Robert Letson was a man whose death followed an attempted robbery and shooting on Cleveland’s west side in the spring of 1987. During the early morning hours of April 24, Letson had been at Bev’s Bar near West 98th Street and Lorain Road with Kim Wilson and Wilson’s sister, Sherrie Scott. At approximately 3:00 a.m., Letson drove the women to 7635 Lorain Road, where Wilson’s sister Patricia White was watching Wilson’s child. Wilson went inside to get the child, and Scott followed a few minutes later, leaving Letson waiting alone in his vehicle. Across the street, an individual had reportedly been lingering near a telephone booth. The person suddenly crossed Lorain Road, approached Letson’s car with a handgun and entered the vehicle. What followed was an attempted robbery that quickly turned violent.
According to evidence later presented in court, the gunman demanded money from Letson. Letson produced an empty wallet, and the assailant shot him once before fleeing. Despite being seriously wounded, Letson was able to make his way to the nearby apartment and tell Wilson and White that he had been shot during a robbery. He appeared frightened and in severe pain as he described what had happened. Patricia White had also witnessed part of the encounter from the apartment. She heard the gunshot and saw the person leave the passenger side of Letson’s car before running across the street. Another witness, Joseph Zappone, saw the fleeing assailant head toward a residence at 7732 Lorain Road and noticed lights come on in an upstairs portion of the house shortly afterward.
Letson was taken to St. John’s Hospital with a gunshot wound entering the right side of his torso. The projectile caused extensive internal damage, passing through his liver, injuring his gallbladder and large intestine, and perforating his small intestine. Surgeons removed his gallbladder and attempted to repair the other injuries, but the internal bleeding continued. During a second operation intended to control that bleeding, Letson suffered cardiac arrest. Although doctors were able to continue treating him, the interruption of blood and oxygen to his brain caused irreversible brain damage. He never recovered from the consequences of the shooting and died on May 12, 1987, more than two weeks after he had been attacked. Ballistics evidence showed that the recovered projectile was consistent with ammunition fired from either a. 38-caliber or. 357-caliber firearm.
The first investigation centered heavily on the house at 7732 Lorain Road because witnesses had seen the gunman flee in that direction. Detectives interviewed people associated with the residence, but Donell Parker, who would ultimately be prosecuted for Letson’s killing, was not identified to investigators as someone who also lived there. Andre McGee was among the people investigated and was shown to a witness, who said McGee was not the gunman. Another person, Tyrone Cochran, was investigated and eliminated as a suspect. Months later, McGee contacted authorities and claimed that he could identify the killer if prosecutors helped him obtain a reduction in an unrelated prison matter, but the proposed arrangement was rejected and McGee did not provide the name. There were also weaknesses in the physical evidence. Letson’s roommate was permitted to take the car from the scene and subsequently used and washed it. Fingerprints were not collected from the vehicle until after Letson had died, and none of the prints obtained were Parker’s. With no arrest, the investigation eventually stalled.
Nearly nine years passed before the case changed dramatically. In December 1995, Parker’s mother, Kathy Parker, contacted police and told detectives that her son had admitted involvement shortly after the 1987 shooting. According to her account, Parker had said that he tried to rob someone sitting in a car and shot the person during the encounter. She said she had remained silent for years because she could not bring herself to turn in her own son. She finally approached authorities after a violent confrontation in which she said Parker assaulted and threatened her. Investigators subsequently developed additional witnesses. Parker’s former girlfriend, Tracy Durkin, testified that she had been living with Parker near Lorain Avenue in April 1987 and that, on the morning after the shooting, Parker told her he had tried to rob someone and shot him. A friend, Cedric Polk, testified that Parker gave him a small-caliber revolver and asked him to dispose of it and later made statements indicating that he had shot someone during a robbery on Lorain Road. Another acquaintance, Anthony Lewis, testified that Parker admitted the shooting while the two were incarcerated together. The defense challenged the credibility of these witnesses, pointing to criminal histories, favorable treatment received by some witnesses, and the possibility of personal motives. Parker’s stepfather testified that Kathy Parker had fabricated her accusations because of family violence and conflict.
The renewed investigation led to formal proceedings in 1996. Because Parker had been a juvenile when Letson was shot, a juvenile complaint was initially filed on February 1, 1996, even though Parker was 26 years old by then. The juvenile court found probable cause and transferred the case for adult prosecution. On April 16, a Cuyahoga County grand jury indicted Parker on aggravated murder by prior calculation and design, aggravated murder committed in connection with aggravated robbery, and aggravated robbery, with firearm specifications attached to the charges. Parker pleaded not guilty, and his jury trial began in August 1996. Prosecutors ultimately dismissed the aggravated-murder count alleging prior calculation and design but proceeded on the aggravated murder connected to the attempted robbery and the aggravated-robbery charge. The jury convicted Parker on the remaining charges. On September 24, 1996, he was sentenced to 30 years to life for aggravated murder and a consecutive term of 10 to 25 years for aggravated robbery, together with additional consecutive prison time for the firearm specifications. His convictions were upheld on direct appeal in 1998, and the Supreme Court of Ohio declined to hear a further appeal.
The case developed another major controversy years later. In 2008, Parker sought a new trial after another convicted killer, Clifton Cousins, signed affidavits claiming that he, rather than Parker, had shot Letson. Cousins gave an account bearing striking similarities to the known facts, saying that he approached a vehicle on Lorain Road intending to commit a robbery, panicked and fired a. 38-caliber weapon into the victim’s abdominal area before fleeing. Parker argued that the confession demonstrated his innocence. Prosecutors disputed Cousins’s credibility, however, noting that he had previously claimed responsibility for numerous killings and had a pattern of making and later retracting homicide confessions. When a hearing was finally held in May 2011, Cousins invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination and refused to answer questions about the alleged confession. With no testimony from Cousins beyond the affidavits, the trial judge concluded that Parker had not produced credible evidence sufficient to justify a new trial. The denial was upheld by the Ohio Court of Appeals in 2012.
Parker continued challenging his conviction through later motions, appeals and habeas corpus litigation, arguing among other things that there were defects in the juvenile transfer proceedings and problems with the indictments and sentencing records. Those efforts did not overturn the judgment. Ohio appellate courts repeatedly rejected the challenges, and the Supreme Court of Ohio also upheld the dismissal of a later habeas petition. As a result, despite the later confession attributed to Cousins and the questions Parker raised about witnesses and evidence, Donell Parker’s convictions for the aggravated murder and aggravated robbery connected to Robert Letson’s death have remained in effect.
