Left: Carissa Lynn Parker. Right: Jordan Phillips (via Okaloosa (Fla.) Department of Corrections).
A man and woman from Florida will spend decades behind bars for plotting the murder of the father of the woman’s daughter.
Carissa Lynn Parker, 30, was sentenced to 53 years behind bars for the shooting death of her daughter’s father, the State Attorney’s Office for Okaloosa County announced Thursday in a press release. She was accused of contracting with Jordan Phillips, 27, to carry out the killing.
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Edgar Jennings, 35, was found shot to death shortly before midnight on Nov. 19, 2019, the Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Office announced at the time.
“[Deputies] found Jennings dead from an apparent gunshot wound to the head outside a side door of his apartment,” the sheriff’s office said.
Parker pleaded guilty in November 2022 to second degree murder with a firearm, the state attorney’s office said. She faced a sentence of 25 years to life in prison. The prosecutor’s press release also said that Judge John T. Brown ordered Parker not to have contact with her minor child during her sentence.
Phillips had previously pleaded guilty to second degree murder with a firearm. He was sentenced Thursday to 40 years in prison, according to a local news website for Escambia County, where Parker was a resident.
According to the sheriff’s office, investigators set up a “controlled phone call to Parker” with her relative in which she “admitted driving the shooting suspect to the scene and discussing with him ongoing issues she was having with Jennings.”
During that phone call, Parker told her relative that the shooting suspect — later identified as Phillips — had “pulled out a gun, she was terrified and that’s when things escalated.”
“At no time after the shooting did Parker attempt to contact law enforcement, despite knowing Jennings had been killed,” the press release said.
Video footage from a nearby home the night of the shooting shows the car Parker was driving arriving in the area around six minutes before the first 911 call was made, the sheriff’s office press release said.
“Approximately a minute after the calls started, the suspected shooter is seen getting back into the vehicle and leaving,” the press release continued.
Parker is believed to have driven Phillips away from the crime scene.
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