The juvenile defendant charged with murdering a Powhatan High School football star last week is saying he did not fire the weapon that killed Tahliek Taliaferro.

The statement from 17-year-old defendant Joseph "Joey" Parrish directly attacks arguments made by Powhatan Commonwealth's Attorney Robert B. Beasley Jr. on Monday to a juvenile court judge and shifts attention in the case to Parrish's cousin as the alleged triggerman.

In successfully asking that Joey Parrish be held without bond, Beasley identified him as the gunman in the high-profile killing last week that prompted an outpouring of sorrow and anguish in Powhatan, a largely rural county southwest of Richmond.

More than 1,500 people attended Taliaferro's funeral this week, filling the Powhatan High School auditorium beyond capacity.

"I think the commonwealth's attorney used the best information he had at the time to say what he did," Parrish's lawyer, Jason Moore, said last night after conferring with the teenage suspect and his family. "But the investigation has moved on."

Moore said Parrish is not arguing that he had no role in the death. The lawyer said Parrish has not made a statement to police.

The development came hours after a Powhatan judge yesterday set a preliminary hearing for Aug. 27 on murder and firearms charges for adult defendants Ethan Parrish, 24, and Stephanie Reynolds, 19.

The two Parrishes and Reynolds disappeared for several days after the shooting. Reynolds surrendered to Powhatan sheriff's deputies Saturday morning, and the Parrish cousins turned themselves in Saturday night.

All three are being held without bond.

The statement released last night by Moore denies that Joey Parrish fired the weapon that killed Taliaferro, 18, and wounded a teenage boy, Courtney Jones, in the back.

Law-enforcement officers have said Taliaferro died from a single shot to the back of the head from an assault rifle.

"Further investigation by the Powhatan Sheriff's Department will substantiate that Joey Parrish did not fire the weapon," the statement reads.

Beasley declined yesterday to reaffirm the statement he made earlier in the week that Parrish was the shooter. Beasley instead noted that the investigation is continuing.

But Joey Parrish's assertion focuses attention on his cousin. Ethan Parrish is the only other white male believed to be involved in what court documents describe as the beginning as a verbal altercation between Joey Parrish and Taliaferro at a Flat Rock ice cream store the night of June 24.

The incident ended minutes later with the shooting about 2 miles away on Dorset Road.

An affidavit for a search warrant states that a single car with four males, apparently including Taliaferro, met up with a car occupied by both Parrishes and an unnamed female, at a driveway off Dorset Road. At that point, according to the search warrant, "a white male occupant pulled out an assault rifle and began firing at them."

Taliaferro was mortally wounded and Jones was seriously injured. A third person, identified in the search warrant only as Lawrence, apparently was driving and was not injured.

In court yesterday, three families sat in uneasy, stony silence in different sections of the courtroom.

Kaa Caputo, Taliaferro's mother, wearing a soiled orange and black jersey her slain son wore in his last Powhatan High School football game, wept softly as she was surrounded by more than a dozen of her family and friends.

On the front row, Stephanie Reynolds' mother stared at her daughter in seeming disbelief at her manacled hands and red jail jumpsuit.

To the rear was the family of Ethan Parrish, who was dressed in white sneakers and a blue jumpsuit.

The court appearances hardly clarified the unanswered questions surrounding Taliaferro's death.

Among them is how Reynolds ended up at a bloody crime scene.

Days before the shooting, she was living with a local family after a home that she and her father shared was damaged by fire.

"Stephanie was the sweetest person. She was absolutely no trouble, but I had to tell her not to hang around like she did with Joey," said Deborah Hart, whose family had taken Reynolds in for about three months.

"The last time I saw her was Sunday and two days later she is charged with murder. It makes no sense to us. She's never done anything wrong in her life."
Contact Bill McKelway at (804) 649-6601 or bmckelway@timesdispatch.com.