While some think it’s not all that romantic, Bobby and Cheryl Love have a beautiful love story. For 40 years, they’ve lived together. You’d think they
have everything figured out and they’re marriage is great, wouldn’t you? Well, Bobby had one particular detail from his past that Cheryl knew nothing about. Eventually, she did find out – from an unlikely source. This changed everything.
After 40 Years Of Being Married, Woman Finds Out From The FBI Who Her Husband Really Is
Not Your Typical Morning
In January 2015, Cheryl woke up one morning and began her usual morning routine while her husband, Bobby, went on sleeping. Then, there was a knock on the door. She told Humans of New York in an interview, “I opened it slowly and saw the police standing there.”
“Crazy Lady”
For many years, a “crazy lady” had been living next door to the married couple. They knew the police often came and checked up on her, so Cheryl assumed they simply knocked on the wrong door this time.
Life-Changing
“At first I wasn’t worried, but the moment I opened the door, twelve officers came barging past me,” Cheryl said. At that moment, she didn’t have a clue that this would be the moment her entire world would be shaken to the core.
Asking For His Name
Some of the officers who rushed by Cheryl wore jackets with those familiar letters: FBI. Since they didn’t know what was going on, she followed them inside her home. She said, “They went straight back to the bedroom, and walked up to Bobby.” She heard the officers ask him: “What’s your name?” he answered, “Bobby Love.”
“No, what’s your real name?” they asked. Her husband said something in a hushed tone. The officer responded, “You’ve had a long run”. Suddenly, the police officers were putting Bobby in handcuffs. Cheryl pleaded and asked what was going on. “This goes way back, Cheryl. Back before I met you.” Bobby said as he was being pushed out the door.
Walter Miller
Walter Miller grew up in North Carolina in the 1960s. He described his childhood as “pretty normal”. Since his mother struggled with raising eight children, his family was poor. Soon enough, Walter began slipping through the cracks.
An 80’s Concert
It all started when Walter went to a Sam Cooke concert. He later spoke about the experience, “The crowd was really moving because it was dance music. And Sam Cooke didn’t like that. He kept telling people to sit down.”
Going Downhill
“And after only two songs, he walked off the stage.” Walter jokingly yelled a profanity at the stage and promptly got arrested for disorderly conduct. Later, speaking about the incident, he said: “Things went downhill pretty quickly after that.”
Years Of Petty Crimes
After the concert in 1964, Walter already had a criminal record, despite his young age. Things began snowballing. In an interview, Walter admitted: “I got into all sorts of trouble.” He said, “I lifted purses from unlocked cars, I was stealing government checks out of mailboxes, I got bolder and bolder.”
Juvenile Detention Center
One day, he had stolen from his school’s band room and was caught. He was sent to a juvenile detention center nearby. After years of petty crimes, he finally had to face the music. But what would actually happen from there?
His Life Quickly Changed
Quickly, Walter’s life changed from being free to do what he wanted to having to follow the juvenile detention’s strict code. “I hated everything about that place,” Walter said years later, complaining about the bad food, but more importantly, the violence. “I still have scars from all the times I got beat up,” he said, despite the fact that it had been years since he’d been at the center.
Calculating A Plan
In the nights, Walter would fall asleep while listening to the trains pass by outside. Those sounds made him wish more than anything that he was free. He knew he needed to get out. First, he would need to figure out how.
A Daring Escape
Every night, those train track whistles would remind Walter of the freedom he so desperately wanted to experience. “I always wanted to know where that train was going,” he said. Everything in juvenile detention became nothing but a trial of patience for him while he waited for the perfect opportunity.
First Disappearance
One night, he finally got a chance. The guard manning the doors of the detention center turned his back to check the time. Walter had been waiting for a moment just like this. Quickly, he dashed to the exit doors. “I ran out the back door — toward the sound of that whistle. And that was the first place I ever escaped from,” he said. However, it wouldn’t be the last.
Making His Way To The Tracks
Walter made his way towards the train tracks and did what he wanted to do for so long. He was able to follow them to see where they went. Eventually, he would travel north on the tracks. From North Carolina to Washington D.C.
Washington D.C
At the time, it seemed as if things were turning around for Walter. One of his brothers was living in Washington D.C. so Walter stayed with him in his city apartment. He enrolled himself in high school and began attending his classes and playing basketball with friends. However, Walter soon became part of “the wrong group of kids” yet again. His life took a turn for the dramatic.
Much Worse Crimes
Walter’s new friends weren’t so much into petty theft. Instead, they committed much worse crimes. Soon, Walter discovered that his friends robbed banks and managed not to get caught. How? Well, they drove to North Carolina, where there was more relaxed security.
Youth Gang
Walter and his friends kept getting away with bank-robbing initially. He recalled, “After every score, we’d hand out on the strip at 14th and T [Streets], and act like big timers. We felt like gangsters.” However, Walter then admitted: “I have nobody to blame but myself. I just enjoyed the feeling of having money.”
