Gulf Coast Confidential: Bury the Past

On this episode of Gulf Coast Confidential - moving on from murder isn’t easy. Derek and Alex King were just 11 and 12-years-old when they were arrested for beating their father to death in 2001. I covered the case from the time Terry King was killed to when his sons were released from prison. So, what has life been like for the King Brothers since they got out? Join me for an update on my podcast Gulf Coast Confidential, on your favorite streaming platform and let’s dive into the saltier side of the South.

Hi, I’m Mollye Barrows and I’ve been reporting on stories from Northwest Florida for many years. Welcome to my investigative series, Gulf Coast Confidential, where I dive into some of the saltier stories that have surfaced here and all along the Gulf of Mexico.

The story is about two young brothers, Derek and Alex King, who killed their father, Terry King in Pensacola, Florida, in 200. It was one of the first big, national cases I covered as a reporter and I wrote a book about the crime. The murder that made headlines world-wide and still fascinates people today, so here’s an update on one of the most talked about cases in the state and across the country more than twenty years ago, called Bury the Past….

Leading a normal life isn’t easy for a lot of people with a criminal past. Whether it’s something from their youth like vandalism or shoplifting, or more recent charges like drug abuse violations, those with felonies or other crimes on their record, can have a hard time finding work, housing and transportation, necessities for people and families. Add to that overcoming the circumstances, environment or personal problems that lead them to criminal behavior in the first place and it can be very challenging. However, marking “felony” on a job application is one thing, having to explain it's for killing your dad when you were a kid is another. It’s the kind of crime that makes people stop in their tracks and ask, “Why?” or “What kind of person would do that?” It’s the kind of life Derek and Alex King have been leading since they were released from prison more than a decade ago for beating their father to death. They’ve found it’s a struggle to Bury the Past.

The call went out as a house fire. It was early on the morning of November 26, 2001, and when firefighters arrived at the Cantonment address, not far from the paper mill, they found the old house fully engulfed in flames. Paul Brigman was one of the firefighters on scene. It’s a call that still stands out after years of service.

Brigman remembered: “I felt something wasn’t right before I entered the house to fight the fire and low and behold, man, the sight I saw when I entered the living room.”

Firefighters found 40-year-old Terry King’s bludgeoned, and soot covered body in a recliner. His two children, 12-year-old Alex and 13-year Derek were nowhere to be found and so began a mystery that would captivate the community, the country, and make headlines around the world.

I was 28 years old at the time, reporting and anchoring for Pensacola’s ABC affiliate, WEAR TV 3. I covered courts and crime as part of my news beat and the story of Terry King’s murder was my assignment. As far as homicides go, initially I didn’t think it was anything out of the ordinary. Sadly, deaths, brutal beatings, and fires in and of themselves are not uncommon and most of the time when someone is murdered there’s a culprit who did it over love, money, or drugs. Then Terry King’s young sons turned themselves in to Escambia Sheriff’s deputies and confessed to killing their father.

That’s eyebrow raising, but even so, to me it was still just another murder with a tragic twist. Mind you this was just two years after the Columbine school shooting and middle-class, American boys unleashing rage and violence on their world was now part of the landscape. I thought at first maybe Terry King was an abusive father, but it turned out that was not the case at all. In fact, it was just the opposite.

Then came the arrest of Ricky Chavis. Not only had he hidden the King brothers from police at his trailer after their dad’s death and later delivered them to the sheriff’s office to confess, but the 40-year-old man had a prior conviction of child molestation. Child molester?! Now I was riveted. Like why is this guy in their life and why did he hide them? And what’s a 40-year-old man doing running around with kids he’s not related to anyway? No way, Jose. Sounded weird to me and made me wonder if there was more to the story. I started asking and searching for everything connected to the case and the people involved, official reports, court documents, names, and addresses, as well as interviewing anyone who knew any of them, anyone would talk to me. I had a box full of information and things were just getting started.

The public was riveted, too. These were the days before the internet allowed for almost instantaneous news reporting. Folks would tune in to the nightly newscasts or read the morning paper for the latest on the sensational case and from offices to coffee shops, living rooms to beauty salons, the case was the talk of the community, the state, and national news stations.

