Marine Sentenced to 27 Years to Life in ’85 Murder of Woman

A corporal stationed at the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station was sentenced Monday to 27 years to life in prison for the murder of a Los Angeles woman who was found dead on railroad tracks in Anaheim last year.

James Lee Parker, 24, was given a 25-year sentence--plus an additional two years because he used a gun--for the Oct. 27, 1985, slaying of Kelly Devon Tucker, 22.

Parker, who is from Texas, admitted in a videotaped conversation with Anaheim police that he had shot Tucker. He said he believed he had to shoot her because he thought she was trying to rob him, a claim that prosecutors argued was ludicrous.

Special allegations of rape and attempted rape had been dismissed by Superior Court Judge Kathleen E. O’Leary, ending prosecutors’ attempts to win a death sentence.

Parker was arrested Nov. 6, 1985, after police learned that he had been seen with her at a party the night she was killed. Police also learned that Parker had bought a gun shortly before the incident that was like the one used to shoot the woman.

The body was found by railroad workers on the tracks under the Brookhurst Street overpass, just south of the Santa Ana Freeway.

She had been shot once in the back of the head and dumped on the tracks about six hours before being run over by a freight train, according to a coroner’s report.