This is a bizarre story

[Ksyrup]

Inmate, warden's wife found 10 years after vanishing

Not clear whether couple remained together




OKLAHOMA CITY, Oklahoma (AP) -- The wife of a deputy prison warden who disappeared 10 years ago along with a convicted killer has been found unharmed in East Texas but doesn't appear to be in any hurry to return to her old life, authorities said.

A tip generated by the TV show "America's Most Wanted" led law enforcement to a mobile home in Campti, Texas, where escaped convict Randolph Dial was arrested Monday, said Salvador Hernandez, special agent in charge of the FBI in Oklahoma.

The assistant warden's wife, Bobbi Parker, was found a short time later working at a chicken ranch elsewhere in the county, agents said. Once described by the FBI as an endangered missing person, Parker was not arrested.

"As far as I know, she has no intention of leaving," Shelby County Sheriff Newton Johnson told The Oklahoman late Monday. "She said she wants to stay on the farm and raise chickens."

Dial, 60, was taken into custody without incident. A loaded pistol was found on top of a nearby table, the FBI said.

Investigators initially thought Parker, 42, was kidnapped and held against her will by Dial, who escaped August 30, 1994, from the Oklahoma State Reformatory in Granite in southwestern Oklahoma.

Two days later Dial, who was convicted of the 1981 murder of a karate instructor, was charged with unlawful flight to avoid confinement, the FBI said. Parker's husband, Randy Parker, was a deputy warden at the prison but has since transferred. The couple have two daughters.

After being found, Bobbi Parker did ask an FBI agent about her daughters and husband, Johnson said. She appeared healthy and unharmed, the sheriff said.

It wasn't clear whether Bobbi Parker and Dial remained together in the past 10 years. The pair managed five large chicken houses in a rural area less than 15 miles from the Louisiana border, The Oklahoman reported.

"It's the kind of place where, if a guy just wanted to blend in and not be found, he could do it here," Johnson said.

Dial, a renown sculptor and painter with a master's degree in art, obtained trusty status in prison, meaning he could stay in minimum security housing outside the prison walls.

Dial ran an inmate pottery program with Bobbi Parker. He used a kiln in the Parkers' garage and had full access to their home during the day. The morning of Bobbi Parker's disappearance, her husband saw Dial working in his garage as he left.

When he returned for lunch, he found a note from his wife saying she went grocery shopping. When his wife had not returned home that evening, Randy Parker called the prison and discovered Dial also was missing.

Bobbi Parker's mother received a phone call from her later that night traced to Hurst, Texas. "I can't talk now," she said, crying. "I'm OK. Tell the kids I'll see them soon."

A day later, she made a second call, this time from Fort Worth to a friend. It was the last message her family got from her. "I've got 30 seconds to talk," she said. "I want you to call my home. Tell the kids I love them and I'll be home soon."

Randy Parker, who is now warden at the William S. Key Correctional Center at Fort Supply in northwestern Oklahoma, couldn't immediately be reached for comment late Monday by The Associated Press.

In 2000, Randy Parker said his wife was not afraid of Dial, but was not "overly friendly" toward him. Dial is "personable," yet conniving, he said then. "I always saw him as a coward, just an absolute coward," Parker said. "He always tried to run a con on people."


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I've got to figure she probably went with him of her own free will. In the couple of calls she made, she only mentioned her kids, not her husband. Given what they've now found, that's probably a key piece of information as to what happened.

[HomerJSimpson]

Originally Posted by Ksyrup

I've got to figure she probably went with him of her own free will. In the couple of calls she made, she only mentioned her kids, not her husband. Given what they've now found, that's probably a key piece of information as to what happened.

I remember this case on AMW awhile back. I couldn't help but think at the time she left of her own free will, and the story was being presented through the eyes of an unexpecting husband.

[Raiders Army]

Originally Posted by HomerJSimpson

I remember this case on AMW awhile back. I couldn't help but think at the time she left of her own free will, and the story was being presented through the eyes of an unexpecting husband.

I would hope that the husband was unexpecting. If he were pregnant, then this story would be a lot weirder.

