Woman's beau killed her, ex-husband says

Chris Barge, Rocky Mountain News

Thursday, March 8, 2007

A coroner has ruled that a woman found dead in her Aurora apartment last month was suffocated, and police believe her boyfriend did it, her ex-husband said Wednesday.

Aurora Police and the Arapahoe County Coroner aren't saying how Corazon Parry, 41, died, pending an investigation.

They have labeled her boyfriend, John Benjamin "Ben" Reed, 35, a "person of interest."

But the detective working the case has told the family that she was suffocated and that he believes Reed killed her, said her ex-husband, Vince Parry.

"The detective has said, 'We believe he did it, we know he did it but proving it in court is another thing,' " Vince Parry said.

Reed is in federal custody without bond pending an April 27 probation revocation hearing.

According to Vince Parry:

Reed met Corazon Parry soon after his release from federal prison Jan. 8. The pair began attending church together, and soon he was spending an occasional night at her apartment at 1895 S. Pitkin St.

On the morning of Feb. 12, Vince Parry dropped his 15-year-old daughter off at her mother's apartment. The father and daughter noticed that Corazon's car was gone and that the door to her bedroom was locked.

The girl assumed that Reed was sleeping in the bedroom and went to school. That evening, she received a call from a family friend that her mother had not showed up to a planned meeting.

The girl went with a family friend back to the apartment on Pitkin Street. They knocked open the bedroom door and found Parry dead, face-down in the bed. Her forearms were bruised, and blood had seeped out of her ears, into a pillow.

The girl called her father, screaming: "Somebody's killed mom, Dad! Somebody killed mom. It was Ben. I know he did it."

Aurora investigators soon learned that earlier that day, Reed had been arrested after leading sheriff's deputies on a high-speed chase through Park County in Corazon Parry's car.

Reed has spent his adult life in and out of prison. He was convicted twice for assault and has twice been sent back to prison for violating the terms of his release.

Records reveal that Reed tested positive for cocaine three times between Jan. 11 and Feb. 1 and told his probation officer, "I'm not pullin' over," if officers tried to stop him while he had drugs.

The probation officer, Douglas Randolph, tried with Reed's parents to get Reed into drug treatment, but Reed resisted.

Randolph asked U.S. District Judge Wiley Y. Daniel to issue an arrest warrant for Reed on Feb. 9.

Three days later, Parry was found dead.

At her funeral last week, friends remembered the native of the Philippines who worked at Safeway as an outgoing, charming, lovable person.

"It's just a shame she was naive enough to let someone like that into her home," Vince Parry said.

bargec@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-5059