00:00:00
[Music]
00:00:04
up next a murder that stumps even
00:00:07
veteran detectives it was a nasty nasty
00:00:10
crime scene and a crime that offers few
00:00:12
clues there were no signs of any
00:00:15
struggle or fight was this a sex crime
00:00:18
by a jilted lover her body was
00:00:20
positioned in a way that was very
00:00:22
sexually suggestive it's hard to imagine
00:00:24
that anybody's capable of something like
00:00:26
this until one man's words reveal a
00:00:29
twisted motive and a killer with a
00:00:32
bizarre past
00:00:35
[Music]
00:00:42
jacksonville florida with its warm sandy
00:00:45
beaches and sub-tropical climate was the
00:00:48
perfect place for 25-year-old corey
00:00:51
parker to attend college
00:00:53
she liked it a lot better than the cold
00:00:55
winters of her hometown of rochester new
00:00:58
york
00:00:59
corey was beautiful she was very tall
00:01:02
she had a presence about her some of our
00:01:04
best times together was a girls night in
00:01:07
you know rent movies and go hang out at
00:01:09
the house
00:01:11
corey worked her way through college as
00:01:13
a waitress
00:01:14
during the thanksgiving holiday of her
00:01:16
junior year
00:01:18
she didn't show up for work
00:01:20
so her fellow employees were concerned
00:01:23
they thought immediately that something
00:01:24
was wrong so the manager directed one of
00:01:28
the cooks to go by her apartment to
00:01:31
check on her
00:01:32
her apartment door was locked
00:01:35
but her co-worker looked inside
00:01:38
and saw her body on the bed covered in
00:01:42
blood
00:01:43
this crime scene was one of the worst
00:01:45
that this county has ever seen in terms
00:01:47
of its uh just gruesomeness
00:01:50
there was blood all over her bedroom all
00:01:53
over her body almost as if it had been
00:01:55
painted on her
00:01:56
the scene appeared to be staged
00:01:59
cory's body was positioned in a way that
00:02:02
was very sexually suggestive
00:02:05
she was nude
00:02:06
her legs were spread apart there's every
00:02:08
indication that there was a sexual
00:02:10
motive to this crime
00:02:14
interestingly the autopsy found no
00:02:16
evidence of sexual assault
00:02:18
cory parker was stabbed 101 times of
00:02:21
those 101 stab wounds i believe 54 were
00:02:25
postmortem
00:02:27
overkill does indicate to investigators
00:02:30
a relationship between victim and
00:02:33
perpetrator
00:02:35
police learned that the night before her
00:02:37
murder corey spent the night at a local
00:02:40
bar with friends
00:02:41
witnesses said she left around 1am
00:02:45
the clothes cory wore to the bar were
00:02:48
folded neatly at the bottom of her bed
00:02:52
we also know that she had prepared
00:02:54
herself for bed and crawled in her bed
00:02:56
so we know
00:02:57
that she wasn't attacked until after she
00:03:00
was in bed
00:03:01
so either he was waiting in her bedroom
00:03:03
closet
00:03:05
or he let himself into the apartment
00:03:14
investigators found a gold-plated zippo
00:03:16
lighter in cory's bedroom although corey
00:03:19
smoked
00:03:20
none of her friends recognized it
00:03:23
investigators dusted the lighter for
00:03:26
fingerprints
00:03:28
but none were found it became apparent
00:03:30
to us that there was no way that that
00:03:33
was corey parker's lighter
00:03:35
inside the kitchen of corey's apartment
00:03:37
police found
00:03:39
a blood stain on the kitchen counter
00:03:42
next to the sink
00:03:44
and on the windowsill above the sink
00:03:46
both inside
00:03:48
and outside
00:03:50
this led police to believe the killer
00:03:53
entered and exited the apartment through
00:03:56
the kitchen window the reason we believe
00:03:59
the killer didn't go out the door was
00:04:01
because of the light that was outside
00:04:05
the kitchen window offered the suspect a
00:04:08
way to both get in and out of the
00:04:10
apartment without being illuminated
00:04:13
corey's phone records revealed that a
00:04:16
former co-worker 27 year old eric jones
00:04:20
had been calling her repeatedly before
