Mom testifies to mental state of son in rape case

[unhappycamper]

Mom testifies to mental state of son in rape case
By David Allen, Stars and Stripes
Pacific edition, Saturday, January 19, 2008

NAHA, Okinawa — Kevin Parks’ mother testified Thursday that it was just a coincidence she checked her son into a psychiatric unit hours after he beat and raped a sex-shop worker in Okinawa City on Oct. 1.

Capt. Wanda Parks, an Air Force nurse on Kadena Air Base, told the three-judge panel in Naha District Court on Thursday that she had been seeking help for her son before he moved to Okinawa in February 2006.

Kevin Parks’ mental condition was the focus of the four-hour hearing. On Tuesday, he pleaded guilty to a charge of rape involving injury.

Capt. Parks said her 22-year-old son had been depressed since setting out to live on his own in Arizona after he graduated from high school. He tried to make it as a rap musician but had difficulty making ends meet, she told the court.

A brief stay with his biological father, whom he had not previously met, had turned into a disaster and Parks begged to join her, his stepfather and step-siblings on Okinawa, she said.


Rest of article at: http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=51735



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