JURY VERDICT: Lakeland man guilty of sexual battery on two girls, attempted on another
Harold Parker groomed his victims to both expect and accept his abuse.
Harold Parker, 63, of Lakeland.
He bought the three victims clothes and toys while he took care of them after school, and when he’d end up alone with one of the girls, Parker would sexually abuse her.
“He made the despicable seem normal,” Assistant State Attorney Lauren Randall told the jurors.
After an hour and a half of deliberation, a jury found him guilty Oct. 11 of two counts of sexual battery and one count of attempted sexual battery. He faces a mandatory life sentence, which will be imposed on December 1.
When Parker babysat the girls every day after school, he would sometimes take them to the glass cutting shop he worked at. They would play games on the computer while sitting on his lap, and he would touch them inappropriately.
Parker would also abuse the girls in various places, waiting until he was alone with one of the girls before he touched her. On a few occasions, the youngest victim would ask Parker why he kept abusing her – he never gave her an answer but told her not to tell her mom.
A taped statement from the youngest victim was played in court, and the girl said she made excuses to stay away from him, but it felt like he still touched her every other time she went over to his house.
“It was whenever he could,” the victim said.
The oldest of the three victims was 10 when she finally realized that what Parker was doing to her was wrong. But their families had a falling out in 2012, and the girls didn’t run into him again for four years.
Randall said the victims’ grandfather was with them when they ran into Parker at a grocery store – he saw the girls’ expressions change from “happy go lucky to closed in and scared.” He realized something had happened between them, and Parker was reported to law enforcement.
A controlled phone call was conducted between Parker and the oldest victim. She told him that before he was allowed back in their lives, she wanted to make sure the touching never happened again.
“We’ll start fresh … It’s never going to happen again, dear,” Parker told her, “That I can promise you.”
On another controlled call, Parker said, “You’ll never believe how sorry I am for everything that happened in the past.”
The victim told him that she talked to her sister about the ways he abused them, and they never wanted it to happen again.
Parker’s answer was simple: “Absolutely.”
The defense attorney claimed Parker’s statements on the controlled phone call weren’t enough to prove he was guilty. He claimed that there was a rush to judgement because no medical or physical evidence existed – only statements from the victims.
Randall told the jurors that it was impossible for there to be any fingerprints or DNA from incidents that happened seven years ago. She also reminded them that there was evidence in that all three victims were consistent in who abuse them, where the abuse took place and the specific acts that happened.
But it was the phone call, Randall said, that provided proof beyond a reasonable doubt.
“It proves beyond all doubt that Harold Parker did something to these girls. … He accepted responsibility of it. He was in agreement with her and never denied it,” Randall told jurors in her closing argument. “The phone call was him acknowledging the abuse and admitting it will absolutely never happen again. He was apologizing. That all goes toward your conviction that this man committed this crime.”
