Bonita Parker:1991, Columbus, Ohio

   

  Bonita Virginia Parker was born on August 20th, 1970 in Columbus, Ohio to Edna Louise Parker and Juan Ray Parker. 

  Columbus is a college town. It’s also the home of billionaire Les Wexner. He’s been in the news lately for his extremely close association to Jeffrey Epstein. 

  Bonita Parker wasn’t a billionaire and she didn’t have friends in high places to help keep her out of trouble. 

  I didn’t find much information about Bonita’s early life. When I see that in my research that usually means that a person’s upbringing involved poverty and hardship. But, she persevered. She was beautiful and took pride in her appearance. Sometimes putting on makeup and doing your hair can cheer you up. Wearing a cute outfit and going out with your friends can make you feel better. Sometimes that’s all you’ve got to hold onto.

 

  On Monday the 12th of August in 1991 Bonita was out for the evening in Columbus. Her circumstances in life had led her to make a living as a sex worker. She had done other work but minimum wage was and still is only 7.25 cents an hour. Sex work can be more lucrative. It’s also more dangerous. 

  Not everyone’s life goes the way we hope it would. Not everyone has the same choices that we had. It’s easy to judge when you are sitting in a place of privilege and safety. 

  Maybe you’re thinking that you would never become a sex worker. Maybe you think no matter how poor you were you would never resort to sex work. Maybe. Maybe you’ve just never been poor enough yet. Maybe you’ve never faced homelessness. Maybe there’s nobody at your house that can’t afford their medications anymore. It’s easy to judge other people‘s lives and their decisions from a place of privilege.

  Bonita Parker left with a man that night. 

  Bonita Parker was found the next morning, August 13th, 1991, near Pataskala, Ohio in Licking County. That is east of Columbus. Investigators said it looked like someone just pulled up and pushed her out of the car. 

  In an article after her discovery her mother said that she had driven by where Bonita was on the night she disappeared. She said she begged Bonita to get in the car with her and go home. Bonita said she wanted to stay out a little longer and that she would be home later. But, that never happened. 

  Bonita’s case went cold.

  Gustave A. Sapharas was arrested in 2017 and accused of raping and stabbing Bonita because DNA connected him definitively to the crime. 

  Ohio law prohibits prosecutors from talking about the past crimes of the accused. But, the DNA evidence, Gustave Sapharas’ skin cells, was under her fingernails. His sperm was on her hosiery and her underwear. However, a jury acquitted him of the crime in only 45 minutes. 

  I wonder if Ohio law prohibits prosecutors and defense attorneys from mentioning the past of the victim. Can you tell a jury that a victim was a sex worker in Ohio? Can you tell them that the victim has maybe been arrested before for sex work? I wonder. If you can’t mention the past arrests and convictions of the accused surely that means that the victim gets the same treatment in court? 

 I have said in other videos that he was convicted. I was completely mistaken. I stand corrected. Maybe I read what I wanted to read before. 

 This jury heard that he picked her up. They likely heard that she was a sex worker. They decided that even though he had sex with her that there was no proof he killed her. There was no other semen from any other person on her body. His was the only DNA under her nails. But, the jury deliberated for 45 minutes and found him not guilty. 

 I’m not sure why I thought he had been convicted of Bonita Parker‘s murder. I remember thinking that it seemed like a miracle for someone to be convicted of the murder of a sex worker in Ohio in 2018. I remember thinking for her to even get an investigation and DNA testing to take place as a sex worker that was a miracle. Most of the time sex workers are last on list to get any attention paid to their cases.

  Bonita Virginia Parker was more than just the job she did. She was a person. She was a human being like all of us. 

  Bonita Parker did not see justice in 2018. But the trial brought Gus Sapharas to the attention of investigators in Akron where Sapharas had lived for most of his life.

 In 1962, 12 year old Marion Brubaker was attacked as she rode her bicycle home from the library. She was raped and strangled. She was found a few blocks from Gus Sapharas’ family restaurant. His father, sister and mother all worked there. Her murder is still unsolved. 

 About a month after Marion Brubaker’s murder, in September of 1962 another shocking crime would take place in Columbus. Mary Margaret Andrews was ambushed and dragged into a parking garage. She was on her way home from an evening class. A man shot her several times in the head. She was found face down. She had been raped. Her murder is still unsolved. 

 In 1963, Thomas Sumerix, disappeared while walking home from buying a pair of school shoes. He was a block north of the Sapharas Restaurant when he was last seen. He was found the following year several miles southeast of the spot he’d last been seen. He had been murdered. His murder is still unsolved. 

 A week later in 1963,  Ruth Elaine Guthrie disappeared from the Tallmadge area of Akron. She was found the following year east of town. She was found in a nearly skeletal state. Her clothes were scattered nearby. Her murder is still unsolved. 

 Gus Sapharas went into the Army in 1965. He was back in Akron in 1969. 

 In 1969 Gus Sapharas’ violently raped his date and charges were brought against him. He threatened her with a gun and a knife, trying to force her to have sex with him. When she wouldn’t; he beat her viciously. He did not serve time for that crime although he was convicted. He was only given probation. He had two years on probation there in Akron but he was free to do whatever he wanted.

