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Nearly 30 years have passed since Beverly Parker was found brutally beaten and stabbed to death in her Indiana home, yet the murder that occurred in August 1997 remains unsolved.
Could a clandestine affair hold the key to unraveling this long-standing mystery?
This is the question that Cold Justice prosecutor Kelly Siegler and homicide investigator Tonya Rider aimed to explore in the episode aired on October 18. They joined forces with detectives from the Fort Wayne Police Department to delve deeper into the case.
Friends and acquaintances described Parker as a joyful and reclusive woman who was deeply committed to her church. At 47, she worked for a major life insurance company and shared her Fort Wayne, Indiana home with her teenage son, Toriano.
Her peaceful existence was shattered on the night of August 23, 1997, when she fell victim to what Rider characterized as a “vicious” and “hateful” murder.
Her quiet life came to an end on the night of Aug. 23, 1997 when she became the victim of what Rider described as a “vicious” and “hateful” homicide.
“Beverly’s murder was one of the most brutal I’ve ever seen,” Rider remarked. “It screams overkill and, to me, it seemed very personal.”
According to Fort Wayne Police Det. Brian Martin, the struggle began in the kitchen where Parker was stabbed 25 times in a series of “short cuts” with a small knife. Blood marks found at the scene suggested that Parker was then dragged into the hallway, where she was stabbed again with a larger knife and beaten in the head with a blunt object, possibly a large frying pan from the victim’s own home.
Investigators found footprints in the blood stains that suggested someone had stabbed Parker—leaving her weak but still alive—before they walked back into the kitchen to grab the pan to deliver the final fatal blows.
Parker’s son Toriano, who was confirmed during Cold Justice to be at an all-night skating party during the attack, returned in the early morning hours to discover his mom lying dead in a pool of blood in the hallway.
A Secret Affair
Detectives soon learned that at the time of the murder, Parker was having an affair with John Grant, the husband of her 28-year-old daughter, Chantel Grant Stacy.
Grant’s own story about what happened that night changed multiple times, but he ultimately told law enforcement officers that Stacy allegedly confessed to getting into a fight with her mom and attacking her.
He claimed that he went to the house to check on Parker that night and found her injured but still alive in the hallway. When he was unable to help her up, he told police that he fled because of two active warrants out on him at the time for unrelated charges. According to his account, he returned home and told Stacy that Parker was still alive.
“She said, ‘I need to go back and finish the job,’” Grant told detectives in an earlier interview, “’cause she’ll talk.’”
Investigators also found it suspicious that Stacy noted in a walk-through of her mother’s home that the frying pan was the only thing missing.
According to witnesses, Stacy was also unaware at the time that Parker had removed her as a beneficiary of her $80,000 life insurance policy.
“Chantel told witnesses that she had hated her mother and she once wrote a very chilling letter to her own godmother where she detailed how she wanted to kill her mother,” Siegler told producers. “How does a daughter come to hate her own mother so much? That is a question that we’re going to need to answer.”
Revisiting Witnesses
As the Cold Justice investigation got underway, the team revisited with key witnesses to piece together what happened that night.
The team hit a snag in the case when they tracked down Grant on the phone. He told investigators he was now living on the streets and was unable to verify anything about his original story to police.
“Its hard to tell if John is confused or intoxicated or what,” Siegler said, “but it’s clear that he’s not going to be able to confirm anything.”
Investigators also spoke to Parker’s pastor, Dr. Oscar Underwood, who remembered that when he visited Stacy to share his condolences she told him that her mother “got what she deserved.”
She also seemed to know details of the case, including how her mother had died, he said.
During a conversation at the Indiana State Prison with Toriano—who was serving a 40-year sentence for the attempted murder of his girlfriend—he told Det. Mark Bieker that his mother had not only had an affair with Grant, but that she’d also slept with Stacy’s first husband, possibly giving his sister even more motive to hate her mother.
He described their relationship as “very toxic.”
Where is Chantel Grant Stacy Today?
Investigators believed it was finally time to confront Stacy herself and Martin and Rider headed to Las Vegas, Nevada where she was now living.
Stacy told investigators that she once suspected Grant had killed her mother. But, she also made it clear that she didn’t know or care who did.
“I do not want to talk about Beverly Belt Parker,” she said at one point in the conversation. “I hope she’s burning in hell.”
Stacy went on to explain that her mother had caused her a great deal of pain. She insisted, however, that she didn’t kill her.
When the team reconvened back in Indiana, they agreed that the evidence pointed toward Stacy.
“Chantel’s own words and actions are the strongest evidence,” Siegler explained. “She hated her mom and she seemed to know details about the crime and the murder that only the killer and the police department know. It’s not a confession but it’s solid, circumstantial evidence telling us that Beverly’s murder was committed by her own daughter.”
After meeting with the prosecutor, Martin said the case was “moving in the right direction” and he was hopeful that charges would eventually be filed in the cold case.
To learn more about the cases on this season, watch Cold Justice Saturdays at 8/7c on Oxygen.
