John Felton Parish

Passions

Vocation

Traits

American mass murderer who shot dead six people and wounded three others at two warehouses in Grand Prairie, Texas, United States on 9 August 1982. Afterwards, while driving a hijacked semi-trailer truck, he led police on a high-speed chase through Grand Prairie downtown that ended only when he broke through a police barricade, injuring an officer, and crashed into a building. He was subsequently killed by police during a shootout. It was the worst shooting rampage in Dallas-Fort Worth history at that time. At approximately 8:00 a.m. on 9 August, Parish, armed with a shortened M1 carbine, a .25-caliber semi-automatic pistol, and a .38-caliber revolver, entered the Western Transportation Company building in the central business district of Grand Prairie, to discuss with his supervisor Eddie Ulrich about a payment dispute. When the discussion did not go to his liking, Parish killed Ulrich, as well as truck driver Martin Moran and operations manager Moody Smith, before stealing a bobtail truck and driving to the Western Transportation Company office half a block down the street. There he killed executive secretary Wyvonne Kohler and wounded receptionist Ruth James with shots in her shoulder and neck, as well as operations manager Burnett Hart with a shot to the head. Parish next drove to Jewel T warehouse about four miles away, arriving there a few minutes later. There he killed district sales manager Dave Bahl, and then went to the shipping office, where he was confronted by warehouse supervisor Rick Svoboda. Parish put his revolver to Svoboda's jaw and killed him, and then shot him again in the face when he was lying on the floor. Hijacking a truck Parish left the compound of Jewel T warehouse and, chased by police by now, raced at 70 mph through downtown Grand Prairie. Upon hitting a wall the truck overturned. Parish crawled out of his vehicle, shooting at the officers, and made his way into the building through a hole in a wall, where he was killed by police with seven or eight shots at 8:27 a.m. Link to Wikipedia biography