Dec. 29, 2006
Patricia Brown Case Goes to March 2007 Grand Jury; Alleged Slayer of
Ruby
Parker Remains in Southern Regional Jail
By David M. Kinchen
Editor, Huntington News Network
Hinton, WV (HNN) – After hearing testimony from Hinton’s police chief
and
the 15-year-old granddaughter of Ruby Parker, 71, of 417 Temple St.,
Hinton,
who died Wednesday, Dec. 6, 2006, after allegedly being stabbed in the
chest
by Patricia Brown, 38, of Hinton, Magistrate Bill Jeffries decided to
send
the case to the March 2007 Summers County Grand Jury. He sent Brown
back to
Southern Regional Jail.
Assistant Prosecutor Amy Mann, who will become the county’s prosecuting
attorney on Jan. 1, 2007, called as a witness in the Thursday, Dec. 28,
2006
preliminary hearing Hinton Police Chief Thomas R. Peal Jr. Peal gave
an
account of finding the elderly woman on a love seat in the house with a
stab
wound in her chest and a bloody knife in her hand – apparently wrested
from
her assailant. He said Parker identified her attacker as Patricia Brown
and
gave an account of Brown’s capture on Ninth Avenue between Summers and
Temple streets in Hinton.
Also called as a witness was Miracle Parker, the 15-year-old
granddaughter
of Ruby Parker, who described the scene in the Temple Street house on
the
morning of Dec. 6. She said Brown stabbed her grandmother about 10
times in
the chest with a long knife before fleeing. Miracle Parker ran across
the
street to the Summers Middle School to report the incident. The
granddaughter was treated and released at Summers County ARH Hospital
for
cuts received from pulling Brown from her grandmother.
After the hearing, Joann Parker, 34, Ruby Parker’s daughter and the
mother
of Miracle Parker, described her slain mother to HNN as a gentle,
church-going woman who was a victim of an attempted robber.
The prosecution had sought a first-degree murder indictment from the
magistrate’s court, while the court-appointed defense, led by Thomas
White
of Lewisburg, argued that there wasn’t enough evidence for a
first-degree
indictment.