Police Still Uncertain on Origin of Sword

The mystery of how and where Joseph Parker got the sword he used to kill two people at an Irvine supermarket deepened Tuesday.

Police said they had found a receipt for a sword they believe was used in Sunday’s attack, but the owner of the Stanton martial arts store where it was purchased says the sword was a special order and won’t be in for another week.

Parker, a 30-year-old bagger known for erratic behavior who hacked two fellow employees to death and wounded three other people before being fatally shot by police did indeed order and pay for a sword last week at Musashi Martial Arts Supplies, the shop’s owner said Tuesday.

But the sword he bought -- described as a highlander type with an ivory handle and decorated with a dragon’s head -- is not expected to be delivered by the supplier until next week.

“It hasn’t come in yet,” owner Terry Miller said. “I told him I’d call him when it did.”

After finding a receipt for the sword at Parker’s Santa Ana home, investigators believed they had found the source of the murder weapon recovered at the scene. “That would certainly be a logical conclusion,” Cmdr. Jeff Noble, a spokesman for the Irvine Police Department, said Tuesday.

Miller, however, contradicted that theory with her recollection of the sale. Parker, she said, first came into the Beach Boulevard store last Wednesday and browsed for more than an hour.

“I’d never seen him before,” she said. “He’s not a regular customer -- I got the feeling he was walking by and just came in.”

The next day, the store owner said, Parker showed up again with a more specific mission.

“He knew exactly what he wanted,” she said. “He seemed like a nice guy; there were no red flags. He asked me about the color of the handle and such. I thought he was a collector.”

She said Parker ordered the sword from a catalog, using a credit card to pay the $430.99 cost. The next day, she said, he called to give her a phone number, which she promised to call once the weapon came in.

The next time she heard of Parker, Miller said, was in newspaper accounts of the slayings.