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Speaker 1: Missing in Arizona contains graphic depictions of violence and may

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Speaker 1: not be suitable for all listeners. From iHeartRadio and Neon

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Speaker 1: thirty three, I'm John Walzac and this is Missing in Arizona,

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Speaker 1: the story of a man who disappeared after allegedly killing

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Speaker 1: his wife and kids, blowing up their suburban home, and

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Speaker 1: escaping into the wilderness. Twenty three years later, I'm hunting

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Speaker 1: Robert Fisher and I need your help. April fourth, two

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Speaker 1: thousand and two, the Arizona Republic headline Israel intensifies West

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Speaker 1: Bank assault, Hesbela missiles prompt fears of new front and

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Speaker 1: right above that Robert Fisher likely alive with new identity.

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Speaker 1: On the eve of the first anniversary of the murders,

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Speaker 1: the paper says two hundred thousand Americans, including presumably Fisher,

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Speaker 1: are living under false names to avoid capture for crimes

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Speaker 1: both large and small. It cites book called Hide Your

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Speaker 1: Assets and Disappear, a step by step guide to vanishing

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Speaker 1: without a trace by Edmund Pankow, which answers questions like

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Speaker 1: how do I create a new identity, how do I

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Speaker 1: stay lost? And how do people fake their own deaths?

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Speaker 1: From Amazon quote this invaluable guide outlines exactly what you

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Speaker 1: should know before you go, including the ever increasing difficulties

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Speaker 1: you'll face as the world becomes more tightly linked through

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Speaker 1: electronic networks. The book comes out in nineteen ninety nine.

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Speaker 1: It's an instant bestseller New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Amazon,

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Speaker 1: one of the top books in the nation. A paperback

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Speaker 1: version is released in April two thousand. Is Robert Fisher

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Speaker 1: aware of it? I don't know, but much of America is.

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Speaker 1: It isn't some obscure book. Many people doubt that Fisher

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Speaker 1: could vanish and assume a new name. Impossible, they say,

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Speaker 1: And maybe they're right today, But he disappears in a

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Speaker 1: different world. Before nine to eleven, hijacks our futures, iPhones

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Speaker 1: our retinas, and TikTok our brains, before big genealogy slurps

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Speaker 1: up our DNA and caramels pump our face into the cloud.

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Speaker 1: Is easier to evaporate, change your name, start anew, and

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Speaker 1: many people do.

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Speaker 2: Including Crazy Eddie Antar, the.

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Speaker 1: Owner of an electronics retail chain, best known for his

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Speaker 1: crazy commercials.

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Speaker 3: Ladies Gentlemen in Reindeer.

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Speaker 4: It's a crazy Any Christmas blow.

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Speaker 2: Out Flix, You'll save more money than.

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Speaker 1: Ever before, have anything and everything in a home entertainment.

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Speaker 5: You're crazy and his prices are insane.

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Speaker 1: Eddie himself didn't appear in the ads. Nonetheless, he became

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Speaker 1: such a celebrity that by nineteen eighty six in New

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Speaker 1: York he had ninety nine percent name recognition. His commercials

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Speaker 1: were parodied on SNL, and there was even a brand

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Speaker 1: of heroin named after him. His downfall involved a stabbing

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Speaker 1: a wife named Debbie, angry at a mistress named Debbie,

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Speaker 1: rampant fraud, insurance scams, sales, tax stuff, a sister slapping

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Speaker 1: fight called the New Year's Eve Massacre, and bankruptcy. Color

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Speaker 1: me shocked if we don't see a Netflix mini series

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Speaker 1: on this within a year. In nightteen nine, according to

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Speaker 1: The New York Post, he fled the country with six

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Speaker 1: passports in five different names, forty three million in cash,

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Speaker 1: and his mistress. He spent the next three years on

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Speaker 1: the run in Israel, Switzerland, Brazil, and the Cayman Islands

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Speaker 1: before he was arrested and extradited back to the US.

