10 years for one, 12 years for the other. Um, even though he says he has no reasons to believe my child to be alive, I will go ahead, as hard as this is for me to say, I have not made any inklings one way or the other since this report came out. My heart, my gut, and my soul tell me my child is no longer alive.
The skeletal human remains of Erica Parsons were discovered on Tuesday. Law enforcement sources telling our NBC affiliate WCNC that her remains were found in Chesterfield County, South Carolina, some 40 miles southeast of Charlotte. Now, Erica was last seen in 2011 when she was just 13 years old, but All right, well, in other news this afternoon, the adoptive parents of a North Carolina teen found dead years after being reported missing.
Rowan County, North Carolina, in the United States, a young man walked into the local police department with his uncle. His name was Jamie Parsons, and he was there to report his younger sister, Erica, as missing. But, um, this wasn’t a recent No one had seen Erica for almost two The last time Jamie saw her was back in November 2 His uncle, Scott, was with him and told officers that he’d heard different stories about where Erica might be, but honestly, he hadn’t seen her, either.
Erica was a quiet, shy girl. She was only 13 years old the last time anyone saw her. And what really stood out was that she’d been gone for all this time, yet no missing person report had ever been filed. On February 24th, 1998, a woman named Carolyn Parsons gave birth to a baby girl and named her Erica.
Not long after that, Erica’s aunt and uncle, Casey and Sandy Parsons, who were already raising other children, including Jamie, legally adopted her. While talking with the officers, Jamie explained that he’d asked his parents multiple times where Erica was and why she wasn’t living at the house on Miller Chapel Road anymore.
They told him they had taken her to Asheville, where her biological grandmother supposedly lived. Her name was Irene Goodman, but everyone called her Nan. At first, that story sounded strange, you know, but as Jamie kept talking, something way more disturbing started to come together. He said that his parents had been abusing Erica for years, both physically and psychologically, and it didn’t stop there.
Even after Erica disappeared, Sandy and Casey kept receiving government payments in her name, around $600 a month, even though Erica wasn’t living in that house anymore. The next step for investigators was to speak directly with Sandy and Casey Parsons. They flat-out denied everything Jamie said about abuse. According to them, Jamie had been kicked out of the house after an argument with his mother, and they claimed he made all of this up out of anger.
They stood by their story that Erica had gone to live with her biological grandmother in Asheville back in 2011. They also said that their biological daughter, Brooke, had gone with them on that trip, but Brooke told investigators that, “No, she never went anywhere with them.” So, now the question was, where was the truth? And more importantly, where was Erica? Casey then told investigators that she had been contact with Nan Goodman through Facebook, but she couldn’t provide any current contact information for her, not even though Nan was supposedly caring
for a child Casey was still legally responsible for. She also couldn’t show investigators her Facebook page at all. And at that point, you could kind of feel it, like something just wasn’t adding up. The deeper investigators dug, the stranger this whole story became. It turned out that Erica’s biological grandmother had actually died back in 2005.
That was more than 8 years before Erica was reported missing and more than 6 years before anyone had last seen her alive. Then, things took an even sharper turn. Investigators later stated that this so-called Nan may not have existed at all. Carolyn, Erica’s biological mother, told police that Erica had no biological relatives living anywhere near that area.
At the same time, the attorney representing Sandy and Casey suggested that Carolyn herself should know where the missing girl was. He claimed that Nan had entered Casey and Sandy’s lives through Carolyn, that she was the one who introduced Nan to them, and that she probably knew exactly who Nan really was.
But Carolyn completely rejected that idea. She said Nan and Irene were not real people. She said the only two people who knew the truth were the same two people who would never say it. “The truth,” she repeated. Later on, Casey would change her story again, saying she had been deceived and that the woman Erica was supposedly taken to had been an impostor.
And honestly, at that point, this already bizarre story just kept getting more twisted by the day, and no one could tell what was real anymore. The day after Erica was officially reported missing, the two youngest children were removed from the home. Just a few days later, on August 6th, 2013, the Rowan County Sheriff’s Office announced that Casey and Sandy were not cooperating with the investigation.
Six days after that, Carolyn returned from New Orleans to speak with police. She later said she had received updates about Erica through Facebook, but she hadn’t actually seen her since January 5th, 2011. She said she thought about that last visit almost constantly. It just kept playing over and over in her head.
She said her whole body went numb. As a parent, as a human being, as a family member, she said she keeps hoping and praying that Erica is still alive somewhere, that she’s out there, and that one day she’ll finally come back. During the search, about 2 weeks after Erica was declared missing, the street was shut down.
One of the neighbors spoke to reporters and said, He said that at first, just one police officer showed up. And then, like, before he even had a chance to really look around, there were probably 25 or maybe 30 police cars already lined up out there. Police walked around the house, checked it from every angle, and went over the backyard of the family home multiple times.
But, you know, they didn’t find anything clearly important or immediately suspicious. About a month after Jamie reported Erica missing, the Federal Bureau of Investigation joined the search and began working alongside local law enforcement. The family home was searched several times after that. Search warrants carried out in August 2013 revealed that dozens of items were taken from the house.
Among them was a plastic bag filled with magazines about JonBenét Ramsey, along with a book about her that contained handwritten notes inside, notes that oddly referenced home repairs. JonBenét Ramsey, just as a reminder, was a 6-year-old girl who was found murdered inside her own home on Christmas Day in 1996.
