EVERETT, Wash. — A Snohomish County judge sentenced Elmer Nash, Jr. to 10 years in prison and parole for the rest of his life for the killing of an Everett firefighter 34 years ago.
At 47-years-old Elmer Nash, Jr. walked in the courtroom for his sentencing, just one year younger than the man he killed.
“I wish I could turn back the clock and take a match out of a kid’s hand,” testified Parks’ oldest daughter, Erin Van Ry.
Time stopped for the family of Everett firefighter Gary Parks on February 16, 1987, when Elmer Nash set fire to the Everett Community College library to cover up a burglary.
Nash was just 12-years-old at the time and went on to become a career criminal racking up 11 felony convictions as an adult along with 58 misdemeanors. He added one more misdemeanor last week when he failed to appear for his sentencing.
Instead, he was picked up by police, high, in a Kent mobile home. It was one final indignity suffered by the Parks family.
“He has irreparably damaged my family, cost the local community millions, and spat in the court’s face when he didn’t show up for his original sentencing,” said Parks’ grandson Zachary Van Ry.
Nash was a suspect from the start, but police didn’t have the evidence to arrest him.
After getting thrown in the Snohomish County jail one more time, detectives finally convinced him to confess to one count of first-degree murder.
Parks’ widow Kathy Parks testified it has been a lifetime of pain.
“In the years after Gary’s death, I lived as a survivor, missing the Christmases we had together, graduations, birthdays, grandchildren and their lives,” she said.
Nash’s attorney described an abusive childhood for someone who never learned right from wrong, but was a fundamentally decent person.
“Everyone wants to know who Elmer Nash is,” said public defender Phil Sayles. “He’s the guy who has been sobbing at that table for an hour.”
For his part, Nash attempted to apologize to the Parks family saying, “I’m sorry for your loss. I wish I could bring him back, but I can’t,” before starting to cry.
While he was a child at the time of the killing, Nash was tried as an adult.
In exchange for a guilty plea prosecutors and defense attorneys agreed to a sentence of just under three and a half years. After Nash’s no-show at his original sentencing, prosecutors tacked nine more months onto their request.
But Judge David Kurtz decided that was not adequate, given Nash’s life of crime.
“This is a grown man who has not grown up,” said Kurtz.
In the end, Parks’ widow and Nash’s mother consoled each other and hugged, saying they would pray for one another. Two families forever changed by one moment in time.