresa Parker... Her family and coworkers were among the first to hear the news. David Ashburn, Walker Co. 911 Director, "It's a great day and a terrible day. Great that we have an answer but it's terrible it's not the answer we want. They are all taking it in stride. It's a tough moment for the groups"... Special Agent Jerry Scott, GBI, "The jurors in this case now will realize they did the right thing"... Leigh Patterson, Lead Prosecutor, "What that says about Sam Parker I think you can draw your own conclusion. She didn't run away. She didn't run away from her family she would never have left her mother and her sisters and her nieces and her nephews in limbo"... Sheriff Steve Wilson, Walker County, "We've all I think felt the urgency and need to recover her remains and bring them back so that she could rest in peace. So she could rest in a proper burial spot"... [Full article here]

CLOTHING FOUND IN AREA WHERE THERESA PARKER'S REMAINS WERE LOCATED
Walker County Messenger, Rn T.Com
by Matt Ledger
September 24, 2010
[Excerpts] Authorities have finished their investigation of the rural Chattooga County site where Theresa Parker’s skeletal remains were found. Besides bones, they found a pair of size-8 Old Navy jeans, bra, and portion of a sock, Chattooga County sheriff’s investigator Mark Schrader said. The items were deteriorated but will be analyzed forensically to see if they were in fact Parker’s and to preserve any possible DNA or clues to her cause of death... The area in which her remains were found is amid hundreds of acres of cornfields surrounded by woods, without a neighbor anywhere on the horizon. There are only one or two landowners in the immediate vicinity. A field hand, David Ledbetter of Rome, found the first bone on Monday, Sept. 20. Ledbetter had a brief 20-30 minute break in work, after the harvest trucks left with a full load, so he walked through the woods on his way to nearby Chattooga River. Along the way he found a jawbone. Schrader said Parker’s remains were found “less than 100 feet from the river” in a 20-foot-by-20-foot area. The site is near a dirt road named Fullerton Road. In September 2009 Fullerton Road and the surrounding area was flooded by heavy rains. Residents recall Fullerton Road being shut down, while Schrader recalls that nearby Price Bridge was impassible for several days. During that time the river flowed much faster, eventually cresting its banks, locals said... [Full article here]

PATTERSON SAYS LOCATION OF PARKER'S REMAINS CONSISTENT WITH EVIDENCE PRESENTED DURING TRIAL
Walker County Messenger Rn T.Com
by Christi McEntyre and Matt Ledger
September 24, 2010
[Excerpts] The location where Theresa Parker’s remains were found is consistent with the evidence she presented during the Sam Parker trial, Floyd County District Attorney Leigh Patterson said Thursday. Patterson, who served as a special prosecutor in the case, submitted cell phone signal triangulations as evidence to pinpoint where Sam Parker had been on the night Theresa Parker disappeared. By determining the location where Sam Parker was on that night, it was extrapolated that Theresa Parker’s body was dumped not far away. “We always thought she was somewhere between LaFayette and Trion,” Patterson said, basing that estimate... Neither Patterson nor anybody at the Georgia Bureau of Investigation can yet say exactly how Theresa Parker’s remains ended up in that remote riverbed. One of the most popular theories now is that last winter’s flood had something to do with how her remains were deposited. “(The flood) certainly was an anomaly for this area,” Patterson said... [Full article here]

UPDATE: CLOSER LOOK AT AREA WHERE FARMER FOUND THERESA PARKER
newschannel9
September 22, 2010
[Excerpts] ...The area where the missing Walker County 911 dispatcher's body was found is right near the Alabama border in Chattooga County, Georgia in a community called Lyerly. It's full of farmland and forest, and is now the focus of a murder investigation. A farmer walking the Chattaooga River banks found Theresa Parker's remains Monday afternoon. It's just off Fullerton Road which is a two mile road that ends at the Alabama-Georgia line. There are about 500 acres surrounding it, and what's not used for farming is used for hunting... "There's nothing but woods, no houses, there's no power on the road as far as I know," [neighbor James] Callahan said. "It's very hidden." The banks where Parker's body was found is just 14 miles from where her husband, Sam Parker, grew up... [Full article here]

...Among the radios, switchboards and telephones in the dimly lit Walker County 911 dispatch room, a sign has stayed pinned to a corkboard for more than three years. “Missing: Theresa Parker,” the sign reads. “Nobody wants to take it down”...