That case, by the way, remains unsolved and is still talked about to this day. The search reports also stated that a section of drywall had been cut out and removed from a closet because it had red stains on it. The baseboards from that same closet were taken out and sent off for forensic testing. Investigators also seized a pair of jeans with red stains from inside the house.
Then, about a week after that search, new warrants were made public following the inspection of a storage unit belonged to Sandy. From that unit, investigators collected parts of a vacuum cleaner, a videotape, school documents, a hammer, and, um, teeth. Those warrants specifically referred back to the earlier search, pointing out that investigators couldn’t find any evidence that Erica Parsons was still living in the house at all.
There were no signs that her bedroom remained intact and no indication that she had any personal living space preserved inside the home, you know, like she had already been gone for a long time. Police said that all of the evidence they had pointed to one clear conclusion, Casey and Sandy knew Erica was never coming back.
Another major focus of the investigation centered on accusations that Casey and Sandy continued receiving money on Erica’s behalf even after she no longer lived with them. Because of that, officials moved forward with a request for a warrant connected to financial transactions. In the affidavit requesting that warrant, it stated that it was believed that the ongoing desire to keep using money, benefits, or financial assistance meant for the care of or on behalf of Erica Parsons played a direct role in delaying or completely
refusing to report Erica Parsons as missing in a timely manner. One thing was absolutely clear, the family was definitely receiving money on Erica’s behalf, and that financial side of things needed a much deeper look. Working together with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, investigators were able to trace the bank accounts Sandy and Casey were using.
Those accounts were held at Wells Fargo, Bank of America, and SunTrust Bank. Erica had been adopted through the state foster care system and had special needs, which meant the family qualified to receive more than $600 a month from the Department of Social Services to help care for her. The couple’s attorney argued that they were allowed to keep receiving those payments because, legally, they were still Erica’s guardians and caretakers.
But then, you know, the obvious question came up. If that was true, why didn’t they report her missing? The attorney explained that Casey and Sandy didn’t believe Erica was missing at all because they claimed they had left her with her biological grandmother. Whenever Casey and Sandy appeared in the media or gave interviews, police were watching closely, listening carefully to every word, and one thing stood out almost immediately.
They spoke about Erica in the past tense. Carolyn, on the other hand, spoke about Erica in the present tense every time she was interviewed. In an interview she gave on August 5th to WBTV, Carolyn said that Erica is her biological daughter, and she wanted everyone to know that she still loves her. But Casey and Sandy continued to stick firmly to their version of events.
Sandy Parsons claimed that there had been times when Erica had supposedly been seen. She said relatives had recently called and told them they’d seen Erica at a rest area. Reporters pushed back and asked why they hadn’t called the police. They told her, “Don’t wait and don’t call Oz. Call the cops.” Sandy responded by saying that the only thing she wanted right now was for Erica to call home, say she was okay, and for Sandy to get her two little children back.
She said that “No one seems to realize that there are two other small kids in this story who just want to come home.” She was talking about the two youngest children, the ones who were taken from the home the very next day after Erica was officially reported missing. Casey and Sandy were actively fighting to regain custody of those two kids.
They were scheduled to meet with representatives from the Department of Social Services, and after that, a judge was supposed to decide whether the children would be allowed to return home. As investigators started digging into the couple’s background, they found out this wasn’t the first time concerns had been raised.
The family had already been on the radar before. Relatives had made multiple calls to the Department of Social Services, or DSS, over the years, you know, flagging issues and raising alarms long before Erica was ever reported missing. Before we keep going, let me take about 15 seconds of your time. If you could support the channel by hitting subscribe and leaving a like, I’d really appreciate it.
And, you know, drop a comment telling me where you’re watching from and what the weather’s like where you are. That stuff genuinely helps this video reach more people. Sorry for the quick interruption, and yeah, let’s get back to it. DSS had previously investigated allegations of abuse involving Erica. At the time, they said they didn’t find any violations and reported that Erica didn’t appear afraid of her guardians.
By this point, investigators had already spoken with a lot of people, including multiple family members. But Casey continued to flat-out deny everything. She told investigators that her entire family was lying. She claimed her mother had told the children to say all of these things, like they were being coached or something.
The family’s attorney backed her up publicly, saying these accusations shouldn’t be treated as fact. He insisted the couple was doing everything they could to find Erica, while relatives were just making up stories, you know, stirring things up. Casey Parsons had been homeschooling the children.
Representatives from the North Carolina Department of Non-Public Education confirmed that standardized test scores and attendance records had been submitted for the kids. However, they couldn’t verify whether any of those records specifically belonged to Erica. When Casey was questioned again about the claim that Erica had been living with her biological grandmother, she said she had been contacted by a woman through Facebook.
But then, according to Casey, that account was later deactivated. That woman also completely disappeared. Her phone number was disconnected, and there was no way to reach her. Casey and Sandy even appeared on the Dr. Phil Show. Later, Casey told Dr. Phil that they had never actually been to that woman’s house and had only seen photos of it.
She also told reporters that they allowed Erica to visit the woman’s home, and eventually, like, Erica just didn’t want to come back. At one point, Casey even found a girl on social media with the same name as Erica. She contacted the Rowan County Department of Social Services and claimed that this girl was supposedly their child and that she was living in Greensboro.