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Speaker 1: While at large, he used the aliases Alexander Stewart, Stuart Alexander,

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Speaker 1: Joseph Levy, Joseph Levy, Ben Ezrashlomo and Kelso. Upon capture,

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Speaker 1: a US attorney called him the Darth Vader of Capitalism.

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Speaker 1: Crazieti died in twenty sixteen. My main source here was

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Speaker 1: the book Retail Gangster, The insane real life Story of

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Speaker 1: Crazyetti by Gary weiss Elmer.

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Speaker 2: Edward Sally.

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Speaker 1: Sally was imprisoned in nineteen seventy in New Jersey for

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Speaker 1: killing his girlfriend's two year old son. Four years later,

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Speaker 1: he escaped. He moved to Florida and assumed the identity

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Speaker 1: of Vinnie Taylor, a famous guitarist for the band Shah

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Speaker 1: Nan Nah. Taylor died of a heroin overdose in nineteen

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Speaker 1: seventy four. Sally told people that he really was Taylor.

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Speaker 1: He said he faked his death. Then he started booking

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Speaker 1: gigs under the alias Daniel Danny C. Catalano. Later, he

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Speaker 1: used a real photo to promote himself online. He claimed

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Speaker 1: to be a bad boy ex member of Sean Nah

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Speaker 1: Nah and Florida's number one greaser. The band considered suing

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Speaker 1: him but chose not to. He was captured on May tenth,

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Speaker 1: two thousand and one, exactly one month after the Fisher

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Speaker 1: House exploded. He died in two thousand and seven.

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Speaker 4: Theodore John Conrad.

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Speaker 1: On July eleventh, nineteen sixty nine, the day after he

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Speaker 1: turned twenty, Ted Conrad, a bank teller, stole two hundred

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Speaker 1: and fifteen thousand dollars equivalent to one point eight million

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Speaker 1: dollars today from a vault in Cleveland. Because the theft

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Speaker 1: came late on a Friday, no one noticed it until Monday,

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Speaker 1: July fourteenth, Six days later, Man landed on the moon,

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Speaker 1: so Conrad benefited not only from a headstart on the cops,

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Speaker 1: but also from a busy news cycle. Who cares about

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Speaker 1: a bank robbery when all eyes are focused on the sky.

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Speaker 1: Conrad fled to d c then California, then Massachusetts, where

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Speaker 1: he took the name Thomas Randell, started a family and

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Speaker 1: got jobs at golf clubs and car dealerships. No one

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Speaker 1: found him for fifty two years, not until November twenty

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Speaker 1: twenty one, and by that point it was too late.

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Speaker 1: He died in May twenty twenty one. His daughter Ashley

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Speaker 1: released a podcast last year called Smokescreen My Fugitive Dad.

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Speaker 1: Jose lazarro Cruise. Cruise allegedly murdered his wife in Virginia

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Speaker 1: in nineteen ninety one, he tried to flee to Canada

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Speaker 1: before paying a smuggler to help him cross into Mexico.

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Speaker 1: He then made his way to El Salvador, where he

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Speaker 1: started a new family and got a job as a

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Speaker 1: truck driver. He was captured in twenty twenty two and

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Speaker 1: extradited to the US. As of this recording, he's a

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Speaker 1: waiting trial. My source here was CNN Robert Hogland. July

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Speaker 1: twenty seventh, twenty thirteen. After filling up his wife's car

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Speaker 1: with gas and buying a road map, Hogland, a fifty

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Speaker 1: year old Connecticut real estate appraiser, returned home to pay bills,

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Speaker 1: play scrablawnline, and mow the lawn. His wife was on vacation.

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Speaker 1: His son left the house later that morning. Sometime in

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Speaker 1: the next twenty four hours, Hoagland disappeared, leaving behind his wallet, phone, keys, passport,

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Speaker 1: and medications. His family suspected foul play. In twenty sixteen,

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Speaker 1: the case was featured on the popular TV show Disappeared

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Speaker 1: Still Nothing. After vanishing, Hoagland started a new life in

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Speaker 1: rock Hill, New York, only ninety miles away. He used

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Speaker 1: the name Richard King, got a job paying cash, and

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Speaker 1: paid cash to rent a room from a guy he

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Speaker 1: met on Craigslist. He evaded authorities and his family until

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Speaker 1: he died in December twenty twenty two.

