'Mail bomber' accused of killing in-laws linked to 5 previous blazes

EXCLUSIVE – A charred diary of female obsession, a previous arson conviction and a mystery man dashing to the murder scene: The strange life of the ‘mail bomber’ accused of killing his in-laws

• Richard Parker, 49, allegedly murdered Jon Setzer, 74, and Marion, 72, by leaving parcel at their home
• Parker, married to the Setzer’s daughter, Laura, co-owned business with retired lawyer father-in-law and live in a house on the same property
• Wherever Parker goes a pile of ash seems to follow with four fires linked to him in recent years

• Found guilty of burning down ‘dream home’ because he was behind on renovating it

• The victims of that attack have also revealed his charred diary that set out his ‘infatuation’ with keeping his wife happy

• Witness to the murders of the Setzers revealed to MailOnline that a mystery figure ran to the scene in the immediate aftermath of the bombing, believed to be Parker with a ‘white face’
• He sat for hours by the bedside of Mrs Setzer along with her other children
• Parker pleaded not guilty to two counts of first-degree murder, two counts of premeditated first-degree murder and unlawful possession of a prohibited weapon Tuesday

By Ml Nestel In Lebanon, Tennessee

Published: 07:31 EDT, 19 February 2014 | Updated: 09:08 EDT, 19 February 2014

The man accused of killing his retired lawyer father-in-law and his wife with a mail bomb has been linked to as many as four mysterious fires in the past, including an arson attack where he burned down a historic cabin, MailOnline can reveal today.

Richard Parker, 49, allegedly murdered Jon Setzer, 74, who was killed immediately in the blast last Monday after he picked up the parcel with outside his home. His wife Marion, 72, died from her injuries on Wednesday.

As investigators scramble to find a motive of why Parker would have allegedly wanted to maim and murder his in-laws, MailOnline has discovered that wherever he goes a pile of ash seems to follow.

The victims of an arson attack at Parker’s hands have also revealed his charred diary that set out his minute-by-minute ‘obsession’ with keeping his wife happy.

And a witness to the murders of the Setzers has revealed to MailOnline that a mystery figure ran to the scene in the immediate aftermath of the bombing.

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Outwardly, Parker was and still is known at his church as a devout Christian leader and father of four disciplined sons who slaved away ‘morning to night’ for years to build two palatial homes on 20 acres for his family, Alzheimer’s-stricken mother and in-laws.

Dave Hughen, 66, and his wife Judy live around 100 yards from where the Setzer’s where killed, where they run a Christian day school.

The Hughens revealed they had their suspicions about Parker before when their barn burned to the ground in 2005.

‘Richard came over here right while I was fighting the fire with a garden hose and the fire department was here and he says to me “I’m sorry this happened”‘, said Mr Hughen.

Lucky for the Hughens they’d retired from years of breaking horses and so the only items of value they lost that night were their mowers and other farming equipment. Investigators at the time pegged the blaze to the stash of diesel mixing with hay.

‘It was a dry summer and they called it spontaneous combustion,’ a Hughen said. ‘But I can’t help but wonder if it was deliberate now.’

Not long after the barn incident another fire broke out at the Parker’s majestic home.

Their six-bedroom, six bathroom eggshell yellow tudor-styled home dwarfs most of the single-family brick houses along the cul-de-sac on Vance Lane.

On a Sunday a year after the barn blaze the Parkers loaded up their car to attend their church in nearby Nashville.

As the Hughens were driving out of their driveway next to the Parker estate they noticed smoke pluming from the house’s roof and called 911.

Mr Hughen said: ‘He lost a great deal of the roof and the overhang and a lot of the second story.

‘The wife and kids just fell down to the ground and are completely devastated,’ Mr Hughen said. ‘I’m watching Richard’s demeanor and he’s being a hero and dashing into the house.’

Soon after the blaze, Mr Hughen approached Parker to offer his help and was struck at how the family had been sleeping on the floor of the house with no furniture inside.

Hughen also asked about the cause of the fire.

‘Richard tells me that fire investigators pretty much determined that the heating and air company had installed a split system incorrectly in the attic,’ said Hughen. ‘But that was a notable local company that had been there for years and years that put that system in.