There were so many different stories floating around, but none of them really made sense. Investigators searched through multiple databases looking for anyone using Erica’s Social Security number or anyone who might have obtained a driver’s license or any official document in her name, but they found absolutely nothing. No trace at all.
According to Casey, Erica had met up with Carolyn in 2011 at a Whataburger, but Carolyn said that after that meeting, Casey told her that Erica no longer wanted to see her anymore. This case clearly hit the community really hard. On August 23rd, neighbors organized a nighttime vigil outside the house praying for any kind of good news about where Erica might be.
Billboards went up all over the area, and on August 26th, Casey and Sandy once again gave interviews to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The very next day, Casey and Sandy loaded up their belongings into a truck and left the neighborhood. Reportedly, they said they were doing it to escape the overwhelming media attention.
When reporters later spoke with Sandy’s stepfather, he said Sandy visited him a few times a year and only sometimes brought Erica along. He admitted he hadn’t seen her since around 2008 or maybe 2009. This case wasn’t just strange, it was incredibly complex. You had a vulnerable young girl, and it seemed like no one actually knew where she could be.
But investigators were sure of one thing. People don’t just disappear like that. Carolyn organized multiple vigils for Erica, saying that the more places they held them, the more they could spread Erica’s name, her story, and her face. On January 16th, 2014, a judge ruled that the children who had previously been removed from the home could not be returned to their parents.
Instead, they were placed with an aunt. Later on, those children were also removed from that guardian’s home due to what were described as serious behavioral issues. Even though the investigation kept going, there was still no solid evidence pointing to Erica’s whereabouts. On January 30th, 2014, the Federal Bureau of Investigation announced a reward of $25,000.
The Rowan County Sheriff’s Office offered its own reward as well, and Sheriff Orton said that Prevent Child Abuse Rowan added another $5,000. By that point, almost a full year had passed since Erica was officially declared missing. And then, finally, something new happened. Federal agents, armed and ready, forced their way through the doors of the Parsons home.
Casey and Sandy Parsons were arrested and charged in Fayetteville with 76 criminal counts. According to investigators, those crimes were committed between February 2010 and August 2013. Among the charges were theft of government funds, mail fraud, tax fraud, conspiracy to defraud the government, and identity theft.
According to investigators, the couple had been illegally receiving government money for years. That included adoption assistance, Medicaid, Social Security, and Food and Nutritional Support Programs, all for a dependent who, in reality, was no longer living with them. It was also alleged that Casey fraudulently used other people’s personal information, listing them as so-called dependents, and provided false information when filing federal tax returns.
Because of the 76 counts of theft and fraud, they were placed under strict law enforcement supervision. They were fitted with electronic monitoring devices and required to regularly check in with a pre-trial supervision officer assigned to the case. One of the conditions of their release on bond was that they had to remain within Eastern North Carolina and stay completely out of trouble.
The court proceedings were set to begin soon. During the fraud trial, the judge heard testimony from multiple family members, including Jamie, Casey, and Casey’s sister, Robin. The scope of the case was massive, and as the hearings went on, disturbing details began to surface about what Erica had allegedly been forced to endure.
Casey’s sister, Robin, testified that she had been asked to take care of Erica for several months, and her words were chilling. She said it was done, quote, “So that Casey wouldn’t kill her.” Robin told the court that Erica often had numerous marks and bruises on her body, and that Casey couldn’t even bring herself to look at the girl’s face.
Jamie added even more horrifying details. He said Erica was forbidden from using the bathroom. She was forced to eat dog food or food taken out of the trash. She was starved and made to drink water from the dog’s bowl or straight from the bathroom sink. She was completely excluded from all family activities. Her fingers were intentionally broken.
He said she was locked inside a closet, and if, out of desperation, she relieved herself in there, she was brutally punished. Erica was never allowed to sleep in a bed. She didn’t even have one. She was forced to sleep on the floor. Jamie also testified that there was an incident where Casey placed Erica’s hand on a hot stove, burning her.
He admitted that both he and the other children had also participated in abusing Erica, starting when she was about 5 years old and continuing until he himself turned 16. He said there was one moment when he broke her arm, and after that, he decided he would never hit her again. And hearing all of this, you just kind of sit there thinking, “How did this go on for so long without anyone stopping it?” Brooke, his sister, later told a detective that their mother had sent the kids to Walmart to buy first aid supplies so they could make a makeshift
cast for Erica’s arm. They did that instead of taking her to a doctor for what was clearly a serious and extremely painful injury. Relatives later said Erica’s arm showed signs that it never healed properly. On the witness stand, Jamie testified that his mother ordered his younger siblings, Sadie and Toby, to pull Erica’s hair if she didn’t want to play with them.
He said Casey encouraged the kids to abuse Erica, and that he often saw his mother hitting her. If Erica didn’t obey, she was whipped with a belt. He also said Sandy would punch Erica on the top of her head. Jamie told the court that Erica eventually developed a bald spot on her head right where wounds kept forming and healing over after repeated blows.
12-year-old Sadie, the youngest of the children, testified that she tried to secretly bring Erica food whenever she could. She said Erica was locked in a closet either in their mother’s bathroom or in Brooke’s room. Sadie also said there was a time when Casey choked Erica so hard she couldn’t breathe. If Erica ever received a gift, as soon as the person who gave it left, that gift would be taken away and given to her brother Toby or her sister Sadie.
