May 27, 2026

"NO PRECEDENT": JUDGE DISMISSES ALL CHARGES AGAINST EBONY PARKER, PLUS A MAINE STRANGLING TRIAL AND A LIFE SENTENCE FOR BEAUTY COUCH'S KILLE

Show Notes
Transcript

Garret on the Newport News dismissal that ended Ebony Parker's criminal trial before the defense could put on a single witness, a Bangor strangulation trial with an HDMI cord and an interstate police chase, and a life-without-parole sentence in the Atlanta murder of roller-skating influencer Beauty Couch.

Garret Fisher covers a stunning courtroom collapse in Virginia, where a judge dismissed all eight felony child abuse counts against former Richneck Elementary assistant principal Ebony Parker — before the defense ever called a witness — ruling that what prosecutors brought to court is, in her words, 'a mashup of legal theory.' Then to Bangor, Maine, where Richard Thorpe is on trial for strangling his ex-girlfriend Virginia Cookson seven months after he walked out of prison early on a domestic violence sentence. And in Atlanta, Eugene Louis-Jacques was sentenced to life without parole plus twenty years for the murder of twenty-two-year-old roller skating influencer Beauty Couch — stabbed eighty-one times, dumped in the woods, the car set on fire.

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WEBVTT

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Kalaroga Shark Media. Good morning, I'm Garrett Fisher. This is

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Daily Crime and Justice. It is Wednesday, May twenty seventh,

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twenty twenty six. Three rooms today, all of them about

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accountability or the absence of it. The first room is

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in Newport News, Virginia. You will remember from last Thursday

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that we walked you through day one of the criminal

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trial of Ebony Parker, the former assistant principal at rich

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Neck Elementary. We walked you through the prosecution's opening. We

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walked you through Abby's werner, taking the stand for the

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second time in two years and describing again what it

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felt like to be shot in her own classroom by

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a six year old. We walked you through the warnings,

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four of them that landed on Parker's desk that morning,

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and we told you we were going to track this

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one all the way through verdict. Well there is not

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going to be a verdict, because on Thursday, after the

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same day we recorded that episode, Judge Rebecca Robinson stood

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up and dismissed every single one of the eight charges

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against Ebony Parker before the defense even called a witness.

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We are going to walk you through how that happened,

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what the judge said, and what it means. The second

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room is in Bangor, Maine. A man named Richard Thorpe

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is on trial right now for strangling his ex girlfriend,

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Virginia Cookson with an HDMI cord in her own home.

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Cookson was thirty nine years old, she had just broken

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up with him. He had been out of prison for

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less than a year. And the conviction he came out

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on was and this is the part you'll want to remember,

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domestic violence aggravated assault. And the third room is in Atlanta.

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A young woman named Beauty Couch had more than one

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hundred thousand Instagram followers for posting roller skating videos. Last week,

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the man she was dating was convicted of stabbing her

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eighty one times and lighting her mother's car on fire

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to try to cover it up. On Friday, he was

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sentenced life without parole plus twenty years. Three rooms. Let's

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get into it. Let's go back to Newport News, Virginia

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Circuit Court Judge Rebecca Robinson on the bench Commonwealth of

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Virginia versus Ebony Parker. Quick recap because some of you

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are picking this up for the first time. January sixth,

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twenty twenty three. Rich Neck Elementary School. A six year

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old first grader named JT. Walked into his classroom that

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morning with a loaded nine millimeter handgun in his backpack.

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He had told another student he was going to shoot people.

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He had shown another student the gun. He had been

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seen on the playground hiding behind rocks and trees with

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another child behaving strangely. By eleven fifteen that morning, four

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separate adults at the school had warned the assistant principal,

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Ebony Parker that this child had a gun and was

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going to hurt someone. A reading specialist searched his back

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packet Parker's direction, empty. The gun was in his jacket pocket.

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Another teacher asked, please, can we search this child's person?

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Parker said no, his mother is coming. Wait. Ninety minutes later,

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JT pulled the gun out of his hoodie pocket in

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his first grade classroom, pointed it at his twenty five

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year old teacher, Abby's werner, and fired one round. The

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bullet went through her left hand, then into her chest.

