Facts of the Crime:
In Raleigh, Carlette Parker was supposed to be taking care of 86-year-old Alice Covington, but prosecutors said she was really stealing from the elderly woman and eventually killed her (by drowning in the bathtub). Parker, then a 34-year-old registered nurse assistant, did not make her living caring for elderly people, but preying upon them. She was convicted of kidnapping Covington from the Springmoor Retirement Home in Raleigh in 1998. Parker forced Covington to withdraw money from her bank account then killed her. Police found Covington dead in her car in Research Triangle Park.
In 1995, Parker was convicted of bilking an elderly Garner woman out of $44,000. Covington's death deeply affected many of the residents at Springmoor retirement home. Many of them were in the courtroom as the trial opened. Detectives said they searched Covington's car and found a stun gun and pepper spray, items that probably were used in the abduction. On June 22, 1999, Carlette Elizabeth Parker (defendant) was indicted for first-degree murder and first-degree kidnapping. Defendant was capitally tried before a jury at the March 8, 1999 Criminal Session of Superior Court, Wake County. On March 30, 1999, the jury found defendant guilty of first-degree-kidnapping and of first-degree murder on the basis of premeditation and deliberation and under the felony murder rule. On April 1, 1999, after a capital sentencing proceeding, the jury recommended a sentence of death for the first-degree murder conviction, and the trial court entered judgment in accordance with that recommendation. The trial court also sentenced defendant to a term of 100 to 129 months' imprisonment for the kidnapping conviction.
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