By 1996, authorities went public with information about the Parent case in an attempt to uncover new leads. In December of that year, they held a news conference and provided photos and much of the data they had collected to that point. One lead that resulted was a story about a dinner party in Miami allegedly given by Parent in which she received $1500 from each guest ostensibly as an investment of some kind. It is still unknown if the person involved in this scheme was really Parent.

 The Postcard

With few real leads, authorities turned to the powerful medium of television to relay the story to the masses. In February 1996, the Parent case was featured on NBC’s Unsolved Mysteries but no relevant information was developed. Then in 1998, another chapter in the bizarre story of Elaine Parent unfolded before the eyes of investigators when St. Lucie Police received a postcard that appeared to depict an age enhanced oil painting of their prime suspect. On the back of the postcard neatly typed were the words, “Best wishes: your Chameleon” with an unreadable signature. The “Chameleon” reference showed that Parent had kept up with newspaper accounts of her case, which often used that moniker along with the phrase “world’s most wanted woman”. It seemed that frustrated investigators were being taunted by their clever suspect.

In 1999 the Parent case was shown on America’s Most Wanted (AMW) three times and also on ABC’s news magazine 20/20. In February of 2000, AMW again highlighted the case. Around Easter of that same year, Patricia Nevins, the minister who befriended Parent in St. Petersburg, believed that she saw her near a Florida shopping center. Police analyzed photographs from membership cards at a Sam’s Club store where Parent was believed to have shopped but came away empty-handed.

Finally on April 6, 2002 after AMW had again featured the case, a solid lead was developed. Shortly after the AMW broadcast, police in Panama City, Florida, in the state’s panhandle received a tip that Parent was living in that city in an affluent neighborhood. Three officers were dispatched to 449 S. MacArthur Avenue and knocked on the door. In order to avoid suspicion, they said that a 911 call had been made from that address and they just wanted to be sure everything was fine at the residence.

At that moment, a woman emerged from a bedroom wearing beige colored silk pajamas. She gave officers a military identification card bearing the name Darlene Thompson. The woman had bleached blond hair and thick glasses and looked nothing like the photographs of Parent that the officers had downloaded from the Internet, which were several years old. The officers saw no sign of a mole above her eye or a scar on her left thumb, both key identifiers for Parent. They were convinced that they had the wrong woman but wanted to question her further. The woman agreed and asked if she could change clothes first. The officers complied and the woman returned to the bedroom and closed the door behind her.

Then Officer Michael Kratz, who was a veteran of the military, took a closer look at the ID card. He noticed that the photo on the card seemed wrong and had a different background and shape than his own. Officers knocked on the door and the woman said, “I am getting dressed” in a somewhat emphatic tone. Then, a single shot rang out. Officers burst into the room to find the woman lying on the floor bleeding from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the chest. At her side was a smoking .357 Magnum revolver. The woman using the name Darlene Thompson died at the scene.

On Monday, April 8, 2002 investigators confirmed through fingerprints that the Panama City suicide victim was really Elaine Antoinette Parent. A 12-year international manhunt had finally come to an end. But investigators were still haunted by questions: who was Elaine Parent? And did she alone kill Beverly Ann McGowan?

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