Chattanooga police charge 2 in fatal shooting

Friday, January 1, 1904

photo Christopher Penn and Antonio Evans
photo College Hill Courts homicide

A woman knelt down at a curb Tuesday afternoon, about a foot from where Terry Glenn Parker Jr. lay the night before.

"That's my only son!" Crystal Greer, 44, yelled in front of a makeshift memorial of balloons and stuffed animals. "They killed my only son!"

Around 8:20 p.m. Monday, 19-year-old Antonio Xavier Evans and 21-year old Christopher Jerod Penn met Parker on the sidewalk in front of College Hill Courts apartments, near the corner of Boynton Drive and Grove Street. Evans and Penn shot Parker, 23, several times before running away, Chattanooga police say. By the time officers arrived, Parker was dead.

Police charged Evans with first-degree murder, criminal conspiracy, aggravated assault and possession of a firearm while in commission to commit a felony. Officers are holding him at the Hamilton County Jail, and a judge set his bond at $1.2 million. Police charged Penn with first-degree murder and criminal conspiracy, and he is in jail in lieu of a $600,000 bond.

In the past three years, Penn has pleaded guilty to trespassing, theft, criminal impersonation, public intoxication and disorderly conduct. Evans, meanwhile, has been arrested twice for trespassing and once for unlawful weapon possession. Those cases are still open.

Parker also had a criminal record, pleading guilty to marijuana possession, criminal impersonation, evading arrest, trespassing, theft and domestic assault.

An anonymous witness told police Monday night that the victim and shooters are in rival gangs. Evans and Penn are Bloods, the witness said, and Parker was a Crip. His family members dispute this.

Parker's sister Nyreesha Greer, 25, said her brother spent most of his free time with his nieces, nephews and his own four children. Earlier this year, he brought them to the Creative Discovery Museum for one of his son's birthdays.

Parker worked at the Burger King on East 23rd Street, but Nyreesha Greer encouraged her brother to try to go to college. She said she is a sophomore at Chattanooga State Community College and wants to be a nurse, and sometimes Parker would help her with math homework. But if Parker enrolled, his family members don't know what he would have studied.

"He always told us he don't make plans for the future," Nyreesha Greer said. "He just wanted to go with the flow."

Crystal Greer said she knows Evans and Penn well. Penn dated one of her daughters for four years, and sometimes he spent the night. Crystal Greer said he used to call her "momma."

On Monday night, she said she dropped her son off at College Hill Courts and gave him some money before driving back home. Parker then went to the 1 Stop Shop on Grove Street and bought two 24-ounce cans of Busch Light. He talked to one of his toddler-age sons on the phone. The boy had a tummy ache, Parker told the store's manager.

About five minutes later, the sound of gunfire pierced through the apartment courtyard, and soon after Crystal Greer's phone rang. She had just arrived home.