In a statement read aloud by the district attorney, it was said that Sandy once claimed no one would ever find Erica because Casey was smarter than the FBI. And then, the details just kept getting darker, one after another. About a week before Erica was last seen, her siblings said her eyes looked sunken in. She appeared gray, weak, and covered in open oozing wounds.
Jamie said the last time he saw her, she looked, in his words, like a zombie. Erica told him she felt sick and couldn’t breathe properly, and Jamie said his mother’s response was cold and simple. She said she didn’t care. She told Erica go back to that corner. According to Jamie, the next morning he woke up and noticed his parents weren’t home.
They didn’t return until later that same day. He said that when they came back in, Sandy was unusually quiet and looked nauseous, like he might throw up, while Casey seemed completely normal. When Jamie asked where his sister was, he was told she was with her grandmother. Referring to Jamie’s testimony, prosecutor Anand Ramaswamy stated, “He said that Erica was no longer alive.
And according to the prosecution, there was an agreement between Casey Parsons and her husband not to report her death.” Sandy’s attorney pushed back, arguing that bad parenting does not automatically equal a criminal offense. He said that most of the prosecution’s case was built on the testimony of Jamie Parsons.
Jamie explained that back in February 2013, he spoke with his maternal grandmother, Shirley, and told her he hadn’t seen Erica in a long time. Even after that conversation, another 5 months passed before he officially reported Erica as missing. And then, somehow, this already strange case got even more tangled. Sandy’s brother, Scott, told investigators that Jamie was, in his words, a pathological liar.
Shirley, Casey’s mother, said the last time she saw Erica was sometime around the holidays at the end of 2011. She recalled that when Erica was about 6 years old, she noticed bruises on the girl’s backside and a black eye. According to Shirley, Casey blamed Jamie for those injuries at the time. Shirley said that she and her husband, James, did wonder if Casey was abusing the child, but in the end, they talked themselves out of it.
In her statement, Shirley also said there was an incident where she witnessed Casey choking Erica. James grabbed Casey by the arm and, as Shirley put it, scolded her. After that, they became visibly shaken and left quickly. Shirley also mentioned that Erica’s hands showed signs of injury, which lined up with Jamie’s claim that Casey would bend Erica’s fingers backward to, quote, put her in her place.
Robin also noticed that Erica’s fingers were crooked and suspected they might have been broken. Casey insisted it was just arthritis. Robin testified that Casey frequently hit Erica and forced her to stand in a corner as punishment. The court was shown photographs as evidence documenting Erica standing in the corner on five separate occasions.
And honestly, the picture just kept getting more painful. When Erica was younger, she used to call Casey and Sandy Mom and Dad, but Casey told her she didn’t like that and ordered her never to call her mom again. From that point on, Erica was only allowed to address them by their first names, Casey and Sandy. Janet, Sandy’s stepmother, testified about a time when the family went on a beach vacation and left Erica home alone.
She said Erica had been told not to let anyone know she was there and that she was supposed to hide. Janet’s husband, William, who is Sandy’s father, ended up finding Erica alone in the house. Janet said she had always felt that Erica was treated differently, not nearly as well as the other children.
Even though this trial wasn’t officially about Erica’s disappearance and was focused on fraud [snorts] charges, all of this testimony painted a dark, disturbing picture. And still, witnesses kept coming forward. Sometime later, a woman named Amy Miller and her husband hired Casey as a surrogate mother after connecting with her through a surrogacy website.
Amy said that Casey seemed like the perfect person to carry their child. She described her as someone who appeared very sincere, down-to-earth, and deeply religious. And honestly, the fact that she had adopted Erica so the child could stay within the family felt, at the time, like a truly noble thing to do, you know.
She added that Casey talked about Erica often. They agreed to pay Casey $10,000 in monthly installments, money that Casey claimed would be donated to her church as a charitable contribution. But then, you know, Casey said she needed a washing machine and a dryer, so that first payment, and every payment after that, went directly to her instead.
Later on, Casey told Amy that the baby she had been carrying had died. She changed her phone number, changed her email, and told Amy she needed to start living her own life, even saying she had no right to have a child. But the truth was, Casey had not lost the baby. The infant was born alive and healthy.
The Parsons then tried to sell the baby to Robin for $110,000, claiming the Millers no longer wanted the child. Robin managed to find Amy online, law enforcement got involved, and Amy was ultimately able to get her baby back. Amy said that Casey transformed from a loving, kind woman into someone horrifying and cruel.
She said she now understood just how manipulative they were and that what they put her family through felt like absolute hell. Eventually, Casey pleaded guilty to five counts of mail fraud, one count of aggravated identity theft, one count of conspiracy to commit fraud against the government, four counts of wire fraud, and four counts of aiding in the preparation of a false tax return.
She was sentenced to 120 months in prison, 3 years of supervised release, ordered to pay restitution in the amount of $41,817, and a special court assessment of $1,500. Sandy was later found guilty of 20 counts of theft of government funds, 20 counts of mail fraud, and jury deliberated for less than 5 hours before finding him guilty on 43 counts.