00:04:22
her death
00:04:24
he had been asking cory out for some
00:04:27
time she had been telling him no
00:04:29
employees at the restaurant told us that
00:04:31
he had an obsession or an infatuation
00:04:35
with her and was continuously talking to
00:04:38
her when she'd come to work or trying to
00:04:40
ask her out
00:04:42
jones had no criminal record
00:04:45
but acted bizarrely when interviewed by
00:04:48
police
00:04:49
not only did he have a history of mental
00:04:52
illness by his own admission but he told
00:04:55
police officers that he had fantasies
00:04:57
about
00:04:57
raping and killing women which clearly
00:04:59
jumped out at law enforcement he
00:05:01
described sexual fantasies that he had
00:05:03
about cory some some were fairly violent
00:05:07
he even told investigators how he would
00:05:10
have murdered corey had he been given
00:05:12
the chance
00:05:14
he described how he would have slit her
00:05:16
throat early in the early in the murder
00:05:19
so that she couldn't scream for help
00:05:21
and that description was similar enough
00:05:24
to how she was really killed that it
00:05:26
again raised the police suspicion
00:05:28
[Music]
00:05:31
the medical examiner who performed corey
00:05:33
parker's autopsy found no signs of
00:05:37
sexual assault
00:05:38
but corey had been stabbed
00:05:41
over 100 times
00:05:44
there were numerous defensive wounds on
00:05:46
her hands and arms proving
00:05:50
there had been an intense struggle
00:05:54
our theory was that corey parker fought
00:05:55
for her life in order to prevent a
00:05:58
sexual assault
00:05:59
investigators found several foreign
00:06:01
hairs in corey's hands one
00:06:04
had an intact root
00:06:07
the fact that the hair had root material
00:06:09
on it
00:06:10
and was not from her would allow you to
00:06:12
at least presume that that hair had to
00:06:14
be attained forcefully dna testing
00:06:17
revealed the blood in the kitchen came
00:06:20
from the same person as the hair in
00:06:23
corey's hand
00:06:24
surprisingly
00:06:26
this dna did not match the prime suspect
00:06:28
eric jones corey's co-worker despite his
00:06:32
bizarre behavior
00:06:34
i think it's fair to say was mentally
00:06:36
unstable at this time and while
00:06:38
prescribed medication to
00:06:41
control his mental illness he was not
00:06:43
taking it and so i think at the time
00:06:45
that he gave these statements he was
00:06:47
mentally unstable
00:06:49
the dna from corey's apartment
00:06:52
did not match any of the dna profiles in
00:06:55
either the state or national criminal
00:06:58
databases
00:07:00
in the search for corey parker's killer
00:07:03
investigators discovered that she had
00:07:05
just started dating someone new
00:07:09
his name was david wilt
00:07:11
but it didn't take long for
00:07:13
investigators to eliminate him as a
00:07:15
suspect
00:07:16
he was out of state at his parents house
00:07:19
for thanksgiving
00:07:20
and so you know he had a very solid
00:07:22
alibi
00:07:24
investigators interviewed everyone corey
00:07:27
spoke with at the ritz bar on the night
00:07:29
of her murder
00:07:31
most of the people corey saw that night
00:07:34
left the bar before she did
00:07:36
but one friend
00:07:38
tiffany smith stayed with corey until
00:07:41
one in the morning
00:07:43
tiffany told police
00:07:44
they both left the bar at the same time
00:07:47
in their own cars and went their
00:07:49
separate ways
00:07:51
but tiffany told friends
00:07:53
that wasn't the only contact she had
00:07:55
with corey that
00:07:56
night she said she called corey from her
00:07:59
cell phone around 2 am and corey
00:08:02
answered the phone
00:08:03
she said when corey answered the phone
00:08:05
that corey was asleep and
00:08:07
she asked her what she was doing corey
00:08:10
said i'm sleeping tiffany also told
00:08:13
friends she drove to corey's apartment
00:08:16
around 4am and knocked on her door
00:08:19
but no one answered so she left
00:08:22
her statement that she went by corey's
