DATE: Saturday, April 12, 1997              TAG: 9704120291

SECTION: FRONT                   PAGE: A1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY ANGELITA PLEMMER, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: PORTSMOUTH                        LENGTH:  196 lines

27 YEARS LATER, A CRIME VICTIM'S PAIN LINGERS PORTSMOUTH MAN SUFFERED A SIMILAR ATTTACK BY KING

On a chilly March night in 1970, Darrel Parson was escorting a girl home from a party in Cavalier Manor when a blue-green Chevrolet Biscayne approached.

The car slowed as it approached Parson and the girl, Thea Renee Evans. Suddenly Parson ``saw fire'' coming from the car. He felt pain in his right hand and right thigh.

Michael Edward King, an 18-year-old high school dropout, had fired one shot from a 12-gauge sawed-off shotgun. Pellets sprayed Parson and Evans as they stood outside her house in the 300 block of Viking Street.

When police searched King's home last year, they found a news clipping describing the shooting of Parson and Evans 26 years earlier. The reason for the search: King had again been charged with a shooting, this time a murder.

A prosecutor said the clipping was displayed in a box ``like a trophy.'' Police also found Ku Klux Klan literature in King's home.

King is white. The 1970 victims, Parson and Evans, are black. The 1996 murder victim, Phillip Bell, also was black. On Friday, King, now 45, was convicted of first-degree murder of Bell, a Churchland High School student. The jury that convicted him - seven members were black, five white - sentenced him to life in prison without parole.

It marked the second time King was convicted of crimes of violence in Portsmouth. A judge in 1970 convicted him of malicious wounding in the shootings of Parson and Evans. He spent about nine years in prison for that crime.

This is the story of two apparently random, unprovoked acts of violence by one man, 26 years apart, against black teen-agers as they walked along Portsmouth streets. The account is based on an interview with Parson and court records.

Laughter mingled with the music of Marvin Gaye and Otis Redding in the crowded three-bedroom house in Cavalier Manor on the night of March 14, 1970. Parson told the story during an interview Friday, as the jury deliberated King's fate in the Bell case.

A line of polyester-clad teen-agers, sporting short Afros and bellbottoms, began to file out as the house party came to a close. Parson, then an 18-year-old freshman at Norfolk State University, knew it was time to go. Parson said folks didn't stay out much past 11 o'clock in those days.

As he got ready to leave, the party's hostess asked if he would walk Evans, her girlfriend, home. The party on Kitt Court was three blocks from Evans' home.

Parson agreed, and the two cut through his back yard in the 1000 block of Horne Avenue, and then around the corner to reach Evans' small brick home. It took about 10 minutes.

As Parson and Evans walked and chatted, a car approached from Greenwood Drive.

``I turned my head and saw it coming down Viking. It wasn't going real fast,'' Parson, now 45, said. ``I saw three people sitting in front and I thought I saw a few folks sitting in the back.

``I had my hands in my pockets. I turned again and I saw something sticking out of the window. Before I could react, I saw fire come out . . .''

It was just before midnight. Parson and Evans would survive the injuries, but Parson's right hand still shows evidence of the attack: scars and dimples.

``The force was so great I was actually lifted off my feet,'' Parson said.

He fell to the ground and rolled onto his side. His hand was swollen and bloodied. But he was able to recognize the make and year of the car as it sped away.

A neighbor heard the noise and came from her home to help. Evans, who had been struck in the right thigh, ran into her house to wake her parents.

Parson's parents rushed him to a nearby hospital. Doctors didn't want to remove the pellets because they were afraid of irreparable nerve damage.

Doctors did, however, remove some pellets from Evans' leg, but some remained.

Three weeks after the shooting, police arrested King, who was working as a vending machine mechanic.

In a statement to police, King said he had been in the car with three other men and a woman at the time of the shooting. He said he later threw the gun in the river off the City Park Bridge.

King provided police with a confession:

``On March 14, 1970, I went to Farm Fresh to get a drink; when I come out of the store there were about six or seven colored guys there and they started calling me names. I kept walking until I got to my car and got in. I looked back and they were throwing bottles; one of them hit the top of my car so I left.''

He then described how he and his friends got in a car and drove around.

``. . . Dennis wanted to shoot my sawed off 12 ga. shotgun. We went to the woods behind Green Lakes and shot it. We then started riding and went to the 7-11 in Hodges Manor. We started talking and riding some more. I took the gun with me and we rode uptown and then into Cavalier Manor. There were two colored people standing there; I don't know what made me do it but I shot them.''

On May 20, 1970, King was convicted of two counts of malicious wounding. It could not be determined if his friends were charged. Before King's sentencing, a judge ordered a pre-sentence report.

