The Rooftop Robber: The Wild Story of Jeffrey Manchester
The Polite Bandit with a Power Saw
In 1998, a bizarre crime spree began that would span nine states and baffle law enforcement. A man dubbed "Roofman" was targeting McDonald's restaurants with a unique method: he would cut a hole in the roof, drop in, and wait for the morning shift. When employees arrived, Jeffrey Manchester, a 28-year-old Army veteran, would emerge with a gun, but his demeanor was anything but typical. He would politely ask employees to get on the floor and, before locking them in the walk-in freezer, would courteously advise them to grab their jackets. His crime spree netted him over $100,000 before he was finally caught in North Carolina in May 2000 and sentenced to 45 years in prison.
The Great Escape and the Toys "R" Us Hideout
Four years into his sentence at Brown Creek Correctional Institution in Polkton, NC, Jeffrey put his military skills to use again. On June 15, 2004, he escaped by hiding on a secret platform he built underneath a delivery truck. While authorities searched for him nationwide, Manchester was living a life of unbelievable stealth. He had moved into a Toys "R" Us in Charlotte, North Carolina, creating a secret apartment within the store's walls. For six months, he survived on baby food, rode bikes through the aisles at night for exercise, and even used baby monitors to keep tabs on the store's employees. When the toy store got too busy during the holidays, he tunneled into the vacant Circuit City next door.
A New Life and a Final Capture
While living his secret life, Manchester reinvented himself as John Zorn. He joined Crossroads Presbyterian Church, began dating a woman named Leigh Wainscott, and became a beloved member of the community, even donating stolen toys to a church charity drive. But his double life came crashing down after a failed robbery attempt at the Toys "R" Us on December 26, 2004. Police discovered his hideout, and his mugshot was broadcast on the news. On January 5, 2005, with the help of his devastated girlfriend, police set a trap and recaptured him. Jeffrey Manchester was sentenced to an additional 40 years, bringing one of the most audacious and bizarre crime stories in American history to a close.
TRANSCRIPT:
Melissa: [00:00:00] He escaped prison by hiding under a truck, lived for months inside of Toys R Us, and somehow convinced a church full of people and a girlfriend that he worked for the government. His name was Jeffrey Manchester, but the world knew him as roof man. And this story, well, it's one you couldn't make up if you tried.
Marker
Mandy: Hey guys, and welcome to the Moms and Mysteries podcast, a True Crime podcast featuring myself, Mandy, and my dear friend Melissa. Hi Melissa.
Melissa: Hi Mandy. How are you?
Mandy: I am doing wonderful.
Melissa: Mandy? I have a question. Do you have, it goes with this episode, it's not really about random, but do you have movies or something that you want your kids to watch with you that they haven't or. They will watch with you. Is there like one that's, that sticks out to you? Obviously, I have a story about this because
that's such a random question,
Mandy: I know. I'm like, well, this must be going somewhere.
Melissa: wouldn't it be great if it wasn't and I was just
Mandy: I know.
Melissa: oh, I don't Cool.
Mandy: Uh, no. Well. No, I don't [00:01:00] know. I mean, we do sit down and watch movies like as a family, but you know, I, um, I don't know. I've always been that kind of, um, parent that like, just doesn't like kid movies, so I don't really sit down and watch a lot of kid movies.
There's a few that have grabbed my attention that I've like, enjoyed, like cartoon movies, you know. Oh, what do you mean?
Melissa: you love
Mandy: Oh.
Melissa: you've allowed your kids to
watch or like you've convinced them?
Mandy: I've forced them to watch like The Wizard of Oz with me numerous times. Yeah. Obviously, you know, I'm a huge Wizard of Oz fan. I actually just made my whole family watch it with me like two nights ago. Uh, because
Melissa: because that's like
Mandy: no, that's the crazy part. I'm not,
Melissa: my daughter doesn't like
Wizard of Oz, but she loves Wicked,
Mandy: oh my gosh. See, well put, put us together and we have a one complete fan.
Melissa: what is that? The
Mandy: There you go.
Melissa: No,
Mandy: that's the Scarecrow.
Melissa: My bad.
I didn't force my family to watch it two
Mandy: Yeah.
Melissa: so I didn't know.
Mandy: I did because, when I was growing up, I always remembered like there Wizard of Oz would play on TV around Thanksgiving [00:02:00] time and um, also around my birthday. So I always associated like this time of year with watching The Wizard of Oz. And um, a couple weeks ago I was at Publix getting groceries.
And I know that sounds like I'm like losing the plot line here, but stay with me.
Melissa: the
question a while ago, so don't worry.
Mandy: Okay. But I was in line and I saw that there was like a, um, a life magazine. Issue or, or a whole, yeah, an issue of the magazine, I guess. I dunno, wizard of Oz. But it was literally like I, I bought it, it was like $15 a magazine, but I wanted it because it was like a whole like editorial photos, lots of history and I've just been sitting through and reading that and getting even more nerdy.
