RIP, David Parrish

Gifted student with a bright travel photojournalist future gunned down in Mexico

Have you ever heard of David Parrish? Neither had I -- until his mugging/murder in Puerto Vallarta made headlines in the Boulder Camera. That's because Parrish, 21, was a graduate of Boulder High School and a geography major at the University of Colorado, where his mother, Janet Graaff, teaches engineering. Mother and son, who were spring breaking in the popular coastal tourist resort, were mugged after visiting an ATM. According to reports, the assailants tried to grab Graaff's purse. Parrish tried to stop them and was shot in the stomach. He died later in a hospital. The two assailants were caught and jailed, but at least one of them escaped. A Mexican judge, his secretary and two jail employees are suspected accomplices in the jailbreak.

The reason you might have heard of Parrish in the years to come, had he lived, was through his evocative words and images. He was "passionate about photography, geography and mending cultures friends say," wrote Camera staff writer Vanessa Miller in a front page feature honoring his short life. The piece also related last year's spring semester, which he spent in Morocco, living in a village and documenting his experiences with remarkable clarity for one so young. You can read the "Remembering David Parish" story here and see three of his images and read the captions from his Morocco experience here.

The wider world never got to see what this promising talent might have produced. Beyond that, an upright son and a fine young man gone because of the actions of two thugs and a gun. Tragic indeed.