EVANSVILLE — Prosecutors on Thursday filed a murder charge against the primary suspect in the August slaying of well-known Evansville real estate agent Susan Haynie, citing newly obtained DNA and electronic evidence.
In a sworn affidavit filed to support the charge and one additional count of burglary resulting in serious bodily injury, Evansville police detectives accused 35-year-old Jamerus Perrale Parkman of strangling Haynie, 74, inside her East Side home in late August.
Parkman has yet to appear in court to face the charges. During a police interview, Parkman reportedly denied having killed Haynie.
Haynie’s killing, which shocked residents of the typically quiet Vann Park neighborhood, came just months after Parkman was released from an Indiana prison on parole following his 2012 conviction for a spate of burglaries and attempted rapes targeting a Downtown Evansville neighborhood, according to court records.
Vanderburgh County Prosecutor Diana Moers wrote in a legal filing that based on Parkman’s latest charges, her office intended to seek a sentence of “life without the possibility of parole.”
A judge issued a warrant for Parkman’s arrest Thursday pursuant to the charges, though he won’t need to be taken into custody: Parkman has been lodged in the Vanderburgh County jail since Aug. 31, when prosecutors charged him with two counts of burglary for two seperate incidents in Haynie’s neighborhood.
Parkman’s initial arrest came amidst the investigation into Haynie’s killing, Aussieker said earlier this month, and while Thursday marks the first time prosecutors formally accused Parkman of killing Haynie, police had already named him a “suspect” in her death.
Because Parkman was free on parole at the time of his Aug. 31 arrest, he was not eligible to be released from jail on bond — effectively giving detectives and prosecutors leeway to take their time in deciding whether and when to charge Parkman in Haynie’s killing.
Reached for comment Thursday afternoon, Moers declined to discuss Parkman’s charges other than to say, “We look forward to our day in court.”
Affidavit details crime scene, initial investigation
In the affidavit filed Thursday, EPD Det. Caleb Wiseman wrote that a friend of Haynie’s dialled 911 around 5 p.m. Aug. 27 after they found Haynie unresponsive inside her East Gum Street home’s basement. The friend told dispatchers Haynie appeared to have a laceration on her neck.
Three EPD officers soon arrived at the home and found Haynie lying on the basement floor. “It was apparent she was deceased,” the affidavit states. The Vanderburgh County Coroner’s Office would soon determine that marks on Haynie’s neck and hemorrhaging seen in her eyes indicated she had died of strangulation.
According to Haynie’s obituary, she worked as a real estate agent for almost 30 years. She was a close friend of former Evansville Mayor Lloyd Winnecke and his wife, Carol McClintock, whom Haynie worked with at F.C. Tucker Emge.
Haynie also served on a number of boards and in leadership positions at local organizations during her decades-long career.
“Susan will be remembered not only as a dedicated real estate professional but also as a cherished friend whose generosity and spirit touched everyone who knew her,” her obituary states. “Susan had a special gift and commitment to turn every opportunity to entertain into an unforgettable experience. Time and again, she stepped in to make her friends’ lives much more joyful.”
Initially, police officials described Haynie’s death as “suspicious” rather than a “homicide,” and at first told neighbors there did not appear to be any ongoing threat to public safety. That would soon change as detectives gathered evidence pointing away from a potential suicide and toward foul play, Aussieker said Thursday.
“In law enforcement, we have to deal with the facts,” Aussieker said, adding that the EPD “apologized” for any confusion the department’s initial statements may have caused.
“Officers were not trying to cause a panic in that neighborhood,” Aussieker said. “But again, with hindsight being 20-20, we should have shared with those neighbors, with that community down there that, ‘Hey, this is going on.'”
Detectives and crime scene technicians who inspected Haynie’s home found it to be “organized and neat, with no apparent signs that it had been ransacked or rummaged through,” Parkman’s arrest affidavit states. Despite a check of all the home’s windows and doors, police observed no signs of forced entry.
But a more detailed inspection of Haynie’s home turned up what detectives describe in the affidavit as a trail of blood indicating someone dragged Haynie through her home and down into her basement.
