Elaine Parent

Case overview

Elaine Antoinette Parent (August 4, 1942–April 6, 2002) was an American criminal known as "the world's most wanted woman" in the late nineties and early '00s.

Timeline

• July 1990 — Beverly McGowan placed an ad in the Sun-Sentinel looking for a roommate.
• July 18, 1990 — McGowan disappeared.
• July 19, 1990 — McGowan’s remains were found in a rural canal in St. Lucie County, Florida; her body had been mutilated and identification was delayed but was possible using a small tattoo.
• July 23, 1990 — A woman flew from Miami to London on July 23 under the name Sylvia Ann Hodgkinson.
• May 1991 — A woman named Elaine Parent was stopped by police in North Miami for driving an overdue rental car with a stolen plate.
• June 1990 — McGowan placed a flat-share advertisement in the classified columns of the Sun-Sentinel.
• 1992 — While Florida police sought Parent in connection with Beverly’s murder, Parent, under another identity, filed a civil negligence suit against the State after she slipped and injured herself in a restaurant.
• 1994 — Parent disappeared from view altogether.
• April 6, 2002 — Florida police caught up with Parent; she committed suicide by shooting herself in the heart as officers waited outside her bedroom door for her to get dressed.
• December 11, 1996 — A Sun-Sentinel article reported investigators were trying to solve the case and sought Parent for information.
• April 21, 2002 — A news report described Parent’s death and quoted investigator statements and details of the investigation.
• 2014 — The case was featured on the Investigation Discovery program Swamp Murders.

The offence

Parent was wanted for the murder of her potential roommate, Beverly McGowan, a 34-year-old bank clerk. McGowan had placed an ad in the paper looking for a roommate. A woman named "Alice" answered the ad; the woman was actually Parent.

After McGowan disappeared, her remains were found in a rural canal in St. Lucie County, Florida. Her head and hands were hacked off with a chainsaw to delay identification, and her stomach tattoo had been crudely cut; a distinctive tattoo was removed. A small tattoo was enough to identify her. There were concerns that, while on the run, Parent was likely to have committed other crimes.

Parent’s nickname, the "Chameleon Killer," was linked to a photograph of an oil painting of herself she sent to police with the message "Best wishes: your Chameleon" typed on the back. The nickname was also described as apt because she stole the identities of her victims and was found to have used McGowan’s credit cards after she killed her.

Investigators also said Parent scoured graveyards for names and dates of birth. She stole information of other potential roommates by telling them she was a numerologist and soliciting their social security numbers, driver's licences, and birth certificates.

Investigation

The hunt for Parent began after McGowan’s mutilated body was discovered on a remote canal bank in southern Florida. Investigators traveled to England and Scotland Yard, consulted with the U.S. State Department and the FBI, and asked NBC-TV’s Unsolved Mysteries to run a segment about the case.

St. Lucie sheriff's Capt. Robert Miller said: "We believe she has a vital link to the disappearance. Hopefully, somebody from South Florida will remember her."

Nora Pfeiffer, described as the dogged investigator for the Florida State Attorney's office who had trailed Parent since McGowan's murder, said:

"This is the most difficult homicide I've ever handled. We've always been days, months, even years behind the killer. Our suspect is a mistress of disguise and has more than 20 false identities - many of them stolen. "I've had sightings of her in London, Paris, Turkey, Australia and South Africa. And 12 years after Beverly was murdered, I'm still no closer to knowing why."

In 1998, Parent sent police the photograph described as an oil painting of herself with the phrase "Best wishes: your Chameleon" typed on the back.

A classified ad placed by McGowan in the Sun-Sentinel in July 1990 included: "POMP SE - Share 2/2 condo, female 34 plus two cats. $290 plus half utilities."

After screening several applicants, McGowan told family and friends about a woman named Alice who worked for IBM, was from England, and was being transferred to Fort Lauderdale. McGowan told friends that Alice was into numerology, asked for McGowan’s passport and driver's license numbers to predict her future, and said Alice would come into money, have no worries, and meet the man she would marry when she turned 40.

A couple of days later, on July 18, McGowan disappeared. The following day, several of McGowan's friends got cryptic letters from McGowan, postmarked Miami, stating she was quitting her job, selling her condo, and planning to travel. Around the time of her disappearance, $795 of the $800 in McGowan's bank accounts was withdrawn. An attractive blond woman with a British accent used McGowan’s credit card to buy books and clothes at Aventura Mall. The same woman bought a British Airways ticket and rented a car from Avis in London.

The investigation switched to Britain after the card's owner had been murdered. Parent disappeared after the card’s owner was murdered and was not immediately found.