FIND BRINGS BACK ‘HURT’
timesfreepress.com
By: Joan Garrett, Joy Lukachick
Sept. 23, 2010
[Excerpts] For more than three years, Theresa Parker’s family just knew she was dead. They suffered through months of fruitless searches for her body. They watched as the national media descended on her North Georgia neighborhood. They sat in court during the trial that convicted her husband Sam Parker of murder. But because her body was still missing, they kept hearing the same thing from friends and others in the community: Maybe she just ran away from an abusive relationship. Maybe she’s alive. Maybe. On Wednesday, the maybes came to a crashing halt... “This kind of makes all our fears a reality,” said John Wilson, Theresa Parker’s brother-in-law. “It just brings all the hurt back. This is all just a shock to us. We don’t even know what to do next. We don’t even know when she’ll be turned over to us”... After three years of local and state police combing four counties in Northwest Georgia for Theresa Parker’s body, her remains were discovered Monday by a farmer in Chattooga County, Walker County Sheriff Steve Wilson said. They were found next to a cornfield, about 100 feet from the Chattooga River near the Alabama state line... After a GBI forensic test identified the remains as Theresa Parker through dental records, word began to spread Wednesday afternoon among Walker County public safety officials. Theresa Parker began working at the Walker County 911 Center in 1992 and was known and loved throughout the staff, said David Ashburn, Walker County 911 director. When told her body had been found, he called in extra dispatchers before breaking the news to his employees, worried their reactions would be intense, he said. He was right. Several dispatchers became so upset they had to leave their radios when they were told, Ashburn said... “We can send her back home and let her family give her a proper burial, a proper memorial service that she so desperately deserves”... John Wilson said family members had always hoped Sam Parker would admit to where he had hid her remains. Now that her remains have been found, he has only one question for the convicted murderer. “I would like to know why,” he said. “That’s what I would like to know.” [Full article here]

FARMER WHO FOUND PARKER'S JAWBONE: 'NO BIG DEAL'
newschannel9.com
September 24, 2010
[Excerpts] NewsChannel 9 spoke with the man who spotted Theresa Parker's jawbone Monday afternoon. David Ledbetter's discovery wrapped up a missing person's case that gained national attention. Ledbetter treated it as no big deal and just hopes he did the right thing. He lives in Rome, Georgia and didn't even know about Parker's murder. He is an unassuming man, a farmer who works the land for his living. After harvesting a load of corn of Monday afternoon, he took a break. He walked down from the corn field off Fullerton Road to take a break at the Chattooga River. Little did he know what he would stumble upon... Massive searches, specialized equipment, tracking dogs followed hundreds of tips but to no avail. On Monday, Ledbetter knew he found something big, but seeks no credit... [Full article here]

ONE WAIT OVER, ANOTHER BEGINS
timesfreepress.com
By: Joy Lukachick
Sept. 24, 2010
[Excerpts] Among the radios, switchboards and telephones in the dimly lit Walker County 911 dispatch room, a sign has stayed pinned to a corkboard for more than three years. “Missing: Theresa Parker,” the sign reads. “Nobody wants to take it down,” said 911 Director David Ashburn, a day after Parker’s body was found. Walker County 911 employees are still in shock... “We’re used to being on the other side of this; it’s not on our side of the phone,” said 911 dispatcher Tracy Paris, who worked with Parker for 15 years... Parker’s husband, Sam, a former LaFayette police officer, was convicted of murdering her last year, even though her body had not been found.... Now her family and close friends say they must relive the pain again. “We’re trying to recover from the blow again,” said Theresa Parker’s sister Hilda Wilson. While family members are relieved they finally have confirmation of her death, Wilson said the grief is the similar to when Theresa Parker first went missing. “Nobody will ever change the fact that she was brutally murdered,” Wilson said. “The last thing we can do for her is give her a final farewell”... On Thursday morning, Wilson and her husband drove from their home in Florida to LaFayette to grieve with the rest of the family and begin to plan a memorial service. Police have not given a timeframe for when Theresa Parker’s remains will be returned to the family, but Wilson said the family hopes the wait won’t be long... While police said they hope to find a cause of death, [Chattooga County Sheriff John[ Everett said Thursday there are no obvious physical signs to indicate how she died. Meanwhile, Wilson said the family has a flicker of hope that the answers will come. “(But) all of our questions may not be answered until we see her again,” she said... [Full article here]

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