Columbia Center for Oral History Portal > Oral history interview with Deborah Parker, 2018Biographical NoteDeborah Parker was born in Delaware in 1958 and raised in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. In her early twenties, she moved to Arizona and became a registered nurse. She met Gregory Key, a baseball player who later became a police officer and homicide detective. They were married and lived together in Florida for three years. Their daughter, Lindsay Key, was born in West Palm Beach, Florida in 1987. When the marriage ended, Parker returned to Arizona. She had a son, Tyler, in 1991. That same year, she met Tony. In 1992, they began dating and were married. Her second son, Matthew, was born in 1993. In 2006, Lindsay Key was murdered in a drive-by shooting in Chandler, Arizona. At the time, she was nineteen years old with a four-month old daughter, Patrice. She was working as a server while taking classes in elementary education at Chandler Gilbert Community College. Tony died of glioblastoma in 2016. By the 2020s, Parker had retired from nursing, and she was active in groups such as Moms Demand Action and Everytown for Gun Safety.
Scope and ContentsIn this life history interview, Deborah Parker discusses her family, the murder of her daughter Lindsay Key, and gun violence in America. She describes her early adulthood including moving to Arizona to start a nursing career, meeting her first husband Gregory Key, living briefly in Florida, and the birth of Lindsay. She describes the births of sons Tyler and Matthew and her relationship with second husband Tony. She describes a happy life in the Phoenix suburbs, in a large house supported by her career as a nurse and Tony's as a car salesman. She discusses her close relationship with Lindsay and Lindsay's life at the time of the murder. Lindsay had just had daughter Patrice, was living with Parker, taking education classes, and working as a server. Parker describes the circumstances of Lindsey's death in a gang-related drive-by shooting while attending a birthday party. While Lindsay was not affiliated with a gang, this nature of the shooting made the investigation difficult. It took six years for the witness to come forward, and Parker describes how she would call the local news with leads in the case in order to keep it alive. She describes the agony of the trial, her life being threatened, her subsequent post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and other health issues. She also describes her own history with guns, her political evolution, and activism with Everytown for Gun Safety's Survivor Network and Moms Demand Action
SubjectsAccess ConditionsCopyright by Deborah Parker. The Trustees of Columbia University in the City of New York hold a non-exclusive license to enable library activities
| |
