Forty-three years ago Willie Carroll Parker conned a man into helping him escape from a prison work camp on the Eastern Shore.
For the first few years he evaded the law - moving from city to city and using fake names - but finally he became convinced that Maryland authorities had stopped looking for him.
He was wrong.
On Wednesday afternoon deputies with the U.S. marshal's office arrested Parker at his home in Clinton, N.C. He is 81 years old and in the care of a nurse.
"They said they were going to take me back to Baltimore," Parker said yesterday in a telephone interview from the Sampson County jail, where he is being held. "I don't know why they did what they did to me being that I ain't got that long to live. I'd let it go. All I want to do is live."
But the Maryland State Police say he is a fugitive from the law and his age and health don't change that fact. "You can't deviate from who [you arrest] based on age," said Sgt. Arthur Betts, a spokesman for the state police.
Betts said that Parker faces extradition to Maryland, but he said that the process can take some time. He said that Parker still owes the state 29 years of unserved prison time.
Mark Vernarelli, a spokesman for the Maryland Department of Safety and Correctional Services, said that Parker's case is so unusual that it is unclear what will happen to him.
"Typically, when you escape, it is a new charge," Vernarelli said. "You have new time added on to it. It is such an unusual case. I don't know what they will do based on his age."
In North Carolina, officials said Parker was living quietly. "He hadn't even had a traffic ticket," said Kemely Pickett, who oversees the jail where Parker is being held.
Pickett added that his prisoner is in terrible health and he intends to charge the Maryland authorities for the medical bills that are being incurred during Parker's incarceration. "If we had to keep this guy in custody, it'll probably cost us $5,000 a month," Pickett said.
Willie Carroll Parker was initially incarcerated in Maryland in 1953 - an era before records were computerized. Staff at the Maryland prison system dug though paper records to determine how much time he had served.
Articles published in The Sun reported that Parker was convicted on armed robbery charges in Baltimore in 1953 and punished with a 40-year sentence. He was released on parole in 1961 after serving 8 1/2 years. Then in March 1963 he became involved with a federal drug case.
