COOK COUNTY CRIMINAL COURTHOUSE — A Douglas woman apparently tried to stage a suicide this week by shooting her husband in the back and placing the murder weapon in his hand, prosecutors said.
Sharnett Perkins-Parrow, 74, is accused of then asking a maintenance man if he could call her an ambulance; she felt sick because she'd just shot someone.
Police found Booker Parrow, 68, laying dead in his studio apartment with a .38 Special revolver in his right hand, his finger on the trigger, Assistant State's Attorney Holly Grosshans said during a bond hearing Friday.
The man had been shot once in his upper left shoulder. The bullet coursed through his chest and pierced both lungs, according to the Cook County Medical Examiner's Office.
When police arrested Perkins-Parrow on Monday, they found a Crown Royal bag with two rounds of ammunition inside the basket attached to her walker, prosecutors said. Perkins-Parrow has several health issues and requires oxygen tanks to survive, according to court testimony.
Prosecutors didn't provide a motive for the shooting Friday, but Perkins-Parrow's public defender suggested her husband may have been abusive. He asked the court to document injuries the woman allegedly sustained prior to the shooting. Prosecutors, meanwhile, said the woman had no signs of injuries when police arrested her Monday; there there were no apparent signs of struggle at the scene of the crime.
According to authorities, the shooting happened in a Douglas high-rise in the 2600 block of South Indiana Avenue about 10 a.m. Monday. Perkins-Parrow lives in a one-bedroom unit on the 24th floor, while her husband stayed in a studio apartment on the 19th floor.
Perkins-Parrow is accused of entering her husband's apartment, firing a single shot at the man's back, placing the gun in his right hand and heading toward a nearby elevator.
It was there Perkins-Parrow encountered a maintenance man who was repairing a nearby garbage shoot, Grosshans said. Perkins-Parrow allegedly asked the man to call her an ambulance — but never mentioned her husband laying dead nearby.
When police arrested Perkins-Parrow on Monday, she admitted the gun belonged to her.
The medical examiner's office said it was "highly unlikely" the victim could've shot himself, given the angle of the shooting. There was no evidence of close-range firing, Grosshans said, and no evidence that the bullet wound was a contact wound.
Cook County Judge Adam Bourgeois Jr. on Friday set bail at $2 million. Should Perkins-Parrow post bond, she is not allowed to return home and would have to stay with a friend or relative.
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