Murder convict Telly Savalas Parker stepped into the custody of a half-dozen Wilson County sheriff’s deputies, raised his palm to his lips and blew a kiss to his family Friday evening.
With his bond revoked, the 38-year-old truck driver was going away for a long time.
A Wilson County jury had just convicted Parker of second-degree murder with aggravating circ*mstances and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon in the May 2, 2020, shooting death of 21-year-old Amaru C. Carroll-Lee.
On the murder conviction, Resident Superior Court Judge L. Lamont Wiggins sentenced Parker to serve a minimum 33 years, one month to a maximum 40 years, nine months in state prison.
After convicting Parker on the second-degree murder charge, jurors found an aggravating factor: Carroll-Lee’s murder happened in the presence of his 5-year-old half-brother when Parker burst into a Selma Street duplex and shot the victim dead. Aggravating factors increase the sentencing range for a crime, while mitigating factors can reduce a convict’s sentence.
The jury also found Parker guilty on the gun possession charge. He received a minimum of one year and five months and a maximum of two years and six months, with that sentence to be served at the conclusion of the murder sentence.
Collectively, Parker will serve 34 ½ years to 43 years and three months.
The jury found Parker not guilty on a first-degree burglary charge.
Parker’s attorneys, Tom Sallenger and John Sallenger, made notice of appeal to the North Carolina Court of Appeals and withdrew their representation of the client.
At sentencing, prosecutor Kimberly Whitehurst asked Wiggins to impose the maximum sentence.
“This aggravating factor is not a small matter. This was something a child should never have to see and it will affect his life forever,” Whitehurst said.
Nicole Awad, the victim’s mother, also asked for Parker to get the maximum.
“I don’t want him to try to do this to anybody else,” Awad said.
“This whole thing could have been avoided,” said Terrence Huggins, the victim’s stepfather.
“I have no sympathy for you,” Huggins told Parker in the courtroom. “I don’t know what it is going to take for all these young Black men to stop shooting each other. It‘s all y’all know. Y’all need to wake up.”
Tom Sallenger told the court his client was born and raised in Wilson. He has a ninth grade education from Beddingfield High School and has two children and two grandchildren.
Parker had initially been charged with first-degree murder.
The jury deliberated for 3 hours and 24 minutes in four segments before announcing a verdict at 6:38 p.m.
WEEKLONG TRIAL
According to witnesses, the murder of Amaru Carroll-Lee on May 2, 2020, stemmed from a violent encounter the day before in which Telly Parker’s son was beaten up and robbed.
Detective Jason Bradshaw, formerly of the Wilson Police Department, testified Thursday that he had met with Keywante Savalas Parker, also known as “Tae,” at the Wilson Police Department’s Five Points substation on Goldsboro Street concerning the May 1, 2020, assault.
Bradshaw testified that Parker said a group of people beat him up at 801 Selma St. No police report on the alleged attack was filed.
The investigator said he asked Tae Parker if he knew Amaru Carroll-Lee and Parker said he didn’t know him, but knew he had a nickname, “Schoolie” or “Schoolie G.”
Bradshaw said police collected a DNA sample from a swab of Tae Parker’s right cheek and said that sample was submitted to the state crime laboratory for testing.
Bradshaw said two projectile fragments were recovered from Carroll-Lee’s remains.
A small fragment and a large fragment were shown to the jury and to the defendant.
Bradshaw also testified that the defendant pleaded guilty to common-law robbery on May 9, 2007. The offense happened in Wilson County on Jan. 12, 2006.
Whitehurst sought to show that the defendant had a prior felony conviction.
Tom Sallenger had motioned early in the trial to have the possession of a firearm by a felon charge separated from the murder and burglary charges in order to give his client a fair trial, but Wiggins denied the motion.
Bradshaw testified that the defendant turned himself in on May 6, 2020, accompanied by defense attorney John Sallenger and said Parker chose not to make a statement to police.
BLOOD EVIDENCE
Lab analyst April Perry of the N.C. State Crime Lab testified about DNA evidence gathered from the crime scene and from Carroll-Lee and Tae Parker.
Perry said Tae Parker was determined to be a contributor of DNA in multiple samples gathered from inside 810 Selma St., the duplex’s front steps and the street in front of the home.
Perry said Carroll-Lee was excluded as a contributor to several of the samples tested. However, Carroll Lee was the only contributor of DNA to a bath towel found at the house.
On cross-examination, Tom Sallenger asked Perry about the 9mm shell casing found on the couch at the home. Perry said shell casings are a challenge to sample because there isn’t much DNA on them and special techniques are required to extract the evidence.
Perry said only firearms comparison was requested on the shell, according to the evidence envelope.
Perry testified about samples taken from a bloody gray hoodie collected at the scene and found that Tae Parker was a contributor to DNA evidence. Amaru Carroll-Lee was excluded.
Dr. Rand Falls, a medical examiner at East Carolina University’s Brody School of Medicine, conducted Carroll-Lee’s autopsy.
Falls testified that the cause of death was a “gunshot wound to the torso.”
Falls said the victim was shot once, but the bullet had fractured, with the smaller fragment lodging in the collarbone and the larger fragment traveling from right to left, front to back and downward from its entry point on the right shoulder. The bullet traveled through both lungs and major veins, causing the victim to bleed out.