In London, investigators said Parent had lived with a former lover, described as a female senior executive at a blue-chip company. When the relationship foundered again, investigators described Parent kidnapping the former lover's dogs, taking them to America, and attempting to hold them to ransom, and sending death threats.

Parent was later arrested in Miami Beach in possession of documents showing three separate identities. It was described that police failed to run her name through the computer and released her on bail.

Subsequent investigations showed Parent surfaced in New Mexico running a restaurant, and later returned to Florida claiming to be South African and apparently penniless.

Arrest and related events

In May 1991, a woman named Elaine Parent was stopped by police in North Miami for driving an overdue rental car with a stolen plate. Police were suspicious because she carried identification for both Cowan and Hodgkinson, but they released her anyway.

The report also said that around that time the Department of State received a call, and a passenger manifest from a British Airways flight indicated that Hodgkinson had an alter ego: Elaine Parent. Investigators then connected Parent to McGowan’s apartment, finding that traces of handwriting left on a tablet were Parent's. The report also said Charlotte Cowan was identified as another alias.

Another part of the investigation described Parent being arrested in Miami Beach in possession of documents showing three separate identities, and that she was released on bail after police did not run her name through the computer.

Trial, sentencing, and appeals

No trial, sentencing, or appeal outcomes were included in the provided material.

Outcome

When Florida police caught up with her on April 6, 2002 she committed suicide by shooting herself in the heart as they stood outside her bedroom door waiting for her to get dressed.

Aftermath and public attention

The murder of Beverly McGowan and the search for Elaine Parent were profiled on Unsolved Mysteries and America's Most Wanted. In 2014, it was featured on the Investigation Discovery program Swamp Murders.

Other details

A Sun-Sentinel article described McGowan as a "loan processer" from Pompano Beach and reported that detectives still did not know why she was killed.

The Sun-Sentinel article also reported:

• In May 1991, Parent was stopped while driving an overdue rental car with a stolen plate.
• In January, Rena Crowningshield, lead investigator in the case, received a call from the U.S. Department of State.
• From there, Crowningshield connected Parent to McGowan’s apartment and found Parent’s handwriting traces on a tablet.
• Crowningshield connected another alias, Charlotte Cowan, to Parent through an investigation.

A quote was provided from Charlotte Cowan about meeting Parent:

"I had never had that approach before," Cowan said.
"She said she'd been involved with a woman before who hurt her bad," Cowan said.
"Even my mother thought she was a sophisticated person," Cowan said. "My mom is no fool."
"To be quite honest, I have never forgotten this woman. There is something about her," Cowan said. "She's definitely a good-looking woman."
"If she finds the right person, she'll get whatever she wants," Cowan said.

The Sun-Sentinel article described that the State Department had filed passport fraud charges against Parent in an attempt to question her, but Parent had not been seen since being arrested in North Miami in 1991.

A separate report described Parent as an elusive American conwoman nicknamed "the Chameleon Killer" by police who pursued her during a 12-year manhunt in America and Britain. It stated she shot herself in the heart with a .357 magnum as officers waited outside her bedroom door to let her get dressed, and that Scotland Yard were among forces keen to question her about the killing of her former flatmate, Beverly McGowan.

The separate report described Parent as using many aliases and being an American citizen who used to live in London and often pretended to be English. It also described that she was born in the Bronx in 1942, spent five years on the run in Britain in the mid to late-1990s, and lived in hiding with a former lesbian lover, a female businesswoman. It further described Parent’s aim to bait detectives back in Florida and the photograph sent to law enforcement in 1998.

The separate report stated:

• Parent’s body identification was aided by a small tattoo that was enough to identify the body as McGowan’s.
• Her head and hands were hacked off with a chainsaw.
• Her stomach tattoo of Thumper, the Disney rabbit, had also been crudely cut from her stomach.
• Parent missed the tattoo of a flower on her ankle.

The separate report also described Parent’s living circumstances and actions in London, including mood-swings and demands for money splitting up her former relationship and her attempts to blackmail her former lover.

Finally, the separate report included commentary attributed to Dr Barbara Kirwin, described as a leading forensic psychologist who profiled Parent:

"She is driven by her own psychological demons," she said in December last year.
"I believe she steals identities compulsively to fill up the emptiness of her own personality."
"The oil painting is very theatrical. I believe she sent it to law enforcement as a way of thumbing her nose at them, of sort of teasing them by saying: 'I'm alive, I'm well - look out for me but you'll never find me."

The material also stated that relatively little was known about the real Elaine Antoinette Parent and described characteristics attributed by those who knew her, including that she was described as beautiful, intelligent, charming, and bisexual, and also described as aggressive, prone to violent mood-swings, and threatening.