It was of Oz knowledge. Um, but then I was like, you know what? It is the right time of year family gather around it's time to watch The Wizard of Oz. So we did.
Melissa: That's amazing. There's a movie about this story and this week I was finally able to convince my daughter when you're like saying kids movies, I'm like, oh no.
Mine was, um, I convinced my daughter to watch Memento with me. Have you ever seen Memento?
Mandy: No. [00:03:00]
Melissa: It's one of my
top two favorite movies.
Mandy: I have to watch that.
Melissa: it goes backwards, so like when it's in black and white, it's current day and when it's in color or no opposite black and white, it's. Before color, it's current. I don't know what I just said there, but it's different timelines. But it's a guy who has short term memory loss and he's, somebody killed his wife. So he is trying to figure out who, and he like has tattoos that give him clues about what, you know, what he knows for sure. And so he is trying to find this John G. Guy. Anyway, I watched it with her and it's like the first time I've watched, it's like when you watch, uh, sixth Sense for the first time and you see somebody like have that moment. 'cause like at the very end she was like.
Oh my gosh.
Mandy: Yeah.
Melissa: was so excited. Like it's such a fun thing to be able to share
movies that we love with our kids.
Mandy: Yes.
Melissa: stuck with a lot of them, but I was like, okay, what's next? What's next? I gotta come up with a new one. So, um, I do wanna watch this
week's episode's Movie. [00:04:00]
Mandy: Yeah.
Melissa: and I think I could get everybody on board 'cause this is a
crazy story.
Mandy: This is a very crazy story, so let's get into it. We've hyped it.
Melissa: So
Mandy: Quite a bit now. Yeah,
Melissa: I'm sorry
Mandy: I know.
We have hyped it up, so let's get into it. So our story begins in Sacramento, California in 1971 with a baby named Jeffrey Allen Manchester, the man who would later become known nationwide as the roof man. Jeffrey grew up in Rancho Cordova.
It's a quiet suburb where according to one source, he had a typically sunny California childhood, which sounds. Amazing and very normal,
but just give old Jeffrey a few decades. He went on to join the US Army Reserve, and he served proudly with the 82nd Airborne Division. And yes, that is the division of Elite Paratroopers.
So while in service, Jeffrey mastered all the kinds of skills that sounded impressive. Skills like repelling, leaping from great [00:05:00] heights and handling weapons with precision. But unfortunately, those skills would later be put to a far less honorable use. Those abilities would later play an unexpected role in his crimes.
At 20 years old, Jeffrey married and started a family. He and his wife eventually had twin boys and a daughter. But by 1999, things had gone downhill. The couple was living in military housing at the Naval Weapon Station in Concord, California when police responded to a domestic disturbance in November of that year.
Soon after his wife filed for divorce and sought full custody of their children, and that's when things really took a hard left. Just months later, the polite churchgoing dad transformed into one of the most bizarrely courteous criminals in American history. His crime spree began around November, 1998.
In over seven months, he targeted more than 40 restaurants across nine states, mostly McDonald's, and [00:06:00] he ended up pocketing around a hundred thousand dollars in total. So Jeffrey's method was both absolutely insane and also ingenious. He would climb onto a roof at night and use power tools like a saw drill or even an ax to cut a two foot by two foot hole and then drop down into the restaurant.
Like he was some kind of defunct Santa Claus. And once he was inside. He would hide in the restroom and wait until the employees came to open the store up in the morning, at which point he would emerge with a weapon, order them into a walk-in fridge. And basically he would announce that he's sticking up the place.
However, he would also politely advise them to grab their jackets first because he's about to lock them in the cooler or in the freezer. yeah, so he was nice enough to at least provide them with a way to not freeze to death.
Melissa: you don't want your
hostages to get frostbite. That
Mandy: Of course.
Melissa: no-no, but he literally did tell him that he told them to bundle up before locking them in this [00:07:00] fridge. And witnesses described him as being a cordial character and a real gentleman, and some people called him mellow, businesslike, and very focused. He was so weirdly considerate that he'd actually joke with employees, things like, Hey, at least you get the rest of the day off, which you don't even know that for
sure. Jeffrey, you don't know that?
Mandy: And in most of these jobs, they probably aren't giving you the rest of the day off.
Melissa: it back up. Keep going. Let's put up, you know, a mat over the roof. We gotta keep making burgers. But then he would empty the registers, bring them to the cooler, and call the police afterwards to let them out. McDonald's officials even joke that they had their own real life Hamburglar one rep told reporters he likes us.
He's very brand loyal, a loyal customer, and we work hard to build that loyalty, which is crazy. when we did the Wendy's story about the chili? They did everything they could to, you know, separate themselves from this, this. They're like, we got him. We got him good. He
really just loves us.