A crime scene detective “located what he recognized through his training and experience to be drag marks that exited the bedroom and led into the hallway,” the affidavit states. “He located an additional set of drag marks in the kitchen leading to the basement stairs.”
When detectives sprayed a chemical that illuminates in the presence of blood, it lit up.
“The substance confirmed the path of the blood — which showed that Susan Haynie’s body was dragged from the bed, through the house and down the basement stairs where she was eventually found in the basement,” Wiseman wrote.
Surveillance footage led to Parkman, police say
A thorough canvassing of Haynie’s neighborhood would lead to a major break in the case. Police left notes on nearby homes asking for any surveillance footage taken on or around Aug. 27 to be turned over to investigators. Detectives knocked on doors and spoke to neighbors, seeking a hint as to what could have happened.
Investigators found that in the days and weeks before Haynie’s killing, a spate of burglaries and reported sightings of a prowler in backyards unsettled some residents of Evansville’s Vann Park Neighborhood not far from where Haynie lived, according to the affidavit, police reports and interviews.
Surveillance footage captured at multiple homes reportedly showed a man fitting Parkman’s description crossing through backyards, approaching homes and entering a detached garage in the dark of night between July and August.
On July 12, the Ring doorbell camera of a home not far from Haynie’s captured footage of a man matching Parkman’s description wearing a mesh bag over his head attempting to make his way inside the residence just after 4:45 a.m., according to a sworn affidavit filed in support of Parkman’s initial burglary charges.
Footage obtained from another nearby home showed the same man entering a detached garage and a vehicle on July 30, a second sworn affidavit states.
But perhaps most critically, detectives allege that surveillance footage captured on Aug. 27, the day Haynie’s friend found her deceased, showed the man walking through backyards and driveways in the 3300 block of East Gum Street. Haynie’s home is located at 3307 E. Gum Street.
Detectives distributed still photos of the man seen in the surveillance footage across the department in the hopes that an officer would recognize him. One officer believed the man resembled Parkman, whom they knew to work as a cook at Timeout Lounge, a bar located about one-and-a-half miles from Haynie’s home.
Police cite electronic evidence, preliminary DNA results
On Aug. 30, police placed Parkman under surveillance before detectives and crime scene technicians obtained a warrant to search Room 133 at the One Life Studios hotel, where Parkman – whom Evansville police described years earlier as a “serial burglar” – had reportedly been staying after his release from prison earlier this year.
Inside the hotel room, investigators reportedly found items linking Parkman to at least two recent burglaries in the Vann Park neighborhood.
In 2012, a judge sentenced Parkman to serve 35 years in an Indiana prison after he pleaded guilty to a slew of burglary and attempted rape charges in connection with a series of break-ins targeting a downtown Evansville neighborhood over a span of years. In those cases, detectives wrote that Parkman targeted elderly women.
“As in (the) other cases, Parkman likely entered through one of Susan’s unlocked rear doors and eventually made his way to her bedroom where she was assaulted and eventually strangled,” Wiseman wrote in the affidavit.
On Sept. 11, the Indiana State Police Laboratory turned over preliminary DNA results indicating that Parkman’s DNA was located on Haynie’s body and that Haynie’s DNA was located on property seized during the search of Parkman’s hotel room, the affidavit states.
A review of data extracted from a tablet belonging to Parkman also placed him “in and around Susan’s home for several hours on the morning of Aug. 27, 2025, which coincided with surveillance footage of the neighborhood,” Wiseman alleged.
During a Sept. 2 interview, Parkman denied having any involvement in Haynie’s killing, according to police. Detectives documented what they described as “healing scratchers” on Parkman’s forearms and “a laceration to his thumb” and a “laceration” on his lower lip.
As of Thursday afternoon, court records did not yet state when Parkman would go before a judge.
This is a developing story and will be updated.
This article originally appeared on Evansville Courier & Press: Suspect in Susan Haynie’s killing charged with murder; Evansville police cite DNA results
Reporting by Houston Harwood and Jon Webb, Evansville Courier & Press / Evansville Courier & Press
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