Dad arrested in murder of girlfriend, 2-year-old son (Effort, Pennsylvania)

Father MICHAEL JOHN PARRISH has been arrested in the fatal shooting of his girlfriend and their 2-year-old son. Also note the article that follows regarding Parrish's history of domestic violence and child abuse.

http://www.poconorecord.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090708/NEWS/907080338/-1/News

Father arrested in fatal shooting of girlfriend, 2- year-old son in Chestnuthill Township

By Andrew Scott
Pocono Record Writers
July 08, 2009


UPDATE, 9:30 a.m. Police have arrested Michael John Parrish without incident in New Hampshire. Story

EFFORT — Police are searching for a 23-year-old Effort man suspected of the shooting death of a 21-year-old woman and a 2-year-old boy late Monday night at the apartment where the three lived.

Michael John Parrish, who worked as a corrections officer at the Monroe County jail, was charged Tuesday with the murder of Victoria Marie Adams and Sidney Michael Parrish in a multi-family house on Route 115 just north of Gilbert Road in Chestnuthill Township.

Parrish fled the scene and is still at large and is believed to be armed. He owns three registered handguns, according to police. Police also searched Parrish's former residence in Effort and another home in Wayne County on Tuesday.

At 11:05 p.m. Monday, state police at Fern Ridge got a call about gunshots being fired at the house, where Parrish had been living with Adams and the toddler, according to a police affidavit.

Then at 11:14 p.m., James Ahern, 21, of Effort called police and told them the following:
He arrived at Parrish's home earlier that night and dropped off Adams and the boy. Parrish approached him, pointed what Ahern believed to be a 9 mm handgun at him and fired.

Ahern fled the scene unharmed, went to a friend's house and called police. He didn't know what happened to Adams and the boy after he fled.

Police later arrived at the home and found Adams and the toddler dead. Parrish had left.

At about 9:30 a.m., investigators helped the county Coroner's Office remove the victims' bodies, Adams in a body bag and the toddler wrapped in a white sheet, from the two-story dwelling.
Police stopped traffic both ways until the bodies were placed in back of the coroner's van. One motorist wept with her hand covering her mouth and wiped her eyes as she saw the bodies taken out and placed in the van.

Jared Ulrich, who lives nearby on Route 115, said his father went to bed at about 9:30 p.m. Monday, woke up sometime later to what sounded like firecrackers and then went back to sleep. Ulrich arrived home at about 11:30 p.m. and saw police cars swarming the area.

"The cops had their guns out and they were searching the area," he said. "Once they found out I lived here, they ordered me to get inside my house and stay inside."

Declining to give her name, another neighbor on Route 115 said she, too, heard loud noises like firecrackers and looked out of her window.

She saw a car heading south on Route 115, away from the house where the murders occurred, but couldn't get a description or license plate because it was dark outside. She wasn't sure if the car had stopped at the house or was passing by.

Neighbor Lyle Metzgar said it's not unusual to hear gunshots nearby because of shooting ranges in the area.

"I didn't know what was going on until this morning," Metzgar said. "I heard reporters saying they heard a woman and child had been shot. Who would want to shoot a child?"

None of the neighbors interviewed knew the victims or anything about them.

Police forensics investigators searched a home in Sierra View, at 65 Rocky Mountain Drive North, on Tuesday afternoon — a former Parrish residence. The home had been unoccupied for some time, windows were broken and the walls and rooms were empty Tuesday.

State police also searched a home on Zurich Drive in Newfoundland, Wayne County, Tuesday evening in connection to the search for Parrish. Investigators at the scene did not comment on why they searched the home or if Parrish had been there. A neighbor, who declined to give her name, said SWAT team members had been at the scene as a part of the search.

Parrish was hired as corrections officer in the Monroe County Prison in August 2008.

http://www.poconorecord.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090709/NEWS/907090328

Victim's mom: Accused was 'control freak'

By HOWARD FRANK
Pocono Record Writer
July 09, 2009

For Kim Adams, mother of Victoria Adams and grandmother of Sidney Parrish, it was a tragedy that shouldn't have happened.

Kim Adams saw signs of trouble when she first met Michael Parrish, the 23-year-old man charged with killing Victoria, 21, and 18-month-old Sidney on Monday night in the apartment they shared in Effort.

"I didn't care for him from the beginning. He physically beat her one time," Kim Adams said. "He was a control freak and kept her away from her family. She was even scared he'd see her with her brother."

After Parrish became a corrections officer at the Monroe County Correctional Facility his behavior seemed to deteriorate, Adams said.

"He became more controlling when he started working at the jail. It was mental abuse, what he was doing with her," she said.

And it was Victoria Adams' love for her son that got the 18-month-old toddler through his heart transplant surgery, according to doctors, Adams said. And that love never wavered, even in the face of death.

Kim Adams said her daughter died trying to protect her grandson.

"They told me they were in the baby's room and she was holding the baby when she died," Kim Adams said.

Victoria was shot seven times and Sidney three times.

Victoria was originally from the Glendale-Ridgewood area of Queens, N.Y., coming to the Poconos about six years ago. The family moved back to the city for a while before returning to the Poconos. Victoria met Parrish a little over two years ago; Sidney would have turned 2 in November.

Sidney was treated for his heart condition at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. The family stayed at the Philadelphia Ronald McDonald House, which provides meals and a place to stay for families of seriously ill children.

"My daughter was a very good mom. Sidney still had to be fed through a feeding tube. The father didn't know how to do that," Kim Adams said. It was that duty, to go home to give her son the medicine he needed, that led to the fatal confrontation with Parrish.