Getting Caught Again
Soon enough, Walter’s luck ran out. He and his friend were able to get away with a number of bank robberies. However, the entire operation came crumbling down one day in August 1971. One of the banks they robbed had a silent alarm. The bank teller was able to alert the police about the burglary in progress.
Back In Cuffs
When Walter walked out of the bank, the authorities were already there waiting for them in the parking lot. “I tried to get away, ducking and weaving, running through cars,” he said. However, an officer caught up with him. Yet again, Walter was caught.
Sentenced For His Crimes
Later, Walter was sentenced for this bank robbery and was found guilty of another one as well. And so, he was sentenced to 25-30 years in total. At that time, he got devastating news. He found out his mother had passed away. He was heartbroken and swore he would turn his life around.
Maximum-Security
Several appeals had been done for Walter, but none of them worked. While he was used to prison by that point, he decided the only way his life would be slightly better was if he’d get transferred. He wanted to be transferred from a maximum-security center to a minimum-security one just down the hill. So, he thought of a plan.
His Work Paid Off
Committed to doing better and turning his life around, “I became the perfect inmate. I never had a mark on my record,” Walter said. All his work paid off. His good behavior got him transferred to a minimum-security center. His new situation was “more like a camp” compared to the prison he was at before. While the new facility also had high fences and looming gun towers, it had a larger sense of freedom.
Things Were Changing
The inmates were allowed to walk around outside and even call their families. In fact, Walter was allowed to have his own radio show. He didn’t really have plans of escaping at first. But then everything changed.
Everything Went Downhill
Walter enjoyed being a radio host and said the role made him feel “relaxed”. He hadn’t felt like that in years. However, things went downhill fast after a prisoner yelled some profanity at the prison’s captain. The captain mistakenly thought it was Walter who had yelled. Naturally, the story didn’t end there.
Too Many Negative Reports
From that point, the captain had it out for Walter and he started picking on him. According to Walter, the captain wrote him up for infractions on a regular basis. “The negative reports kept piling up until I was one mark away from being sent back up the hill,” said Walter. Since he didn’t want to backtrack, he decided it was time to find a way to escape.
A New Opportunity
Due to the negative reports Walter got, he was assigned one of the prison’s worst jobs. He and a few other prisoners had to clean the roads. To do this, they needed to wake up before everyone else, get on a bus, and travel to Raleigh to pick up trash.
The Plotting Begins
Walter recalled, “It was awful. People would be throwing hamburgers and milkshakes at you. And it was almost winter, so it was starting to get cold.” Despite the bad conditions, Walter saw this as an opportunity. “That’s when I started planning and plotting,” He said.
His Big Escape Plan
As he was planning his big escape, Walter began saving up money and noticing all kinds of things. For instance, the Tuesday morning shift guard was lazier than the others. Each inmate had to be pat down before getting on the bus, but this guard let them walk by and onto the bus without comment.
Collecting The Necessary Information
Another thing Walter began noticing was the one intersection that the bus always stopped at – it was next to a wooded area. He spent months collecting all the information he could. Then, as he watched football one Monday night, he decided. “That was going to be my last night in prison,” Walter said.
Everything Was Set
As he expected, the lazy guard simply stood by the entrance of the bus the next day, Tuesday. Walter was ready – he had taken everything out of his locker. He brought the civilian clothes they allowed him to wear for the radio broadcast and he wore them under his prison uniform.
Wailing Of The Sirens
Walter went all the way to the back of the bus and positioned himself next to the emergency exit. He said, “As we slowed down for a stop, I swung open the back door — and I was gone”. Quickly, he stripped off his prison clothes before running deeper into the forest. The wail of sirens became more and more distant
The Death Of Walter Miller
“I could hear the alarm blaring behind me, but I didn’t look back,” Walter said. Once he felt like he was in the clear, he calmly started asking people he ran into for the way to the Greyhound station. They would tell him, “Keep going.” At last, he got to the station and got on a bus to New York City after borrowing some money from a stranger.
The Birth Of Bobby Love
Walter remembers being slumped in his seat when a woman turned to him and began a conversation. He said: “She asked me my name. I thought for a moment, and said: ‘Bobby Love.’ And that was the death of Walter Miller.” He was about to start an entirely new life.
Bobby Love
In November 1977, Walter – now Bobby – got to New York. He began a new life and used the small amount of money he had to pay for a motel room. Soon, though, that money ran out, and he had to live on the streets. Still, he managed to build himself a new life. While he did lie and get some lucky breaks, he was able to get a birth certificate, a social security number, and later, a driver’s license.
Needing Employment
After that whole process, Bobby started looking for a job. For a while, he worked odd jobs while picking up paychecks and staying at $8-a-night motels. Then, his luck turned and his whole life changed.
