Unfinished Lives

Remembering LGBT Hate Crime Victims

Gay Lad’s Accused Killer and Rapist was Convicted Murderer

Jason Mattison, Jr. (l), Dante Parrish (r)

Baltimore, Maryland – According to information released by the Baltimore Sun, Jason Mattison, Jr.’s accused killer had previously served time for first-degree murder.  Dante L. Parrish, 35, who is accused of raping and murdering the 15-year-old gay boy was convicted of murder in 2000 for a 1999 crime, and had served ten years of a thirty year sentence.  Records show that he had repeatedly appealed his conviction and sentence.  After a judge ruled that his legal counsel at the time of his original murder trial was “ineffective,” Parrish was granted a new trial.  In a plea bargain for second-degree murder in the second trial, he was released from prison in January 2009 for time served, satisfying his sentence.  Parrish was a friend of the family, rooming in the home of Mattison’s aunt on Llewellyn Avenue in East Baltimore, but it is still unknown how long he had lived in the house before allegedly committing the murder.  Mattison was visiting his relatives at the time of the killing, which went undetected until police, who were summoned to the home for a burglary  investigation on Tuesday, November 10 were shown blood oozing out from under a closet door on the second floor of the rowhouse.  There they discovered the gagged, raped, and repeatedly stabbed body of young Mattison buried under a pile of blankets.  The teen had been knifed in the head and throat multiple times with a box cutter found in the house.  Parrish became a suspect right away, and was identified and arrested at a 7-Eleven store in Northeast Baltimore on Thursday, November 12.  Speaking to reporters, Mattison’s cousin, Tara Dudley, said, “I need him to be brought to justice and pay for what he did to my cousin. He needs to pay for what he did to him.”  A spokesman for the Baltimore Police Department said on Friday that Parrish has confessed to the crime.  He is charged with first-degree murder, first-degree sex offense, and first-degree assault.  Bail was denied, and Parrish is being held in jail pending what will be his third trial for murder in little over a decade.


November 22, 2009 - Posted by | African Americans, anti-LGBT hate crime murder, gay men, Hate Crimes, Heterosexism and homophobia, Law and Order, Maryland, Perpetrators of Hate Crime, rape, stabbings | , , , , , , , , ,

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