Lumberton teen gets life sentence in educator's death

A teenager was sentenced Wednesday to life in prison without parole for gunning down a prominent Robeson County educator 2 1/2years ago.

A jury found 19-year-old Jamie Daquan Lowery guilty of first-degree murder and armed robbery for his role in the 2008 shooting death of 56-year-old Al Parnell.

Jurors deliberated for less than an hour Wednesday morning before handing up the guilty verdicts.

Becky Parnell, the victim's widow, sobbed in the courtroom as the clerk read the verdicts.

A moment later, she stood and addressed the man convicted of killing her husband during a botched robbery attempt.

"My husband did not do anything to anyone," Becky Parnell said, trembling slightly as she read from a prepared statement. "He was totally innocent, and his murder cannot be justified. He did not deserve this. I did not deserve this."

Lowery sat motionless, showing no emotion as she spoke. Because he was 16 at the time of the murder, the state was barred from seeking the death penalty.

"He was not old enough to get the death penalty, but he was old enough to know what he did," Becky Parnell said, speaking directly to jurors. "It is what it is. He is a murderer."

Al Parnell, a teacher for 28 years in Robeson County schools, was shot three times on July 2, 2008, while carrying trash to a dumpsite in east Lumberton. Authorities found him slumped over in his pickup.

Lawmen arrested Lowery a month after the shooting and charged him in the murder.

Lowery eventually confessed to shooting Parnell while trying to rob the former high school social studies teacher. The teen later attempted to recant the statement he made to investigators, but a judge denied his lawyer's motion to suppress the evidence.

Lowery did not testify during the trial, which lasted eight days.

William Dowdy, Lowery's court-appointed lawyer, argued during closing remarks Tuesday that his client's confession was coerced and should not have been considered. The lawyer attempted to poke holes in the prosecution's case by questioning the credibility of the state's witnesses and by highlighting inconsistencies in testimony.

The prosecution's lead witnesses, Nicholas Blackmon and Joshua Goodson, initially were brought in as suspects in the murder. Instead, the two men agreed to testify against Lowery as part of plea agreements sparing them from criminal charges in the case.

District Attorney Johnson Britt acknowledged that the state's witnesses were imperfect. But, the prosecutor told the jurors during his closing remarks, all of the testimony, combined with Lowery's own confession, made the jury's job easy.

An eyewitness driving past the scene at the time of the shooting later identified Lowery as the person she saw running away. And other statements made by Lowery during interrogation, including his knowledge of the murder weapon, pointed to him as the killer, Britt said.

Dowdy, the defense lawyer, made a motion at the close of the trial to throw out the jury verdict based on what he called "obvious reversible errors" by Superior Court Judge Claire Hill.

Dowdy accused Hill of ruling in favor of the state in every objection raised throughout the trial. The defense lawyer said the verdict should be thrown out because, among other concerns, the jury forewoman was allowed to remain on the panel despite her personal friendship with the district attorney.

The judge denied Dowdy's motion to invalidate the trial. Britt said afterward he is confident the conviction will stand when the case comes up for appeal.

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