[Fritz]

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[Ksyrup]

I'm sorry. There's something really, really fishy about this story. How could she not try to escape even once? I could understand it if this guy had mob connections or something, where she would be legitimately scared for her family's life if she ran, but he's just one guy. And maybe I could understand it if she was brainwashed or something, but even that doesn't sound likely. She just got kidnapped and stayed with the guy, living a typical life, for 10 years?

Maybe I just don't understand the human mind very well. I would think a rational person would at least consider the possibility that a well-timed and executed escape could be accomplished over a period of hours before the guy suspected anything, and he'd be arrested before he knew what was up. To not even try - for 10 YEARS...just bizarre.



Inmate: 'I was a hostage-taker'

He and warden's wife found in Texas after 1994 disappearance




CAMPTI, Texas (AP) -- Residents in this rural community along the Texas-Louisiana line thought something wasn't quite right about Richard and Samantha "Sam" Deahl, who moved in about five years ago to run a few chicken houses.

It turns out they were onto something.

Richard was really Randolph Dial, a convicted killer from Oklahoma who escaped from prison nearly 11 years ago. And Samantha was really Bobbi Parker, the wife of the prison's assistant warden who says she was held captive all along.

A tip generated by the TV show "America's Most Wanted" led law enforcement to the mobile home where Dial was arrested Monday, said FBI agent Salvador Hernandez. Parker was found a short time later working at a chicken farm. She told police that she stayed with the killer out of fear her family would be harmed if she fled.

"I was a hostage-taker and will probably live to regret it," Dial said. "But now I don't. Doing a life sentence, at my age, I wouldn't trade it for the past 10 1/2 years."

On Tuesday, Parker, 42, was reunited with her husband as authorities tried to piece together details of the strange case. "It looked like a husband and wife who hadn't seen each other in 11 years," Texas Ranger Tom Davis of the emotional reunion.

The Parkers have two daughters, who were 8 and 10 at the time of the disappearance. The family still lives in Oklahoma, where the escape occurred.

Tanya Joy Parker, the sister of Randy Parker, said the children did not make the trip to Texas. "They are elated, but after 10 years you'd be a little stunned," she said.

Sheriff Newton Johnson initially said Bobbi Parker wanted to stay on the chicken farm, but Hernandez said this was a misinterpretation. Hernandez said that while it is unusual for someone to be held against one's will for so long, it is not unprecedented.

"There have been cases of this kind and typically this will result when someone believes family members might be in danger," Hernandez said.

The FBI continued to question Bobbi Parker on Tuesday in Texas.

Residents of Campti say the pair kept to themselves over the years, never engaged in any personal conversations and avoided going to the nearby town of Center. Their trailer is secluded, near a red dirt road and sitting on a wooded lot across from five long metal chicken houses.

"We just thought they might have a couple of warrants or something," said Renae Almaguer, who once worked at a convenience store where the couple shopped for beer, cigarettes, gas and quick groceries. She said she told co-workers "something ain't right with them people."

Dial, a sculptor and painter, was convicted of the 1981 murder of a karate instructor. He had obtained trusty status at the Oklahoma State Reformatory, and he ran an inmate pottery program with Bobbi Parker and had access to the couple's home during the day in staff housing on prison grounds.

Bobbi Parker's mother received a phone call from her the night of the 1994 disappearance traced to Hurst, Texas. "I can't talk now," she said, crying. "I'm OK. Tell the kids I'll see them soon."

A day later, she made a second call, this time from Fort Worth to a friend. It was the last message her family got from her. "Tell the kids I love them and I'll be home soon," she said.

Dial, 60, said his relationship with Parker was never romantic and that they lived in separate rooms. He likened Parker's relationship to him as Stockholm Syndrome, where kidnapping victims become sympathetic to their captors over time, often out of fear of violence.

"She was living under the impression if she ever tried to get away, I would get away and I would make her regret it, particularly toward her family," Dial said. "I didn't mean it, but she didn't know that."

But some residents said if the woman they knew as "Sam" was being threatened, she didn't act like it.

When Parker did go to town to shop at the main grocery store, she wore a straw gardener's hat -- pulled tightly to her head with a scarf -- and a baggy dress, Almaguer said. She said people would laugh at how she looked, as if she was in disguise.