CLINTON, N.C. — CLINTON, N.C. -- The old men passed their time watching television in their separate bedrooms, generally keeping to themselves in the small, worn house.
These two are in poor health, their home nurse said - Mr. Rufus, 76, with his fading memory and breathing problems, and Mr. Willie, 81, with his heart trouble and a limp from a recent stroke.
Willie Parker had moved in with Rufus Peterson, a relative of a relative, about three months ago, when Parker decided to leave his wife of 25 years. Peterson said he knows little else about Parker, except that "he is a real nice old man."
Certainly Peterson would have had no reason to suspect that his roommate was an escaped convict from Maryland, a man convicted decades ago of robbery and drug dealing.
Three U.S. marshals showed up Wednesday at Peterson's home, and Parker left not in handcuffs, but in tears, Peterson said. Parker has been at the Sampson County jail ever since, where the guards talk about how he's in bad shape and the warden says he plans to bill Maryland for the expensive medical care.
Using a cane, Parker hobbled to a videophone yesterday to speak to his jailhouse visitors. He said he truly thought that, 43 years after he slipped away from an Eastern Shore prison camp, no one was looking for him anymore.
His lifestyle in this rural town bears that out.
Although he changed names and moved around the country until the mid-1970s, he's been Willie Parker ever since. He moved back to his hometown of Clinton, about 90 miles southeast of Raleigh, in 1989.
Until he moved in with Peterson, he lived in the same house, with fake pink carnations planted in the flowerbed, for 16 years. He said he has been back to Baltimore and the Eastern Shore plenty of times over the years. He's in numerous public records and said he draws Social Security from his time in the Navy.
"I wasn't hiding from anybody," Parker said yesterday. "This is my home. I know a lot of people here."
Deputy Bryan Konig of the Eastern North Carolina U.S. Marshal's office said Maryland authorities found Parker because "they're trying to close some loose ends, and he's one of the oldest cold cases."
Mark Vernarelli, a Maryland prison spokesman, said he knows Maryland State Police are working on outstanding cases, but he wasn't aware of one this old. A state police spokesman said Friday night that Parker was captured as part of an initiative to find fugitives.
