Dial and the Warden’s wife: The potter and his clay or Biddle and Mrs Soffel?
Here’s a story for the ages:
Randolph Dial, a convicted murderer (serving a life sentence), finagled his way into a pottery class being taught by the warden’s wife and somehow manipulated her into helping him escape – with her in tow.
They spent 11 years living like a couple from Little House on the Prairie – until last week when a tipster gave them up to the high tech bounty hunters of America’s Most Wanted.
Within hours of that tip, she was running back into the welcoming arms of her long-suffering (cuckolded) husband and he was being thrown back in the slammer with a permanent smile on his face.
Dial: Hey, what can I say, she found me irresistible…
What everyone is wondering, of course, is whether the warden’s wife conspired with (was seduced by) Dial to make their escape or whether she was abducted by him and held against her will – all this time?
It might be helpful to know that during their 11 fugitive years, fellow prairie dwellers say that the warden’s wife was as free as a bird (to run off to the police or, God forbid, contact her husband anytime she wanted). The chivalrous Dial swears, however, that his magnetic charms had her spellbound and that she was, in fact, powerless to leave him.
Still, is this another real life Mrs Sofffel romantic drama?
Or, is it the criminal scheme of a consummate con who took advantage of a woman suffering from that strange psychological phenomenon known as the Stockholm syndrome?
Either way, the warden’s wife has some explaining to do….
News and Politics
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