MARYVILLE, Mo. (July 31, 2013) — A Missouri tire dealer committed suicide June 27 by cyanide poisoning in a Missouri court room after being convicted on a sodomy charge.
Steven Parsons, 48, owner of Parsons' Tire & Battery Services in Maryville, died shortly after surreptitiously ingesting cyanide in the Nodaway County Circuit courtroom. A jury had just delivered a guilty verdict in his trial on second-degree statutory sodomy of an under-aged girl.
Nodaway County Sheriff Darren White confirmed to Tire Business that Mr. Parsons had purchased 100 grams of cyanide a couple of days prior to the incident.
"Shortly after the announcement (of the conviction), Mr. Parsons stood up and came back to the bailiff station where I was seated and said, 'I think I'm going to throw up,'" Mr. White said in a St. Joseph News-Press report.
Mr. Parsons reportedly took a drink and shortly after fell into a seizure. He was taken to a hospital where he died.
He is survived by sons Mitch and Tyler; mother Carolyn Parsons; brother Dave; and sister Pam Hailey.
Mr. Parsons had been the owner of Parsons' Tire locations in Maryville and Stanberry, Mo., since 1987. His brother Dave has assumed management of the dealership's Maryville store while the Stanberry location has been closed, according to dealership staff.