He was sentenced to 96 months in prison, 3 years of supervised release, and ordered to pay restitution totaling $1,624,300. Taking everything into account that came out during the trial, especially what Erica had been forced to endure, the judge made it very clear during sentencing that the evidence showing Erica was no longer alive was compelling and undeniable.
He told Casey that she and her husband did something truly horrific to Erica. He said he had sentenced nearly 1,000 people in his career, and he could not recall a single case that affected him this deeply. He said they made a plan to get rid of her. They covered up their evil act, and that, in his words, they were morally bankrupt.
He also said that he accepted nearly all of the statements and testimony about the abuse Erica suffered, calling the family members’ accounts credible and believable. He added that he also found the testimony from government officials to be honest and persuasive, and he described the very nature of the crimes as ominous. He said the story about Erica supposedly living with some mysterious woman named Nan was a poorly constructed, intentional lie.
The judge said Erica was a defenseless little girl who just wanted to be loved, you know. That’s all she ever wanted. He told the couple that over the years he had sentenced thousands of people, but no case he had ever handled was as disturbing as this one. After the fraud sentencing, Casey’s sister, Robin, spoke with WBTV and shared her reaction.
She said she wished Casey had received more time, but that the sentence was more than she expected. So, in a way, she said she felt satisfied. She said it felt like some form of justice for Erica. And if they were not going to be charged with murder, which she believed they should have been, then this was at least some measure of justice for Erica.
Not full justice, she said. Erica deserved more. 10 years for one, 12 years for the other. Um, even though he says he has no reasons to believe my child to be alive, I will go ahead, as hard as this is for me to say, I have not made any inclinations one way or the other since this report came out. My heart, my gut, and my soul tell me my child is no longer alive.
But I want media, everybody who supports, loves, and prays for Erica and myself to understand that does not mean I give up. That does not mean I quit searching. That does not mean that I want anybody to give up. Until there is a body, until the DNA, or whatever, for sure, comes from the FBI that she is passed away, don’t give up looking.
Don’t give up praying. Don’t give up hope. After the sentencing was finalized, Casey’s mother, Shirley, spoke out and said she believed that testimony related to Erica should not have influenced the punishment. She said she didn’t think the court should have considered anything involving Erica when deciding the sentence, at least not until there was some kind of proof that something had actually happened to her beyond just Jamie’s words.
Then, later on, Jamie walked back his earlier statements about the abuse. He said that while he had been worried about his sister, he hadn’t personally witnessed anything happening to Erica, and honestly, that became yet another strange twist in an already incredibly strange case. Sandy later filed an appeal asking for his sentence to be reduced, but the Supreme Court of the United States rejected it.
Casey also appealed her sentence, but the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals denied her appeal as well. But the people searching for Erica weren’t willing to give up. Two local residents, Shannon Moss and W. Rogers, reached out to Canine Specialties, an organization led by a man from Illinois that specializes in finding missing persons using trained dogs. W.
Rogers said they didn’t want people to forget that Erica was still missing. She hadn’t been found. He said they had to find her, no matter how hard that was going to be. He talked about the community coming together right there in Rowan County to search for her. He said he hadn’t known her before, but now he did, and it had become personal.
He said Erica needed to be found. She was a human being, and if something truly horrible happened to her, and she was discarded like trash, then people needed to remember she was not trash. She was a little girl. She deserved to be found. And he said, like, he was not giving up. Robert T.
Larson traveled to Rowan County and organized multiple search efforts using his dogs. He said that all of these people came together and gave every bit of energy they had that weekend trying to find Erica. And he said if he ever had to work with a group of people, it would be people like that.
These search teams weren’t part of any official law enforcement operation, but authorities were notified ahead of time about the planned searches. Unfortunately, nothing was found. W. Rogers emphasized that they weren’t only searching for a deceased Erica. They were also searching for a living Erica. He said they weren’t giving up, and that they were checking everything they possibly could.
The Rowan County Sheriff’s Office reached out to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and asked them to create an age-progressed image of Erica. That image was released soon after in the hope that it might trigger a memory in someone who had seen her more recently, if there was even the smallest chance that she was still alive.
By that point, 5 years had already passed since Erica was officially reported missing. Brooke, the oldest daughter of Casey and Sandy, eventually agreed to speak with the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Up until that point, she had been standing by her parents. But what she told agents was honestly chilling.
She said there was a time when her mother forced Erica to stand outside on a hot day without shoes until blisters formed on her feet. Brooke said Erica’s skin looked abnormal, and that she had open sores all over her body, like something was seriously wrong. A few months later, Brooke went to visit her father in prison, and that’s when, after all this time, the moment investigators had been waiting for finally arrived.
Sandy told her that he was willing to help police find Erica. Rowan County Sheriff Kevin Auten said that after speaking with Sandy, investigators were finally able to find what they had been searching for. According to him, Casey claimed that on December 17th, 2011, Erica had supposedly taken her own life. He said they poured bleach over her body to try to mask the smell, then placed her remains into plastic bags and put them inside a storage container.
Later that same day, they went to a holiday party like nothing had happened. The next day, December 18th, Sandy said the couple drove to Pageland. That’s where he began digging a hole. They took Erica’s remains out of the container. Casey removed Erica’s clothing, and the little girl was buried in a shallow grave. Sandy said the container and the clothing were thrown away.
