Wallingford/Jarlov Family Trees

The Houston Post, 17 September 1952. Section 1, page 3.

'SHE WAS CURSING ME...'

Switchman Admits Garroting Wife, 25

"She was cursing me and calling me all kinds of foul names. I picked up the fan cord and wrapped it around her neck and squeezed."

With these matter of fact words, Daniel P. Parker calmly told Homicide Detective W.W. Waycott Tuesday afternoon now he killed his divorced wife, Mrs. Evelyn Allene Parker, just before midnight Monday.

Parker had been just as cool and collected at 12:25 AM when he called homicide Detective B. Porter from a downtown restaurant and told hime, "Come and get me."

Asked why, Parker said:

"I murdered my wife about 30 minutes ago and I am at Kelley's now, drinking coffee." He said she had been lying to him.

Parker airily invited Detectives Porter and W.W. Walker to have coffee with himi. When they declined, he led them to his apartment at 1219 West Gray Ave, pointed to his wife's body lying on a bed and said, "There she is."

Mrs Parker lay on her back, her clothing torn and disarranged. A purple indentation around her nect showed where the electric cord had been pulled taut. There was a stab wound in her back and a bloody buther knife on the floor.

While parker readily admitted choking the woman to death, he denied any knowledge of the knife wound.

He was charged with murder before Justice of the Peace W.C. Regan and held in the County Jail without bond.

Parker is 25. So was his ex-wife. Parker is a railroad switchman and has a minor police record.

When he was 15, Parker was sent to Gatesville for burglary and theft. In 1949, he was fined $100 for carrying a pistol. Police knew him as Dapper Dan.

Mrs Parker was a beauty college graduate and had been married and divorced twice. In between she had worked as a beauty operator, night club photographer, barmaid and at other jobs.

Parker, in his written statement, said he met Evelyn Allene Page (her first married name) about three years ago. They got married Oct 13, 1951, and separated about May 1, 1952.

I was sick, our finances were not too good and we were not getting along too good, anyway," Parker said. After they were divorced, the couple went back together last July, he said.

About two weeks ago, he said, they got into an argument over money. He said he told her she would either have to cut down on her spending or go back to work. She promised to go back to work after she felt better, he said.

The next day after that argument she went out and did not come back until 3:30 A.M. She was highly intoxicated, he said. She had dept the car, he said, and he was unable to go to work that night.

When he questioned her about it, she told him that what she did was none of his business, he said.

"She has done this about four times in the last two weeks," he said.

Last Saturday, he said, she promised to quit running around and go back to work. They spent a pleasant week end together. Monday night they had some beer downtown and went home about 10PM. as Parker had to change clothes and go to work.

He said she told him that after this she would keep the car, taking him to work and calling for him.

"I accused her of going out on me and that is the reason she wanted to keep the car." Parker said. He said he accused her of being with people whom he would not name in the statement. He said she raised cain.

"I was standing by the fan in the bedroom," he said. "She swung at me with her left hand and I shoved her on the bed. The fan was turned over and the cord was laying across the foot of the bed. She was cursing me and calling me all kinds of foul names. I picked up the cord and wrapped it around her neck and squeezed.

"The next thing I knew, I don't know how much later, I was in the kitchen and the sweat was pouring of my brow and face and arms. I went back into the bedroom and looked and I knew she was dead."

He said he didn't remember anything about a knivfe or how she got the wound in the back.

"I went into the front yard and Joyce Atkins drove up in the cab and I asked her to take me to Kelley's Cafe. I told her what had happened." Parker said.

The woman who took him downtown is Mrs Joyce Marie Atkins, 24, a telephone company operator, who shared the two-bedroom apartment with the Parkers.

Mrs Parker is the daughter of Mrs. W.M. Kazlauski of 1930 West Dallas Ave, and the grand-daughter of Mrs. Mattie M. Hafer of 523 Pecore St. The body was taken to the Fogle-West Funeral Home.