Parker's relatives aren't so sure.
His older brother, who lives in Randallstown, Md., and his only nephew, who lives in nearby Fayetteville, N.C., wonders whether Parker's estranged wife, Margie Parker, played a role on tipping off Maryland authorities. They say she is angry about the impending divorce and his unwillingness to give her any of a recent inheritance.
In a phone interview Friday night, Margie Parker said she did no such thing.
Margie Parker's daughter from another marriage, Marilyn Ward, said Parker may have been the one to do himself in: During the divorce proceedings, he referred the lawyers to Maryland prisons as they tried to check whether he ever divorced his first wife, an ailing woman who lives in Connecticut.
"He got his own self caught," Ward said testily. She said her mother had no idea Parker was a fugitive. "His own words got him where he is today."
Though opinions vary on what finally landed Parker behind bars, the relatives are all in agreement that he should not be there.
"He is not my favorite person in the world, but he should not be locked up," Ward said. "Why are they making such a big deal about finding a sick, old man? What are you going to do with an 81-year-old man?"
Parker said he is sick with "everything that you can name," including, he said, hepatitis C that can't be treated because of his weak heart.
He said doctors have told him he shouldn't expect to live much longer, maybe five or six years at the most.
Maryland State Police have said that Parker's age and health don't change the fact that he owes the state 29 years of unserved prison time. They have said that they are proceeding with extraditing him from North Carolina back to Maryland, which could take weeks.
Parker's original crime was an armed robbery in Baltimore. He was convicted and sentenced to 40 years in prison in 1953, according to articles published at the time in The Sun. He was released on parole in 1961 after serving 8 1/2 years, but two years later became a defendant in a federal marijuana case. He was convicted and made to serve the 31 years left on his robbery conviction.
He said then, as he does now, that he wasn't guilty. So he said he conned a farmer at the minimum-security prison to drive him to Baltimore, where he caught a Greyhound bus to New York.
"I left when I figured I had done enough time," he said.
