Bri’s Story
Brianna ”Bri” Parish was raised in Daphne, Al. Daphne has a reputation of being very family-oriented and a close community. In all of Bri’s years, only a few bad things happened in there. After spending a month in New York with a friend, where she was constantly walking the dangerous city alone, she moved back to Mobile, AL with her sister, Miranda.
Brianna was back for one week before tragedy began. She had a doctors appointment on Wednesday morning and was going to babysit her nephews Wednesday afternoon. Bri decided to go to Daphne a day early to visit her friends, who she had not seen in a while. Brianna and her friend began walking into the Bay House Pub on a Tuesday night around 12:00. Brianna received a phone call and due to the noise in the bar, decided to take the call outside, telling her friend she would be right back. That was the last her friend would see of her. The next day Brianna did not show up for her doctors appointment or to baby-sit her nephews and her cell phone was not on. Her friend began to worry and noticed that Bri’s car was still at the Bay House Pub. She proceeded to go to the police station and file a missing persons report.
That night Brianna’s parent drove from Bridgecity, TX to begin the search for Bri. On Thursday the city of Daphne was saturated with missing flyers with Brianna’s face on them and the media was informed and broadcast were out that afternoon on almost every local news station. By Friday morning Bri’s parents became impatient and called a volunteer search and rescue crew.
The search began around 2:00pm. Family and friends were split into groups and given different sections of woods to search. One group consisted of Bri’s parents, two sisters, her grandmother, her aunt, two cousins and two close friends. After searching for over an hour, this particular team realized they had gone outside of their search zone and turned around. On the way back the team continued looking when all of a sudden there was a weeping scream from the front of the group. Brianna’s cousin found her naked body lying in a gutter…
The search for Brianna Parish was over and now began the search for her killer.
Update: In December 2010, Troy McDonald was convicted of raping and murdering Brianna. He was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. McDonald entered a guilty plea to ensure that he did not recieve the death penalty. The trial lasted four long days and the jury reached a verdict in just 14 minutes. Though this will not bring our Bri back to us, justice is served to a certain extent.