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It is still in her chest today. Seven more rounds

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were in the weapon. One was jammed in the action

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of the gun. Eight bullets total, eight charges, one count

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of felony child abuse. For every round ebony, Parker did

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not get out of that classroom. That was the prosecution's theory.

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Day one was Tuesday, May nineteenth. Joshua Jenkins gave the

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opening for the Commonwealth. The defense, Curtis Rogers gave his opening.

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Abby's Werner took the stand and again described being shot.

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The reading specialist, Amy Kovacch testified that students reported to

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her that a first grader had brought a gun. The

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deputy who responded thought he was walking into an active shooter.

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The principle of rich Neck, Breonna Foster, conceded under oath

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that she, the principal, had no idea on January sixth,

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that there was a gun in her building. The only

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administrator with the information was Parker. Day two was Wednesday,

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May twentieth. The Commonwealth wrapped up its case. They had

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spent two full days putting witnesses on the stand, teachers, officers,

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the forensics technician who walked into that classroom afterward and

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photographed a backpack, a cartridge case, and a handgun lying

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on the floor. Another teacher, Jennifer West, testified that she

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had personally seen JT acting suspiciously behind a rock wall

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on the playground, that another student had reported the child

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threatened to quote blow them up, and that she had

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reported what she saw to the front office, which in

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this school on that day meant ebony Parker. Two days

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of evidence, the commonwealth rested. Now, in a normal trial,

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this is the moment where the defense routinely moves to dismiss.

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It's called a motion to strike or a motion for

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judgment of acquittal. Different courts use different names. It is

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a procedural step. The defense says, Judge, the prosecution has

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rested and the evidence they have put on is not

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legally sufficient for a jury to convict. The judge almost

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always denies it. The defense puts on its case, the

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jury deliberates, the system grinds forward. Curtis Rogers, Parker's defense attorney,

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made the motion. Judge Rebecca Robinson took it under advisement

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Wednesday evening, came back Thursday morning, and here is what

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she said. Quote. There is no precedent for what's before

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the court, for an administrator criminally charged and tried for

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what has been presented. The court is of the legal

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opinion that this is not a crime, not under the

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common law of Virginia, nor under the Code of Virginia

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end quote. Then she went further. She said the Commonwealth's

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case was, and I want you to hear this phrase,

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a mashup of legal theory. She specifically pulled apart the

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eight counts because of eight bullets framing. She pointed out

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that under Virginia case law, you cannot generate a separate

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felony child abuse charge for every bullet and a gun

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that wasn't fired. The case law requires the bullets to

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be discharged. Seven of those eight rounds never left the chamber.

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The prosecutors had structured their case in a way that

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wasn't permitted by the statute they were prosecuting under all

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eight counts dismissed before the defense called a single witness.

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Before Parker took the stand, Before the jury heard closing arguments,

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the judge sent the jury home. Parker put her head

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down on the council table and sobbed. Now, look, I'm

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going to be honest with you. I have a complicated

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reaction to this, and I want to walk you through

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at care because the worst thing I can do on

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a case like this is pretend it's simpler than it is.

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Start here, Judge Robinson is not wrong about the law.

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She is being asked to read a statute, a felony

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child abuse statute, and decide whether it covers the conduct

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of an administrator who failed to act on warnings about

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a student with a gun. And the answer she gave

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after two days of hearing the prosecution's evidence is that

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the statute as written in Virginia does not cover this.

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That this conduct, as terrible as it is, as preventable

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as the shooting was, does not fit into the legal

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category that the prosecutors brought it under. That is a

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defensible legal call. There is no precedent. The judge said

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so out loud. Nobody has ever been prosecuted in Virginia

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for being a school administrator who ignored warnings about an

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arm child and an American criminal law. You can't make

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the law up as you go. You have to charge

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people under statutes that exist, and the conduct has to fit. So,

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as a matter of law, I understand the ruling. As

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a matter of accountability, and accountability does not have a

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legal department. I want you to sit with what just happened.

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Abby's werner has a bullet in her chest. She is

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twenty eight years old. She doesn't teach anymore. She went

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to cosmetology school because she cannot go back into a classroom.

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She has nightmares about a six year old finding her again.

