Testimony to finally begin in warden's wife's case - San Antonio Express-News

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — It has been almost 17 years since Bobbi Louaine Parker and a convicted killer disappeared from the Oklahoma prison her husband helped supervise, more than three years since she was charged with helping him escape from the facility and nearly a month since efforts began to seat a jury in her trial.

In a case marked by delays, prosecutors and defense lawyers are finally expected to deliver opening statements and start questioning more than 200 witnesses who have been subpoenaed to testify. Jury selection resumes Monday morning in Greer County District Court, where 21 potential panel members have been chosen so far.

Attorneys on both sides plan to pick at least 22 possible jurors then use challenges to reach the final 12 who will consider the evidence.

The pace of testimony may be just as slow as jury selection, which began May 16, as witnesses struggle with fading memories.

"Memories grow dim. Memories become contaminated," Oklahoma City defense attorney Garvin Isaacs said. "As time passes, people don't recall with the clearness or have a memory that is unaffected by what is said publicly by people who know nothing about the case."

Parker, 48, is charged with assisting a prisoner to escape for allegedly helping Randolph Dial break out of the Oklahoma State Reformatory in Granite in far southwestern Oklahoma on Aug. 30, 1984. Parker's husband, Randy Parker, was deputy warden at the prison and the couple lived on prison grounds with their two daughters.

Dial and Bobbi Parker began spending time together while she managed a pottery program at the prison. They worked together in a pottery shop in her garage and also were seen sipping coffee on her porch swing.

Prosecutors allege Bobbi Parker fell in love with Dial and ran off with him for more than a decade until they were found at a chicken ranch in Campti, Texas, in 2005.

Greer County District Attorney John Wampler, who charged Parker in 2008, said she should be held accountable for helping a man escape while he was serving a life in prison sentence for murder. Dial was found guilty in 1986 of first-degree murder for the 1981 slaying of a karate instructor in Tulsa County.

"This individual was a convicted murderer and potentially a threat and a danger to the public being out on the streets," Wampler said.

Isaacs, Parker's defense attorney, denies that Parker helped Dial escape and maintains that Dial kidnapped her and held her hostage before Parker was rescued by authorities. Dial, who died in 2007 at age 62, pleaded guilty to escape and maintained until his death that he kidnapped Parker at knifepoint and forced her to drive him from the prison.

Wampler said prosecutors plan to provide Parker's jury with evidence that she and Dial made a pact in which he promised to take full responsibility if the authorities ever found them.

"If either one of them got caught, he would take the blame for it," Wampler said.

Isaacs also denies prosecution allegations that Parker and Dial shared a bed and acted like husband and wife and that Parker had inappropriate relationships, including sexual contact, with inmates at other prisons where her husband worked.

Parker could face up to 10 years in prison if she is convicted.

Prosecutors have subpoenaed 98 witnesses and the defense has subpoenaed 117, including at least a dozen from out of state. About a dozen prosecution and defense witnesses have died since Parker and Dial disappeared and their testimony will be taken from transcripts from previous court hearings and statements.

Isaacs' career has included murder, product liability and medical malpractice cases, but the veteran attorney calls Parker's trial his most complicated case yet.

"It's like an automobile products liability case — 10 times," Isaacs said. "This is more complicated than any of those because of the length of time and the issues. That's why it's going to take so long," he said.

Testimony in the case could last two months, he said.

Wampler agreed that the trial will be lengthy, but he said he doesn't have an estimate of how much the trial will cost.