Jamea D. Parker, 28, a Black/African American woman, spent the first hours of Thanksgiving morning in Kokomo, Indiana, in the noisy spill of late-night life—lights, music, and the kind of arguments that can flare up fast when the night is running out.
Around 3 a.m. on November 22, 2018, police were called to Great Escape Bar and Grill on North Washington Street after reports of multiple shots fired.
Not long after, as daylight began to creep in, Parker was found in a driveway near the intersection of Buckeye and Butler streets—about a half-mile from the bar. The coroner pronounced her dead at the scene, and an autopsy determined she died from a single gunshot wound; investigators ruled the death a homicide.
In the immediate aftermath, the case unfolded in fragments: a shooting report at the bar, then a body discovered away from the original scene, leaving investigators to trace the path between the two locations. Early reports emphasized that no one had been charged yet, as police worked to piece together what happened in the hours between the gunfire and the discovery.
As the investigation advanced, attention focused on Cameron Wood. Court records later stated that Wood shot and killed Parker and that he possessed the handgun despite having prior felony convictions that made him a “serious violent felon” under Indiana law. Prosecutors initially filed a stack of charges that included murder and additional felony counts tied to the violence and the firearm. Police arrested Wood on December 17, 2018.
The case ultimately ended not with a murder trial, but with a plea agreement. On December 3, 2019, Wood pleaded guilty to reckless homicide and unlawful possession of a firearm by a serious violent felon in exchange for dismissal of the remaining charges, including the murder count. The judge imposed consecutive sentences—twelve years for the firearm conviction and six years for reckless homicide—for a total of eighteen years, citing factors such as Wood’s history and the fact that he was on probation at the time of the killing; an appeal later left the sentence intact while addressing a credit-time calculation issue.
Another man, Terry Lawrence, was also prosecuted in connection with the same incident. Reporting later said Lawrence pleaded guilty to three charges, including criminal recklessness, and was sentenced in October 2019.
