Pubdate: Sat, 24 Nov 2001
Source: Dispatch, The (NC)
Copyright: 2001, The Lexington Dispatch
Contact:  http://www.the-dispatch.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1583
Author: Jill Doss-Raines

FORMER LAW OFFICER LOOKS BACK

Victor "Vic" Parks just shakes his head in wonderment when he thinks about 
how much money a drug dealer can earn with a small amount of merchandise.

When he was a Davidson County deputy sheriff in the 1950s and '60s, it took 
a lot more for the "drug" dealers to make only $100.

"The biggest thing in the county then was moonshining," said the former 
Lexington police officer and sheriff's deputy. "We cut up stills all over 
this county. Instead of drugs, it was white lightning. . A guy would fill 
the whole back end of his car with the stuff and make $100. Now they can 
take a briefcase and haul a million dollars worth of pills in it."

Of course, there were more serious crimes in Davidson County, just not as 
many as today. Now 86 years old and still working as a Davidson County 
boxsite relief attendant, he can recall with clarity some of the biggest 
cases he worked.

Parks was born in South Carolina and moved with his mother to Davidson 
County when he was 3 years old. He attended Davis-Townsend School.

When he was 25, he volunteered for the Marine Corps after the Japanese 
bombed Pearl Harbor. While in the Marines, he was a provost marshal and 
brig warden, which gave him law enforcement training.

"One week after I came out of the Marine Corps, Police Chief (Roger) 
Lanning came to talk with me about going to work for him," he said. He was 
discharged from the service in 1944.

Parks worked as a police officer for 10 years. He knew every business along 
Main Street and the owners. He carried keys to all of the businesses in 
case he needed to get in to investigate anything suspicious after business 
hours.

"They trusted us that much," he said. "Ninety percent of law enforcement 
then was public relations. People would tell you whatever you needed to 
know. You didn't have to buy information from an informant."

Safecrackers were a problem then, he noted.

Part of his duties as a police officer was directing traffic along Main 
Street. With no streetlights along the main corridor through the county 
seat, car drivers needed help maneuvering around the Civil War monument 
that once stood in the center of the intersection of Main and Center streets.

He also worked every Saturday night at the Carolina Theatre. The weekend 
movie drew hundreds of people to town.

"I will never forget the movie that was playing the night the theater 
burned down. It was a James Cagney movie - 'Too Hot to Handle,'" he said 
with a sly smile on his face. "It burned down after the movie let out."

In 1954, Parks went to work for the sheriff's department under Sheriff 
Homer Lee Cox. When he left the department in 1965, he had earned the rank 
of chief deputy.

The sheriff's department had 12 deputies and eight cars. They kept offices 
open 24 hours a day in Thomasville, Lexington and Denton.

When he thinks about how overcrowded the jail was a few years ago before 
the addition, he remembers the simpler times when only one deputy operated 
the jail and his wife cooked the meals for all the inmates.

One of the biggest murder cases Parks ever worked involved a woman who 
killed several husbands by poisoning them. Nanny Doss used arsenic to kill 
multiple husbands here and one in Ohio before she was caught and convicted.

"We had to dig up the bodies here and then go to Ohio to arrest her," he said.

He also remembers the John Strickland case. He shot and killed two people. 
He received a death sentence after he was convicted. However, he died in 
prison awaiting his death sentence.

Parks remembers when court days were one of the biggest attractions in 
Davidson County. Held about every two months, people would line up to get 
seats in the courtroom to watch the accused be tried. As the chief officer 
of the courts, Parks kept order in the courtrooms.

Eventually, the 18- to 20-hour work days became too much for Parks. He 
still has his badges and the Smith and Wesson .38-caliber he used while 
patrolling the streets as a police officer and deputy.

"I just got tired," he said.

Although he spent a good portion of his life in law enforcement, he doesn't 
find himself getting interested in high-profile cases now.

"I put that all behind me," he said. "I try not to think about it."

But sometimes he has to think about old cases, and his days in law 
enforcement. Quite often people will approach him to ask if he is the 
officer who helped him or her.

One woman who Parks had helped bring back to Davidson County from 
California came to see him about two years ago. As a child, her mother took 
her to California, although a court order forbid her to leave the state 
with the child.

Parks flew to California, where he found the little girl with her drunk 
mother. The father flew there the next day to get his daughter.

"She just wanted to see the man who helped her out."

After leaving the sheriff's department, he was the parks director for the 
City of High Point for 12 years.

"As long as I feel I'm doing something productive, I will continue to 
work," he said.
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