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Speaker 2: Gloria Schultz.

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Speaker 1: In July nineteen ninety four, while driving drunk, Schultz crashed

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Speaker 1: into and killed a twenty one year old woman in Scottsdale,

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Speaker 1: only eight miles from the Fisher House. Out on bail,

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Speaker 1: she absconded in May two thousand and one, a month

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Speaker 1: after the Fisher murders. She was tried and convicted in absentia. Then, finally,

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Speaker 1: on April seventeenth, twenty twenty four, as I scripted this show,

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Speaker 1: police found out that Schultz had been living in Yellowknife, Canada,

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Speaker 1: under the name Kate Dooley. She died of cancer in

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Speaker 1: twenty nineteen. My source here was a report by True

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Speaker 1: Crime Arizona host Brianna Whitney. I could go on and on,

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Speaker 1: but you get the idea. It is possible to escape

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Speaker 1: and assume a new identity, even today, but especially in

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Speaker 1: the past. So for now, one final example. On April thirtieth,

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Speaker 1: two thousand, a year before the Fisher murders, the New

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Speaker 1: York Times magazine ran an article titled Doesn't Anybody Know

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Speaker 1: how to be a Fugitive Anymore, which profiled a man

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Speaker 1: who lived under an assumed identity for twenty eight years,

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Speaker 1: much of it at the Abode Apartment hotel in Scottsdale,

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Speaker 1: only a mile and a half from the Fisher House,

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Speaker 1: just twenty four hundred feet west of the hospital where

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Speaker 1: Robert Fisher worked in the eighties and nine nineties while

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Speaker 1: he worked there.

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Speaker 2: Okay, So the first question that I always ask people,

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Speaker 2: and I think it's especially important in these cases.

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Speaker 4: What is your name, Howard Mechanic?

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Speaker 2: What was your name for the twenty eight years?

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Speaker 4: And what she lived under and assumed the identity was

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Speaker 4: Gary Treadwaite.

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Speaker 1: May fourth, nineteen seventy Kent State National Guardsmen shoot and

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Speaker 1: kill four students protesting the Vietnam War. A photo of

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Speaker 1: a girl crying out in anguish as she crouches down

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Speaker 1: over a body spreads rapidly around the nation. Anger explodes,

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Speaker 1: college campuses burn, A riot breaks out in New York

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Speaker 1: as construction workers beat protesters in the streets and thousands

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Speaker 1: of people lay siege to city hall. Guardsmen in New

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Speaker 1: Mexico stab eleven people with bayonets police kill two students

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Speaker 1: in Mississippi. At the White House, President Richard Nixon takes

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Speaker 1: questions from reporters.

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Speaker 3: President, some Americans believe this country is heading for revolution,

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Speaker 3: and others belave the crime and dissent and violent demonstration

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Speaker 3: are leading us to an era of repression. I wonder

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Speaker 3: if you would give us your view of the state

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Speaker 3: of the American society and where it's heading.

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Speaker 2: That would require rather extended answer.

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Speaker 5: Briefly, this country is not headed for revolution, in part

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Speaker 5: because we do have the safety valves of the right.

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Speaker 1: To dissent in times of turmoil, He says, leaders should

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Speaker 1: abide by a simple rule.

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Speaker 5: When the action is hot, keep the rhetoric cool.

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Speaker 1: Reporters, twitch gears. How do you view the situation in

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Speaker 1: the Middle East.

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Speaker 5: Moments if a situation has become ominous.

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Speaker 1: Nixon also mentions our fight against inflation before circling back

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Speaker 1: to campus unrest.

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Speaker 5: When you do have a situation of a crowd throwing

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Speaker 5: rocks and the National Guard has caused it, called in

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Speaker 5: that there is always the chance that it will escalate

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Speaker 5: into the kind of a tragedy that happened at Kent

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Speaker 5: State the.

