Rocky O. Parsons, a 55-year-old White/Caucasian male, was a Davisville resident with deep ties to the Parkersburg area. He was born in Parkersburg on June 12, 1960, to Kermit and Geraldine Hamrick Parsons and was employed by Simonton Windows in Ellenboro. His family included three children, Rocky Parsons II, Dustin Parsons and Justina Parsons, as well as two grandchildren.
On the evening of Sunday, July 12, 2015, the circumstances surrounding Parsons suddenly became the focus of a police investigation in Parkersburg. At approximately 7:16 p.m., a uniformed Parkersburg police officer was flagged down by a pedestrian and informed that a shooting had occurred at 1302 Dillaway Street. Another contemporaneous account said police had received information that someone was leaving the Dillaway Street residence with a firearm. The responding officer went to the property and encountered an individual carrying a 12-gauge shotgun, who was detained.
Officers then entered the residence and discovered Parsons suffering from what authorities described as an apparent single gunshot wound. Emergency medical personnel attempted to help him but were unable to revive him, and he was pronounced dead at the scene. Police treated the death as a possible homicide and immediately began investigating how the shooting occurred and what role the person with the shotgun may have played.
The earliest local account described the person taken into custody as having been arrested in connection with the shooting, while subsequent reporting described that person as having been detained and referred to the individual as the alleged shooter. Authorities deliberately withheld the person's identity while the investigation was underway. Police also initially withheld Parsons' identity until his family could be notified. Investigators appealed to anyone with information about what happened inside the Dillaway Street residence to contact the Parkersburg Police Department.
Despite the detention or arrest reported immediately after the shooting, available independent online reporting does not identify that individual by name or document a subsequent murder or manslaughter charge connected to Parsons' death. Searches of later publicly accessible local reporting likewise do not reveal a verified indictment, criminal trial, guilty plea or conviction arising from the July 12 shooting. The contemporaneous coverage therefore leaves an important part of the story unresolved publicly: police clearly had another person and a shotgun at the scene and opened a homicide investigation, but the accessible reporting does not establish that prosecutors ultimately accused that person of intentionally killing Parsons.
In the days after his death, Parsons' obituary remembered the life outside the police investigation rather than describing the shooting. His family announced that there would be no public service or visitation. In accordance with his wishes, arrangements were made for him to be laid to rest beside his parents at Evergreen South Cemetery, with Leavitt Funeral Home in Parkersburg assisting the family.