‘And in my history of being a contractor – now going on 30 years – I’ve never heard of that.’

But Hughen says that after the Parker family came into a settlement for the fire, the family all of a sudden had furniture delivered to the home.

‘He rebuilds it and immediately afterwards furniture is moved into the house. After that I didn’t care about being his friend or getting into his business,’ Mr Hughen said.

What the Hughens didn’t know was that Parker was a convict who burned down a historic log home in 1990.

The 5,000 square foot structure built with massive chestnut wood boulders was supposed to be Danny and Rosemary Martin’s home where they would raise their two young sons. Parker was in charge of the restoration. 

‘This was our dream and you can’t put a price on dreams,’ Mr Martin said as he leaned over the barbed wire fencing now enclosing a herd of grazing cattle.

The property not far from the historical Trail of Tears, was a historic structure built in 1832.

‘Our boys were looking so forward to living in that house,’ Mr Martin, a retired butcher, said. ‘They already had hiding places they’d come up with.’

He pointed to the overgrowth on a cylindrical storm shelter and the rocks which outlined the foundation and garage.

‘The fire was so hot it melted stuff off the fire trucks,’ Martin recalled.

Earlier on the day the home burned to the ground, Friday 13, 1990, Mark Dunavant, Rosemary’s father, said he saw Parker eat with his hired workers, which was a first. 

According to Mr Dunavant, Parker attempted to burn the front of the log cabin as the workers were eating their lunch.

‘He intended to for that fire to go up. When he lit it he thought it would go up and catch the paint thinner and it would be accidental some way.

‘He cut the water hose,’ Mr Dunavant said. ‘He attempted to set it on fire at the back of the house where nobody could see him.’

But that time the fire was put out by the other workers. But Parker promised to stay late that day and ‘finished the job.’

Parker might have slipped away unscathed were it not for Rosemary Martin’s mother passing by. She saw Parker fleeing the work site just as the flames were licking at the home.

Parker was months in arrears to finish restoring the cabin by the June deadline.

The desperate builder was also trying to cut corners and by stiffing the building supplier and lying about to the Martins and refusing to hire help until he was cornered.

‘We told him, “You’re not going to do this by yourself,” Rosemary Martin recalled. ‘You can make this much money but you need to get some help.’

The couple hoped Parker would walk off the job.

‘But he said, “I’ll be through by Friday.” And Friday the 13th he burned it.’

The next day, Parker showed up for work as normal. 

‘He looked us in the eye and we were so saddened and upset,’ said Mr Martin. ‘He told us “You all had plenty of insurance, right?”‘

Parker eventually confessed to the crime after detectives concluded the fire was started with gasoline poured over the home. He was brought to civil and criminal trials and was forced to pay thousands in restitution and was put on probation for four years.

When the Martins went to the site to salvage their belongings, Mrs Martin said she found a peculiar journal of Parker’s that revealed a strange infatuation he had with his wife, Laura.

‘From the notes, I read it as a complete obsession,’ Mrs Martin said. ‘The whole thing was weird.’ She described various entries that Parker would keep each day.

‘The part that got me was he would write: “5 a.m. wake up. Then 5:10 kiss my wife. Then 5:15 go fix coffee for my wife. Then take her to school and then read the bible verses”. It was full of notes and it was about what he was going to do for her.’

Years later, the Parkers moved into a home near Laura Parker’s siblings in Mount Juliet, Tennessee.  MailOnline can confirm that that home also suffered a fire. There’s no evidence Parker started it.

At the humble house on a quiet cul-de-sac where a pregnant Laura home-schooled her sons, a fire broke out that forced the family to move away.

‘It was during the day and I remember seeing smoke,’ said Kara Sims, who lived behind the house. ‘I remember fire people were breaking out the back window,’ she said.

The Parkers then moved and rented a three-bedroom, two bath home for $1,500 a month from landlord Bobby Tisdale.

‘They just moved out of a house that burned up,’ Tisdale said. ‘His wife told my wife that she was cleaning the oven; she said the electric stove set it on fire.’

Before the Parkers moved into Tisdale’s home, it had been rebuilt after a fire ignited by a woman who was living there and had fallen asleep while smoking.