Mandy: [00:08:00] And meanwhile, here you are just buying Diet Cokes from every McDonald's.
Melissa: gosh.
Mandy: step up your game.
Melissa: I know I've gotta do better. and fun fact, Jeffrey actually did work at a McDonald's in the early nineties, so he did have some brand loyalty, I guess, but. Don't let Jeffrey's politeness fool you. He was absolutely armed and dangerous. He carried a semi-automatic handgun and had no problem using it During one robbery, when an employee hit him with a bucket, Jeffrey pistol whipped him, and he fired his gun into a wall to show people he means business.
He also shot out a glass door to escape and even blasted a phone so no one could call for help. Still the legend of roof Man. Spread fast. the Sacramento Bee dubbed him The most courteous thief in the nation. One McDonald's manager recalled. He was really polite.
He was apologizing. He was saying, would you please ma'am, get on the floor? Would you please ma'am get down? I'm like, I think we're putting too much into the fact that he uses the [00:09:00] word ma'am. Um, they're like, whoa, that's crazy. He must be really nice. But by this point, he wasn't just Robbie McDonald, he was hitting Burger Kings.
There goes that. Brand loyalty, I guess Blockbusters, home Depots and Toys R Rest stores. But he did have a soft spot for the golden arches. Maybe it was nostalgia, Maybe it was a Diet Coke. Either way, the Ruman was
just getting started.
Mandy: After months of heist that spanned from California to the East Coast, roof man's polite crime. Spree had now reached cartoonish proportions by early 2000. His technique had inspired a string of copycat break-ins across the country, which of course, frustrated law enforcement and confused pretty much everyone.
But his crime stretched across nine states, California, Nevada, Oregon, Minnesota, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, and Massachusetts, literally all over the country.
Melissa: Yeah, so random.
Mandy: Yeah, but the pattern was so specific that the California Department of Justice [00:10:00] actually assigned an agent just to coordinate this multi-state investigation.
Detectives were running themselves ragged at trying to stake out every McDonald's with a roof, which is, I guess all of them as it would turn out. Uh, you never know where the roof man's gonna pop up. But then in May of 2000, by pure coincidence, the police actually found him. 28-year-old Army Sergeant Jeffrey Manchester was in North Carolina for an annual training exercise with his army reserve boat unit when the law finally caught up to him.
So it started in Gastonia. Just after midnight, a McDonald's manager on East Franklin Boulevard told police that a masked man had popped out of the women's restroom with a 22 caliber rifle. And he ordered the staff to open the safe before locking everyone inside the freezer after reminding them to put on their jackets, of course, and then he slipped out the back door with about $1,300 in cash.
The hole that he had cut in the roof caused about $200 in damage. Five [00:11:00] hours later, another McDonald's. This one was in Belmont, which was just 15 miles away, was hit in the exact same way, and this time he got away with over $6,700. The employees in that location managed to kick their way outta the cooler and call for help themselves within hours.
Officers from multiple departments swarmed the area. They stopped a car that matched witness descriptions, and the driver who turned out to be Jeffrey bolted into the woods a short chase. Later they found him lying flat in tall grass, clutching a rifle. He also had drills, prying tools, hammers, and a nylon bag full of cash, and in true roof man fashion.
When the officers arrested him, there was no resisting arrest at all. Instead, he actually smiled and said. You guys did a real good job today.
Melissa: Okay. But I do feel like I can relate a little bit to Jeffrey in this, instance when I got a [00:12:00] speeding ticket one time I told the officer, you know, thank you so much. Thanks for keeping people safe.
Like, I was just, I was
legitimately trying to
Mandy: You're like giving him Pat on the back like.
Melissa: was, and I was like, thank you so much. And he looked at me like he was gonna, you know, hurt me. And I'm like. I, and then you realize like, oh, she's not being sarcastic, she's just stupid. And um, so when he, when he said that, I'm like, I, I might, I might be so inclined
to do the same thing, say, good job.
You
Mandy: Yeah.
Melissa: worked hard on this one. But, so it's not every day we hear about criminals going down with manners, but the politeness. Couldn't keep Jeffrey from answering to a laundry list of charges, including eight counts of first degree kidnapping, two counts of robbery with a dangerous weapon, two counts of felony breaking and entering, and one count of possession of burglary tools, not burglars. That's how I wanted to read that. But at that point, California had already built a whole infrastructure to catch him. There was a dedicated ruman website, a [00:13:00] hotline, And even a psychological profile that pegged him as being a single college age man with military experience,
which good job
Mandy: Spot on. Yep.
Melissa: Nice job Psychology. So his trial ends up kicking off in October of 2000 in North Carolina. But right before opening arguments, Jeffrey pulls a total curve ball out of nowhere.