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The civil jury in this same courthouse looked at this

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same set of facts last fall and decided ebony. Parker

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owed Abby's werner ten million dollars. That is what twelve

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neighbors of Newport News thought of Parker's conduct that morning,

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ten million dollars. Now that civil verdict is currently being appealed,

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Parker has asked the court to throw it out. So

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even the civil money is not yet money in Abby's

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Werner's pocket. And the criminal accountability the part where a

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jury says, yes, you did this, this was a crime.

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You are going to be held responsible by the state.

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That just went away permanently. Double jeopardy attached. The Commonwealth

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cannot recharge this, They cannot appeal a dismissal. At the

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close of the prosecution's case, it is over, which means

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the legal scoreboard at the end of this is a

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civil judgment that may or may not survive appeal paid

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for by an insurance pool. No prison time, no felony record,

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no conviction. Nothing on Ebony Parker's name that says in

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writing what the State of Virginia thinks she did. And

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the part I keep coming back to, the part I

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cannot shake, is that the judge is essentially correct that

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this is the gap in the law. There is no

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statute that fits because nobody when they wrote these statutes,

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imagine that an assistant principle would receive four separate warnings

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in ninety minutes that a six year old had a

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gun on her playground and would say, wait, his mom

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is coming. Nobody planned for that, so nobody legislated for it.

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And until somebody does, until some state legislature somewhere writes

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a statute that says, here is what an administrator owes

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the children in their building, and here is what happens

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when they don't deliver. There is no playbook. There's a

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playbook for the shooter. He was six, so he didn't

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face it. There's a playbook for the mother who left

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a loaded gun where her violent six year old could

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find it. Daja Taylor is serving nearly four years in

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federal prison for that. There's a playbook for the school

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board which paid out a settlement to z Werner. There's

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a playbook for civil court which valued what was done

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to her at ten million dollars. There is no playbook

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for the administrator. That's where the gap is, and until

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the gap closes, every assistant principle in America who gets

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a warning that a kid might have a weapon now

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has a Newport News, Virginia ruling sitting on her desk

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that says, essentially, even if you do nothing, even if

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you tell people to wait while you find the kid's mom,

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even if a teacher gets shot in the chest with

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a bullet that never come out, there is no crime here.

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That is not a mistake. That is a choice the

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law made by not making one. Parker resigned shortly after

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the civil suit was filed in twenty twenty four. She

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is no longer an assistant principle. She will not be

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again in any school I can imagine wanting her. So

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in the most narrow practical sense, she is out of

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the position. But that's a labor market consequence, not a

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legal one, not a justice one, not the kind of

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thing that says on the record, this is what we

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as a society think should happen when you do this.

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Abby's Werner sat through two days of testimony last week.

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She watched the prosecution put on its case. She heard

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her own boss described not knowing what was happening in

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her own building. She heard the deputy describe an active

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shooter response in an elementary school, and then she watched

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a judge dismiss the case before anyone gave a closing argument.

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And the woman who's ninety minutes of inaction put a

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bullet in her chest cried at the council table, and

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the judge commended both sides on their decorum, and then

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the courtroom emptied out. Somebody had to say her name,

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Abby's Zwerner. Let's move to Bangor, Maine. There is a

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woman whose name you should know, Virginia Cookson. She was

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thirty nine years old. She had a job that mattered

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enough to her that when she didn't show up on

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the morning of September twenty fifth, twenty twenty four, a

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coworker thought something was wrong and asked police to do

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a welfare check at her house. That welfare check found

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Virginia Cookson lying in a downstairs bedroom of her own home.

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First responders described her body as positioned quote awkwardly. She

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was covered with a blanket. There was an HDMI cord

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wrapped around her neck. She had been strangled to death

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in her own house by someone who knew exactly where

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she kept her HDMI cord. The man now on trial

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for killing her is named Richard Thorpe. He is forty

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four years old. Earlier this year. Earlier this year, meaning

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the spring of twenty twenty four, he was finishing a

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five year prison sentence for domestic violence aggravated assault. He

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did not finish that sentence. On February thirteenth of twenty

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twenty four, the state of Maine released him early into

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something called a supervised community confinement program. The five year

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sentence stopped operating like a five year sentence. He was

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out three months later. He had moved in with Virginia Cookson.

