NASHVILLE, Tenn. – A truck driver pleaded guilty Monday morning to two-counts of second degree murder in the deaths of two Nashville woman more than a decade ago.
Police said the investigation by Cold Case detectives led to the indictment of 55-year-old Kenneth Ray Davis in the March 1999 strangulation death of Jackie F. Pelham. Pelham was found dead in an alley behind the 800 block of Stockell Street after police received a report that a woman had been dumped in the alley from a vehicle. DNA evidence linked Davis to the homicide.
Davis had been in jail since June 22, 2011 for the murder of 25-year-old Christina Yvonne Parham, whose nude body was found on the morning of December 1, 2000, on the side of the road in the 1500 block of Dugger Drive in East Nashville.
Police said the victim appeared to have been pushed or pulled from a vehicle, and the medical examiner determined she died of asphyxiation.
Police said evidence recovered from Parham's body led to the initial identification of Davis. It was entered in the FBI's CODIS (Combined DNA Index System) computer database, and matched to Davis, whose DNA was collected due to his aggravated rape conviction in Shelby County.