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Speaker 1: Day after Kent State. Howard Mechanic attends a protest at

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Speaker 1: Washington University in Saint Louis. Two to three thousand furious

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Speaker 1: students surround the campus ROTC building. Someone lights it on fire.

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Speaker 1: Burn Baby Burn, They can't. According to The New York

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Speaker 1: Times Kent State, Kent State, this is not the first

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Speaker 1: time Mechanic twenty two, has found himself in the middle

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Speaker 1: of a violent bedlam. He was in Chicago in nineteen

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Speaker 1: sixty eight as police assaulted protesters outside the Democratic National Convention.

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Speaker 4: The guy next to me got his head beat and

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Speaker 4: I just sort of tried to pretend I was invisible,

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Speaker 4: so had a good hit, but I was God's pretty bad.

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Speaker 2: Well, there have been moments in my life, you know,

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Speaker 2: I'm young, where it feels like everything is crumbling, especially

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Speaker 2: in the last few years, and I think that that's

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Speaker 2: a feeling shared by people on both sides of the

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Speaker 2: political aisle, whatever your beliefs, that we're at this crossoads moment.

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Speaker 2: I'm really just curious to hear your view on that.

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Speaker 2: As someone who lived through a very volatile time in

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Speaker 2: the sixties and were president at some of these very

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Speaker 2: interesting moments, what does today feel like compared to nineteen

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Speaker 2: sixty eight.

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Speaker 4: Well, if you asked me back in sixty eight what

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Speaker 4: things would look like in twenty twenty three, I would

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Speaker 4: have expected there'd be a lot more difference.

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Speaker 1: He also wouldn't have expected to spend twenty eight years

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Speaker 1: as a fugitive starting a new life using a fake name,

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Speaker 1: dodging law enforcement. That saga begins at the protest the

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Speaker 1: night of May fifth, nineteen seventy, as the ROTC Building burns,

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Speaker 1: angry students block fire trucks and throw rocks at cops

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Speaker 1: and firefighters. Someone also tosses a large firecracker called a cherrybomb.

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Speaker 1: A witness says it was mechanic who threw it. He's arrested, and,

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Speaker 1: in a stroke of bad luck, he's the first person

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Speaker 1: in the nation charged under an oppressive new law, the

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Speaker 1: nineteen sixty eight Anti Riot Act. He gets a five

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Speaker 1: year prison sentence for throwing a firecracker, which he denies doing,

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Speaker 1: based on testimony from a single witness, a student named

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Speaker 1: Donald Bird, whose story changes repeatedly.

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Speaker 4: Saying part of the time that the cherry bomb could

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Speaker 4: have come from any of several people in my vicinity.

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Speaker 4: Then he said it was propelled from my body. Then

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Speaker 4: he said I shot it with a slang shot, and

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Speaker 4: he also said I threw a cherry.

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Speaker 1: Bird dies in nineteen eighty three. Someone else later confesses

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Speaker 1: to throwing the cherry bomb, but in nineteen seventy, Mechanic

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Speaker 1: feels a sense of panic. First, he has to serve

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Speaker 1: four months in a local jail for violating a restraining

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Speaker 1: order intended to keep him off his college campus. After that,

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Speaker 1: he faces five years in federal prison for a crime

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Speaker 1: he didn't commit. While in jail, hippie hating guards, many

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Speaker 1: of them ex military, repeatedly threaten him. Once says that.

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Speaker 4: If he had a chance, he's going to put a

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Speaker 4: bullet in my head.

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Speaker 1: Guards tell other prisoners they aren't allowed to speak to Mechanic.

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Speaker 4: Because most of them are African Americans and they thought

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Speaker 4: I was going to radicalize them.

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Speaker 1: Mechanic worries someone's going to kill him, probably a guard.

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Speaker 1: He plans to appeal his federal conviction. He hopes it works,

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Speaker 1: but sitting in jail, he decides that no matter what.

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Speaker 4: I wasn't going to serve five years.

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Speaker 2: So you decided if the appeal failed that you would

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Speaker 2: see right.