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They had met shortly after his release. They had started dating.

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By May, they were sharing a house in Bangor. Three

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months after that, September of twenty twenty four, Cookson, according

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to her family, broke up with him. Her family also

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told investigators that Thorpe had recently shown up at her

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home unannounced, and that he had threatened to kill her.

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On September twenty fifth, she he did not arrive at work.

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The welfare check happened, her body was found. Investigators traced

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it back to Thorpe immediately a warrant went out for

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his arrest. He was not in Maine. He was in Pittsfield, Massachusetts,

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about three hundred miles south. Neither he nor Virginia Cookson

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had any known ties to Pittsfield. We don't know why

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he went there. What we do know is that on

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September twenty seventh, two days after the killing, police in

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Pittsfield tried to stop him. He crashed one car, he

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stole another. He led officers through Pittsfield in a stolen vehicle.

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He crossed the center divider, he passed cars in a

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no passing zone. He blew past police signals. And this

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is the part from the press release that I have

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not been able to stop thinking about since I read it.

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The Pittsfield Police Department noted that school bus operations were

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active at the time, school buses on the road. A

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man fleeing a murder charge in a stolen car blowing

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past them at speed. He was caught charged to in

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Massachusetts with a list of motor vehicle offenses extradited to Maine.

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Trial is happening now here. Is what I want you

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to hold on to from this case, even before the

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verdict comes in, even before we know what the jury does.

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The man charged with strangling Virginia Cookson in September of

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twenty twenty four was in January of twenty twenty four

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sitting in a main state prison serving a sentence for

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beating somebody up in a domestic violence aggravated assault case.

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That's what put him in prison the first time, domestic violence.

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The State of Maine looked at that sentence, looked at

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his record, and decided in February that he could be

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released early into a supervised confinement program. Within ninety days

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of that release, he had attached himself to a thirty

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nine year old woman in Bangor who had no idea

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who she was bringing into her house. Within seven months,

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she was dead with a cord around her neck. There

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is a playbook for this. There is always a playbook

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for this. The playbook says people convicted of intimate partner

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violence have one of the highest reoffense rates in the

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criminal justice system. The playbook says early release into a

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community confinement program is supposed to come with conditions, with supervision,

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with check ins. The playbook says, the family of a

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man like this, the women in his life, the supervision

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officer assigned to him, somebody ideally is supposed to be

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paying attention. Virginia Cookson met him in February, she moved

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him in by May, she broke up with him by September,

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and by the end of September she was dead. Thorpe

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has pleaded not guilty. He is presumed innocent. The trial

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is happening in Banger right now, with prosecutors putting on

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their case and the defense presumably going to argue that

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the evidence does not prove who put that cord around

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Virginia Cookson's neck. We'll track it. But the framing on

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this one for me going in is that whatever the

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verdict ends up being, there is already a system somewhere

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upstream of this that decided in February of twenty twenty

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five four that this man should be out on the street,

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And the person who paid the price for that decision

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is named Virginia Cookson. Forty miles north of where the

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trial is happening, in a Bangor cemetery, someone has to

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say her name, Atlanta, Fulton County, Friday afternoon, Judge Kimberly

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Childs delivered a sentence that was about as long as

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a sentence can get in the state of Georgia, life

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without parole plus twenty years consecutive. The defendant is Eugene

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Luis Jacques. He is twenty four years old. The jury

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convicted him last week on every count the state filed malice, murder,

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felony murder, aggravated assault, arson, concealing a death, and tampering

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with evidence. The judge then immediately imposed the maximum sentence.

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But before I get to him, I want you to

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know about Beauty Couch. Beauty Couch was twenty two years old.

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She lived in Hostile, Georgia, just outside Atlanta. She was

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a roller skating influencer, and I know that phrase sounds

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a little flat, but she was very good at it.

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She had more than one hundred thousand followers on Instagram.

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She made videos of herself skating. People watched them, people

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liked them, people built community around them. She was a

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young woman who had figured out a small, joyful thing

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she was good at and was sharing it with the world,

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and she was just starting She met Eugene Louis Jacques

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at a beauty conference in Orlando. He lived in Louisiana.

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After they met, he relocated to Georgia to be near her.

