Co-defendant in 2017 babysitter murder admits guilt

DAYTON — A woman pleaded guilty Friday to being a co-conspirator in the March 2017 shooting death of a babysitter in a Dayton home.

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Kara Parisi-King, 27, is the second person to enter a guilty plea in Montgomery County Common Pleas Court for complicity to commit murder in connection with the shooting death of Taylor Brandenburg, 20.

In November, Evans Cassell, 36, pleaded guilty to the same charge as well as a firearms charge and was sentenced in November to 15 years to life in prison.

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Brandenburg has been called “an innocent victim” by police who said she had no involvement in a dispute that led to the shooting but came outside to check on a disturbance when she was fatally shot.

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Parisi-King is scheduled to be sentenced on March 27 and faces the same potential sentence.

Police and prosecutors said Parisi-King, and two co-defendants, Chuckie M. Lee, 39, and Cassell got into an altercation on March 12 with some bar patrons inside the Glass Hat Bar on Linden Avenue in Dayton. The argument moved to outside and then a half-mile away to 77 Huffman Ave., where police said the men shot at but missed the bar patrons, fatally striking Brandenburg.

Police said Parisi-King helped provide Lee, her then boyfriend, with a semi-automatic pistol and transport him to the Huffman Avenue address before the death of Brandenburg, an innocent victim with no connection to the defendants.

In February, the trial of Lee, who is facing charges of shooting and killing Brandenburg, was delayed. The trial was pushed back for Lee’s second attorney to step down as counsel to the defendant.

Montgomery County Common Pleas Court Judge Gregory Singer granted the motion filed by the attorney, Brad Baldwin, who said he was having communications issues with Lee.

Lee’s trial is now scheduled to begin June 18.