He also told investigators that his wife instructed him to let her handle the story about Nan, you know, to take care of that part herself. The skeletal human remains of Erica Parsons were discovered on Tuesday. Law enforcement sources telling our NBC affiliate WCNC that her remains were found in Chesterfield County, South Carolina, some 40 miles southeast of Charlotte.
Now, Erica was last seen in 2011 when she was just 13 years old, but family didn’t report her missing until 2013, nearly a year and a half later. >> Sandy pointed investigators toward a wooded area, and there, in a shallow grave, the remains of Erica Parsons were finally found. Rowan County Sheriff Kevin Auten said that day in South Carolina was incredibly hard for everyone involved.
He said he’d seen plenty of tough, seasoned officers, and even they were deeply shaken by what they witnessed. According to him, the officers escorting Sandy walked him into the woods, and in less than a minute, they came back out. Sandy was crying. Sheriff Jay Brooks said that Erica’s family later visited the burial site, and many of them couldn’t hold back their tears.
Erica’s aunt, Teresa Goodman, said that officials told her a deal had been made with Sandy. She also shared that she and a private investigator had searched that same area before, but back then, they hadn’t found anything. She said she was grateful that the family members who loved Erica were finally able to get some form of closure.
Sheriff Brooks added that the Rowan County Sheriff’s Office deserved every bit of praise. He said they put in thousands and thousands of man-hours on this case, and he said it’s impossible to go through something like this without stopping to reflect for a moment. He said that when you walk away from here, you should call your kids. Detective Chad Moose received a call from none other than Casey Parsons herself.
She told him she had something to say. Casey claimed that Erica had been talking about wanting to die, and that later she found her lying on a blanket on the living room floor. Casey said she rolled her over, but Erica wasn’t moving. According to her, Erica had taken her own life. Later on, though, several different versions of this story started to surface about how Erica supposedly died.
Casey said they placed Erica’s remains into a container, and that Sandy instructed her to pour bleach over the body. Records from Casey’s bank card showed that bleach had been purchased at Walmart on December 5th. Casey also admitted that she had bent Erica’s fingers backward, but denied breaking them. Only years later did she finally acknowledge that some of Erica’s fingers may, in fact, have been broken.
Casey also admitted that she hit Erica with a belt that had a metal buckle. She said she was afraid to seek medical help because she worried that her sister, Robin, would contact social services, and then everything would come crashing down. At First Baptist Church, family members, complete strangers, and law enforcement officers came together to say goodbye to Erica.
The day before the funeral would have been her birthday, and this all happened almost a year after her remains were finally found and identified. Around that same time, the autopsy results were made public. Sheriff Auten had previously said that any charges would wait until those results came in. And when they did, they painted a dark and devastating picture.
According to the autopsy, Erica died as a result of intentional violence that led to her death, though the exact mechanism could not be determined. Investigators found fractures in different stages of healing, including her upper right arm, the bone connecting her arm to her collarbone, a finger, her jaw, her nose, her left shin bone, and seven ribs, some of which had been broken more than once.
There were also signs of spinal injuries, severe emaciation, dehydration, and malnutrition. It was believed she suffered from low bone density and delayed growth. One tooth was missing, and there were indications that some of her teeth had been broken. Officials also did not rule out that she may have been suffering from kidney failure, untreated sepsis, or infection, or even poisoning.
And hearing all of that, you just kind of have to stop for a second, you know? Because what happened to Erica wasn’t just neglect. It was prolonged suffering, and it left damage that no child should ever endure. In the report, the medical examiner wrote that given the history of physical abuse and the injuries found during the autopsy, they could not rule out a fatal blunt force injury, asphyxiation, or strangulation.
And, um, that statement alone really says It made it painfully clear that Erica’s death was not just unexplained, and it definitely wasn’t. It pointed straight to violence, to suffering, and to a child who never got the protection she desperately needed. It was also determined that Erica’s body had been Carolyn later said that while she was grateful Erica had finally been found after Sandy led authorities to the burial site, that didn’t mean he was innocent, and it didn’t mean he was free of responsibility.
She said he stood behind Casey the entire time and supported every single lie that came out of her mouth. We’ve learned her adoptive parents, Sandy and Casey Parsons, will be charged with first-degree murder. The Parsons have always denied they had anything to do with the disappearance of the little girl.
Sheriff Kevin Auten, who announced the indictments here today, said there were times during the investigation he thought this day would never come. But he did because he said investigators never gave up. We just did not want to leave a little girl out there. We want to bring her home. >> Now, the Parsons will be brought back to Salisbury to face charges in her death.
There are people that, uh, think the Parsons should have already been hung on the square, and, uh, you know, they’ll have their day in court, and we’ll let the the jury decide their fate. According to the indictment, Sandy and Casey Parsons were charged with first-degree murder, felony child abuse inflicting serious bodily injury, felony concealment of death, and obstruction of justice.
The indictment stated that Casey and Sandy knowingly and intentionally dismembered and destroyed the human remains of Erica Lynn Parsons in any manner, including removing body parts and otherwise destroying her remains. As Rowan County Sheriff Kevin Orton explained, this case weighed heavily on everyone involved. He said it pressured all of them.
