“I love Bobby. But that’s not even his real name. His real name is Walter Miller,” Cheryl Love told the first lady of her church as she sat in the pastor’s office revealing, through tears, that the man she had been married to for 30 years had a whole other identity, and a criminal past.
That scene, which unfolded at Coney Island Cathedral of Deliverance six years ago, is recounted in The Redemption of Bobby Love: A Story of Faith, Family, and Justice. In the book, Bobby and Cheryl Love (with help from Lori L. Tharps), tell how the former’s shocking revelation of being a fugitive from the law tested their faith and nearly tore their family apart.
The couple’s life was turned upside down several years ago when the NYPD and FBI showed up at their door asking for Walter Miller. But who was Walter Miller?
As events unfolded over the next few weeks and months, Mrs. Love and her four children learned that the man they had called husband and father for decades had an astonishing past. Walter Miller — or Bobby Love — was a convicted bank robber wanted for escaping a North Carolina prison almost 40 years prior.
