On November 19, 2019, 35 year old Edgar Jennings III spent the evening celebrating his daughter’s 4th birthday. Family videos showed the little girl hugging her father and thanking him for “the best birthday party ever.” Friends said Edgar loved gaming, but nothing mattered more to him than his daughter. Nobody at that party knew it would become their final memory together.
Just before midnight, neighbors in Fort Walton Beach called 911 after hearing someone trying to break into an apartment. Seconds later, gunshots rang out across the neighborhood. Witnesses reported seeing a thin man with dreadlocks and a red bandana running from the area before jumping into a waiting sedan. When deputies arrived, Edgar was found outside his apartment with a gunshot wound to the head. He was pronounced dead at the scene.
At first, investigators believed the shooting may have been a random home invasion. But as detectives started interviewing people close to Edgar, the investigation quickly turned toward his ex, Cararissa Parker, the mother of his child. During questioning, Cararissa described their relationship as toxic and filled with constant arguments. She admitted she had recently tried filing a restraining order against him and claimed she was emotionally exhausted from the ongoing conflict.
Then detectives searched her phone.
Investigators uncovered text messages that immediately raised alarm bells. One message read, “Time to call the goons.” Detectives also discovered conversations between Cararissa and a man known as “TG” shortly before the murder. When questioned about the messages, she admitted she had angrily told people she wanted Edgar dead, but insisted she never truly meant it and was simply venting out of frustration.
As detectives dug deeper, her story started falling apart. Surveillance footage linked a green Hyundai Sonata to the shooting scene, and investigators learned it was the same car Cararissa had borrowed that night. At first, she lied about where she had gone. Later, she admitted she drove TG around that evening, but claimed she never expected violence. According to her, TG suddenly pulled out a gun after hearing her complain about Edgar and demanded she drive him to the apartment.
Cararissa told detectives she was terrified and too scared to refuse. She claimed TG acted on his own and forced the situation to escalate. But investigators believed there was more to the story. Weeks later, detectives arranged a secretly recorded phone call that changed the entire case. During the conversation, Cararissa admitted she drove TG to Edgar’s apartment complex the night of the murder.
That confession gave detectives the break they needed to identify TG as Jordan Phillips.
When Jordan Phillips was arrested, his version of events painted an even darker picture. According to Phillips, Cararissa talked about wanting Edgar “gone forever.” He claimed they discussed ways to silence gunshots, including using pillows and even potatoes as homemade suppressors. Investigators now believed the killing was not random at all, but the result of anger and resentment spiraling into a deadly plan.
The most chilling detail was that Jordan Phillips had never even met Edgar Jennings before the murder. A father was killed by a complete stranger because of someone else’s personal conflict. What began as emotional venting allegedly escalated into irreversible violence within days.
In 2020, both defendants accepted plea deals instead of taking the case to trial. Cararissa Parker pleaded guilty to second degree murder with a firearm and received 53 years in prison. Jordan Phillips, the admitted shooter, received 40 years. Many people were shocked that the alleged mastermind received a longer sentence than the man who actually pulled the trigger.
Prosecutors argued that the person who sets a murder into motion can be just as responsible as the killer himself. Now a little girl must grow up without her father, while two other lives will likely be spent behind bars. One emotional feud ended with a family permanently destroyed.
Do you think the sentencing was fair?
