A state appeals court panel Wednesday upheld an ex- felon’s conviction for murdering a female housemate with whom he had argued over a $10 Internet bill and trying to kill her ex-boyfriend in the Hyde Park area of Los Angeles.
Kenneth Theodrick Parks was convicted in September 2015 of first-degree murder for the April 14, 2014, killing of Terri Smith, 42, who was shot once in the back at the home the two shared with other roommates.
He was also convicted of the attempted murder of Smith’s former boyfriend, who survived being shot twice.
Jurors acquitted Parks of two counts of attempted murder and the lesser counts of attempted voluntary manslaughter involving the woman’s 11-year-old daughter and 20-month-old son, who were not wounded.
The woman’s daughter ran out of the home, called 911 and identified Parks as the gunman.
Police responding to the 911 call found Smith dead on her bedroom floor and a trail of blood leading from her room to Parks’ room, where he was found sitting with two kitchen knives — one of which was bloody, according to the appellate court panel’s ruling.
Parks — who had three prior strikes involving his 1982 conviction for forcible oral copulation, kidnapping and robbery — was sentenced in October 2015 to 158 years to life in state prison. But the three-justice appellate panel modified that sentence, finding that a three-year term that had been imposed for a great bodily injury allegation should have been stayed.
–City News Service