William S. Hodgin, a probation and parole officer who prepared the document, wrote: ``In spite of the lack of a prior record, it is not felt that this is a proper case for probation supervision due primarily to the severity of these present convictions. It is recommended that probation not be considered.''

On Friday, Parson, now married with two sons, sat in his Cavalier Manor home, barely a mile from where he was shot, reflecting on the events that happened nearly three decades ago.

``I felt like it was attempted murder . . . and now, as it turned out, he has killed somebody,'' he said.

``There was never an apology from nobody. . . . I didn't think he got enough time,'' Parson said. ``It's just sad that he came out and did the same thing all over again.''

Parson, who works as a casting technician in Hampton, said that when he heard about Bell's slaying, he wondered if the killer could possibly be the same man who had shot him. He had the same name.

``It makes me think that he was harboring some of the same feelings then he has now,'' he said. ``He was harboring racial prejudice in his heart then.''

Parson looked at his scarred hand.

``When something happens to you like that, you want them locked up and you want the key thrown away. I hope he gets convicted. . . . He'll get what he deserves.''

Within an hour, King had been convicted.

It's difficult for Parson to remember all of the details of the trial held so many years ago.

``I was just glad to get it over,'' he said. ``I just wanted to get on with my life.''

But there is one thing Parson said he will never forget.

``I remember when the lawyer asked one of King's buddies why did the shooting happen, the man said, `King just wanted to shoot a nigger.' ''

His boyhood friends offered to find his attackers and retaliate on his behalf, but Parson said no.

``I told them to leave them alone,'' he said. ``I was mad. Did I hold a grudge against some white folks? Yes, I can't lie.

``But I know everybody white is not bad because one white guy shot me.''

Evans' family eventually moved away. She and Parson lost touch after the trial.

Years later, Parson said, he would refuse to drive past the house where the shooting occurred.

Over the years, he said, some of the small black pellets would rise to the surface of his skin, and he would pop them out like pimples. Sometimes, 20 or 30 would come out. The small round balls can still be felt moving under his skin.

Parson looked at his hand. He said he can't make a fist very well.

``People ask me how I got burned, but I tell them it's not a burn, it's a gunshot wound. It was being in the wrong place at the wrong time.''

Little information was available Friday about King. During and after the trial, his family members declined to be interviewed.

According to the 1970 pre-sentence report, King was living with his mother, Margaret Ellie Jones King, and his father, Robert Pittman King, in their two-bedroom home in the 800 block of Martin Ave. His parents used their home as collateral to get him out of jail before his trial began.

His parents had eighth-grade educations. His father worked as a watchman with the city of Chesapeake, his mother as a seamstress.

King grew up with an older brother and sister. No family members had any criminal history in 1970. And according to court records, King had no known juvenile record.

He attended Harry Hunt Junior High School and later transferred to Woodrow Wilson High School. He withdrew from Wilson in 1970 while in the 11th grade to attend night school, the report said. He quit school with incomplete and failing grades, citing his father's failing health. He enjoyed fishing and deer, squirrel and rabbit hunting. He had no known organizational affiliations.

King was convicted of burglary in 1981 and grand larceny in 1985, according to evidence at his trial this week. In 1989, he was convicted of possession of cocaine with intent to distribute and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon.

``Clearly we have someone here who's been wreaking havoc on the city of Portsmouth for quite some time,'' Commonwealth's Attorney Martin Bullock told the jury in seeking a life sentence. ``This man should never be released from prison again.''

Vivian Bell, Phillip Bell's mother, sat in the courtroom during King's trial, rubbing her thumb gently over a key-ring photo of her son. After the sentencing, she said, ``Nothing will ever bring my Phillip back. I miss him and I love him and wish he was here for his birthday . . .''

He would have turned 19 today.

Bell's father, Henry Bell of Chesapeake, said Phillip planned to join the Army. He would have entered basic training in July. He wanted to be a medical technician, and even thought of going on to medical school.

``He asked me, `Dad do you think I'm smart enough to be a doctor?' I said, `I think you're smart enough to be anything you want.' ''

Bell said his son told him he thought if he was a doctor, he could do more to help people.

Phillip Bell once told his father: ``Every day you look at the news-paper or TV, you see another young person who's been shot or killed.''

MEMO: Staff writer Janie Bryant contributed to this story. ILLUSTRATION: KING CONVICTED

Michael Edward King, left, was found guilty Friday of first-degree

murder in the slaying of Phillip Bell, right, a Churchland High

School student. The jury recommended a sentence of life in prison

without parole.

[Color Photo]

MARTIN SMITH-RODDEN

``I felt like it was attempted murder,'' Darrel Parson said of the

1970 shooting by Michael Edward King that left Parson and a friend

wounded. ``. . . and now, as it turned out, he has killed

somebody.'' KEYWORDS: VERDICT MURDER TRIAL GUILTY

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