Michael Pruitt : “Corpse’s Ride to Harrisburg: Murder Mystery”

Overview of the Crime Scene

NOTE: This story is based on the affidavit of probable cause filed by Pa. state police in Bradford County against defendants Terry L. Parker, his ex-wife, Ronda L. Parker; and his girlfriend, Summer L. Heil, in the homicide and dismemberment of Michael Pruitt, identified as Rhonda’s boyfriend. The Parkers are charged with homicide, abuse of a corpse and tampering with evidence; Heil is charged with abuse of a corpse and tampering with evidence. All three are lodged in Bradford County Jail.

COLUMBIA CROSSROADS, Pa. – This is where the horror happened.

The ramshackle property is situated atop a wooded ridge off a sparsely traveled dirt road in rural Bradford County, less than 20 miles south of Elmira, New York.

It’s where state police say 46-year-old Terry L. Parker of Harrisburg, either bent on revenge or jealousy, lured his ex-wife’s boyfriend with a text message sent from her phone.

Michael Pruitt, 40, a North Carolina transplant with tattoos, a beard and dirty blonde hair, listed Rhonda Parker’s Sawyer Street address as his Pa. home. By all accounts, he responded to the text without trepidation.

Pruitt was in the kitchen when Terry Parker arrived at the house from Harrisburg.

Soon after, the gunshots rang out.

The nearest neighbor is hundreds of yards away.

Deanna Grable told PennLive she didn’t hear the five shots fired early last Friday evening. But she said she was always wary of Rhonda Parker.

“I didn’t get a trusting feeling from her,” Grable, who grew up in the area where she said parents can let their children play outside without worry. “I didn’t get good vides from her.”

Then one day Rhonda followed Grable home and cursed her out.

“I drove past her house, and she followed me home,” Grable recounted. “She said I drove too fast when she had her two-year-old on the back of a horse. She was next to the road. Not very nice.”

Grable said she didn’t know Pruitt, but added, “I think he frequently stayed with her.”

Grable described the property as “a mess” and said Rhonda allowed her three to four horses and nearly a half-dozen dogs to roam free and onto Grable’s property.

Still, she never expected this.

“It’s shocking,” Grable said of the homicide, dismemberment and burning that took place right down the road. “It’s scary to have it that close to our house.”

Witness Account of the Crime

‘He shot me!’

Rhonda Parker was in a bedroom with her one-year-old son when the first two shots sounded. The sharp reports came from the kitchen around 6 p.m. last Friday.

The next thing Rhonda knew, a wounded Pruitt burst through her bedroom door, she later told police. Trey Parker was close on his heels, gun raised.

“He shot me! He shot me!” Pruitt shouted.

Then Trey fired again.

This time, Pruitt went down. But he wasn’t dead.

Trey Parker stood over Pruitt as he gurgled. He fired twice more.

There were no more sounds after that.

This is the homicide that sparked a nearly 300-mile road trip to Harrisburg and back. All the while, Pruitt’s sleeping bag-encased body was in the trunk.

As a result, the rear of Trey Parker’s Ford Fusion road low all weekend, even when he took his stepdaughters for ice cream in Harrisburg on Saturday.

Two of his stepdaughters later told police Trey Parker made no secret of any of this. He told the girls he had Pruitt’s body in the trunk and that the homicide was his revenge for Pruitt allegedly masturbating in front of two of Rhonda’s daughters.

However, Rhonda would tell state police Trey was also jealous of Pruitt.

Inside the trunk, Pruitt’s body was wrapped with a chain and tied to a cinder block. The nearly three-hour trip to Harrisburg was supposed to include a stop to get rid of the body. The initial plan was to find a swimming hole and sink the corpse.

Trey instructed Rhonda to google for swimming holes during their night ride to Harrisburg. However, she didn’t want to use her own phone for internet searches to dispose of a body. She used Trey’s instead.

In the end, the Parkers abandoned the swimming hole plan.

Instead, Michael Pruitt’s corpse would go for a round-trip ride to Harrisburg and back.

Insight into Victim’s Life

Records show Pruitt has a criminal history in North Carolina. But his Facebook page is earmarked with the life lessons and dime-store philosophies of someone trying to make a new start. Inspirational quotes make up a good number of Pruitt’s recent posts.

One of them says, “Everyone makes mistakes in life, but that doesn’t mean they have to pay for it for the rest of their life. Sometimes good people make bad choices. It doesn’t mean they’re bad; it just means they are human.”

Perhaps, Pruitt should’ve heeded another of the sayings. This one warned, “The devil will attack you through people that you think love you. Watch your circle.”

Clearly Pruitt wasn’t vigilant enough when he received Trey Parker’s text from Rhonda’s phone.

The fatal shooting left quite the mess inside Rhonda’s Springfield Township home. She was tasked with the revolting, messy work of cleaning it up.

While Rhonda was careful about not using her phone for searches about swimming holes to hide a body, she was far less circumspect about texts related to her biological cleanup work. One of Rhonda’s daughters would show these texts to state police, prompting troopers to swarm the property last Monday.

“Terry, Clorox is not enough in here, it’s everywhere,” Ronda texted at one point.

In another, she joked about finding one of Pruitt’s teeth on a blanket in the bedroom, asking Terry if he’d “like it as a souvenir.”

In her statement to state police, Rhonda would continue to complain about all the bloody cleanup work she was made to do, saying in part, “I had to clean brains off my walls and floors while my baby laid on the bed exhausted by what he had seen.”

Alas, all the scrubbing was for naught.

State police said they found blood droplets on a kitchen wall, despite its fresh coat of paint.

The Aftermath

Trey and Rhonda Parker arrived in Harrisburg with their cadaver cargo in the early hours of last Saturday.

If either of them harbored a guilty conscience, there was no sign of it.

Rhonda told state police she slept soundly for 10 straight hours. By the time she awoke sometime Saturday afternoon, Trey Parker had enlisted help for the grim task ahead.

His 36-year-old girlfriend, Summer Heil, agreed to return with them to Bradford County early last Sunday to assist cutting up Pruitt’s body with an axe.

According to police, Heil really got into her work.

In her police statement, Heil admitted holding a naked Pruitt’s lifeless limbs while Trey Parker swung the bladed blows. It took several swings to sever each of Pruitt’s limbs, as well as his head, she said.

Rhonda Parker told police the two also employed a small power saw. She said she heard it buzzing outside while she continued to sanitize her blood-soaked house.

Heil told police Trey Parker had earlier related the story about Pruitt masturbating in front of two of Rhonda’s daughters, ages 14 and 4. Heil said Trey informed her of his revenge plot well in advance.

Heil said she, too, was angry at Pruitt over his alleged sex acts. So much so, she told police she stabbed his dead body twice in the chest and once in the head during the dismemberment. Heil said by this time, she was high on meth.

All this is in.