He said he briefly used the name "Robert Lewis" and moved to different cities, including Chicago and New York. In Seattle, about 1972, he got caught driving a getaway car in an armed robbery case. He'd resumed using his real name by then, he said, and served two years of a 20-year sentence.
He said Washington prison officials told him Maryland authorities knew where he was but didn't want him. That, he said, was his last trip to prison.
In Clinton, he and relatives say he has lived a typical life, doing home contracting work, until his stroke last year.
"He'd quieted down," said Perlie Parker, his 83-year-old brother, who lives in Randallstown.
Perlie Parker's wife, Frances, said she had only recently learned of her brother-in-law's criminal past, when she found a trove of family letters addressed to various Baltimore judges pleading for leniency and parole.
Perlie Parker's son, James, has been visiting his uncle daily at the jail. Peterson is James Parker's cousin. Parker called the nephew Wednesday evening, after his arrest.
"He told me, `I'm in jail,' and I laughed," said James Parker, 64. "I just didn't believe him."
Standing in Peterson's green-painted kitchen yesterday, nurse Kisha Cannon is also in disbelief. She said she cannot reconcile what she has learned about Parker's past with "the good-hearted man" she cooks supper for on the weekends.
"All of the nurses who come here are talking about it."
julie.bykowicz@baltsun.com
Sun reporter Annie Linskey contributed to this article.
