The Gregory Parsons Case

At the age of 19, Gregory Parsons life took a dramatic turn by a shocking miscarriage of justice. On February 15, 1994, he was convicted in Newfoundland, of the second-degree murder of his mother Catherine Carroll, and was sentenced to life in prison with no chsnce of parole for 15 years. Parsons’ conviction was based on circumstantial evidence, and his case was closed by the Crown prosecutor just by simply asking the jury,”If Greg Parsons didn’t cause his mother’s death[,] who did?”
Parsons’ life was not easy. His parents separated when he was only six, and was sent to live with Carroll. She was a loving mother, but struggled heavily with alocholism, depression, anxiety, hoarding behaviours and OCD. Inevitably, Carroll’s tendency to lie ultimately landed her son in jail.
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He felt “degraded and humilated” when taking into custody, and said that “It was the most mentally draining thing I’ve ever had to endure,” “I felt like I never slept in days or weeks.” Parsons was known to be a kind gentleman in his community, a person who would go out of his way to help others, and having appealed his conviction and applied for bail, 300 residents signed a petition stating that they would welcome his return. In 1996, Newfoundland Court of Appeal stated that his conviction had been a mistake. Parsons was on bail for the time, but once again, he received a cycle of unjust treatment by the police. He had to follow strict conditions, signing in at the police station everday, and sometimes they would pretend they lost the information showing that he chcked in. Parsons felt that he “lived in fear,” afraid that he will be arrested again. Police followed him and his family members around town, and because of the stress he was in, one day in 1997, Parsons decided to smoke a small amount of marijuana, which made the police order their dog to attack him, leaving him permanenlty physically