Autopsy photos were presented to the jury, prompting the victim’s mother to begin crying and leave the courtroom.
Falls testified that he checked Carroll-Lee’s remains for anything else that could have caused his death and said he found “nothing that was more compelling than the gunshot wound.”
On cross-examination, Sallenger asked Falls if he found any soot or stippling on the victim that would indicate the distance from which the gun was fired. Falls said a determination on that point couldn’t be made.
DEFENSE WITNESSES
After the state rested its case, Sallenger moved to dismiss all three charges, saying the evidence was insufficient to support the allegations and there was a lack of premeditation. Wiggins denied the motions.
Sallenger called the first defense witness, Ashley Gregory, who was a Wilson police detective at the time of the murder.
Gregory testified to interviewing Awad on the night her son was killed.
Sallenger’s questioning centered on Gregory’s interview notes, which indicated a gun was “snatched out of” Awad’s hands prior to the fatal shot that ended her son’s life.
Gregory said she was taking notes quickly and made an error. She testified that Awad told her the doorknob, not a gun, was snatched out of her hand.
Gregory said the interview was videotaped.
Whitehurst asked Gregory if playing the video would help her determine exactly what Awad had said.
The video was shown in court, and Awad can be heard saying the doorknob was snatched out of her hand when Telly Parker and cousin Terry Parker entered her home.
“The purpose of recording the interview is to ensure that what I wrote down was accurate,” Gregory testified. “I was in error.”
Sallenger asked that a copy of Gregory’s handwritten notes be passed out to the jury for review, which was allowed.
‘I DIDN’T WANT TO GET KILLED’
Keywante “Tae” Parker, Telly Parker’s son, took the stand for the defense and testified in more detail about the alleged assault that happened the night before the murder.
Tae Parker said he was 18 at the time and testified that a buddy called him and invited him to come by 810 Selma St. to “chill and smoke.”
Parker said the address was where Amaru Carroll-Lee lived. Parker said Carroll-Lee, whom he didn’t know, had a nickname of “Schoolie” or “Schoolie G.”
While there, Parker said a group of girls came into the house and then another group of young men came in “whipping out guns for no reason.”
“Mr. Schoolie” was one of them,” Tae Parker testified.
Parker said he tried to leave, but as he reached the front steps, he was whipped by pistols. He said “Mr. Schoolie” was one who hit him.
“I got hit five or six times upside the head with a Glock,” Parker testified. “I heard an individual say, ‘We ought to smoke your ass.’”
Parker testified that he tried to go home but the group carried him back inside. In the fray, Parker said his cellphone and the $200 or $300 he had in his pocket were taken.
“I just know I was getting struck and everything was gone,” Parker testified. “I was not in the right state of mind.”
Tom and John Sallenger played an 18-second video showing Parker sitting on a couch after the beating that included yelling and taunts directed at him.
Parker said the video was “sent to one of my peoples.”
Parker said he couldn’t immediately seek medical attention because he had no cellphone and had no transportation.
Four days later when he went to an urgent care clinic, he told health care workers he had fallen off his bike.
“I didn’t want to get killed by these people,” Parker testified. “I just tried to heal it myself.”
Pressed on cross-examination by Whitehurst, Parker testified that he hadn’t immediately gone to the police to report the assault.
“Why would I go to the police when I almost died?” Parker said. “If I would have gone to the police, they would have ended up killing me.”
Parker testified that he had suffered a concussion and wasn’t in his right mind.
Parker said the next day, he tried to hide the head injuries from his mother.
Whitehurst asked how long it was before he knew there had been a murder.
“A couple of days later,” Parker said.
Telly Parker did not testify in his own defense.
‘COLD-BLOODED, CALCULATED MURDER’
In closing arguments Friday morning, Tom Sallenger told jurors that the tragedy began on May 1 with the “extremely disturbing, extremely bothersome and extremely painful” beating of Tae Parker.
“He did not deserve it,” Sallenger said. “It was a pit of vipers. These people were bound and determined to hurt him.”
Sallenger noted that many of the jurors are parents.
“You have that instinct that you need to protect your own. Fathers are designed to protect and preserve,” Sallenger said.
Sallenger said the group of people that gathered on May 2 at 810 Selma St. were “trying to protect their neighborhood from violence.”
”We are here trying not to send an innocent man to prison,” Sallenger said.
In her closing arguments, Whitehurst said Telly Parker was acting as “judge, jury and executioner” when he barged into the 810 Selma St. duplex.
“Amaru didn’t have a trial. He got executed,” Whitehurst said.
The assistant district attorney said the crime was “cold-blooded, calculated murder.”
“He went into that house with murder on his mind and shot the first man he saw,” Whitehurst told jurors.
Whitehurst replayed the video of Nicole Awad picking Telly Parker out of a photo lineup and saying “That’s that man. That’s that man that shot my son. I will never forget his face.”
Whitehurst said the defendant “had the audacity to come into this court and say it was her fault.”
The jurors were shown more photos from the autopsy and video of the defendant walking down the street toward the murder scene.
“Look at that swagger,” Whitehurst said. “That is a man on a mission. He’s going down there to kill a man.”
In the end, the jury was not convinced that Telly Parker was premeditated and deliberate, the requirements for a first-degree murder conviction.