Bobby And Cheryl
In the 1980s, Bobby got himself a job in the Baptist Medical Center cafeteria in Brooklyn. There, he met a coworker named Cheryl. Later, she became his wife. On their first date, they went to see Prince’s movie Purple Rain and a Gladys Knight and the Pips concert. Bobby said he’d never met anyone like Cheryl before. “Cheryl was innocent. The opposite of me. And that’s why I was so attracted to her,” he said, “Cheryl was soft. Almost in a naïve way.” He wanted to build a life with her, even though he knew it could come crashing down at any moment.
A Heart Of Gold
Bobby said he had never met anyone like Cheryl before. “Cheryl was innocent. The opposite of me. And that’s why I was so attracted to her,” he explained, “Cheryl was soft. Almost in a naïve way.” Despite the fact that everything could go wrong, he wanted to begin a life with her.
Building A Life Together
On March 30, 1985, Bobby and Cheryl got married. He was 34 years old and she was only 21. Shortly after, the newlyweds welcomed their first child, who they named Jasmine. Two years later, their daughter Jessica was born. Eleven years after that, they had twins and named them Jordan and Justin
Devoted Family Man
Bobby worked two jobs. Despite only getting two hours of sleep a night, he was still such an attentive father. Other than work, Bobby became active in church, volunteered, and attended community meetings. His life seemed perfect. However, this huge secret was still looming behind it all. Walter told the New York Daily News that he would tell his wife this: “I’m not going anywhere unless somebody takes me.”
His Secret
Despite the fact that Bobby wanted his wife to know about his past, he said he “just couldn’t risk it.” He felt like his previous life was already behind him. However, he said Cheryl was a “righteous woman” and would most likely encourage him to turn himself in.
Strongly Mistaken
Throughout all this Bobby still kept in touch with a few family members in North Carolina. He asked his sister to tell Cheryl his secret only after he passes away. Still, his sister persisted and told him to come clean. To that, he responded: “That part of my life was buried back in North Carolina. And it wasn’t coming back, however, soon enough, he would be proven wrong.
Noticing Oddities
“There was a piece missing,” Cheryl said, “something was different,” since she and Bobby’s friends had noticed some odd things. For example, Bobby didn’t like being in pictures, he was always cautious about talking to strangers, and he often kept to himself. There were times when people would stop and ask him something mundane and he always “seemed spooked”.
Praying To The Lord
While arguing with Cheryl, Bobby would close himself off. “I remember during Christmas of 2014, I was on my knees in church, saying ‘Lord, please, I can’t do this anymore,’” Cheryl recalled. “That was a few weeks before everything went down.”
Everything Came Crashing Down
Since years had gone by and he felt more comfortable, Bobby decided to go back to North Carolina to attend his sibling’s funeral. He thinks that’s the moment someone recognized him and told the authorities. Not long after that, the FBI was putting him in handcuffs while in his bedroom up north. Cheryl said, “My world came crashing down”. She admitted that her hurt overtook her embarrassment. She added, “Bobby had deceived me for all those years. There was no truth in our house”. In another interview, she said she was “like I was in a movie — a Lifetime movie.” Despite all these feelings, she felt like she had to do something.
Facing Grim Circumstances
The circumstances Bobby was facing were quite grim. He was on the infamous Rikers Island in New York while awaiting extradition to North Carolina. There, he would possibly serve out the last 10 years of his sentence as well as extra time for escaping.
For Better Or Worse
Cheryl went to visit him. While there, she saw how dire his circumstances were. She said, “When I first visited him in prison, he broke down crying. His head was in his hands, and he told me: ‘I know, you’re going to leave me.’ I told him: ‘No, Bobby Love, I married you for better or for worse. And now this is the worst.” With that in mind, she began working on her next move.
Doing Everything She Could
Cheryl did everything she could think of in order to try and give her husband his freedom. She wrote letters to the governor and President Obama himself. She asked her children and other people in Bobby’s life to write testimonials. She said, “I didn’t know a thing about Walter Miller, but I told them all about Bobby Love.”
Addressing The Parole Board
Cheryl went on a gathered just about every piece of character defense she could and brought it with to her husband’s parole board. While it seemed like it was impossible, the parole board let Bobby return to his freedom and start the new life he built again. However, nothing would be the same after this.
Better Than Ever
Ultimately, Cheryl forgave Bobby, and their marriage miraculously became better than ever. To top it off, Bobby’s persona shifted. He wasn’t jumpy anymore. He engaged more with other people and was more attentive and open to his wife. The couple felt like they were even more connected since Bobby’s secret was revealed. Cheryl is now in the marriage she wanted all along. Their lives are truly free. “The day he was set free, I sat him down and I asked ‘What is it? Are we the Loves? Or are we the Millers?’ And he said: ‘We Love. We Love.’”