I teamed up with a local college professor to write a book about the case and we spent a couple of years almost immersed in it, getting to know the brothers, their families, as well as digging into Chavis’ past. The result is a book called, “A Perversion of Justice: A Southern Tragedy of Murder, Lies, and Innocence Betrayed.” The second half of that title was the publisher’s idea. I thought it was interesting to learn that, according to those who don’t live here, how we do things in the South, even murder, makes for especially riveting reading. That true crime gets peoples’ attention, but Southern true crime even more so and so the word “Southern” was added. The first half of the title was penned to describe what we as authors believed was Chavis’ influence on the case.

The case was a roller coaster of drama from the start. Even comedian and actor, Rosie O’ Donnell got involved, at one point hiring an attorney to help represent the boys. The case had a lot of criminal justice reform advocates up in arms because they were the youngest defendants to be tried as adults in Florida, at the time. The good-looking, baby-faced brothers drew sympathy from the community, as well, and the courthouse in downtown Pensacola was packed with onlookers each day of the trials.

The boys initially confessed and were charged with murder. Then they recanted and accused Chavis of murder. The convicted child molester had first been charged with Accessory After the Fact for washing the boys’ clothes and hiding them out after the murder, then he too, was tried for murder, as well as for sexually abusing Alex King. Alex said Chavis had been molesting him since he was 9 years old, abuse that started when Chavis was babysitting him for his father. Chavis got to know Terry like he did a lot of people, by offering to help fix things like cars, appliances, and air conditioners, a big savings to those who struggled financially like Terry King, who was barely making it on his minimum wage job.

Chavis had a reputation in the Brentwood community where he lived for having a lot of boys around his trailer. He had a nice sized piece of property in the middle of the working-class neighborhood, and young people knew they were welcome to hang out, play video games, or work on cars around his place, which was a virtual junk yard of equipment, vehicles, and tools. It was also surrounded by a high privacy fence. Besides his criminal history, at least two other men came forward saying Chavis had sexual relations with them when they were minors and one mother said he also lured her minor son into his company and then chased her in his van when she came to get him back.

Terry King knew none of this at the time he was letting the seemingly friendly fix-it guy watch his youngest son. He had been bringing up the boy alone, with the help of his own, elderly mother, most of Alex’s young life. Janet French, Alex and Derek King’s mother, had left years earlier when the boys were still young. She also had twin baby boys while she and Terry were together and although there was some question as to whether the children were his, he raised them like his own while she was there. Once Janet left, the single, struggling father didn’t have the time, money or help to manage on his own and heartbroken he put the children in private, faith-based foster care. The twin boys were adopted, while Derek and Alex went to live with the family of Frank Lay, a Santa Rosa County principal.

The brothers were devastated at the loss of their family and had a difficult time adjusting to their new home. So much so that Alex eventually went back to his father and while his dad and grandmother loved him, there were times his dad struggled to pay the bills and didn’t have enough for food or power. They also had firm religious beliefs and the boys thought they could be strict. When Chavis offered to help watch the child, Terry and Alex both thought it was a positive opportunity. Alex got plenty of food, fun, and attention from Chavis when he was with him. When police later searched the King home after Terry’s murder, police found where the boy had written about Chavis in his diary, believing he was in love with the 40-year-old man.

In the meantime, Derek had grown up with the Lays, and while he was friendly and outgoing, he also acted out, often breaking family and school rules and upping the stakes as he got older, including starting a fire. By the time he was 13 years old, the Lays wanted to send him to a military style boarding school, but Terry King refused and took his son back home even though it was a struggle for all of them to be together again, financially, and emotionally. The boys were happy to be reunited with each other, but neither seemed to have the love for their dad many children do, and they resented his strict rules, like reading over watching television. His frugal lifestyle was far different from what Derek had been used to, but more than that he was practically a stranger to his eldest son who felt abandoned by his parents.

The boys found companionship and comfort in their relationship with each other, and it wasn’t long before both were hanging out at Ricky Chavis’ place, who gave them access to the T.V., video games, and according to the boys, alcohol and marijuana. Not long before they killed their dad, they ran away and stayed with Chavis. They said Terry King was “mentally abusive” for his intense, extended eye-contact and strict rules. He hid them from Terry King and when they eventually returned to live with their father, Terry was becoming suspicious of Chavis’ involvement with their disappearance and possibly other illicit activities. He quit allowing them to stay with Chavis and removed his former friend from the list of people authorized to pick up the children from school.

