Calvin Lamont Parker
Facts of the Crime:
Sentenced to death in San Diego County on February 24, 2003 for the killing of Patricia Gallego. Parker also raped the Brazilian immigrant and dismembered her body in the August 12, 2000 slaying. The trail that led to a judge sentencing Calvin Lamont Parker to death began when a transient rummaging through a trash bin behind a pet store in the Midway District found a human finger. In the vicinity, police officers discovered eight fingertips, which appeared to be burned, along with a bolt cutter, a used roll of duct tape, cigarette lighters, notes, paperwork, incense, a breathing mask, cologne, clothing, red-stained rubber gloves and numerous other objects, according to court documents. That same day – August 14, 2000 – two women found the body of Patricia Gallego, 29, in Carlsbad.
The body was wrapped in plastic and stuffed into a large wheeled trash can with several pieces of duct tape on the outside. Parker was arrested, tried and convicted in the murder, rape and dismemberment of his former roommate, a Brazilian native who her parents said came to the United States in 1997 to start a new life. Defense attorney Dawnella Gilzean said outside of court that Parker's having been sexually and physically abused as a child contributed to his sense of isolation and his inability to trust anyone. Wellington denied a defense request to sentence Parker to life in prison without parole.
Gallego first met Parker in 1998 when she was dating his then-roommate, according to court documents. They moved in together in May 2000, but were not romantically involved. Prosecutors Brenda Daly and Blaine Bowman said Parker wrote about his infatuation with Gallego and superimposed her face on the pictures of at least 75 of the hundreds of women in sexual positions that he had on his walls, his bed and in duffel bags. They said the murder was carefully planned and that Parker tried to steal her money by cashing forged checks after he killed her. Parker had taken a week off from work, telling his boss that he needed to visit his mother. He wrote out a "to-do" list detailing what he intended to do to Gallego that included notes about getting a "small med. car w/ decent trunk, burn palms + face thoroughly." He then attacked Gallego in their apartment, handcuffed her, raped her, hit her in the head and slit her throat. He drained her blood in the bathtub and cut up the body.
Parker got rid of the blood-and-semen-spattered mattress from her bed in a field in Bonita. The last time Gallego was seen alive was when she left her job at Cafe Chloe on Pearl Street in La Jolla a few days before her body was found. She was killed two weeks before her 30th birthday. Her father, Ruben Gallego, testified during Parker's trial that he had a plane ticket and was planning to visit her for her birthday when he received a telephone call about his daughter's death. Her mother, who attended the trial, was not present at the sentencing. Gallego was her only child. "She didn't die by herself," her mother, Terezinha Ramos Das Silva, said. "It was a family that died with her. I died twice."
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