A Bold Life on the Lam Ends in Quiet Surrender

He had bought two homes. He owned a van and had a valid driver's license. He was registered to vote. He was collecting Social Security benefits. He was under the care of physicians who were paid through his Veterans Affairs benefits, public records show.

He had even been to Maryland and back dozens of times, as recently as last month, to see his ailing brother, Perlie, in Randallstown.

"I been right here all the time," Parker said in a telephone interview from the Sampson County jail, where he was held until yesterday. "I been living in the same place, driving the same roads, working under my own name. Now they're trying to say I've been running."

Parker, one of seven children, was born a few rural routes away from Clinton. His father walked out when Parker was 6, and his mother supported the family by picking cotton and doing domestic work.

Parker was 17 when he was drafted into the Navy in 1942. During his downtime as a steward's mate, he taught himself to read and write simple words. He left the military in 1944 and headed to Maryland. He also lived with relatives in New York and New Jersey.

He was working odd jobs in 1952 when he was arrested on suspicion of holding up a cabdriver in downtown Baltimore. "I didn't do it," Parker said. "I was with my uncle, Will Chester, and he went up to this cabbie and pulled a gun on him. I didn't know he was gonna do that. I ran."

Chester was convicted, and in March 1953, Parker was sentenced to 40 years for robbery with a deadly weapon. He was sent to the state penitentiary in downtown Baltimore, which is now the Metropolitan Transition Center. He was assigned to the facility's hospital, where he said he struck up a friendship with George Grammer, one of the last men executed by hanging in Maryland. Parker said he prepared Grammer for the gallows in 1954 and helped prison officials "take care of his body" afterward.

In 1961, Parker was paroled, only to be arrested again a year later when he was caught up in an FBI sting involving a five-acre marijuana farm in Salisbury, records show.

As a result, Parker said, his parole was revoked, and in 1965 he was sent to the Eastern Correctional Camp in Westover. He had 11 years of credit for time served toward the 40-year sentence, so he owed 29.

He was assigned to work for the owner of a nearby farm. One day, as his employer drove him back to prison, the subject of money came up.

"For some reason, people used to always think I had a lot of money," Parker said. "This fellow was asking me if I had any. I told him I did and that it was in Baltimore. He offered to take me there to get it if I would give him some. He drove me there."

Parker said the man let him out of the car, and "I just kept going."