Weather | Sports | Forums | Comics | Classifieds | Calendar | Movies
The man, who worked at the Brannons' home in the months before their deaths, is jailed on an unrelated sexual battery charge.
By LEANORA MINAI
© St. Petersburg Times, published October 27, 1999
A Manatee County landscaper arrested on a sexual battery charge is being questioned in the triple slaying of Sherry Brannon and her two young daughters.
In the months before the killings, Larry James Parks, 45, spent weeks at the Brannons' house doing landscaping work, including digging the pond in front of their Bradenton home.
Parks also dated a driver for United Parcel Service, which employs Mrs. Brannon's estranged husband, Albert Dewey Brannon Jr.
Sheriff Charles B. Wells, who said Monday that "major developments" had evolved in the case and that "closure" could come this week, would not discuss specifics Tuesday.
Wells and other officials refused to characterize Parks as a suspect, although Julian Finley Broome Jr., Dewey Brannon's divorce lawyer, said Tuesday that Parks is a possible suspect.
"He could be a prime suspect because of the tie-ins," Broome said.
When asked about a possible suspect in the Brannon murders, sheriff's spokesman Dave Bristow said: "We have like 200 names."
No one has been arrested or charged in the Sept. 16 killings of Mrs. Brannon and her daughters, Shelby, 7, and Cassidy, 4. Mrs. Brannon was a nurse at St. Anthony's Hospital in St. Petersburg, where she grew up and where her parents live.
Parks, who lives in Myakka City, is being held in lieu of $950,000 bail in Manatee County Jail. He is charged with one count of sexual battery, and sheriff's officials said Tuesday that additional charges will be filed. His first court appearance will be today. According to arrest records in the sexual battery case, Parks is charged with sexually assaulting a Bradenton woman at gunpoint at 3:30 a.m. Friday inside her home.
The woman, whose name and address were not released, told investigators that she let Parks inside her home because she had met him on occasion.
Once inside, the records say, Parks pulled a loaded pistol from his waistband and pointed it at her, saying: "This is for sex only."
"Parks started ranting that he had done something terrible and was going to be a dead man, but before that happened, he would fulfill his sexual fantasy," Manatee Detective William A. Vitaioli said in his arrest report.
Parks wrapped the woman's ankles and hands together with silver duct tape and forced her to hop to a bedroom, where he tied her down on a bed with twine, records say.
After Parks sexually assaulted the woman, the woman's boyfriend, sleeping in another room, awoke and confronted Parks, records say.
He grabbed Parks' pistol, and after a scuffle, was able to throw the gun out the front door, the records say. Deputies later recovered the gun. The woman's boyfriend then grabbed a fireplace poker and jabbed Parks in the back and legs while scratching his eyes.
Investigators say Parks, a former employee at Tropicana Products Inc., ran away and was arrested several hours later at his $26,965 mobile home, 41205 Parks Road in Myakka City.
No one answered the telephone at Parks' home, 33 miles from Bradenton. His answering machine says he sells landscapes and creates "eye catchin' ponds."
Broome, Dewey Brannon's divorce lawyer, said Tuesday that Parks knew the Brannons were separated. Mrs. Brannon filed for divorce Aug. 13.
Dewey Brannon has told police he found his wife and daughter Shelby dead in the couple's $350,000 custom-built Bradenton home Sept. 16 -- Mrs. Brannon's 35th birthday. The other daughter, Cassidy, died later at Bayfront Medical Center in St. Petersburg.
Deputies questioned Dewey Brannon for six hours after the bodies were discovered.
Dewey Brannon, who has declined requests for interviews, said Sept. 23, in his only public statement, that he did not kill his wife and daughters.
Broome, his attorney, said even if Parks were to be charged in the murders, Dewey Brannon would not necessarily be cleared of suspicion.
"I think it probably will exonerate him," Broome said, "but I don't know if it will close the door completely."
-- Times researchers Cathy Wos and John Martin contributed to this report.