He mentioned he had been in law enforcement for 30 years and some of his investigators had been working even longer and he said they all felt that if they didn’t find Erica and eventually bring charges, it would feel like a complete failure of their entire careers. He said this case sat on them like a heavy burden and that they were truly proud of where things stood now.
He added that it was an incredibly difficult case. There were moments when they hoped to find Erica alive, then there were times when they hoped at the very least to find her remains. And now, he said, they were ready to move forward and take the case to trial. He said this had been a very long road and they wanted to make sure every detail was handled correctly, every box checked and nothing left undone.
He also said he was relieved that the charges were filed just one day before what would have been Erica’s 20th birthday. All right. Well, in other news this afternoon, the adoptive parents of a North Carolina teen found dead years after being reported missing, well, they will have separate trials. Sandy and Casey Parsons face multiple charges including first-degree murder.
Their 13-year-old daughter Erica was last seen in 2011, but she was not reported missing for another 2 years. Sandy Parsons led authorities to that girl’s body in South Carolina in 2016. Casey Parsons is set to stand trial in April of 2020. A trial date for his wife has not yet been set. Today should have been Erica Lynn Parsons’ 21st birthday.
Instead, her biological family gathered at her gravesite in China Grove. Erica Parsons, allegedly murdered by her adopted parents back in 2011, now they both sit in jail waiting for their trials. A lot has happened in the past year in this case and the family says that makes today a little different than years past. Happy birthday to you.
It’s a milestone for almost everyone, your 21st birthday. But for little Erica Parsons, she’ll never get to experience that. I should be getting off work, going home, getting dressed, taking my sister out for her very first drink. Sunday afternoon, family and friends gathered here to place flowers and gifts. I cried all the way up here.
For Erica’s biological mother Carolyn, she says this birthday’s a little different considering what we’ve seen happen in the past year. The fact that a court date was set for Casey, even though it’s in 2020, has a huge impact on how I feel about things being done. A trial date was set this month for Casey Parsons.
Casey and Sandy Parsons, Erica’s adoptive parents, are both charged in the child’s death and could face the death penalty if found guilty. And the two main [snorts] family members are sitting where they deserve to be. I hope for the rest of their lives. But those two were not the focus today. Erica is everybody’s angel.
Erica is everybody’s story. Erica’s life and story have traveled across the nation impacting some that never even met the little girl. As long as we’re breathing, Erica’s never going to be forgotten again. For the family, this date is difficult every year. It is Erica’s day. She deserves every bit of this and more. And as they wait for justice, they tell me they feel Erica’s presence often, not just here at her grave.
But she’s not here. You can spend time with her wherever you are, wherever you’re going. At first, Carolyn said she wanted the defendants to receive the death penalty, but later on, she changed her stance. She said she wanted them to spend every single day of the rest of their lives in prison. She added that she truly believed they were evil and she called them monsters.
Are you in fact guilty? Yes. Casey Parsons, the adopted [music] mother of Erica Parsons, admitted to killing the little girl. She’ll now spend the rest of her life behind bars. Casey [music] Parsons pleaded guilty to charges of first-degree murder and felony child abuse. There was so much emotion inside of that courtroom today as Casey Parsons admitted that she is guilty of abusing and then murdering her adopted daughter, Erica Parsons.
Of course, this admission is shocking since Erica Parsons was reported missing in 2012. Casey and her husband Sandy have denied having anything to do with that disappearance. At this point, it appears that Sandy Parsons will still have to stand trial for the charges against him. We’re going to get much more information from the district attorney inside right now.
We’ll bring you the latest later. Back to you. Casey Parsons ultimately pleaded guilty to charges of child abuse and murder. As a result, she was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. And, you know, when it came down to it, that sentence made one thing clear. She would never walk free again.
She would spend the rest of her life behind bars with no second chances and no way out. I can’t tell you why. I don’t know why I did the stuff I did and I’m very sorry. After years of denial, Casey Parsons openly admitted she abused then murdered her adopted daughter Erica Parsons. I didn’t have a steady home.
I didn’t have a steady job. Had I known then what I know now, I would have risked it. I would have took her to a different place at night. Today, prosecutors shared testimony from Erica’s sibling who said Erica was choked, beaten and neglected by Casey and Sandy. Erica always smelled bad and his mom didn’t let her take a bath.
Erica had a lot of cuts and bruises and black eyes from mom hitting her. Casey offered an apology before the judge sentenced her to life in prison with no parole on that murder charge. And I want to say [clears throat] I’m sorry to God and to Erica. She also admitted that many family members reached out to her trying to help her with Erica, but she said she pushed them away and eventually murdered that little girl that she was supposed to protect.
She said family members tried to step in and protect Erica. My parents and my sister reached out to me numerous times to help me. Numerous. Um, I pushed them back. I would lie constantly to them. In addition to that, she was given consecutive sentences for felony concealment of death, felony child abuse resulting in serious bodily injury and felony obstruction of justice.
All together, those additional convictions added up to a total of 23 more years on top of her life sentence. My My name is Carolyn Parsons. I am Erica Lynn Parsons’ biological mother. I’ve said all along that Casey deserved life in prison versus the death sentence. I still 100% agree with that because their life in prison living, her life in prison living, will be worse than any death sentence she could ever get.
I know as far as having her other children participate, I just cannot seem to understand how. I don’t know why. But she did the one thing I wanted her to do. She at least said something. I don’t know that I believe that she is sorry. I don’t know that I believe that I didn’t mean to. Some of it I had heard. Some of it I hadn’t heard.
