Death Penalty to Be Sought Against Parker

Prosecutors said Thursday that they will seek the death penalty for a former Marine accused of six murders stemming from a series of Orange County rape and bludgeon attacks nearly 20 years ago.

“I think the reasons are self-evident, but I really can’t comment on it,” Deputy Dist. Atty. Mike Jacobs said.

Gerald Parker, 41, appeared briefly in Orange County Superior Court for an arraignment hearing. He returns to court Sept. 12 and is expected to enter a plea to charges in a six-count murder indictment. He previously pleaded not guilty to the charges in Municipal Court.

The defendant, whose life has been spent between prison and homelessness since a 1980 conviction for raping a 13-year-old Tustin girl, was arrested in June. Investigators said a new system of genetic testing linked him to attacks on young Orange County women who were raped and bashed in their ground-floor apartments during 1978 and 1979.

Parker, who was in prison on a parole violation at the time of his arrest, confessed to attacking the women--usually with 2x4 boards. He told detectives he would cruise the county in a drunken stupor looking for open windows or unlocked doors, according to grand jury transcripts.

Authorities say they have DNA or other evidence, including fingerprints in some cases, linking Parker to the murders of Kimberly Gaye Rawlins, 21, of Costa Mesa; Marolyn Kay Carleton, 31, of Costa Mesa; Debora Kennedy, 24, of Tustin; Debra Lynn Senior, 17, of Costa Mesa; and Sandra Kay Fry, 17, of Anaheim.

He also is charged in the 1979 bludgeon attack on 21-year-old Dianna Green and the death of the full-term baby she was carrying, Chantal Marie Green. Kevin Lee Green of Tustin, who was married to Dianna Green at the time, was convicted and imprisoned for 17 years in the attack. Kevin Green was freed from custody in June after Parker’s arrest.