Gerald Parker

Gerald Parker (born around 1955) is a serial killer who raped and murdered five Orange County, California women. A sixth victim who was pregnant at the time of the attack survived, but her child was delivered stillborn. The crimes took place in 1978 and 1979, but Parker was not identified as the killer until 1996. Parker confessed to the murders, and was sentenced to death on January 21, 1999.

The public record of Parker's offenses began with a term in Juvenile Hall in the 1960s for glue-sniffing. Parker received a six-year prison term for the 1980 rape of a 14-year-old girl from Tustin, California. At the time of the murders he was stationed at the El Toro, California, Marine Air Station.

In 1978 and 1979 Parker raped and murdered five Orange County, California, women. He also attacked a sixth woman who was pregnant; she survived but her child was stillborn. The women were murdered by bludgeoning them with a 2x4 piece of lumber, a hammer, or a mallet. For this reason he was nicknamed the "Bedroom Basher."

Kevin Lee Green, the husband of the woman who survived the attack, was wrongfully convicted of murder and spent 16 years in prison before he was freed in 1996.

Green was exonerated when new DNA technology identified Parker's involvement in the crimes in 1996. Parker, who was already in prison at the time, was confronted with the evidence and confessed. He was convicted in October 1998 on six counts of first degree murder, six counts of first degree rape, and one count of first degree attempted murder.

In January 1999, Parker was sentenced to death by lethal injection, plus life without possibility of parole, plus 64 years in prison. In June 2017, the California Supreme Court upheld his death sentence.