Matthew Santoni, The Examiner
2008-05-07 07:00:00.0
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BALTIMORE -

Kevin Johns turned to the father of the man he admitted to killing and smiled.

That was too much for John Parker Sr.

“What are you smiling at, you motherf—er?” Parker Sr. said.

Then the father jumped from his seat in the Harford County courtroom and hurled his metal cane toward Johns.

The outburst came Tuesday as prosecutors played a recording of Johns confessing to strangling Parker’s son, Phillip Parker Jr. 20, aboard a prison bus.

Three guards and several sheriff’s deputies assigned to the courtroom grabbed Parker Sr. and pushed him out a nearby door. Two other guards wrapped their arms around Johns.

The cane appeared to miss its intended target, and attorneys had moved to the front of the courtroom to listen to the tape, so no one was struck.

Judge Emery Plitt and the attorneys took a 15-minute recess to collect themselves in the trial of Johns, accused of a Feb. 2, 2005, slaying aboard a Division of Corrections bus bound for Baltimore.

The victim’s mother, Melissa Rodriguez, asked John Parker not to make a scene prior to the start of the trial Monday.

“This is for Phillip, this is for my son — don’t make it about you,” she said.

In the taped interview, given to Lt. Brenda Galbraith at the “Supermax” facility in Baltimore, Johns identified where he and other inmates were seated on the bus according to a chart of inmates’ photos Galbraith had numbered.

When asked in the interview who had killed Phillip Parker, Johns paused and replied, “Number 10” — his number. He described how he put his arms on both sides of Parker’s head and leaned back, letting his body weight against his restraints choke Parker. He also cut Parker’s throat with a razor he had smuggled aboard and then dropped on the bus, causing him to cry out, Johns said.

“Where it came from, and how it happened — I don’t know why,” Johns said.

Johns’ attorneys, Harry Trainor and Carroll McCabe, intend to make the case that Johns is not criminally responsible for killing Parker because he was left untreated for a lifetime of psychological illnesses. Baltimore County prosecutor S. Ann Brobst is seeking the death penalty, giving Johns the automatic change of venue to Harford County.

Three guards were fired as a result of Parker’s death, and the family has filed a civil suit against the state saying he did not get adequate protection while incarcerated.

“It’s heartbreaking, gut-wrenching,” Rodriguez said of listening to the tape. “We’re living it all over again.”

msantoni@baltimoreexaminer.com