A man who cold-bloodedly executed his wife as she slept, then gruesomely dismembered her to stash the remains in a freezer, casually told police that her eyes were “still blinking” days later. Joseph Parker chillingly revealed to a 911 operator that he had assaulted his 44-year-old wife, Samantha, at their home in Springfield, Tennessee.
Despite his brutal actions, he bizarrely insisted, “She’s not dead“, claiming against all reason that he could still talk to the woman he savagely killed. During the eerie conversation, he confessed: “This is no crank call, I need somebody to get out there and help her out. I’ve cleared the premises, I got away, you know? I’m not gonna be there.
“But I promise you this is a legit call and I need somebody to get out there and help her, cause I love… I still love her, it’s just hard, hard to believe that after that,t you know? But I need you to get somebody out there to help her.”
The creepy admission was part of Parker’s unnerving description of the crime to the dispatcher, reports the Irish Star. Detailing his actions, he admitted: “I shot my wife in the temple of her head. I thought I’d killed her, and I put her in the freezer, out in the garage.
“I checked on her tonight and she’s not dead. Uhh, she’s umm… got a big hole in the temple of her head and… to get her body moved around in there, I think I broke her wrist. You know, she was frozen from being in the thing. She’s been in the thing for 48 hours now.”
When questioned about his actions, he simply remarked: “It’s a long story, don’t want to get into it, just wanna get into getting somebody out there to help her… you’ll see her once you get in the garage and she’s a mess. She can’t talk. I could get her to blink. Blink once means yes, blink twice means no.”
The 45-year-old confessed further: “I’ve thought she’d been dead two days, and when I checked on her, she was still alive. She’s been frozen for two days. She’s frozen solid; it’s amazing she’s still alive. She’s got a big, big hole in the temple of her head. I shot her with a 38 caliber handgun.”
In his conversation with the emergency dispatcher, he conveyed: “I made her as comfortable as I could make her,” yet also acknowledged, “she’s in bad shape, I really need someone out there to help her.” He then expressed a twisted sentiment, saying: “I’ve loved her every day I’ve been married to her. We just had a rough stretch here.”
But what law enforcement found upon arrival was chilling; they discovered Samantha deceased inside a compact freezer, her legs gruesomely amputated. During their frantic search for Parker across state lines, police eventually located him in Kentucky; however, he took his own life within his vehicle following a chase in 2014.
Investigations later revealed that prior to the grim incident, Parker had been laid off and was facing foreclosure of their home. At an event releasing balloons in memory of the somber occasion, the couple’s daughter Mackenzie poignantly reflected: “Today I find myself missing both of them equally. A lot of people ask me why I’m not angry. They showed me what I would like to have in a marriage someday.”
Mackenzie spoke on the power of forgiveness, affirming: “The memories and moments are what you want to hold onto.” The harrowing story has captured fresh attention as EWU Crime Storytime revisited the case on YouTube, garnering almost two million views, sparking a flurry of reactions from netizens.
One viewer shared their chilling reflection, saying: “It’s giving Tell-Tale Heart. She was, of course, never alive or blinking. It was just a manifestation of his guilt and madness.” Someone else posted their lingering unease, commenting: “This one has always stuck with me. He truly had me believing she was still alive when there was absolutely no way she was. It’s haunting.”
And another chimed in, highlighting the eeriness, noting: “The flatness in his voice is scary. He’s really snapped and completely lost touch with reality. He probably really did believe he saw her blinking. It’s amazing and scary what your brain can do; we trust it so much.”