When a convicted murderer escaped from an Oklahoma state prison more than 15 years ago, he took the warden’s wife with him.
Bobbi Parker, 49, the wife of then-prison warden Randy Parker, is standing trial for helping one of her husband’s inmates escape. While the prosecution alleges the two were lovers, the defense is arguing Parker was kidnapped by Randolph Dial, portrayed in court as a manipulative sociopath.
The two were found in April 2005 living under the names Richard and Samantha Deahl in a mobile home in Campti, Texas, more than a decade after they went missing from the Oklahoma State Reformatory in 1994. In what prosecutors allege was a love nest, investigators found condoms and love letters between Parker and Dial.
Dial died in 2007 at age 62, but before he passed, he left Parker with an alibi, which her attorneys say supports their argument that Parker was drugged, kidnapped, beaten and repeatedly raped by Dial.
After he was found, Dial pleaded guilty to escaping prison and maintained until his death that he kidnapped Parker at knifepoint, ordered her to drive him from the prison in her family’s van and held her hostage.
“She is a victim,” Dial told Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation agents, in tapes played for jurors. “I mean, I did her in a way that I am not proud of.”
In the tapes, Dial said Parker stayed with him only because he threatened to harm her family — including her two daughters, who were then ages 8 and 11 — if she left.
“The one reason Bobbi would have never done this on her own was her kids,” Dial said. “She would have never left her kids.”
Witnesses for the prosecution, however, have testified that Dial, who had minimum-security status at the prison and walked around freely, seemed to have an extremely close relationship with Parker, whom he met in a prison pottery class that she was teaching in the garage of the Parkers’ home.
Kathy Kardokus, a friend of Parker’s, said she witnessed Dial enter the house without knocking weeks before the two disappeared. “I didn’t think he should be coming in the house, at least without knocking,” she said.
Kardokus also testified she’d seen Parker and Dial sitting together on the porch swing talking quietly and that Parker once told her, “You sometimes don’t know who you’re going to wake up to, your husband or an inmate.”
A former prison worker also testified for the prosecution about finding a painting of a naked woman, whom he described as Parker, in Dial’s art studio after Dial escaped.
“There was one painting of Bobbi Parker nude,“ Scott Parks, a former yard maintenance supervisor at the prison, testified. ”She was standing, looking over her shoulder. I saw Randy Parker looking at this painting. Just almost in tears. Like he just couldn’t believe what he was seeing.”
Randy and Bobbi Parker are still married — they reunited immediately after Parker was found — and he has been at the trial almost every day since May.
The defense will present its case in mid-August. If convicted, Parker faces up to 10 years in prison.
Kayleen.Schaefer@thedaily.com
Bobbi Parker, 49, the wife of then-prison warden Randy Parker, is standing trial for helping one of her husband’s inmates escape. While the prosecution alleges the two were lovers, the defense is arguing Parker was kidnapped by Randolph Dial, portrayed in court as a manipulative sociopath.
The two were found in April 2005 living under the names Richard and Samantha Deahl in a mobile home in Campti, Texas, more than a decade after they went missing from the Oklahoma State Reformatory in 1994. In what prosecutors allege was a love nest, investigators found condoms and love letters between Parker and Dial.
Dial died in 2007 at age 62, but before he passed, he left Parker with an alibi, which her attorneys say supports their argument that Parker was drugged, kidnapped, beaten and repeatedly raped by Dial.
After he was found, Dial pleaded guilty to escaping prison and maintained until his death that he kidnapped Parker at knifepoint, ordered her to drive him from the prison in her family’s van and held her hostage.
“She is a victim,” Dial told Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation agents, in tapes played for jurors. “I mean, I did her in a way that I am not proud of.”
In the tapes, Dial said Parker stayed with him only because he threatened to harm her family — including her two daughters, who were then ages 8 and 11 — if she left.
“The one reason Bobbi would have never done this on her own was her kids,” Dial said. “She would have never left her kids.”
Witnesses for the prosecution, however, have testified that Dial, who had minimum-security status at the prison and walked around freely, seemed to have an extremely close relationship with Parker, whom he met in a prison pottery class that she was teaching in the garage of the Parkers’ home.
Kathy Kardokus, a friend of Parker’s, said she witnessed Dial enter the house without knocking weeks before the two disappeared. “I didn’t think he should be coming in the house, at least without knocking,” she said.
Kardokus also testified she’d seen Parker and Dial sitting together on the porch swing talking quietly and that Parker once told her, “You sometimes don’t know who you’re going to wake up to, your husband or an inmate.”
A former prison worker also testified for the prosecution about finding a painting of a naked woman, whom he described as Parker, in Dial’s art studio after Dial escaped.
“There was one painting of Bobbi Parker nude,“ Scott Parks, a former yard maintenance supervisor at the prison, testified. ”She was standing, looking over her shoulder. I saw Randy Parker looking at this painting. Just almost in tears. Like he just couldn’t believe what he was seeing.”
Randy and Bobbi Parker are still married — they reunited immediately after Parker was found — and he has been at the trial almost every day since May.
The defense will present its case in mid-August. If convicted, Parker faces up to 10 years in prison.
Kayleen.Schaefer@thedaily.com
