Capital Murder Trial For Man Accused Of Killing Stepfather Set To Begin Tuesday: 06/19/2012

Trial set to begin Tuesday for man accused of killing his stepfather

Story Written by: The Crime Scene

Jury selection is scheduled to begin Tuesday (06-19-12) in Baxter County, Arkansas, in the capital murder trial of a man accused of killing his stepfather in June of 2006.

It took authorities three and a half years before they arrested Gary Wayne Parks, 41, of Germantown, Tennessee, for the murder of Mountain Home urologist Dr. David Millstein.
Millstein was found with his throat slit in his bed on June 16, 2006. The probable cause affidavit that outlines the state's case against Parks has remained sealed since his arrest in December of 2009. But Baxter County prosecutor Ron Kincade says Parks killed 62 year-old Millstein in his home at 1707 Stephen Court for financial gain and that the murder was premeditated.

Earlier this year attorney's for Parks asked for a continuance in the case after some information in the State Medical Examiner's came "as a surprise."

According to docket entries in the case, defense attorney's Joe Perry and Danny Glover, wanted the State Medical Examiner to pinpoint the time of Millstein's death. In December of 2010, Dr. Charles P. Kokes told defense attorney's that he could not pinpoint the time of Dr. Millstein's death and he does not routinely note the time of death while performing autopsy's.

On January 13, 2012, Kokes faxed Parks' attorney's a letter noting that he believed the time of death was in the early morning hours of June 17, 2006. In their motion for continuance, defense attorney's cited that the new information did not give them enough time properly defend Parks, and their need to have an expert review Dr. Kokes "opinion."

In the correspondence to defense attorney's Kokes says, "Autopsy findings alone, without consideration of investigative information, would place his (Millstein's) death anywhere from 3 p.m. on 6/16 to 3 p.m. on 6/17. Assuming the reliability of the investigative information I have been provided with, the time window narrows, and it is unlikely that death would have taken place prior to 1:30 a.m. on 6/17. In light of the fact that he still had remnants of a dinner type meal in his stomach, that the assault took place while he was in bed, and that he was still wearing his bed clothes, it is most likely that the death took place in the morning hours of 6/17 between 1: 30 a.m. and the time at which he would have normally arisen."

Millstein was married to Gary's mother, Lois Jane Parks, at the time of his murder. However, the couple were estranged and she lived in Little Rock at the time his death. Parks' father, Jerry, was gunned down on a Little Rock street in September of 1993. He remains a suspect in his father's murder as well.