Father of slain TV reporter Alison Parker: 'My grief is unbearable'

Alison Parker always checked in with her father. But on Wednesday morning, Andy Parker's wife had gotten a frightening text message from Alison's employer, WDBJ7 in Roanoke, saying that she had been involved in a shooting.

The Parkers didn't know whether she was dead or alive, but her father suspected the worst when they didn't hear from her.

"Initially, we had some hope, but I knew in my heart of hearts," Andy Parker, 62, said in an interview with the Washington Post. "Alison would have called me immediately to say she was okay."

About an hour after the 24-year-old television reporter was gunned down while doing a live interview outside a shopping center in Southwest Virginia, a senior manager at the station called her family to say Alison had been killed by a disgruntled former co-worker.

"My grief is unbearable," said her father, a banking industry recruiter from Martinsville, Va. "Is this real? Am I going to wake up? I am crying my eyes out. I don't know if there's anybody in this world or another father who could be more proud of their daughter."

He was horrified to learn that the gunman, Vester Lee Flanagan, a 41-year-old former colleague at the TV station, had filmed the shooting and posted footage of it online.

"It's like showing those beheadings," he said. "I am not going to watch it. I can't watch it. I can't watch any news. All it would do is rip out my heart further than it already it is."

He is still in disbelief that his daughter was killed as a journalist in such a seemingly safe place.

"Some journalists want to be right out there covering ISIL. She did not want that," Andy said. "She was not keen on jumping into a middle of a firefight some place."

But Alison was talented enough, those who knew her say, to make it to a national network as a broadcast reporter. The 2012 James Madison University graduate was one of the most promising journalists the university had seen, according to Brad Jenkins, the general manager of the student newspaper "The Breeze," where Parker worked as news editor.

"She was an excellent journalist," Jenkins said. "I pictured seeing her on national news one day — she was that good. She had the 'it' factor."

The station, her father said, told her she'd become an anchor one day. She wanted to be a national TV reporter. "She'd appreciate the irony of how she's gone national, but not in the way she wanted," her father said.

Parker, a morning reporter at the CBS affiliate station in Roanoke, was fatally shot Wednesday morning while on camera for a live report on the 50th anniversary of Smith Mountain Lake — a reservoir about an hour southeast of Roanoke that has become a popular vacation spot for fishing and boating. Cameraman Adam Ward was also killed in the shooting.

Parker started working at WDBJ (Channel 7) in Roanoke in May 2014. Prior to that, she worked at WCTI (Channel 12) in Jacksonville, N.C., covering news stories and producing content for the station's Web site.

When Scott Nichols, the news director at NewChannel 12, hired Parker in 2012, he said he picked her resume out of stack of more than a hundred other prospective reporters.

"She immediately stuck out," said Nichols. "We all really liked her, and we knew we had to get her here. . . . When you met her, you knew she was going places."

In Jacksonville, Parker reported on everything from hurricanes, to court cases, to community events. When someone was sick, she would fill in at the anchor desk. She was a day reporter, but would voluntarily work mornings and into the night hours. Nichols said she did everything with enthusiasm, always bobbing her head and moving her hands when she talked in the newsroom.

"She liked the long hours, she would do anything to confirm the story," said Nichols. "She was so high-energy, sometimes you would just have to say "take a breath, Alison."

Jenkins similarly remembered Parker's dedication to the profession, saying that she regularly returned to campus to train and give career advice to the university's journalism students.

"She was so dedicated to just getting the story," said Jenkins. "She was a dogged reporter, but she was kind."

Parker, who was born in Annapolis but grew up in Martinsville, Va., just celebrated her 24th birthday last week on Aug. 19. Earlier this month, she and her boyfriend Chris Hurst, a WDBJ anchor, moved in together after having dated nine months.

"We wanted to get married," he wrote on Twitter. "She was the most radiant woman I ever met. And for some reason she loved me back. She loved her family, her parents and her brother."

At Martinsville High School, she had terrific grades but also found time to excel on the swim team. Her best stroke was the most difficult: butterfly. She was also a gymnast. And a ballerina. And she played the trumpet. And the French horn.

"She could have gone to Broadway," said her father, a former actor who once performed on Broadway and at The Kennedey Center in Washington.

After she graduated from James Madison University in December 2012, Alison immediately got a job as an on-air reporter in North Carolina. But she almost didn't go into journalism. In a YouTube video showing Parker listing "7 fun facts" about herself, she says she did so well in math and science that she wanted to become a doctor or pharmacist.

In the video produced by her station, Parker said her favorite hobby was whitewater kayaking. She loved Mexican food.

"Enchiladas, tacos, you name it, I will eat it," she declared. "And the spicier the better."

Asked to name her favorite television character, she couldn't limit it to just one. Walter White in "Breaking Bad," Don Draper in "Mad Men" and Frank Underwood in "House of Cards" all made the list.

She often asked her father to watch her work.

"She wanted my approval more than anything else," her father said. "Because of my background in theater, she'd say, "Hey dad, what'd did you think of this [piece]?'"

Her father was especially impressed with a multi-part series, "Childhood Lost," about neglected children that aired earlier this month. "Her station felt like it was worth an Emmy," he said.

Running for a seat this fall on the Henry County Board of Supervisors, where he served once before, Andy Parker said that whenever he goes campaigning door-to-door, people asked if he was related to Alison.

"I'd just laugh," Andy said, "and say that's my campaign slogan: I'm Alison's dad."