Killer, Abducted Woman Are Found After 11 Years

A convicted murderer and a prison warden’s wife who disappeared about 11 years ago have been found living together and raising chickens in Texas. The woman said she was held captive the whole time, staying with the killer out of fear her family would be harmed if she fled.

Bobbi Parker, 42, was reunited with her husband, Randy Parker, on Tuesday 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 said of the emotional reunion.

A tip generated by the TV show “America’s Most Wanted” led law enforcement officers to a mobile home in Campti, Texas, where escaped convict Randolph Dial was arrested Monday, FBI agent Salvador Hernandez said. Parker was found a short time later working at a nearby chicken farm; the two were living under assumed names in the trailer outside Campti, a town near the Louisiana border.

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

Tanya Joy Parker, the sister of Randy Parker, said the two 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 had said that Bobbi Parker wanted to stay on the chicken farm, but Hernandez said this was a misinterpretation. Hernandez said that although it was unusual for someone to be held against one’s will for so long, it was 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.

Dial, a sculptor and painter, was convicted in 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 on prison grounds.

In a jailhouse interview with reporters, Dial, 60, said he took Parker at knifepoint when he escaped. He said their relationship was never romantic and that they lived in separate rooms.