He pleads guilty to five felony charges robbery with a dangerous weapon, breaking and entering and possession of burglary tools. And his lawyer made it clear like, This isn't part of any kind of plea deal. He just did it. but he obviously did not take the kidnapping charges, which I don't blame him if you're gonna take
any of them.
I would not wanna be the
Mandy: No. Yeah.
Melissa: known to the kidnapper. Even so the other nine charges went forward, including eight of those for kidnapping and one for possession of a weapon of mass destruction, or from the early two thousands we heard a lot about WMDs, which for the record, his weapon of mass destruction was a saw off shotgun. Judge Jesse Caldwell even told [00:14:00] jurors they couldn't be informed of those earlier guilty pleas until after testimony ended. just to keep things fair, which makes sense. You can't go into
it being like, this guy just pleaded guilty to
Mandy: Right.
Melissa: and it's all with this same crime.
Okay, he's gotta be guilty. So during the trial, employees testified about the terrifyingly Polite robber who climbed through bathroom ceilings, made them lie down and again told them to grab their jackets before locking them in the 33 degree walk-in cooler. In one case, he even let them remove sausage patties from the grill before locking the door and securing it with a metal lemon
slicer.
Mandy: He is innovative. If not, if, if nothing else.
Melissa: This is a little MacGyver I
Mandy: Yeah,
Melissa: or mag
Groupish.
Mandy: ber.
Melissa: mag, When the dust settled, the jury convicted him on seven counts of kidnapping and one weapons offense. At just 28 years old, Jeffrey Manchester was sentenced to 32 to 45 years in prison. And remember, California is already waiting in [00:15:00] the wings with plans to charge him for another 25 robberies that matched his exact mo. And one sheriff spokesman even said quote, there's no sense in us bringing him here when he's gonna serve that much time there. The guy will probably never get out of jail and wouldn't, you know she was wrong. And we then we have more to get into after a quick break to hear a word from this week's sponsors.
Marker
Melissa: And now back to the episode.
Marker
Melissa: Okay.
Mandy: So before the break, we were getting into the story of Jeffrey Manchester, who was just one of the most creative, polite criminals I think we've heard about. He likes to rob McDonald's. Not really Rob. Well, yeah, I guess he's robbing them. He is robbing them. He's, he's robbing them. But the authorities did finally catch up to him, and he was sentenced to a pretty hefty sentence of 32 to 45 years.
Keep in mind, he was bringing weapons. It was technically armed robbery on top of robbery. No matter how polite,
Melissa: And
Mandy: but, and kidnapping, yes. But by 2004, Jeffrey had [00:16:00] been behind bars for four years. He was quietly serving his sentence at Brown Creek Correctional Institution in North Carolina. There he was actually described as a model prisoner, which probably isn't that surprising considering how polite he is.
But he worked in the facilities, metal fabrication, plant making bed frames and lockers. Apparently he had also been using those same skills for a few extracurricular activities, like plotting one of the most creative escapes in state history. On June 15th, 2004, Jeffrey put his plan into action. He had secretly built a false plywood platform.
Basically this was a fake panel that he could lay under, and he used it to hide beneath one of the delivery trucks that left the prison grounds daily, like. This is crazy.
Melissa: Yeah.
Mandy: So camouflaged with debris and junk. He was able to ride out of the prison completely unnoticed. When the truck finally passed the perimeter fence, he waited for the right moment and then slid out and [00:17:00] vanished.
A math teacher from the prison actually gave him a ride to a nearby gas station, completely unaware that she had just chuffed an escapee.
Melissa: Okay. When I was looking at this before, I just read a math teacher, I didn't realize it was a
math teacher From the prison?
Mandy: From the prison? Yes.
Melissa: happen?
Mandy: Yeah. So from there, Jeffrey hitched a ride with a trucker headed towards Charlotte about 40 miles northwest, and then he disappeared from the grid entirely. Investigators assumed he would just head straight back to Sacramento where his ex-wife and kids lived, but instead he did the opposite.
He was too smart for that. He stayed in North Carolina and literally went underground. Jeffrey found a hiding place inside of a Toys R Us on East Independence Boulevard in Charlotte. So for six whole months, while the police had no clue where he'd gone, the roof man was actually living inside the walls of a toy store,
Melissa: Unreal.
Mandy: is crazy and creepy.
[00:18:00] And every time I go to any place now, I'm gonna be like, is there somebody living in the walls here?
Melissa: Just like knocking on walls. I
don't
Mandy: Yes.
Melissa: know if you're there. Just stay there.
Mandy: Yeah,
so Jeffrey was surviving at the Toys R Us on baby Food. He was working out by riding bicycles across the roof at night, and he would even entertain himself by racing remote controlled cars up there on the roof and just having a grand old time in Toys R Us.
Melissa: This reminds me of blank check. This sounds like something the kid in blank
check would wanna do. Just do
Mandy: Yes.