00:08:25
house puts her at the crime scene during
00:08:28
the time that corey could have possibly
00:08:30
been killed and that added to that
00:08:34
suspicion that she could possibly be
00:08:36
involved
00:08:37
but when investigators checked tiffany's
00:08:39
cell phone records
00:08:41
they made a startling discovery
00:08:43
tiffany didn't call corey after they
00:08:46
left the ritz bar
00:08:49
obviously
00:08:50
investigators were curious as to why she
00:08:53
would
00:08:55
say that she had called and actually
00:08:56
spoken with corey when it wasn't true
00:09:00
but why would tiffany make up a story
00:09:03
like that
00:09:04
everybody was talking about the
00:09:05
possibility that maybe she was sexually
00:09:07
interested in corey
00:09:09
tiffany mentioned to me in just a very
00:09:11
casual conversation that she had been
00:09:13
vicarious
00:09:14
[Music]
00:09:16
tiffany had a real
00:09:18
true
00:09:19
affection for corey
00:09:21
in addition
00:09:22
tiffany told friends things about the
00:09:24
crime scene that had not been released
00:09:27
to the general public she was describing
00:09:30
the state of the victim's body and the
00:09:32
scene without having been privy to
00:09:35
either photographs or a walk-through of
00:09:37
the scene they thought it was certainly
00:09:39
suspicious i thought it was really
00:09:40
strange that she would have any idea
00:09:43
of how corey had been killed
00:09:46
tiffany denied any involvement in the
00:09:49
murder but when asked to provide a dna
00:09:51
sample
00:09:52
she refused
00:09:54
the fact that she did not willingly give
00:09:56
up dna or hair samples led the police to
00:09:59
believe she had something to hide
00:10:03
even though corey parker's friend
00:10:06
tiffany smith insisted
00:10:08
she had nothing to do with corey's
00:10:10
murder she made
00:10:12
untruthful statements about her
00:10:14
activities on the night of the murder
00:10:19
she also refused to provide a dna sample
00:10:22
she actually put herself at the crime
00:10:25
scene in one of her statements
00:10:27
but scientists found a surprising piece
00:10:30
of information in the blood evidence
00:10:32
left by the killer
00:10:34
they found the tell-tale y
00:10:37
chromosome
00:10:39
a y chromosome is present
00:10:42
only in men we did develop a male
00:10:45
profile from this particular sample
00:10:47
which was a blood sample
00:10:49
from a point of entry or exit into the
00:10:51
apartment we were optimistic that this
00:10:53
could be from the suspect
00:10:55
so tiffany was eliminated as a suspect
00:10:58
they believed that tiffany was saying
00:11:01
things to kind of inject herself into
00:11:03
the investigation to make her seem more
00:11:05
important than she was
00:11:07
investigators believe tiffany learned
00:11:09
details of the crime scene from a friend
00:11:12
who worked on the emergency crew
00:11:16
police were forced to consider the
00:11:18
possibility that corey's murder was a
00:11:20
random act perpetrated by a man with an
00:11:24
uncontrollable hatred for women
00:11:28
eventually police performed dna tests on
00:11:31
38 men co-workers fellow students former
00:11:35
boyfriends
00:11:36
with no success
00:11:38
i was very concerned that they would
00:11:40
never solve the case and what i learned
00:11:42
from watching other crimes is that the
00:11:44
longer it goes on the less likely it is
00:11:46
to solve a crime
00:11:49
18 months passed
00:11:51
and police continued to work the case
00:11:54
pouring through the file re-reading the
00:11:57
police interviews
00:11:59
to generate new leads
00:12:01
police offered a reward for any new
00:12:03
evidence which would lead to a
00:12:05
conviction and degenerated a lead
00:12:09
some employees of a local steakhouse a
00:12:11
few miles from corey parker's apartment
00:12:14
called police to report that a co-worker
00:12:17
robert denney behaved suspiciously after
00:12:21
corey's murder you just seemed to be
00:12:23
upset and was crying had come into this
00:12:26
restaurant one day and told them that
