The case of the Williamsburg mother who made national headlines after being convicted for allowing her 5-year-old son to walk alone to a pond half a mile from home resurfaced at our town hall with local law enforcement chiefs Tuesday night.
Karyann Parkinson’s case has prompted national discussion about parental rights and child safety, including among her former neighbors at Ford’s Colony, who disagree whether the gated community’s security service should have called the police on her.
One Ford’s Colony resident told us the homeowner’s association will scare away young families by becoming known “as the nanny state HOA.”
(This writer lives in Ford’s Colony.)
Parkinson told Williamsburg Watch she is waging her legal fight to protect parents from overreaching police and social service officials who don’t understand the law.
The mother of five, a recent William & Mary law school graduate, was found guilty last month of contributing to the delinquency of a minor. Her offense was allowing her son Samuel to walk unattended from their home to Tutter’s Mill Pond to collect goose feathers.
Child Protective Services also placed her on the Central Child Abuse registry for seven years, which Parkinson said prevents her from volunteering at her kids’ schools.
Parkinson, who has moved back to Warrenton, is appealing her conviction and faces a two-day trial by jury scheduled in Williamsburg-James City County Circuit Court starting Feb. 4.
“There’s always more to the story,” James City County Police Chief Mark Jamison told a questioner at our town hall, who asked why she couldn’t simply have gotten a ticket. He reminded the audience about the drowning death of 12-year-old Juan Sebastian Mejia Acevedo, a Virginia Beach boy who disappeared on his way to a friend’s house in January of 2025 and was found drowned in a pond.
Parkinson said the chief and social services don’t understand the law.
She said she worked for former Senator Jill Holtzman Vogel, who passed legislation in 2023 specifically designed to protect parents from overzealous prosecution for allowing their children to engage in independent activities without adult supervision if it is appropriate for the child’s age, maturity and physical and mental abilities.
That includes “traveling to or from school or nearby locations by bicycle or on foot, playing outdoors, or remaining at home for a reasonable period of time” the legislation states.
Parkinson said she was careful to teach her son where he could safely travel in the community and what areas to avoid. He was a swimmer and a member of the Ford’s Colony swim team.
“I know my child best, I am the expert in Samuel and what he is capable of, “ she said. “The outcome of this case proves no matter what the law says, you still have to be afraid because local police and local child protection services don’t know the law.”
Samuel was brought home by a Ford’s Colony security officer after a neighbor called to complain he was walking alone. Parkinson said the guard told her the community’s covenants do not permit children under 8 to be alone — an assertion that is not found anywhere in Ford’s Colony covenants.
We called the official who manages the community for comment but had not heard back by our deadline.
The situation escalated when security called the police. Police officer J.W. Morris said in a court affidavit he went to the Parkinson home on the afternoon of June 5 and when he knocked on the door, Parkinson said she was not going to speak with him “and closed the door in my face.”
He called Child Protective Services and after consulting with prosecutors swore out a warrant for the arrest of Parkinson, who was not taken into custody because she was 9 months pregnant.
Parkinson admitted to us she could have defused the initial encounter with police by not being argumentative. The police officer noted in his court filing that she showed no remorse.
But, she said, “parents shouldn’t have to eat crow, show remorse or second guess what they know about their own children.”
Our review of court records showed Juvenile and Domestic Court Judge Brian J. Smalls proposed withholding his finding of guilt and dismissing the matter if there were no further incidents. When Parkinson’s lawyer refused the deal, Smalls found her guilty and sentenced her to six months in jail, with all six months suspended and a year’s probation.
Parkinson said going along with the judge “absolutely violates my principles...It is an admission of guilt ...and I absolutely wasn’t going to do that. “