![]() ![]() ![]() as she tries to set the record straight and clear her name. And now she is telling her story publicly for the first time ever. In the meanwhile, Bobbi sat down with Dateline - finally! - more than 7 years after I initially asked. At that rate, it will take about 55 years to pay it off. The Oklahoma judge also assessed Bobbi almost $67,000 for trial expenses. It will be reviewing the case on Monday, September 24. She feels she was not only wrongfully convicted, but now she is being denied her constitutional right to an appeal. She tried to be declared indigent by the court so that state would provide her with the transcript for free, but she was turned down. Before the Menendez brothers, the Bobbitts or even O.J., Pamela Smart was televisions first true-crime fascination. ![]() She was immediately incarcerated and spent more than six months behind bars.īobbi wants to appeal her conviction, but in order to do that, she needs the trial transcript, estimated to cost $100,000 due to its length, which she cannot afford. Then one year ago today, September 21, the trial concluded - with a guilty verdict. It is considered the longest trial in state history - and I was there virtually every day. I was told by my boss to get down there right away. Jury selection went on for almost 7 weeks - in private - while the trial itself was almost three months long. By Cathy Singer Dateline NBC I first heard the name 'Bobbi Parker' on April 5, 2005, the day after she was found on a chicken farm in east Texas. The trial took place three years later in 2011 during a broiling hot summer in a small - and thankfully air-conditioned - courthouse in rural southwestern Oklahoma. Any chance of Bobbi talking to Dateline was now postponed till after the trial. Then on the third anniversary of Bobbi being found, she was charged with assisting Dial escape from prison. I sent her home-made chocolate chip Bundt cakes. It became my goal to get Bobbi to sit down and talk to Dateline, but I could not even get her to talk to me on the phone. Questions swirled about: Had Bobbi been kidnapped and kept hostage all those years? Or had she helped Randolph Dial escape from prison and stayed with him willingly? Dial said publicly he'd kidnapped her. Her daughters were now young women.Ī few weeks after Bobbi and the convict had been located, my story about the case aired on Dateline. Her husband had never remarried - not even dated. Was she dead? Was she alive? Where could she possibly be? But right after she was found, she went back to her husband and children. Bobbi's husband and two daughters had no idea what had happened to her. Bobbi and the convicted killer, Randolph Dial, had been located after a tipster saw the case on "America's Most Wanted" and called authorities. It was a most unusual story: The wife of a deputy warden at an Oklahoma prison was found with an escaped convict - a murderer no less - after being missing for more than ten and a half years. I was told by my boss to get down there right away and see what I could find out. I first heard the name "Bobbi Parker" on April 5, 2005, the day after she was found on a chicken farm in east Texas. ![]()
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