Alex King would later testify he told his older brother to kill their dad and Derek said he agreed because he thought he was protecting his brother. The night they killed him, he was asleep in the recliner because he wanted to be the near door in case they tried to run away again. Derek testified he used an aluminum baseball bat to beat his sleeping father to death, while Alex watched. Then they set the house on fire and left, running to a nearby convenience store where they called Ricky Chavis to come pick them up.

If you wonder if that’s really what happened, you’re not alone. The jury who heard the boys’ murder trial convicted them, but then told the local press they thought Chavis actually did it and found the boys guilty because they thought the children would be better off in juvenile custody than in the environment they grew up in. The Dr. Phil show ended up flying some of the jurors and me to Los Angeles for a segment on the case and we all had a chance to get to know each other a little better. It was a surreal time, but I’ve kept in touch with some of them to this day.

The court threw out the conviction because he believed the boys’ right to due process was violated and the case was resolved in mediation. The boys pleaded guilty to 3rd degree murder and Derek received an eight year sentence and Alex seven years, with one year given to each of them for time served in jail waiting for trial.

In his trials, Chavis was exonerated of Terry King’s murder and for molesting Alex, but he was convicted of tampering with evidence and hiding them after his death and given the maximum sentence, 30 years in prison. During sentencing, I remember the judge especially took him to task for hiding the boys away from their worried father when he was searching for them.

Now 60-years-old, Ricky Chavis is serving his sentence at the Santa Rosa Correctional Institution Annex in Milton. He’s already served nearly twenty years for his crimes and is scheduled to be released in November of 2031. He has appealed his verdict and sentence, but so far remains behind bars.

Alex and Derek King were 19 and 20 when they were released from prison in 2008 and 2009. They lived with friends and family and bounced between Pensacola and Jacksonville for a time, as well as a youth ranch of sorts in Texas. Their release was newsworthy too and the brothers appeared on Dateline and other news and magazine shows talking about their hopes for the future and desire for a new beginning and families of their own.

Derek King, now 34, eventually moved to Washington D.C. and Virginia. He was married for a time and had children but he and his wife split. He was also in and out of prison in Virginia on various charges including assault. He is now back in Pensacola and working. Both have attended college at one point, but it’s unclear if they graduated. They have both struggled to find steady, good-paying jobs.

Alex King, 33, was arrested in 2011 for leaving the scene of an accident. He told the Florida Highway Patrol officer he ran because he was scared, knowing he was on probation for an escape attempt he made while serving time for his father’s murder. He was also married, but the union ended after three years. The last I heard of Alex was several years ago. He had reconnected with their mother, also known as Kelly Marino, who was back living in the Gulf Breeze area, near her father. She was working at a store in Gulf Breeze at the time I saw her, and she said Alex had been having a tough time finding a job but was determined to keep trying and they were reading the Bible every day. He later found labor type work for a while, but neighbors say he struggled with drugs abuse.

I reached out to the boys’ family for comment about this story, but they declined. I can understand why. For a case that garnered so much attention and calls for second chances, so far it hasn’t been a story with a fairytale ending, but then it’s not really an ending at all. Like with all of us who are still on this side of the ground, their lives are a story that is unfolding, and I wish them hope and healing.

At the same time, I’m a parent now myself. My daughter is 10, almost the same age they were when I first covered their case. I see them and the murder of Terry King through the eyes of a mother and a 49-year-old woman and my heart breaks for Terry King and his family and parents. By most accounts he was quirky and religious, but a kind, good-hearted guy with a lot of love, but not a lot of money, education, or help to provide for his family. He sure didn’t deserve to die like he did at the hands of his own children, but then they didn’t deserve or ask for the trauma they experienced in their upbringing when their mother left, and their family fell apart. Children in our overflowing foster care system can certainly relate to the trauma of feeling abandoned, unloved, or unwanted.

I think many people can also relate to having kids with someone who doesn’t have the same level of commitment to raising children together. We see people in our own community struggle with raising children in poverty, and the problems that come with lack of childcare, lack of supervision, lack of good-paying jobs for people without an education. It’s an uphill climb for many to improve their station in life and without support it’s incredibly challenging, not impossible, but difficult. What I take away from this story is that but for the grace of God there go us all and as long as we are still breathing there is hope for a better life.

Thank you for joining me for Bury the Past on Gulf Coast Confidential. You can follow this story and others in the series on Spotify and YouTube.