Seventeen Years Later, Opinion Divided on Warden’s Wife

MANGUM, OKLA. (AP) — It’s been almost 17 years since the wife of a former prison warden disappeared with a convicted killer from the southwestern Oklahoma prison her husband helped supervise. Time, however, hasn’t diminished interest in the case in Mangum, the Greer County town where Bobbi Parker is on trial for allegedly helping Randolph Dial escape from the Oklahoma State Reformatory.

Prosecutors say Parker fell in love with Dial and engaged in a “decade of deception” while living with him on a Shelby, County Texas chicken ranch. But defense attorney say she was kidnapped, beaten and raped by Dial, who was described as a manipulative sociopath. Mangum resident Ruby Capes says she believes Parker fell in love with Dial and ran away with him, but fellow resident Andrienne Sherwood thinks Dial brainwashed Parker. Parker has pleaded not guilty.