Melissa: is your oyster. And by that I mean toys are Rus. And if I had to eat baby food, I would be looking at another place to go. Chipotle. I'd
go the top of there. That's where I
Mandy: Yeah, right, like, can't you leave and get food? Like, why would you eat from Toys R Us? I don't know. That does not make a whole lot of sense. but to keep tabs on the employees so that he wouldn't get caught, he actually cracked open a few baby monitors, courtesy of Toys R Us, and used those as surveillance cameras.
So like not only is he like living in the walls, but he also has the place bugged with baby monitors so that he can keep tabs on everyone working there.
But like you [00:19:00] said, it reminds you kind of like a blank check thing. This reminded me of that movie. I used to watch it a lot when I was a Chi A child where the heart is.
Yes. With Natalie Portman.
Melissa: other favorite movie. That's the
Mandy: Yes.
Melissa: came up. I love, I wanted to name my
baby Americas.
Mandy: And what kind of name even is that for a child?
Melissa: name.
Mandy: It's not a good name.
Melissa: it, but
Mandy: No. And I've never heard that name since that movie, so obviously it's not a legitimate name. But yeah, so if you've never seen the movie, uh, where the Heart is, it's a little bit of an older movie, has Natalie Portman, and the basic premise is that she's a pregnant teenager and her like jerk boyfriend drops her off and leaves her, like he takes her to a Walmart and just leaves her there and.
She just kind of like kicks it and lives in there for a while. And like you like that's like the Yeah, she lives in a tent. She like uses the products in the store that she needs to use. and then of course it's like, you know, the people of the town or she meets a friend. I forget exactly how it resolves, but they come together to help her.
Melissa: that. Ann
Mandy: But she gives birth to the baby in the Walmart, right? [00:20:00] Doesn't she have the baby?
Melissa: correctly, I think that's how she got found out.
Mandy: Right. '
Melissa: cause I think Walmart ended up giving her something. I don't know. I, number one is where the heart is. Number
two is
Mandy: Memento?
Melissa: and I will die on that hill.
Mandy: Yes. Yeah.
Melissa: While nobody's giving birth in a Walmart, it still manages to get weirder When Toys R Us got too busy, he'd just sneak out over to the vacant Circuit City next door because apparently one hideout wasn't enough. But why does he keep going to these like electronic places and stuff for kids? Like, go to a
food place, please.
Mandy: Well, I feel like at least the Circuit City was vacant, so
Melissa: That's true.
Okay. Good point. Good
Mandy: yeah, I mean, that was probably just an opportunistic thing, like, oh, well this place is vacant, so this will work.
Melissa: Well, I guess only one of us has the mind of a criminal. So for months, employees at Toys R Us noticed strange things that were happening in the store. There's a guy named Don Roberson and he'd worked there since high school and he started finding fresh bike tire tracks in places they didn't belong. There was also [00:21:00] schedules in the computer system that kept changing randomly And the biggest one is the alarm went off constantly. It went off so often that the management actually just. Stop setting it,
which
Mandy: Seems counterproductive.
Melissa: absolutely. But then one morning in the fall, a coworker came running up to dawn with the news. Someone had been living inside the freaking store walls behind a section near the Power Wheels display. They found a false wall, this hidden panel that blended perfectly in with the store shelving. Behind it was a tiny secret room with a Spider-Man bedsheet. an inflatable pool float for a mattress. A Spider-Man, two poster, and even a Nerf basketball hoop. I'm out on the inflatable pool for, uh, um, a mattress. Your in Toys R Us. I, there's gotta be
Babies R Us stuff in there.
Mandy: Like get a,
or I'm sure they have crib mattresses even like, can't you just
Melissa: what Waste
Mandy: drag one of those in [00:22:00] there?
Melissa: a couple in there. What are you
Mandy: I know
Melissa: But the, the Spider-Man two poster
is really what just brings it all
Mandy: he just wanted a little, he had to liven up his space a little bit.
Melissa: You gotta produce some pizazz. So at first, everyone, including the police, just assumed it was an unhoused man who had snuck in and left.
But nope, Jeffrey had just packed up his things and moved deeper into the building. So he starts showering at a local gym. He's stealing snacks and supplies and casually blending in with customers during the day. By December as the holiday season picked up, he relocated fully to Circuit City. He actually tunneled his way in and built a spring loaded door using a board and a bungee cord so
he could come and go undetected.
Mandy: Circuit City and Toys R Us.
Melissa: I love how it's just like you wake up and you're like, what am I feeling today? Do I wanna, do I want noise or do I want quiet? So his new. Apartment [00:23:00] was tucked into a stairwell. It was about four feet by 10 feet and decorated with really all the essentials. Again, the Spider-Man sheets, a Superman poster, Toyota Figurines, and also a mini DVD collection that included matchstick men, 40 days and 40
nights.
