Space-time transmission techniques can greatly increase the spectral efficiency. In this paper, a parallel multistage decision feedback equalizer (PMDFE) is proposed for single-carrier layered space-time systems with a fixed cyclic prefix over frequency-selective channels. It is composed of a parallel interference canceller, a multiple-input single-output decision feedback equalizer (MISO-DFE), and a linear combiner. The soft output of the MISO-DFE is linearly combined with the previous tentative soft decision. In addition, an algorithm is proposed to obtain tentative soft and hard decisions for initializing the equalizer. The initializing complexity of the PMDFE is lower than that of MIMO-OFDM. Simulation results show that the PMDFE outperforms MIMO-OFDM and previously existing equalizers for single-carrier layered space-time systems.