a barker at carnivals in his hometown, learning many of the skills that he would require later while working in the entertainment industry. At age 15, Van Kuijk moved to Rotterdam, gaining employment on boats in the port town. At age 17, he first displayed signs of wanting to run away to the United States to "make his fortune". A year later at 18, with enough money to sustain him for a short period, he entered America illegally by jumping ship from his employer's vessel. During his first visit there, he traveled with a Chautauqua educational tent show, before returning briefly to the Netherlands. In The Colonel, her 2003 biography of Parker, Alanna Nash wrote that Parker may have been a suspect or a person of interest in an unsolved murder case in Breda. In early 1929, a 23-year-old newlywed woman, Anna van den Enden, was found beaten to death in the living quarters behind a greengrocer store. The premises had been ransacked in search of money. There were no witnesses and almost no evidence, except that the killer spread pepper on and around the body before fleeing in hopes that police dogs would not pick up the scent. The killing happened a few streets from where the Van Kuijk family lived, and Parker had been hired to make deliveries from this and other grocery stores in the area. This may have motivated Parker to avoid seeking a passport, as the Netherlands has an active extradition treaty with the United States, and he may have wanted to avoid criminal arrest by Dutch authorities. In May 1929, Van Kuijk returned to the United States at age 19, finding work with carnivals due to his previous experience in the Netherlands. He enlisted in the United States Army a few months later, taking the name "Tom Parker" from the same name of the officer who interviewed him, to disguise the fact he was an illegal alien. He completed basic training at Fort McPherson in Atlanta, Georgia. Parker served two years in the 64th Coast Artillery (United States), at Fort Shafter, in Hawaii, and shortly afterwards re-enlisted at Fort Barrancas, Florida. Although Parker had served honorably for a time, he went AWOL this time and was charged with desertion. He was punished with solitary confinement, from which he emerged with a psychosis that led to him spending two months in a mental hospital, and