Chase Leads to Capture of Slaying Suspect

A high-speed chase from Solana Beach to Ramona Tuesday led to the arrest of a man suspected of robbing and beating to death his mother and critically injuring his stepfather at their home in Rancho Bernardo last Thursday.

Bradley Charles Parlin, 28, was being held in County Jail in San Diego after allegedly having robbed a bank in Solana Beach, driven the wrong way on Interstate 15 North and barricaded himself in a cabin in Ramona in attempts to elude officers.

Parlin was booked on suspicion of robbery and murder in the death of his mother, Jean Eckroad, 64, and the beating of her husband, Wallace Eckroad, 76, who is in critical condition at Palomar Medical Center in Escondido with massive head injuries.

The couple was robbed of an undetermined amount of cash and property and “bludgeoned with a hammer,” San Diego Police Homicide Lt. Dan Berglund said.

About 6:30 a.m. on the day of the killing, neighbors heard someone speeding away from the couple’s home in the 17000 block of Abra Way in Rancho Bernardo, Berglund said.

Parlin was believed to be driving the couple’s gray Chevrolet Astro van, which was missing from the garage, Berglund said. That was the same vehicle seen driving away from the Wells Fargo Bank in the 200 block of Santa Helena in Solana Beach shortly before noon Tuesday.

After producing a note demanding money and saying he had a weapon, the suspect took $1,000 to $2,000, then drove away, said Deputy Pearl Janulewicz of the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department.

Dan Conway, a spokesman for the bank, said that, although the suspect claimed to have a gun, none was seen. Janulewicz said deputies in an unmarked vehicle recognized the van leaving the parking lot and gave chase.

For an hour, the suspect led deputies on a zigzag route through much of North County, from I-5 to Torrey Pines Avenue to Black Mountain Road to I-15 to California 67, finally ending up at an unoccupied cabin on Caesar Drive in Ramona, Janulewicz said.

The sheriff’s SWAT unit was summoned, but Parlin turned himself in before it arrived, Janulewicz said. He was taken to the sheriff’s substation in Encinitas and turned over to San Diego police.