 In February of 1970 in Columbus, someone followed Mary Petry to her boyfriend’s apartment. That killer murdered William Sproat and violently raped Mary Petry. Their murders are still unsolved. 

 In May of 1970, Karen Bentz was abducted off the street and violently tortured, raped and murdered. She was found facedown in the Tallmadge area. 

 In November of 1970, Mollie Pearson was found violently beaten and shot in Akron. Her murder is still unsolved. 

 In 1972, Kathryn Bevington was abducted from the store she worked at and violently raped and murdered. She was found east of Akron. Her murder is still unsolved. 

 In 1972, Zelma Louise Allen was murdered in Akron not far from the spot that Mollie Pearson had been murdered in 1970. Her murder is still unsolved. 

 Gus Sapharas got married in the early 1970’s and moved to Huntington, West Virginia. One night he rammed his car into the back of another young woman’s car. She got out to exchange insurance information. He abducted her and viciously raped her. She pressed charges. But, a West Virginia jury acquitted him. 

  His wife divorced him. 

   In 1974,  Donna Jean Hudson was violently raped and murdered in her Columbus home while her three young children watched helplessly. Her murder is still unsolved. 

  In 1974, Carol Michelle Frederick Jones was violently raped and murdered in her Akron home while her three year old son watched. She lived very close to the spot where Karen Bentz had been abducted two years earlier. Her murder is still unsolved. 

 All through the 1970’s women reported rapes to the police in Columbus and in Akron. They identified Gus Sapharas. 

  In 1974, Jill Ellen Cull reported a rape. She identified Gus Sapaharas. As she waited for a hearing in the case she complained to co-workers that the man was stalking her. He would drive past her workplace. Then one night, Jill Ellen Cull disappeared. She was found raped and murdered. 

  in 1974, Linda Pagano was abducted from her Tallmadge neighborhood and murdered.  Her remains would go unidentified for decades.  She has recently been identified but her murder is still unsolved.

  In 1975, Anita Lias was abducted in Columbus. She was violently raped and murdered. Her murder is still unsolved.

  In 1976, Gus Sapharas raped another young woman in Akron. This time he was convicted and went to jail. In 1991 he was paroled early. 

 His family’s restaurant closed and his parents both passed away while he was in jail. 

  On August 30th 1991, a couple of weeks after Bonita Parker’s murder, Gus Sapharas brought a woman back to his sister’s home. (His sister and her husband were on vacation. He was house sitting.) This poor woman ran from the house naked and covered in blood. Gus also ran after her naked.  Neighbors called the police. He said she was a “prostitute” and she had attacked him. She said he’d tried to kill her. He nearly had. She almost died of blood loss. He went back to jail for the parole violation. 

  No one connected this incident to the extremely recent Bonita Parker murder at the time. At least not officially. 

  In 2002 he was free again. I haven’t looked yet at unsolved cases from that time period for similarities to Sapharas’ known crimes. But, I will. 

  So, after Gus Sapharas was acquitted for the murder of Bonita Parker, Akron investigators finally looked at him in 2019 for two cold case murders there. 

  18 year old Karen Bentz was abducted, raped, strangled and stabbed and left face down in the yard of a Tallmadge, Ohio neighborhood in 1970. Karen had a three year old daughter. She had been working two jobs to try to get ahead in life after being forced to quit high school when she became pregnant. She was a good mother, sister and daughter. Gus Sapharas’ DNA was found on her body as well. 

  Loretta Jean Davis was abducted, raped and murdered by Gustave Sapharas in Akron in 1974. Loretta was employed in an office and also helped her mother with accounting work. She had come home from a date  one night but left again to go get something to eat. She left a note for her parents. She never made it back home that night. DNA connected Sapharas to her murder too. 

 These two convictions did not happen in a trial by jury. A court of common pleas was utilized. This is similar to the way that Mark David Hodges was finally put behind bars decades earlier. Witnesses, including police officers testified against Hodges in the murder of Karen Kern. But he was acquitted. He attempted to kill two other women. In each of those trials, witnesses identified him as the man who had shot the victims. Both of the women lived. But at his second trial another jury acquitted him. The third time he attempted to murder a woman, the prosecution utilized a court of common pleas. A panel of three judges reviewed the evidence and found him guilty. 

  So that is how Gus Sapharas finally found himself behind bars… again. He’s elderly now. At his sentencing while Karen Bentz’s sister described the torment that her family went through, Sapharas appeared bored, defiant and annoyed. The sister said she hoped that Sapharas would rot in hell. I’m glad she got to say that to him. 

  Bonita Virginia Parker is buried at the Obetz Cemetery in Obetz, Ohio, southeast of Columbus. It’s a lovely little cemetery with a very picturesque church. Bonita Virginia Parker’s murder is still unsolved. 

   I believe that double jeopardy means that Gus Sapharas can’t be tried twice for Bonita Parker’s murder. So, on the Ohio State Cold Case Website she is still listed as a cold case. 

   But did he commit any of those other Columbus and Akron cold cases? 

  Take a moment if you can and go to Bonita Parker’s page on the Find a Grave website. Leave a virtual flower and a note if you can. 

  Rest in peace Bonita. 

  If you have a tip that can help solve her case this is the link: https://www.ohioattorneygeneral.gov/Files/Law-Enforcement/Investigator/Cold-Case/Homicides/Parker-4

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