According to police, Walter Miller had been serving a 30-year sentence in North Carolina for bank robberies he'd committed in 1971 and 1972, when he escaped from a bus filled with prisoners who were due to perform road maintenance. Miller, who at one point had been allowed to perform supervised work outside of prison, had access to regular street clothes. He was wearing plain clothes beneath his prison uniform, and he was carrying some money.
When the prison bus stopped at an intersection, he opened a latch on the rear door and ran away. He reached Raleigh and bought a $10 ticket to Manhattan. Walter Miller settled down in New York under his new assumed name.
Bobby Love set about creating a new life for himself. He married and later had four children, who had no idea of his criminal past.
The media didn’t report how the police managed to find the location of the escaped con. Walter Miller himself assumes that one of his old friends told the authorities about his whereabouts. Not long ago, Miller had made a big mistake when he visited the funerals of two of his brothers — one in North Carolina and another in Washington, D.C.
Miller's arrest was a big surprise for his family. However, Miller’s 27-year old daughter Jessica said she didn’t blame her father:
“I’m not ashamed of my father or what he did. Shocked, surprised — yes… My father was determined to change his life, and for 40 years or so he did just that.”
Lawyer Rita Mavunda said it would be a judicial miscarriage if the court ignores Walter Miller’s attempt to live the usual life of a lawful citizen. “His life in the last 40 years proves that prison is not the only means for rehabilitation,” she said.
