ABOUT THE CASE

Brian Parnell, a father, a son and a friend to many, is currently serving a life sentence in prison for a 1997 murder that he did not commit. Convicted after a hasty two-day trial rooted in a four-year-old partial prints and despite DNA evidence that excludes Brian. He has always maintained his innocence, fighting tirelessly for his exoneration for 20 years.

On August 28, 1997, over 20 miles from Brian’s home in West Philadelphia, Konstantinos "Gus" Boulias was murdered in what police believed to be an attempted robbery while his family slept nearby. In 2001, after the case went cold for four years, detectives in the murder found Brian’s fingerprints to be a match to partial rain-damaged prints that were lifted from the scene in 1997, despite Brian’s prints being in the system the entire time from two minor charges. To make matters more suspicious, when Brian’s DNA was tested it did not match any of the physical evidence found at the scene. Additionally, Brian was on crutches and 45 minutes away from the crime scene on the night of the murder.

The Crime: August 28, 1997

Just before midnight on August 28, 1997, Konstantinos “Gus” Boulias closed K&G Pizza, one of two pizza parlors he owned in the Philadelphia suburbs. He drove home to his wife, Dafne, and two children, Angelo and Eliana carrying the receipts and cash with him from the day.

Around 2:30 am, Dafne was awaken by voices in the hallway, followed by a loud bang and the sound of her husband falling. Dafne heard footsteps running out of the house and the screen door slamming. While Dafne and Eliana tried to help Gus, Angelo called 911. Paramedics arrived and Gus died en route to the hospital due to a gunshot wound in the back. 

Detectives Gregory Stone and Kenneth Beam arrived at the Boulias home to begin working the crime scene. They quickly determined their belief that this was not a random attack, but a “robbery gone wrong,” despite the fact that no money or property was taken from the home. Stone and Beam took note of initial pieces of evidence including a sliced screen on a window in the dining room, a telephone receiver that had been ripped off the wall, a baseball cap and a nylon stocking as well as a single bullet casing. Additionally, they lifted several partial fingerprints from the window, sill, ledge, and screen thought to be the point of entry.

After a year and a half of interviews with Gus’s friends, neighbors, business partners and employees, in addition to failed attempts at identifying the hair samples and partial fingerprints that were lifted from the crime scene across multiple statewide databases, the case went cold for four years. 

Fingerprint “Match:” July 2001

In July 2001, Detective Beam attended a conference of the International Association for Identification in Miami. A ‘match’ was made when Detective Beam brought the partial fingerprint from the screen window frame with him. The I-AFIS identified many possible matches and 26-year-old Brian Parnell of Philadelphia was on the list. None of the other matches were investigated.  

Detective Beam compared Brian’s left index finger to a partial print found on the interior window latch of the Boulias’ dining room window, just under a cut in the screen. He determined the prints to be a match. He then compared Brian’s right index finger to an even smaller partial print on the other interior window latch and screen and determined that to be a match.

Brian’s Arrest: September 18, 2001

On September 18, 2001, police arrested 26-year old Brian for first-degree murder in Northeast Philadelphia while he was attending class at Lincoln Technical Institute, where he was pursuing a career in automotive mechanics. While in custody, Brian denied any knowledge of the crime or any connection to Gus Boulias, stating that not only did he not know him, but that he had only been to the town Gus lived in twice in his life. On the night of the murder, Brian was in West Philadelphia at his girlfriend’s house, on crutches due to an ankle injury he got while playing basketball a few weeks earlier. This fact was confirmed with records from Brian’s probation agent who confirmed he attended a meeting on the morning after the Boulias murder on crutches.

Notably, Brian was excluded from DNA found at the crime scene. Police identified a hair on a stocking face mask found at the crime scene. DNA from that hair was compared to Brian, and he was excluded as the contributor. All other hairs found at the crime scene were Caucasian in origin and believed to belong to the victim.

The Trial: July 11, 2002

Regardless of these factors, the prosecution went to trial, theorizing that Brian must have had an accomplice who was the source of the unknown DNA. On July 11, 2002, after an extremely short two-day trial, Brian was convicted of second-degree murder. His lawyers never brought up his alibi, or the fact that he was injured and on crutches. They never questioned the validity of the fingerprints or called their own expert. He is currently serving a life sentence at SCI Coal Township in Pennsylvania.

Today: Brian’s Fight Continues

Brian vigorously maintains his innocence. He and his family have been working for two decades to prove this, and together we believe these key points are at the heart of his case. Brian has submitted multiple post-conviction relief petitions to challenge the method used to identify the prints and possible corruption involved in his case including a prior petition for DNA testing. All have been denied.

Please join us as we fight for Brian to get his life back.