Bradenton, FL: Sherry-Ann Brannon's Father Attacks Larry Parks After Guilty Plea....
Slimpickins
posted 03/01/02
STAFF REPORTS
BRADENTON - Dewey Brannon went home two years ago and found the bodies of
his daughters and his wife. They had been repeatedly stabbed and slashed in
their east Manatee County home.
Today, in the Manatee County Courthouse, he tried to kill the man who
admitted to killing them.
As Larry Parks pleaded guilty to the 1999 killings of Brannon's wife,
Sherry-Ann Brannon, and their two daughters, Shelby and Cassidy, Dewey
Brannon jumped a partition and lunged toward Parks. Deputies swarmed on
Brannon as those in the packed courtroom gasped.
After a 15-minute break, the proceedings resumed. Brannon was restrained
briefly.
Parks entered a guilty plea to three counts of first-degree murder as part
of a plea agreement. In sentencing Parks, Judge Durand Adams told him that
he came from a "dark place" in the world and that his actions place him
"beyond the reach of human mercy."
Adams said the first and last things Parks should think of for the rest of
his life are those he killed.
Parks, while high on cocaine, showed up at Sherry Brannon's doorstep in
east Manatee County before dawn on Sept. 16 and told her his car had broke
down. He told authorities that he went there to rob her.
He convinved her to let him use her telephone. She grabbed the telephpone,
and a knife, and returned to the door. As she cracked the door open to hand
him the phone, he pushed it open and hit her in the face with a flashlight.
He then proceeded to stab her, killing her. He then slit the throats of
both her children, killing Shelby, 7, instantly. Cassidy, 4, died enroute to
a hospital hours later.
Parks detailed the account of that night to prosecutors and detectives
Tuesday night at the Manatee County jail. The confession finalized weeks of
wroking on a plea deal.
Parks was slated to go to trial next month and had faced the death penalty.
Under the plea deal, he'll spend the rest of his life in prison.
Parks said little in the courtroom, only responding to yes-or-no questions
posed by the judge. Brannon got to address Parks, and told him that he would
have killed him.
Brannon said had he gotten his hands on Parks, "you wouldn't be going to
prison. You'd be going straight to hell."
The judge found Brannon in contempt. But, he later told Brannon, he wasn't
going to send him to jail under the circumstances.
More on this story as information becomes available.
Ben Dover
Slimpickins <Sl...@work.com> wrote in message
news:0aUf8.8695$106.5...@bgtnsc05-news.ops.worldnet.att.net...
Thats why you never let strangers use your phone! Tell them you will make a
call for them instead.
>
>
>
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Maggie
***Better yet--ignore a ringing doorbell before dawn and never, ever, ever open
your door to anyone you don't know. If you're going to make that call for
someone, have them shout the number to you through the closed door.
Maggie
"Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the
experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to
do so."--Douglas Adams.
Slimpickins
news:a5p4e...@enews4.newsguy.com...
Ben wrote:
Thats why you never let strangers use your phone! Tell them you will make a
call for them instead.
**The scary part, Ben, is that they knew L. Parks. He had done their
landscaping(!). You can't ever be too* cautious around semi- strangers
though, that's for sure.
Slim
debby
> Thats why you never let strangers use your phone! Tell them you will make a
> call for them instead.
> S.<sarg...@infi.net>
> >
> >
> >
> >