00:12:29
his child had been killed in an
00:12:30
automobile accident in texas and that he
00:12:33
needed to get back home denny's
00:12:35
co-workers responded generously by
00:12:38
raising money so he could return to
00:12:40
texas to attend his son's funeral
00:12:43
after collecting that money the owner of
00:12:45
the restaurant went over to give the
00:12:47
money to his sister when he was told
00:12:50
that robert denney did not have a son
00:12:53
and that that story was fabricated
00:12:56
and
00:12:57
there was something else about robert
00:12:59
denney
00:13:00
he lived in the same complex as corey
00:13:04
parker with a direct line of sight
00:13:07
into her apartment
00:13:10
robert denney told some co-workers about
00:13:14
this woman that lived in an apartment
00:13:16
below him and he began to
00:13:19
talk about how he would watch her
00:13:22
and even went so far to graphically
00:13:24
describe that he would masturbate while
00:13:27
watching her
00:13:29
when police decided to question denny
00:13:31
again his sister told police that he'd
00:13:34
left the area
00:13:36
she had actually kicked him out of the
00:13:38
home she shared with her husband
00:13:41
because of his odd behavior staying up
00:13:43
all hours of the night
00:13:45
his what she described as an addiction
00:13:47
to pornography
00:13:49
she told
00:13:50
one law enforcement officer that she had
00:13:52
awoken to him
00:13:53
looking over her bed and staring at her
00:13:56
then police learned another disturbing
00:13:59
piece of information
00:14:01
robert denny's older brother was serving
00:14:03
a life sentence in texas for stabbing a
00:14:06
woman
00:14:07
97 times
00:14:10
corey parker was stabbed 101 times what
00:14:13
are the chances of two young men coming
00:14:16
out of the same family committing such
00:14:19
heinous heinous and atrocious murders
00:14:21
and did he get that idea from his
00:14:23
brother was he trying to emulate his
00:14:25
brother
00:14:28
18 months after corey parker's murder
00:14:31
investigators found robert denney 800
00:14:34
miles away in maryland where he was
00:14:36
living with a 52-year-old married woman
00:14:41
robert denney had struck up an email
00:14:43
relationship with a married woman and
00:14:46
eventually had convinced her
00:14:48
to let him come up there and live with
00:14:51
her and her husband
00:14:54
he and this woman had a sexual
00:14:56
relationship
00:14:57
right under the husband's nose
00:15:00
when police questioned denny
00:15:02
they told him they were investigating
00:15:04
his possible involvement in a different
00:15:07
crime
00:15:08
hoping he'd let down his guard
00:15:11
they told him that they were
00:15:12
investigating a potential allegation
00:15:14
that he had been involved in a fight in
00:15:17
eastern maryland which they thought that
00:15:19
he would voluntarily give his dna to
00:15:22
prove that he had not been involved in
00:15:23
the fight and we were not leaving
00:15:25
eastern maryland until we got his dna
00:15:29
this proved to be harder than
00:15:31
investigators anticipated
00:15:34
denny smoked during his interrogation
00:15:37
but
00:15:38
always made sure to keep the cigarette
00:15:41
butts
00:15:42
detectives offered him a bottle of water
00:15:45
but he wouldn't touch it
00:15:47
finally they asked him to sign a
00:15:50
document saying he refused to provide
00:15:52
his dna
00:15:54
we asked him to put the letter into the
00:15:56
envelope and seal the envelopes he
00:15:59
refused to seal the envelopes and at
00:16:01
that point basically told us look you've
00:16:03
tried three times to get my saliva on
00:16:06
something first the cigarette butt then
00:16:08
the water bottle and now the envelopes
00:16:11
seal it yourself is there anything else
00:16:14
i can do for you
00:16:16
so investigators put denny under
00:16:18
surveillance at his home and at the
00:16:21
computer store where he worked
00:16:24
he took a cigarette break every 45
00:16:26
minutes
00:16:28
but was careful to keep the evidence