I still completely believe that Casey Stone Parsons has no heart. She has no soul. She is a body that is just there. She is a individual who just function. The only thing Casey gets is what Erica doesn’t. She gets to live. But in return for living, she will probably be in solitary confinement and every time she gets out, she gets to listen to people talk about her, listen to people whisper about her.
She gets to wonder, “Am I going to make it back to my cell tonight?” But when that judge made that last statement, that last statement was, “And you cannot be around children.” Yeehaw! Casey loses her rights to watch her grandkids grow up. What an incredible final end for her. Four months after Casey entered her guilty plea, Sandy Parsons also pleaded guilty.
He admitted to charges of obstruction of justice, child abuse, concealment of death, and second-degree murder for his role in the death of Erica Parsons. Sandy was sentenced to a minimum of 33 years in prison. He will be 82 years old before he is even eligible for parole. And, you know, hearing that really puts time into perspective.
Decades behind bars with nothing but the weight of what happened following him every single day. Sandy Parsons appeared in court this morning pleading guilty to murder and other felony charges. People might forgive I know God has. But I’ll never forgive myself. I’ll tell you why I’m not. Things Erica has gone through and I failed her as a dad.
Attorneys argued Sandy was manipulated and controlled by his wife Casey. They said it was Casey who committed most of the abuse against Erica locking her in a closet, starving and severely beating the girl. They say one day Casey told Sandy that Erica died and manipulated him into covering it up, burying her body in a South Carolina field and lying to police for years.
Sandy Parsons role as I stated was substantially less than that of Casey Parsons. There is literally no evidence that Sandy Parsons personally intended to kill or seriously injure Erica Parsons. They asked the judge for leniency in sentencing. Rather than the near 80 years he could have received, the judge sentenced him to a maximum of 43 years.
Erica’s biological mother was in court today as well getting to tell Sandy what she thought of him. I stand by what I have said from day one. Which is I used to love you, now I hate you. And he got to hear that. Sandy’s attorney read letters written by the two youngest children. In those letters they talked about how much they loved and missed their father and they said he had never abused them.
Psychologist Claudia Coleman evaluated Sandy twice and also testified during the hearings. She said he was passive, had difficulty making decisions on his own and that Casey was clearly the dominant force in the relationship. According to her, Casey threatened to take the children away from him if he didn’t do what she demanded. Dr.
Coleman said she believed Sandy did not want Erica to die and that he showed genuine remorse. She testified that Sandy told her he didn’t realize just how severe the abuse against Erica really was. But the district attorney strongly disagreed. The prosecutor said Sandy saw the extent of the violence and even took part in it.
He emphasized that Sandy was an adult in that household, that he was neither a victim nor a hero and that he deserved the harshest possible punishment. Carolyn said Sandy’s sentence felt like a slap on the wrist. She said he had the ability to make his own choices and failed to do so. She also pointed out that members of Sandy and Casey’s families could have said something when they saw signs of abuse, but they didn’t.
The judge placed Sandy in the same category as his wife. He said that while he viewed Casey as the mastermind behind the plan, Sandy went along with it, participated in the crimes and had what he described as a warped way of thinking. While in prison, Sandy picked up two disciplinary violations. One was for possessing non-dangerous contraband and the other was for possessing a weapon.
In the end, after the involvement of countless law enforcement officers from multiple agencies, thousands and thousands of man-hours, massive search efforts and hundreds of witness interviews, the Erica Parsons case was finally closed. The dedication and persistence of the investigators were honestly remarkable. Sheriff Orton said this was never about the Rowan County Sheriff’s Office, the office of the District Attorney, the United States Attorney’s Office, the Federal Bureau of Investigation or the State Bureau of Investigation. He said
the only reason this was done was for Erica. He added that everyone involved understood that no matter how frustrating things became, they had to move slowly and build the case brick by brick to make sure it had the strongest possible foundation. He said the easiest thing would have been to give in to public pressure and rush to charge someone right away, but you know, doing that would have been irresponsible.
District Attorney Cook said this. He said that we have to have the courage to be a voice for those who don’t have one. He said that monsters who abuse and mistreat children are among the very worst in our society, that there are very few things more cruel than gaining a child’s love and trust only to make that child feel unwanted, unloved and unsafe.
And realizing how much Erica suffered in such a short life, never even knowing the warmth of having her own bed and knowing that all of this was done by the very people who were supposed to protect her and care for her, he said that’s almost too painful to even think about. He added that maybe the only positive thing to come out of this story is that the monsters responsible for this crime are exactly where they belong. Carolyn also spoke.
She said she gave Erica up because she believed she would have a better life. She said she didn’t have a stable home. She didn’t have a steady job. She described Erica as a gift, the kind of gift that millions of people would love to receive. She said she just wants to know why and she knows she never will.
She said hearing those charges, looking them in the face and realizing that she trusted them to raise her child, believing they would give her a better life than she thought she could, that it hurts deeply. And all right, friends, that’s where we’ll end things for today. Honestly, I truly appreciate every single one of you for being here with me on YouTube and until next time, remember to take care of yourselves and take care of each other.
Stay safe, stay curious and thank you for watching. Goodbye.
