NEWS 8

I
The Orange County Register FROM PAGE ONE Monday, March 13, 1995
VICTIM: Bai l ey was i nst i t ut i onal i zed i n t hi r d grade, af t er bei ng di agnosed hyperact i v^
;fROM 1
rites that the Mormons believe
would release Kevin's soul from
two decades of purgatory and
send it to heaven.
: But Kurt Murine, the Orange
:Gounty deputy coroner who re-
cently discovered Kevin's identi-
ty, gave Parry the key she need-
ed to unlock the door to paradise:
a death certificate.
"Now he can be sealed to us,
sealed to the kingdom," said
Parry, 56, her voice husky with
tears after learning of her son's
death from a reporter.
"He was a boy that wanted to
be free like a bird. He didn't want
to be tied down," said Parry, who
lives in the remote mountain
town of Snowflake, Ariz.
With his fate no longer a mys-
tery, Kevin's tortured life also
: came into focus.
He was diagnosed as hyperac-
tive and institutionalized before
he finished the third grade. He
; spent the rest of his life on Rita-
lin, a stimulant aimed at reduc-
ing restlessness in children with
: ^attention deficit disorder and hy-
: -peractivity.
; Even as a drugged child, Kevin
" learned to break out of mental
: hospitals, finding his freedom
- ihitching rides on the road. And it
was on the road that he presum-
: ably met Kraft, who is awaiting
execution on California's Death
;Row for the torture murders of
;Kevin and IS other young men.
:; "Kevin felt so safe on the free-
:way. ... Even after all the places
' he had been in, he was very im-
; mature. Very innocent," Parry
:said, fingering through memen-
. tos of her son's childhood.
:" His baby teeth. A lock of fine
brown hair. Notes on his infancy:
' He laughed for the first time at
, two months; bro^ce his first tooth
: at five months.
: Parry was 17 when she deliv-
. ered Kevin 8 pounds, 8 ounces
.: on March 28, 1956, in Middle-
town, N.Y. She was married to
' Kevin's 17-year-old father, Clark
: Richard Bailey.
' The marriage ended in divorce
three years later, after the birth
of a second son, Bruce. Clark
Bailey, reached recently in Vero
peach, Fla., said he lost track of
his ex-wife and the children after
he joined the Air Force in 1959.
; Parry filled in the blanks. She
; and the boys remained on her
father's dairy farm in Mount
Hope, N.Y. Life was good there
' until the notes started coming
from school. Kevin, his teachers
said, was bouncing off the walls.
"Kevin has the ability but does
poor work. He is inattentive and
disobedient to the point of defi-
ance," wrote his second-grade
teacher at Wallkill Elementary.
"He was swinging on the chan-
deliers, driving the teachers cra-
zy," Parry said. "He had this one
teacher in tears every day. He
was climbing out the windows. I
didn't know what to do."
School and county officials
tested Kevin. The diagnosis: hy-
peractivity. The treatment: six
months at the Middletown State
Hospital, where Parry's mother,
uncle, sister and brother-in-law
worked as attendants. Kevin was
"It was horrible. How would
you like to take your kid to a nut
hatch where your whole family
had worked and made fun of?"
Parry asked.
The six months turned into a
year, then a year and a half, Par-
ry said. Kevin wasn't getting bet-
ter, and he wasn't coming home.
Parry, meantime, remarried
and had a third child, Philip. She
also was heading toward her sec-
ond divorce and a cross-country
escape.
After checking Kevin out for a
weekend visit, Parry piled her
kids into a '59 Chevrolet and fled
in 1966 with a boyfriend to Cali-
fornia. They rolled on retreads
along Route 66, unsure what they
would do when they arrived.
DANI EL 0 . MILLS/For The Orange County Register
AT PEACE, AT LAST: Barbara Parry had l ong agoni zed about her
missing son, f i rst prayi ng f or his ret urn, t hen f or pr oof he was dead.
That pr oof di dn' t come unt i l 22 years af t er his deat h in 1973.
