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Prison says inmate death was a suicide

Joseph Robert Mercury, 52, was found hanged in his cell. He was serving a 40-year sentence for killing a man in 1986.

By JAMAL THALJI
Published February 12, 2005

ZEPHYRHILLS - It was 19 years ago that Joseph Robert Mercury stabbed and killed 22-year-old John Parrish in a drunken rage.

It was 17 years ago that Mercury accepted a plea deal: 40 years in prison.

It was 5 a.m. Friday when guards at the Zephyrhills Correctional Institution found Mercury dead.

Mercury, 52, hanged himself with a sheet in what prison officials called a suicide.

"I think it just brings closure to the whole thing," said the victim's father, J. Christian Parrish, a 61-year-old clinical psychologist in Odessa.

It is the first suicide at Zephyrhills Correctional Institution since September 2000, a facility that was under intense scrutiny last year.

Six officials were forced out last year after a suicidal woman was held naked in her cell for days. A 70-year-old inmate was assaulted and a former prison psychologist sentenced to nine years in prison for killing his housemate.

Mercury's last contact with the outside world was Wednesday, Department of Corrections spokesman Sterling Ivey said. Mercury met with his lawyer, Ivey said, then his classification officer to discuss his pending transfer to another prison.

Mercury was in a regular cell, by himself, Ivy said, and was not on suicide watch.

Prison officials have no reason to suspect anything other than suicide, Ivey said. Last year there were six suicides out of the 82,000 inmates in Florida's prison system.

"It's a routine death investigation," he said. "There were no signs of trauma on the body and he was in a single cell."

The Pinellas-Pasco County Medical Examiner's Office will perform an autopsy on Mercury. The Florida Department of Law Enforcement, which investigates all prison deaths, launched an inquiry Friday.

The events that led to John Parrish's death started when he moved out of his grandmother's house in 1986 to be on his own, staying with friends Brian and Jodi Dominick. They lived with their mother, Joan DeFazio, in Clearwater.

Someone else had come from New York to stay with DeFazio. Someone who authorities said had a history of mental problems and alcohol abuse. Someone already out on bail for stabbing someone. That someone was Mercury.

"My son was just in the wrong place at the wrong time," J. Christian Parrish said, "and he did not have any idea who (Mercury) was."

DeFazio warned neighbors not to give Mercury alcohol. Yet he used taxis to obtain alcohol, was loud at night and rarely sober, according to court records at the time.

Drunk and angry, Mercury threatened Parrish and the Dominicks the night of Sept. 9, 1986. Brian Dominick locked himself in a room after Mercury threatened him with a knife. Mercury then stabbed Parrish and sliced Jodi Dominick's ear. Parrish was declared dead at the hospital.

Mercury fled in Jodi Dominick's car, then returned to find Pinellas County sheriff's deputies at the home. He passed out in the road and was arrested.

Prosecutors and Mercury agreed on a deal: 40 years in prison for second-degree murder if the state dropped the first-degree murder charge.

"I'm very sorry this happened," Mercury was quoted in a 1988 St. Petersburg Times story telling Parrish's parents at his sentencing. "I liked Jack."

The victim's father said he was never satisfied with the deal.

"They said they didn't have a sound enough case to convict him on first-degree murder," Parrish said. "But I had some attorney friends who totally disagreed with that. I thought it was just the state attorney trying to close it and get it out of the way."

Then the father remembered his late son, who dreamed of becoming an architectural engineer:

"He was a great guy, a good fellow, never was in any trouble at all. He came from a good family, I think, and was a relatively good student because he knew what he wanted to be in life."

Researcher Carolyn Edds contributed to this report.

[Last modified February 12, 2005, 00:25:13]