Adrienne Leshun Coker, a 33-year-old mother of two girls, was killed during a Wednesday afternoon shooting at the 225 South Wells St. home she reportedly shared with her alleged killer. Police Chief Herbert Dew characterized the shooting as an act of domestic violence.
Ray Dennison Parker, Jr., 45, the father of Coker’s one-year-old daughter, is being held in Leake County jail on a $1 million bond for murder, a $100,000 bond for aggravated assault related to the child, and a $50,000 bond on a charge of being a felon in possession of a firearm. Dew said the suspect has an extensive rap sheet, but “we can’t yet tell how much of it he has been convicted of.”
Kosciusko Police received calls from area residents reporting a flurry of gun shots — more than 20 rounds in total according to Dew — around 2:48 p.m. Wednesday afternoon.
As police headed to the scene, another call came in indicating “a female subject down, laying on the ground. We found Adrienne face down in the driveway and she was deceased.”
The Chief said shell casings found at the scene suggest Parker allegedly began shooting at Coker — who was getting into a 2005 brown Chevy Tahoe parked in the driveway — from inside the home. As their one-year-old child sat in the vehicle, Parker reportedly continued firing at Coker as he exited the home.
“She got out (of the vehicle) and he continued to fire as he came outside the house,” said Dew, who described the shooting as “brutal.”
“It was brutal, probably one of the worst I’ve seen in my time here,” said Dew, who along with Investigator Greg Collins, was first to arrive at the scene. “She was shot in the torso, her arms and in the head.”
Witnesses told police Parker fled the scene at a high rate of speed in the Tahoe containing the couple’s one-year-old child and headed toward Hwy. 43 South. Coker’s other child, a nine-year-old daughter, was reportedly not present at the time of the incident.
After receiving reports that the vehicle was headed back toward Kosciusko on Hwy. 43, police blocked the road and Parker was apprehended without incident around 3:22 p.m.
Parker reportedly held up the child as police pointed their guns at him and Parker relinquished the child to an officer and was taken into custody.
The child was checked out by medical personnel for cuts that probably occurred as glass in the vehicle shattered during the shooting. The child is now in the custody of Coker’s family.
Dew said his department had been called to the house on numerous occasions for domestic disturbances in the past, as far back as May 2020, but that all information collected thus far indicates the couple had been happy in recent days.
“Information that we received is that he had actually asked her to marry him on Sunday and both appeared to be happy,” said the chief. “So we don’t really have a motive.”