And Spider-Man, two
Mandy: Take Spider-Man fan.
Melissa: big Spider-Man fam. So he even installed a smoke detector and a fire extinguisher because hey, safety first, even for those of
us committing crimes.
Mandy: Gotta look out for number one.
Melissa: Absolutely.
Mandy: So while the police assumed that Jeffrey was long gone, the roof man was quietly building a whole new life, one that looked perfectly normal on the outside. In early November, 2004, a local pastor named Ron Smith noticed a new visitor attending Sunday service at Crossroads Church on Monroe Road in Charlotte.
After the service, pastor Ron greeted this newcomer who introduced himself as John Zorn. So being a sports [00:24:00] fan, Ron asked if he was related to Jim Zorn, the former Seattle Seahawks quarterback, and Jeffrey smiled and said that he wasn't. But soon this John Guy was showing up regularly. He helped with Wednesday night Bible studies, hit the local gym.
He went to dental appointments, and he even gave Pastor Ron a gift of the first two seasons of Seinfeld on DVD. Totally normal what you would expect for a fugitive living in the walls of a circuit city.
Melissa: But I am like, okay, so we got it from Circuit City, obviously. No way you got it at Toys R Us. But I was like that if somebody gave me that gift, I
could look past a whole lot of
things. So
Mandy: Right. Yeah. So then at a church singles brunch at TGI Fridays, Jeffrey met Lee Wainscott. This is the woman who would later help bring him down. Lee later described him as very, very charming, funny, romantic, and the most sensitive man, and the chemistry was instant. She even asked him out first and they started dating shortly thereafter.
[00:25:00] Jeffrey told her he worked for the government, but that his job was classified, which of course is like the oldest lie in the book and also very convenient. When you, you, I mean, how else do you explain your situation when you can just say, I, I can't tell you my situation. It's classified.
Melissa: has anyone actually been told, oh, I can't say anything. I work for the government and they actually worked for the government. 'cause
I don't think we've ever had a story like
Mandy: I don't know.
Melissa: I work in the government
Mandy: No, you don't. Right? Yeah. And 'cause even if you work for the government. I don't, I think, isn't it like fight club? Like you can't even say you work for the government. Like you can't even be vague about it, like
Melissa: Yeah, And you can punch Brad Pitt in the face.
Mandy: Yeah, exactly. So Lee said that Jeffrey was attentive and thoughtful.
He bought her diamond earrings, elegant scarves and toys for her three kids. They decorated her Christmas tree together. They went to the movies and spent the holidays as if everything was completely normal. Jeffrey also volunteered with the church's outreach program. He helped collect and distribute toys to families in need.
And of course, this [00:26:00] is ironic because those toys had been lifted straight off the shelves of the toys arrest that he was scamming
Melissa: Ironic or iconic?
Mandy: well. Well,
Melissa: No, it is.
it, well, it's just messed up
because
Mandy: it is.
Melissa: stuff. He's not paying for
Mandy: Of course, right
Melissa: thing to be like, no, I brought these and everyone's like,
Jeffrey, or whatever his name was, then
Mandy: John,
Melissa: John's. So nice. If you
think, oh my gosh, can you believe how jitters
Mandy: right?
Melissa: is? And he's just like sleeping on his little, you know. Air
mattress. Not air mattress
Mandy: his, pool, floaty.
Melissa: his pool floaty.
Gimme a break.
Mandy: I know.
So meanwhile though, while he's playing Mr. Generosity, he was still living in his sterile hideout next door to the very store that he robbed. He would be sneaking in and outta there every night like Batman if Batman was broken. Really like Spider-Man,
Melissa: That should be one of those parody movies. Um, but his double life was really starting to crumble. You can only do these things for [00:27:00] so long, so. For all of his resourcefulness, Jeffrey still needs cash. Investigators later said he probably broke into a pawn shop and stole a gun, and they'd also suspected that he'd been tampering with employees schedules at Toys R Us, which gave him private access to the building. Then came the tipping point. It was the day after Christmas with the stores cash reserves at their all time highest. He tried to rob the Toys R Us again, but this time employees hit the alarm, which I'm glad that alarm's working since they deactivated the others and quickly canine units swarmed the scene before he could get away. A few days later, a Charlotte police officer named Fred Allen noticed something odd about this supposedly vacant Circuit City next door. The building still had power, but there was just this one section that stayed completely dark. So upon investigating this, he found a camouflaged makeshift door. Behind it, officers discovered Jeffrey's secret living quarters [00:28:00] and just one fingerprint was all it took to confirm that he was in fact. The escaped convict Jeffrey Manchester. When his mugshot aired on the nightly news. Jeffrey panicked before Don. He drove to his dentist office and set it on fire, apparently to destroy his dental records. This
is where I'm like what?