00:16:31
when he smoked his cigarettes he would
00:16:33
put out the butts and then put the butts
00:16:35
in his pocket so they could not be
00:16:37
collected
00:16:39
two days passed
00:16:41
and investigators finally got a break
00:16:44
just after a brief rainstorm
00:16:47
denny came outside to smoke
00:16:50
but this time
00:16:52
he did something different
00:16:55
he walked around and then all of a
00:16:57
sudden
00:16:58
began spitting on the sidewalk not once
00:17:01
not twice but six times because of the
00:17:04
rain
00:17:06
the saliva was sitting on top of the
00:17:08
rain water making it easy to collect
00:17:11
and the barrier helped reduce
00:17:13
contamination
00:17:14
it was very easy to designate where it
00:17:17
was
00:17:18
from that point on it's the same as
00:17:20
testing for a hair or a blood stain or
00:17:22
semester
00:17:23
the results left no doubt
00:17:26
the unknown dna from corey parker's
00:17:29
apartment belonged
00:17:31
to robert benny
00:17:33
the fact that he denied ever having been
00:17:36
in her apartment
00:17:38
made
00:17:40
this evidence all the more incriminating
00:17:42
and there was one other piece of
00:17:44
evidence that implicated denny
00:17:47
the gold-plated lighter found in corey's
00:17:50
bedroom
00:17:51
he said it wasn't his
00:17:53
but a former girlfriend told police
00:17:56
it was his lighter
00:17:59
she was able to identify the emblem on
00:18:01
and she was positive that was his
00:18:02
lighter
00:18:04
prosecutors believe
00:18:05
robert denney was obsessed with his
00:18:08
beautiful neighbor corey parker
00:18:11
and monitored her comings and goings
00:18:14
he also looked inside her apartment
00:18:17
whenever he could
00:18:20
prosecutors believe
00:18:22
denny saw corey get ready to go with her
00:18:24
friends on the night before thanksgiving
00:18:27
[Music]
00:18:29
then
00:18:30
armed with a knife
00:18:32
and wearing gloves
00:18:34
he entered corey's apartment through the
00:18:37
kitchen window
00:18:41
the evidence suggests he hid somewhere
00:18:44
possibly
00:18:45
in her closet
00:18:46
and waited
00:18:47
for her to return
00:18:49
[Music]
00:19:01
corey had no hint that anyone was inside
00:19:06
and went to bed
00:19:12
[Music]
00:19:14
that's when denny attacked
00:19:17
[Music]
00:19:20
but corey fought back
00:19:22
much harder than he'd anticipated
00:19:25
in the process
00:19:27
she pulled out some of his hair which
00:19:29
contained his dna
00:19:32
his lighter slipped from his pocket
00:19:34
during the struggle
00:19:36
he stabbed her repeatedly
00:19:39
at some point he cut himself
00:19:41
and bled inside his gloved hand
00:19:47
as he left the apartment through the
00:19:48
kitchen window
00:19:50
he left a blood smear on the windowsill
00:19:54
providing his dna
00:19:57
robert denney went on trial for first
00:20:00
degree murder
00:20:02
the jury deliberated for 45 minutes we
00:20:06
the jury find the defendant guilty of
00:20:08
murder in the first degree as charged in
00:20:09
the indictment we the jury further find
00:20:12
that the killing was done with
00:20:13
premeditation
00:20:15
since he was only 17 years old a minor
00:20:18
when he committed the crime
00:20:20
denny was sentenced to life in prison
00:20:23
without parole
00:20:25
robert denny is a hard person to
00:20:27
understand there was obviously some
00:20:29
dysfunction in his family that
00:20:32
is far greater than most of us probably
00:20:35
know he was methodical in cleaning up he
00:20:37
was
00:20:38
careful
00:20:39
and he almost got away with murder but
00:20:42
for that one drop of blood and hair that
00:20:44
he shed that he didn't ever expect to be
00:20:47
discovered this girl was a very likable
00:20:52
very intelligent
00:20:53
very beautiful 25 year old that had a
00:20:57
bright future in front of her she came
00:20:59
from a good family
00:21:01
and had a good social network had
00:21:03
everything in the world to live for and
00:21:06
in one instance this cold-blooded killer
00:21:09
takes her life
00:21:11
[Music]
