The man accused of shooting his wife eight times outside the couple's Sandy Springs apartment may have been leading a double life, including being engaged to another woman, according to court documents.
Michael Darnell Parson, 42, also claimed he was undergoing treatments for cancer on the night of April 20 when 40-year-old Adina Parson was critically injured, including being shot three times in the head, according to arrest warrants.
But investigators now aren't sure if the husband was ever diagnosed with cancer, stating in warrants that he had someone stand in for him at the hospital the night his attorney wife was shot.
In the days following the shooting, Michael Parson sat at his wife's bedside at Grady Memorial Hospital, where relatives and friends gathered to pray for the woman, his mother, Margaret Parson, told the AJC in an exclusive interview Thursday from her South Carolina home.
"I came down when it first happened," Margaret Parson said. "It was all of us together, her family and my family. He stayed nights at the hospital with her."
But Michael Parson later emerged as the suspect in the shooting and was nowhere to be found, Sandy Springs police said May 4. The following day, a Texas state trooper stopped the man after he allegedly drove a green Honda on the shoulder of an interstate, according to a Texas newspaper report.
“I noted immediately that Mr. Parson was extremely nervous as if his adrenaline was high,” a trooper stated, according to the report.
The man's car contained five ATM receipts, a cell phone and two notebooks containing letters to family and to a person named “Rachel," and Parson had a large amount of cash in his pocket, the newspaper reported.
He remained in a Texas jail until being extradited to Georgia on May 19.
He is charged with aggravated assault, aggravated battery, making false statements, possession a firearm while committing a felony and marijuana possession and remains in the Fulton County jail, where he is being held without bond. His next court date is June 1 in Fulton County Superior Court.
The arrest shocked Michael and Adina's families and friends, they have said.
The arrest warrants also state that Michael Parson was engaged to a woman, identified by the initials R.H.
"That's not the Michael I know, if he did it," Margaret Parson said. "They were not having any problems, as far as I knew. I just wish I knew more of what happened."
Michael Parson and Adina Michelle Broome wed on May 16, 2009, marriage records show. It was her first wedding, according to her family.
But it was the second for Michael, a Navy veteran who divorced from his first wife in November 1999 after more than than six years of marriage to his high school sweetheart.
That woman, Ying Amat, told Channel 2 Action News she and Michael share custody of a teenage son. Despite being divorced, Amat said she and Parson had remained close, and she considered Adina to be like a sister.
“This is all a surprise," Amat said. "Really all a surprise. Really a shock.”
Adina, an attorney for the state Department of Public Health, is known by her friends as being a gentle spirit, extremely devoted to her church. Although she originally was given little chance of surviving her injuries, she has continued to improve. After 19 days in critical condition at Grady, she was transferred to the Shepherd Center for continued rehabilitation.
According to his arrest warrants, on the night of the shooting, Michael Parson told his wife he would be undergoing cancer treatments.
"The accused had another subject wait at the Veteran's Hospital, Decatur, as him," one of the warrants states. Authorities would not release information about the alleged stand-in.
Michael Parson then drove his GMC Yukon to the couple's Sandy Springs apartment and called his wife from his cell phone to get her outside, the warrant states. Cell records indicate Michael was in the area when he phoned his wife, according to the warrant.
As Adina Parson was walking to her car, Michael Parson shot her eight times with a .32 caliber gun, then left in the Yukon, the warrant states. Adina Parson was able to scream for help, prompting neighbors to call 911, according to police.
Margaret Parson said once her son was named a suspect, her contact with her daughter-in-law's family ended. But she has not stopped hoping Adina Parson recovers.
"She's a strong person," Margaret Parson said. "She's a fighter."
Sandy Springs police have declined to release information regarding the woman Michael Parson was allegedly engaged to, but employees at a Dunwoody pet store have said the two met while working together.
Neither Margaret Parson nor Amat knew anything about an engagement to someone else, they said.
"He could have been living a double life, but at the same time, there’s no way this lady couldn’t have known he had a child," Amat told Channel 2.
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