By SEAN MURPHY
Associated Press
Caption: Bobbi Parker, a prison official’s wife accused of helping a convicted killer escape and then living on the lam with him for more than a decade, wwits in a Greer County courtroom for a preliminary hearing to determine whether or not she should face a trial, in Mangum, Okla., Monday, Oc. 27, 2008.
MANGUM, Okla. — A prison official’s wife accused of helping a convicted killer escape and then living on the lam with him for more than a decade entered court Monday for a preliminary hearing to determine whether she should be tried for her actions.
Bobbi Parker, 46, is accused of helping Randolph Dial escape from the Oklahoma State Reformatory in Granite on Aug. 30, 1994. Her husband was deputy warden there. Parker and Dial were found living at an east Texas chicken ranch on April 4, 2005.
The charge against Parker carries a penalty of up to 10 years in prison.
Dial died in prison on June 13, 2007, at age 62, He was serving a life sentence for the 1981 murder of Broken Arrow karate instructor Kelly Dean Hogan.
Parker claimed Dial abducted her and she stayed with him all those years because she was afraid of what he would do to her family. But questions about a romantic involvement between the two lingered after she returned to husband, Randy Parker, and their daughters, now grown.
Prior to the hearing Monday in Greer County Courthouse in far western Oklahoma, prosecutor Eric Yarborough filed court documents detailing elements of the state’s case.
He said Parker had previous relationships, including sex, with inmates before escaping with Dial and that she had said she was unhappy in her marriage. The court filing alleges she started up a relationship with Dial and fell in love with him.
It also says that during the decade they lived together she nursed him back to health after he suffered a heart attack.
After Parker and Dial were found in Texas, the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation launched a lengthy probe into the case and submitted an 1,800-page report to District Attorney John Wampler in June 2006, but it took nearly two years for him to file charges.
Dial, a sculptor, was a trusty running an inmate pottery program at the prison with Bobbi Parker’s assistance. He did yard work for the Parkers and used their garage as an art studio.