So far, investigators haven’t revealed any motive behind last Monday’s blast. Parker co-owned a contracting business with his father-in-law – who had serious health problems – called Legacy Restorations, and everyone who knew the Setzer’s thought highly of them.

‘It doesn’t make sense at all,’ family friend Ken Caldwell told WTVF. ‘When I’ve heard it said that it was targeted, I thought, well, they must have targeted the wrong person.’

Mr Setzer’s former law partner, George Cate Jr., described his friend as a dedicated professional who in his spare time was a pastor at several country churches.

When he received word that the Setzers had been killed Cate never thought the killer could be Richard Parker.

‘My first impression was it was an angry client,’ Cate told MailOnline, adding that Jon Setzer’s extremely high blood pressure had been hindering his work with clients.

‘Some clients weren’t getting back to him,’ he said. ‘I know clients were angry with him.

‘It never occurred to me his son-in-law could have done it.’

In fact, Setzer would often brag about Parker’s accomplishments and even showed off the fruit orchard on the property and the homes he built from scratch.

‘He seemed to be very proud of what his son-in-law was doing-even up to recently.

‘I was very fond of both Jon and Marion and if [Richard] did it he would arouse anger and he really should pay for it.’

While Cate noted that Mr Setzer was ‘not a wealthy man’ he did say he was ‘comfortable.’

His former law partner said Mr Setzer bought five acres of land on Vance Lane estate where the in-laws planned be closer to family.

Cate said despite Mr Setzer’s declining health they never discussed terms of a will and assumed that Mr Setzer would have ‘the means and skills to do it himself.’

Mr Cate, who first met Mr Setzer when the two of them served in the Army Reserve, revealed that he and his wife had lost their son in a dog attack when the child was only 3 years old.

In the years that followed, whenever the Setzers heard a news report about a child’s death, they would reach out to the victim’s family to commiserate with them and offer them emotional support.

The friends opened a law firm together in 1979, with the late attorney specializing in living trusts.

The blast itself was witnessed by a ten year-old neighbor and friend of the Parker’s 10-year-old son Daniel.

‘I heard the explosion and when I looked over at the house,’ the boy, whose name MailOnline is withholding, said. ‘It sounded like a real loud gun.’ A few minutes elapsed, and the boy saw black smoke ooze out of the home.

‘There was a big smoke.’

The boy said he thought that the Setzers were burning something inside.  But then he saw a figure rush to the rear of the elderly couples’ home.

‘I saw someone running right into where it popped,’ the boy said. ‘He was running to where it popped.’

The young child, who routinely played at the Parkers said he believed that man was Parker ‘who had white on his face’.

‘I can’t believe I was over there playing with Mr. Setzer’s grandchild and I was in a house of a supposed killer,’ the boy said as he stood in front of his parents.

‘The only thing I felt suspicious about was he was a little too nice.’

Laura Parker’s sister Kristen Jackson told MailOnline from the doorstep of her at her Mount Juliet, Tennessee home that her sister and the four sons are coping with simultaneous loss and pain of Parker being arrested.

‘They’re okay,’ she said. ‘They’re holding up okay.’

Asked if anybody in the family had reached out to Richard Parker for answers since he was caught and Jackson recoiled. ‘Everybody is still in the grieving process right now and as a family we’ve decided not to speak because it’s an ongoing investigation.’

Parker, appearing calm and tired, pleaded not guilty to two counts of first-degree murder, two counts of premeditated first-degree murder and unlawful possession of a prohibited weapon Tuesday.

It has also emerged that before his arrest on Thursday, he sat for hours by the bedside of Mrs Setzer along with her other children.

‘There was no difference in his demeanor than any of the other children that we could discern at the time,’ said Kevin Ulmet, senior pastor of the Nashville First Church of the Nazarene.

Parker’s pastor said there was never any sign of trouble between the son-in-law and the Setzers.

The Setzers had been members for years before moving to Lebanon, but they still had close ties to the Nashville congregation, he said.

‘Everyone who knows him would describe him as gentle, thoughtful, sensitive, warm sincere,’ Ulmet said. ‘Those are words I’ve heard from everyone.’