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They started dating in April of twenty twenty three. Four

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months in, in August of twenty twenty three, she was dead.

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Here is what happened. On August twenty second, twenty twenty three,

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Beauty disappeared. Her mother could not reach her. She called

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Beauty's boyfriend, Louis Jacques. He did not answer either. The

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mother became increasingly worried throughout the day. Less than twenty

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four hours later, police came to the mother's door. They

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had found Beauty's mother's Dodge Dart, the car Beauty had

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been driving, on fire. When officers were told that Beauty

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was missing, they went back to the scene of the

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burned car. They walked the area less than two hundred

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feet away from the burned out dodge. In a wooded area,

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they found Beauty's body. It had been covered with branches.

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She had been stabbed eighty one times, eighty one stab wounds,

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and then the car set on fire to try to

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erase the rest. Louis Jacques was gone. He had fled Georgia.

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Police caught up with him in Louisiana days later. When

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officers approached him, he initially gave them a fake name.

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He was arrested and brought back to Georgia to stand trial. Now,

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the case that the prosecutors Stephanie Green and Jared Horowitz

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put on was almost entirely circumstantial. Green admitted it in

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opening statements. There was no DNA from Louis Jacques on

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Beauty's body. There was no Beauty Couch blood on Louis

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Jacqu's clothing. There was no Beauty Couch blood in Louis

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Jacqu's car. The dodge had been burned so thoroughly that

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there was essentially nothing left to test except one piece

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of paper. In the trunk of the burned out dodge,

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which had been set on fire to destroy evidence, investigators

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found a PAYE dub with Eugene Louis Jacques's name on it.

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The fire that consumed the car's interior, the upholstery, everything

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around it somehow left this pay stub identifying him intact

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inside a box inside a container in the trunk. The

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defense attorney Brian Lumpkin pointed at this in opening and

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again in closing and said, that's so bizarre, it's so unreal,

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it can't be a coincidence. He suggested that piece of

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paper was planted there, that someone not his client, wanted

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Eugene Louis Jacques to take the fall for this and

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arrange the evidence accordingly. Look, I'm going to be honest

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with you. I have seen a lot of defense theories

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on this show. The someone else planted the evidence theory

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is one of the oldest in the book, and there

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are absolutely cases where it has been the right theory.

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But the someone else planted the evidence theory works best

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when you can also explain why your client did everything

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else he did, and Lumpkin couldn't. He stood up in

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front of the jury and conceded openly that his client

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fled to Louisiana, conceded that his client gave a fake

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name to police. His explanation for that was, quote, he

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knows he's a likely suspect and he doesn't want to

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get caught. End quote. He's guilty of being quote the

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best suspect they could come up with. End quote. That

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is not a defense. That is a sympathy bid. That

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is asking the jury to believe that an innocent man

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twenty four years old, knowing nothing about who actually killed

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his girlfriend, packed up his life, fled to a different state,

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and gave officers of fake name, all because he was

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worried about being framed. And then in addition that the

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actual killer also took the time to plant a payroll

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document in a trunk that they were about to set

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on fire on the off chance the document would survive

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the fire and get found later. There's a playbook for this.

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The playbook says, when somebody runs, somebody usually ran for

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a reason. The playbook says, when a victim has eighty

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one stab wounds on her body, the person who did

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that lost control, and the person who lost control is

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the person who knew her, who was in proximity to her,

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who had access to her car. The playbook says, when

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you can't put DNA on someone, but you can put

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their pay stub in the trunk of the car they

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used to dump the body, and they then run to

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a different state under a fake name, the jury is

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going to add it up, which is what they did.

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Conviction came back on every count. Judge Child sentence immediately.

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The prosecutor Jared Horowitz asked the judge to give him

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the maximum, saying, quote, the evidence in this case has

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demonstrated that this defendant showed no mercy towards Miss Couch,

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and this court shouldn't allow any mercy either. End quote.

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The judge agreed life without parole plus twenty years. He

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is never going to be free again. Beauty Couch was

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twenty two years old. She was building a career out

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of a thing that made her happy. She had one

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hundred thousand people watching her skate. She had a mother

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who started calling her boyfriend in the middle of an

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ordinary day because something felt wrong, and who later opened

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the door to find police standing on her porch with

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