Kenneth Parks: The Sleepwalking Murder

Serial Napper

In the early morning hours of May 24, 1987, Kenneth Parks got up from the sofa where he had been watching TV, got into his vehicle and drove 20 km - or 12 and a half miles - from his home in Toronto to his in-laws home in Scarborough. He used the spare key that they had given him to enter the residence and proceeded to the master bedroom, where he found his mother and father-in-law sleeping in their bed. He proceeded to bludgeon his mother-in-law with a tire iron, which he had brought with him from home, before proceeding to choke his father-in-law. Then, he got into his car and drove to the nearest police station, where he turned himself in saying “I think I have just killed two people.”

And open and shut case for murder right? Wrong. Because Kenneth Parks had a story that could save him from sentence of life in prison. He claimed that he was sleepwalking during the murder and was completely, unconscious and unaware of what he was doing until he surrendered to the police. While sleep experts battled the prosecution in court, testifying in support of Kenneth Parks’ sleepwalking defence, much of the public at the time thought he was lying - making up this story of sleepwalking so that he could get away with murder.

Kenneth Park’s sleepwalking murder trial was front page of papers around the world as it set a precedence for the level of responsibility one has for their actions done when in a state of sleep.

Sources:

https://toronto.citynews.ca/2006/10/27/man-acquitted-of-sleepwalking-murder-running-for-school-trustee-in-durham/

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/mar/02/if-you-kill-someone-in-your-sleep-are-you-a-murderer#:~:text=Despite%20all%20the%20evidence%20that,on%20to%20have%20six%20children.

https://decisions.scc-csc.ca/scc-csc/scc-csc/en/item/907/index.do

https://www.chicagotribune.com/1988/07/17/sleepwalking-canadian-walks-on-murder-charge/

https://www.evidencelockerpodcast.com/transcripts/transcript-145-homicidal-somnambulist-ken-parks-canada

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