KEVIN BAILEY'S ROCKY TRAIL
Kevin Clark Bailey, who was identifed 22
years after being murdered by serial Oregon
killer Randy Kraft, led a short, tortured
life-that began in Middletown, N.Y./ and
ended shortly before his body was
dumped In Huntington Beach.
March 28, 1956 born in
Middlet own, NY. '
1965 f i r st hospitalized
f or hyperact ivit y in Mi ddl et own State
Hospital, af t er disrupting his second-
and t hi rd-grade classes.
Fal l 1966 Kevin's mother,
Barbara Parry, flees wi t h her
children t o California,
t raveling Route 66 and settling in .
t he Arl i ngt on area of Riverside.
1967-68 Kevin is put in
Camarillo State Hospital,
where he stays f or t wo t o t hree
yearsL He runs away several times.
About 1970 Kevin is moved
t o Good Samaritan Boys Home in
Norco, stays less t han a year.
Sept ember 1972 Kevin's
mother remarries and moves t o
Lake Elsinore. Kevin disappears,
calls a f ew weeks later f rom
Corvailis, Ore.
Apr i l 9,1973 Kevin is arrested in
Corvailis, f or loit ering in a schoolyard. Hunt i ngt on ' uk i e' Ei si nore' ,'
Apr i l 14,1973 Kevin's body is Bea^ ^ ^ -f ^ - ''"K f i ^ 'f .
f ound on a' roadside in Hunt i ngt on Beach. i' ' ' -I??,"'*
He had been stabbed, sexually mutilated and t hrot t led.
1980 Kevin's mother and
stepfather move t o Snowflake, Ari z.
> May 1 4 ,1 9 8 3 Randy Kraft is arrested i n Mission Vi ej o,
wi t h a dead Marine in his car.
March 2, 1995 Orange Count y Deputy Coroner Kurt Murine in
Santa Ana identifies Kevin as t he nameless body buried in El Toro.
Source: Barbara Parry
"I had to steal my own kid, I
just couldn't take him back to the
hospital," Parry said. They
spent their first few nights in Cal-
ifornia in a Riverside citrus
grove, living on oranges and
bathing at gas stations.
They finally settled into a $150-
a-month house in Riverside's Ar-
lington area. Parry took a job at
Kentucky Fried Chicken and
sent Kevin off to fifth grade in
Mrs. Johnson's class at La Gra-
nada School.
"He said he was going to be a
good boy, that he wouldn't (mis-
behave) anymore," Parry said.
But the nightmare started again,
and Parry put him in Camarillo
State Hospital, 100 miles away.
She tried to visit every month
M ARY ZISK/The Orange County Register
but sometimes failed. When she
didn't show up, 11-year-old Kevin
would appear on her doorstep,
escaping from Camarillo and
thumbing his way home.
"He couldn't spend more than
six weeks without me," Parry
said. So began a series of break-
outs that got Kevin ousted from
the children's program at Cama-
rillo and landted him in Riverside
County juvenile hall.
Parry moved Kevin to the
Good Samaritan Boys Home in
Norco. He broke out of there, too.
Parry married Douglas Parry
in September 1972 and moved to
Lake Elsinore. She remembered
her new husband sitting Kevin
down for a long heart-to-heart
talk a few weeks after the wed-
He was a boy ;
that wanted to be -
free like a bird.
He didn't want to
be tied down."
BARBARA PERRY
mother of Kevin Clark Bailey, .,,
above, who was murdered in
1973 by serial killer Randy ,, ;
Kraft and unident ified unt il ,;
recently
ding. Doug Parry tried to p^r,-
suade Kevin to settle down.
"Kevin was tearing the otlier
kids apart, psychologically. e
was always fighting, always
bickering, always picking," Bar-
bara Parry said. "I knew-he
loved me. He knew I loved him,
but he couldn't do the family
thing. He said he was born free
and he was meant to be free;- ''
The next day, Kevin loaded his
backpack and hit the highway.
Parry didn't hear from him
again until he telephoned a few
weeks later from Corvailis, Ore.
He wanted his birth certificate
and Social Security card, pur-
portedly to enroll in school.
He said he had taken the naro^e
Please see Vi a i M Page ,9
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