Mandy: Yeah.
Melissa: 12 hours to come up with a decision and
your decision was obviously
Mandy: ARS said, let's burn down the dentist's office.
Melissa: Not even to break it
and steal his records. He's like, I
Mandy: Right? Just burn the whole place down.
Melissa: Unreal.
Mandy: if you've ever looked at the, if you've ever looked behind the counter and seen like how they file those things, I would probably just opt to burn the place down too. 'cause I, I feel like I would never find my own records.
Melissa: If they don't have it in alphabetic order, I'm out of there. So his plan failed, obviously, and within hours, his house of cards was really collapsing. There were members of this church that he goes to. They recognize him and they immediately alert the police. [00:29:00] Realizing that this well groomed John Zorn, who'd been helping with Bible studies, was actually a wanted fugitive when detectives broke the news to his girlfriend, Lee, she of course was devastated. She told reporters that she was numb, hysterical, and she really refused to believe it until they showed her proof online. Then on her 40th birthday, no less, Lee agreed to help the police set him up. She called Jeffrey and pretended that everything was fine, and asked him to pick her up at seven o'clock that night. Instead of waiting at her apartment though, she sat in a cop car in a Chili's parking lot, listening to the police radio as the takedown unfolded. She later said all she heard during that time was nothing but shouting and wrestling. She said she started to cry because she felt so badly But as one detective put it, Jeffrey's fatal mistake was going back for the girl one last time. and we still have more to get into after one last break to hear word from this week's sponsors
Marker
Melissa: and now
back to the episode.
Marker
[00:30:00]
Mandy: So before the break, we have told the story of Jeffrey Manchester, who escaped from prison, lived inside. Toys us and a circuit city. He was very living high on the hog with two, two residences at this time.
Melissa: to print that statement out and just put it, put it somewhere around me when
I just get too hot for my britches
Mandy: Yeah.
Melissa: like,
well, I could be doing this.
Mandy: Yeah. Uh, and he was just mingling with the local community, going to church, visiting gyms, having a whole relationship, until the point that all of it came crumbling down and he was caught and arrested. So after his arrest, Jeffrey wasn't defiant or angry. He never really had been the type to be defiant or angry.
according to everyone who met him, he was very remorseful and humbled. He told Lee that he felt awful about deceiving everyone and encouraged her to stay strong and keep pursuing the things we talked about. Lee later said, I don't hate him. I'm disappointed and confused. I don't know whether to [00:31:00] smack him or hug him, which is like, I get it honestly, in this.
Melissa: has to be, this is the craziest thing that could happen to somebody you cared about and you've gotta be just like second guessing yourself all along, but also it's the craziest thing you've ever heard. So like you
were one in a trillion lee.
Mandy: Yeah,
Melissa: just,
Mandy: yeah.
Melissa: wonder
you feel that way.
Mandy: yeah. So when police asked why a churchgoing dad with military training would abandon a normal life for such a bizarre double existence, he didn't really have much of an answer. The only real clue came from his timing. The roof man robberies had started right after his marriage ended, so maybe he was trying to reinvent himself or maybe he just liked living out his own secret identity fantasies like the superheroes whose posters, you know, he had displayed all over his little hideout.
But after his capture, crossroads, Presbyterian Church faced a ton of public scrutiny for having unknowingly welcomed a fugitive into their congregation, which obviously how could they [00:32:00] know it's not their fault?
Melissa: when I
read that, I was like,
Mandy: It's a church. Of course, they welcomed him in. Like why is everyone acting like that's the craziest thing?
They're like, really, this church welcomed in? This person who was coming and like was genuinely being a nice guy at the church. Like of course they did like, you know, like
Melissa: did. And also people from the church are who, some of who called
to rat 'em out. So
like,
Mandy: Right.
Melissa: you
want from these people?
Mandy: Right. But Pastor Ron Smith ended up writing a letter to the editor defending the church. You know, he explained that Jeffrey hadn't hidden as much as people thought. He actually filled out a church communication card using his real name, address, and phone number. And Pastor Ron also wrote that Jeffrey told him that if, that he had never felt more accepted or loved than he did at Crossroads.
