Friendly Reminders

Erica Parsons was born in 1998 and taken in by Casey and Sandy Parsons of Salisbury, in Rowan County, North Carolina, who finalized her adoption when she was two. Erica was 13 when she was last seen in late 2011, and for more than a year and a half nobody outside the household raised an alarm.

On July 30, 2013, her adoptive brother Jamie went to the Rowan County Sheriff’s Office and reported her missing. Casey and Sandy said Erica had moved to Asheville to live with a biological grandmother they called “Nan,” but investigators found no sign the woman existed. The couple had kept collecting adoption-assistance payments for her, and both went to federal prison for fraud. In August 2016, Sandy told investigators that Erica was dead, and in September he led them to a shallow grave near Pageland, South Carolina.

The autopsy found multiple fractures in different stages of healing and signs of malnourishment, and the medical examiner ruled the death a homicide. Both parents were indicted for murder in 2018. On August 2, 2019, Casey pleaded guilty to first-degree murder and was sentenced to life without parole. Sandy pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and related charges on December 17, 2019, and received at least 33 years. Each began the state sentence after finishing the federal one: Sandy in January 2022 and Casey in November 2023.