Working jointly, Investigators from the London Metropolitan Police and Scotland Yard managed to locate the English businesswoman who was the recipient of letters written by Elaine Parent taken from a pad found in Beverly McGowan’s condo. Authorities have never publicly identified the woman because of safety and privacy concerns and refer to her only as “Miss X”.

The story of Elaine Parent’s activities in England in the late eighties and America in the early nineties first begins in Florida in 1985. Parent became a suspect in the theft of some $40,000 worth of jewelry from an elderly woman in the community of Lauderdale-by-the-Sea. At about this time, Parent met “Miss X” in Miami and the two began a relationship that culminated with Parent traveling to London, probably motivated in part by the authorities’ interest in her. “Miss X” was an employee of a “Blue Chip” technology firm and described as attractive and sophisticated in manner and appearance. Parent herself found a job with a telecommunications company in east London and the couple lived happily for a time.

However, “Miss X” was unaware that, in spite of her new surroundings and good fortune, Parent had returned to her old ways or perhaps never really abandoned them. It is now known that Parent was a suspect in a theft in England using the alias Bret Tremont. In addition, some time after beginning her relationship with “Miss X”, Parent befriended Sylvia Ann Hodgkinson and stole her identity. Little is known about Hodgkinson, but she was born in south London and widowed in 1985 and met Parent soon after. In about 1986, Parent applied for a passport in Hodgkinson’s name and used it over the course of the next five years. Hodgkinson is now deceased but it is unknown if she became a victim of Parent or simply died of natural causes.

Although the relationship between Parent and “Miss X” was initially a happy one, things eventually soured. Parent was prone to mood swings and could become demanding and even violent. Finally in 1990, “Miss X” threw Parent out of the house shortly before Beverly McGowan would be murdered. If Parent did indeed murder McGowan, perhaps the brutality of the crime can be tied to the rage she apparently felt toward “Miss X” as expressed in the letters found in the McGowan condo.

After the McGowan murder, “Miss X” was surprised when Parent again turned up at her door. The pair reconciled but the relationship fizzled once again and when they split in October 1990, Parent sent “Miss X” a note written from letters cut from a newspaper. In the letter, Parent threatened to kill “Miss X”.

Parent stayed in London for a time after the breakup and around October 1990 placed a series of ads in the lonely hearts section of the London magazine Time Out. She described herself as a gourmet cook who owned a fine set of copper cookware. Shortly after, she flew to Los Angeles and rented a car under the name Charlotte Cowan. The next sighting of her was in Miami when she was arrested for auto theft again using Cowan’s identity. It turned out that the two dogs she had with her at the time belonged to “Miss X”. Parent had hatched a scheme to hold them for ransom but later she apparently abandoned the idea.

The next trace of Parent was in early 1991 when she was reported to be in New Mexico running a restaurant. Then around Thanksgiving of 1991, Parent turned up in St. Petersburg, Florida in a homeless shelter for women where she was befriended by Patricia Nevins, a minister associated with the shelter. Parent, then using the name Saundra, told Nevins that she was from South Africa where she had worked as a restaurateur. She also said that her boyfriend had abandoned her in Florida resulting in her becoming homeless.

Nevins reported that Parent was often depressed during the period she lived at the shelter, which lasted about a year or so and even talked about the concept of dying. On the bright side, Nevins related that Parent enjoyed watching the nightly news as well as the program America’s Most Wanted on Wednesday nights.

In 1992 Parent, under another name, won a lawsuit and an undisclosed monetary judgment against the state of Florida after she fell in a restaurant. Later that same year, she was living with a woman in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. The woman who lived with Parent was sometimes so frightened of her that she would drive 80 miles to a friend’s house in an effort to get away from her. In 1994, Parent is reported to have lived in Nashville and worked there in a Sears store as a clerk.

Next: Chapter 6-The World’s Most Wanted Woman

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