So, you know, the pastor's like. We were doing what the church does, like, you know, like I, we weren't doing anything wrong here. But the pastor's letter to the editor kind of ended with this line that said the story wasn't about an escaped, convict fooling a church, but it was about a community that welcomed an outsider without [00:33:00] judgment
Melissa: Jeffrey went back to court in December, 2005. This time it was in Charlotte, and he faced this new round of charges, armed robbery, breaking and entering, kidnapping again, and weapon possession related to his post escape crimes. He was convicted on all major counts and got another 40 years to be served concurrently with his previous sentence. Police later admitted that as dangerous as he was, They couldn't help but respect his precision, One detective even said, you hate to compliment the guy because he's a dirt bag, but we can learn a lot from him. That's, that's pretty good. And another said, it wouldn't surprise me if he managed to escape again given his craftiness, which totally agree and they weren't totally wrong. While serving his time at Central Prison in Raleigh, North Carolina, Jeffrey tried to escape twice more once in February, 2009, and again in October, 2017. But both attempts failed. His latest disciplinary [00:34:00] infraction came in April, 2020 for possessing a controlled substance. Still, he remained strangely calm and of course polite Jeffrey will be eligible for release in 2036 when he is 65 years old, meaning he will have spent over half his life behind bars, and yet the Ruman story doesn't end there. In October, 2025, Hollywood released the film Ruman starring Channing Tatum as Jeffrey and Kirsten Dunst as Lee. I haven't seen it yet, but it's a darkly funny crime dramedy that explores how this charm and loneliness and really delusion, collides into this one man's bizarre life. Channing Tatum actually talked to the real Jeffrey Manchester four times a week for four years while
preparing for this role, which
Mandy: That's wild.
Melissa: Yeah. Uh, the director also interviewed the cops who arrested him saying quote. The more I heard his story, the more I just couldn't believe it was real. I talked to the police who arrested him, and sure enough, they said, yeah, that's what happened. [00:35:00] And quote Jeffrey who was still in prison joked that they should have cast someone uglier than Channing Tatum, but later said they had a lot in common. On the Today Show, Channing admitted that he thought the script was actually too wild to be true until the director reminded him, quote, if this were fiction, we'd be the worst screenwriters on the face of the earth. And quote As for Lee, she is now happily married and she says Jeffrey still calls her once a week from prison just to check in. crazy. Just crazy.
Mandy: Just a crazy, crazy story. Crazy story.
Melissa: you know, I don't wanna take away from the fact because it is such like a fun, crazy, wild story that you just can't even believe happened that he really did
abandon his whole family, abandoned
Mandy: Yes.
Melissa: and stuff, and was something with domestic violence
over there. So I do not wanna skip past that
Mandy: Right. Of course.
Melissa: serious
Mandy: armed robbery is also very serious. You can't just go in kidnapping, you can't just go locking people in freezers. Like, and all of that is terrible, right? It is terrible. [00:36:00] Um, I think the only reason that this case can be as funny as it is, is because nobody, he didn't kill anybody, you know, like, but.
The way that he was behaving. He could have killed someone, someone could have lost their life in, you know, in process of him doing this, but thankfully nobody did. And the story is just a wild story that we are able to talk about. but yeah. Melissa, if you were going to be hiding out in a store, what store would you hide out in if you had to hide out in a store?
Not, not as a fugitive, let's just say. I don't know what other reason you'd be doing it.
Melissa: Um, okay. But would I be
committing crimes while I'm in there? Like, can
Mandy: I mean, I feel like you have to commit a few crimes while you're in there, right? Like that's the whole point. Like what store? If you were gonna have to like live inside of a store secretly, what store would you choose?
Melissa: Okay. You know what I, I was gonna say Chipotle, but I'm gonna go Publix. I need to be in a grocery store. I need to have access to food
all the time. Cold. I
Mandy: But don't you need to have access to like soft things like blankets and.
Melissa: Uh, have you had a, an angel [00:37:00] food cake from Publix? Those things are soft. I could throw a few up there, make it work. okay. I didn't think that far through. I just need food. I need food and diet Coke.
Mandy: Yeah.
Melissa: It's not McDonald's Diet
Coke, but I can make it work.
Mandy: Yeah. I mean, you could also leave and just go to get McDonald's Coke, you know, whenever you needed one. I feel like I feel the same. It has to be a store that has everything. It needs to have food, but it also needs to have home. Goods and items that I can use while I'm there, like pillows and blankets and fluffy, soft things, stuffed animals.
I need all that in my little hideaway in the wall.
Melissa: eat all their like bad food at the front. Every time I pass it I'm like, these things are just
expired. There's no way. But then you could
Mandy: I always wonder, I have questions about the food at Marshalls and stuff I do.
Melissa: I have questions too. Um,
yeah, so what about you, Mandy?
Mandy: Honestly, I would probably go to like Target.
Melissa: See, that was smart.
That
Mandy: I would go to Target because they have everything. And then you have clothes, you have, you have everything that you need.
Melissa: [00:38:00] Okay. Why? Why did I
just latch onto Publix? I
Mandy: You're like,
Melissa: like two
days ago and it was so good. It's still in my
Mandy: oh my gosh, that, that's your pillow right there. That bread. They make those on.
Melissa: mm-hmm.
Mandy: yeah. I love it. I love it. All right guys. Thank you so much for listening to the episode this week. We will be back next week. Same time, same place. News story.
Melissa: Have a great week.
Mandy: Bye.
