Suvechha Sarkar
Corey Lynn Parker was a 25-year-old young woman with a promising future ahead of her. However, her life turned upside down in November 1998 when she was brutally killed in her apartment in Jacksonville, Florida. The shocking nature of her death left the community shaken to its core, and her family devastated. Investigation Discovery’s ‘Betrayed: Deadly Crush’ revisits the case and how it took two years for the investigators to arrest the killer. It also retraces the moments leading up to the murder and features interviews with her friends and officials, who helped uncover the truth.
Corey Parker Was Found Dead From Stab Wounds in Her Apartment
Bruce and Liz Parker welcomed their daughter, Corey Lynn Parker, into the world sometime in 1973. She grew up in Rochester, New York, surrounded by the affection of her parents and her sister, Kim. Within the next few years, her parents got divorced, and Bruce married Loretta. She had always dreamed of moving to a sunnier place, and eventually moved to Jacksonville, Florida, in September 1998. She loved living near the beach and soon made many friends thanks to her outgoing nature. Corey enrolled in the Community College there and juggled her studies with her work as a waitress at the Ragtime Tavern. There she also met her boyfriend, David, who always made her smile. Since Corey couldn’t go home to spend Thanksgiving Day that year, and David wasn’t present during the holiday, she decided to spend it with her friends.
On November 25, Corey went to a bar, The Ritz, with her friends. She had a close bond with her friend, Tiffany, and they often spent nights at each other’s places. So, when around 1:30 am, Corey decided to head back home, the others heard Tiffany say that she would call her later and come by her apartment. On November 26, everyone was surprised when Corey didn’t show up for Thanksgiving. Her manager found it unusual the following day when she didn’t show up for work. He sent an employee to her apartment to check up on her. The employee horrifically spotted a bloody leg through the blinds of her bedroom window. When he informed the manager, the latter promptly called 911. As officials arrived, they found the front door locked, but her car was outside.
Detectives discovered an open kitchen window, and an official entered through there, helping unlock the door. In the bedroom, they found Corey dead with numerous stab wounds and covered in blood, on the corner of the mattress. She was reportedly unclothed and had multiple defensive wounds on her arms. Investigators discovered that her undergarment and a sock in the bedroom had hair on them. They found no signs of forced entry, but noticed a blood smear on the kitchen windowsill and on the counter near the kitchen sink, indicating that the killer might have exited through there. However, they found no physical sign of sexual assault. The autopsy revealed that she had 101 stab wounds, but her cause of death was determined to be excessive blood loss from the two wounds to her neck. It was also found that 54 of those wounds were reportedly postmortem.
A DNA Match Cracked the Case After Two Long Years
Detectives initially questioned Corey’s neighbors, who told them they hadn’t heard anything on that fateful night. When officials learned that Tiffany knew details about the murder not yet made public, she was brought in for questioning. She explained that she found those details from a customer who was a paramedic. Tiffany claimed that she had called Corey between 2:30 am and 4 am, but didn’t get any response. However, phone records reportedly indicated that no call had been made to Corey that night. It is imperative to note that Tiffany was never considered a suspect and was not accused of any wrongdoing. She informed the investigators that there was a guy named Eric Ely, who worked with Corey and had an alleged obsession with her. It was revealed that Eric had called her on November 25, 1998, to invite her to a Thanksgiving Dinner at his home.
When Eric was questioned, he admitted that he loved Corey. He continued that he wanted to quit work to date her since she had mentioned that she didn’t date coworkers. Officials then interrogated David, but he was ruled out as a suspect since he was at Pensacola, Florida, on that day. DNA samples from him, Tiffany, and Eric were collected, but none matched the hair found at the scene. By spring 2000, detectives contacted Corey’s neighbor, Joe, because his alibi could not be verified. Moreover, his hair was similar to the one found at Corey’s apartment. However, he was ruled out when his DNA results did not match. In July 2000, officials received a tip about Corey’s then-17-year-old neighbor, Robert Eric Denney, who lived just a few yards away from her. Investigators soon learned that Robert’s older brother had also reportedly raped and killed a woman by stabbing her 98 times.
The nature of the crime was similar to how Corey was killed. Hence, detectives focused on trying to get his DNA. By then, Robert had already relocated to Easton, Maryland. They contacted the Maryland authorities and went there to bring him in, reportedly under the pretense of a separate crime. Investigators reportedly tried to collect his DNA through the water bottle they gave Robert to drink from, a cigarette butt that he smoked, and by attempting to make him seal an envelope after signing some forms. However, he caught up with them and refused to give his DNA. So, they set up surveillance at his workplace, and after two days of waiting, he spat outside. The sample was quickly collected, and it turned out to be a match to the DNA found at the murder scene. Ultimately, Robert was arrested on November 28, 2000, and charged with the murder of Corey.
Robert Denney is Currently Serving His Time at a Florida Prison Facility
The trial of Robert for the murder of Corey began in April 2005. The prosecution reportedly presented the DNA evidence and put forth the testimony of one of his former co-workers, Julia Sedgwick. She had reportedly testified that around January 1999, he had once called her early in the morning in a hysterical state and explained that he had a death in the family and had to return to Texas. When she rode to his apartment to help him pack his bags, he had allegedly told her about a waitress in a neighboring apartment that he wanted to date. Prosecution reportedly claimed Robert could watch her easily since he lived next door on the first floor, while Corey’s apartment was on the ground floor.
The defense argued that several other fingerprints and additional DNA evidence were found at the apartment. However, none of them reportedly turned out to be a match to Robert or any other person. They also accused officials of inexperienced handling of the evidence and claimed that some of them were not tested. He reportedly testified at his trial and claimed he did not know Corey and had never seen her before. After a three-week trial, the jury found Robert guilty of premeditated first-degree murder. Since he was 17 at the time of the murder, the prosecution did not pursue the death penalty.
On May 9, 2005, Robert was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Following the conviction, his first appeal was denied in 2006 by the Appellate Court. It was followed by his filing a motion for post-conviction relief in July 2008. Although an evidentiary hearing was set for October 1, 2013, there had been no official updates regarding the same. In the motion, he had raised claims of ineffective assistance of counsel and issues regarding evidence handling. On August 21, 2021, the Appellate Court affirmed the lower court’s decision during an appeal. As of writing, Robert is incarcerated at Okeechobee Correctional Institution in Okeechobee, Florida.
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