Update: Friday 11:30 a.m. — Captain James Rowell of the Pender County Sheriff’s Office confirmed that the detective featured in Parker’s video was, in fact, involved in a 2016 investigation that led to Parker’s arrest.
BURGAW—The Pender County Sheriff’s Office said there was no apparent connection between a man found dead in Wilmington last week and the detective in a Facebook video the man had posted in early June.
Christopher Scott Parker, 28, was found dead in a vehicle left in a Wilmington parking lot on Friday. His yellow Labrador retriever, Elvis, was also found dead in the vehicle; the dog apparently died of heat exposure sometime after Parker died.
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According to the Wilmington Police Department, Parker had been dead for some time. Police believe that Parker’s death was drug-related, although that has not yet been confirmed.
According to Spokeswoman Linda Rawley, Parker’s body was sent for an autopsy on Monday by the Office of the Medical Examiner. The office, which handles all unexpected deaths, has not yet released the results.
The video
On June 5, Parker posted a video on Facebook, his final Facebook post before his death. In the video, a man identified in the post comments by Parker as a Pender County vice and narcotics detective is heard to say he has “cocaine in his pocket.”
The detective then addresses the woman taking the video and asks, “you gonna send this to Chris Parker?” The woman says she is. The detective then faces the camera, extends his middle finger, and says, presumably to Parker, “hey, [expletive] you.”
Parker does not appear in the video. The woman who filmed the video and sent it to Parker declined to comment and her husband asked that the press make no further contact with her.
As of Tuesday, the video had more than 9,000 views.
The Pender County Sheriff’s Office confirmed that the man in video is a detective, although a spokesman refused to name the deputy–nor is the detective named in the video or the related comments.
According to Captain James E. Rowell, the detective is still employed by the Pender County Sheriff’s Office. Rowell said he could not comment beyond saying that the issue had been dealt with as a personnel matter, and that the Sheriff’s Office had been aware of the video, which dates back to October, for some time.
It is not clear why Parker waited to post it until recently. In the comments beneath the video, Parker wrote, “and I’ve had this video almost a year I had plenty of thinkin[g] time ya kno[w],” but did not elaborate.
Parker also wrote in the comments that he had sent the video to other news outlets.
‘No apparent connection’
It is also unclear how Parker and the detective knew each other. According to Rowell, there was no apparent connection between the two—although Parker did have an arrest history.
Parker was arrested for a narcotics violation by the Pender County Sheriff’s Office in February of 2016, and again on May 20 of this year on fraud charges. The detective in the video was not involved in either case and, in the May case the warrant was served by Wilmington Police officers, Rowell said.
The woman who shot the video has no arrest record with the Sheriff’s Office.
Send comments and tips to Benjamin Schachtman at ben@localvoicemedia.com, @pcdben on Twitter, and (910) 538-2001