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Speaker 1: The appeal fails, Mechanic gets ready to run. He needs

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Speaker 1: cash quickly. Off his record in stamp collections. That helps

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Speaker 1: a bit, but he really only has one thing of value,

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Speaker 1: a set of commemorative envelopes issued by NASA during the

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Speaker 1: Space Race, autographed by astronauts and even famed engineer Verner

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Speaker 1: von Braun. He sells it, and now it's time to go.

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Speaker 4: When I left Saint Louis, I was Howard Mechanic and

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Speaker 4: when I got on the bus, that was Gary Treadway.

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Speaker 2: How did you choose where to go? And how did

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Speaker 2: you get to Arizona.

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Speaker 4: Bought a ticket to go to Albuquerque on a bus

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Speaker 4: and it was early September. And when I got to

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Speaker 4: Albuquerque and got out of the bus, it was really cold.

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Speaker 4: I asked somebody, it's usually is cold around this time

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Speaker 4: of year, and they say, yeah, yeah, it is. And

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Speaker 4: I want to go to the Southwest because I grew

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Speaker 4: up in Cleveland. It was pretty cold, a lot of snow.

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Speaker 4: It was really thinking about the West. It was like

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Speaker 4: a vacation from a vacation to me. That's why I

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Speaker 4: wanted to get a place that was warmer. And somebody said,

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Speaker 4: this is about what it's like in Albuquerque, and I

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Speaker 4: asked them, well, where's the best place to go that's warmer,

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Speaker 4: and they said, well, Phoenix. So I had to buy

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Speaker 4: another ticket and I just got right back on the

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Speaker 4: bus and went to Tempee because I knew that was

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Speaker 4: a college town and I figured that's where I could

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Speaker 4: fit in a little better, which is exactly what happened,

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Speaker 4: because I was just a couple of years out of college,

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Speaker 4: and in a college town, people come and go all

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Speaker 4: the time. I mean, if I went to a small

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Speaker 4: town somewhere, I'd be sticking out like a sore thumb.

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Speaker 2: So you chose this area in Tempee specifically because of

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Speaker 2: the weather and your ability to go on that.

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Speaker 1: Right mechanic craft of fake biography for cover.

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Speaker 4: My story was that I didn't have a family because

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Speaker 4: my parents both died in an auto accident and I

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Speaker 4: had no siblings, so that's why they never saw me

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Speaker 4: with any family.

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Speaker 1: He tells people his father was a diplomat in Africa.

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Speaker 1: He gets a job at a health food store, but

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Speaker 1: his manager is immediately suspicious. This new employee, who allegedly

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Speaker 1: didn't go to college, is too educated and worldly. What's

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Speaker 1: he doing in retail earning minimum wage, Mechanic begins to

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Speaker 1: purposely seem less intelligent. He also cuts himself off entirely

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Speaker 1: from his old life.

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Speaker 2: When you left Saint Louis and came to Arizona, how

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Speaker 2: many people did you remain in contact with?

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Speaker 4: None.

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Speaker 1: Within a few years, Mechanics starts his own company, distributing

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Speaker 1: health food. At the time, it's hard to find something

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Speaker 1: as simple as brown rice. He does well for himself.

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Speaker 4: I was a successful businessman. A lot of people when

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Speaker 4: they think of a fugitive, they think of Richard Jensen,

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Speaker 4: who is the star of the Fugitive TV program. And

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Speaker 4: he stayed in a town and had a job for

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Speaker 4: a couple of weeks and then had to move on.

295
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Speaker 4: Something happened, And every episode he was in a new town.

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Speaker 4: When I was a fugitive for twenty eight years, I

297
00:16:00,720 --> 00:16:03,160
Speaker 4: was never more than five miles from where I got

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Speaker 4: off the bus.

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Speaker 1: In fact, Mechanic does so well. He buys an eco friendly,

300
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Speaker 1: earth sheltered subterranean house and Tempe truly the American dream.

301
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Speaker 1: Sell your stamp collection, hop on a bus, change your name,

302
00:16:15,800 --> 00:16:19,640
Speaker 1: get a retail job, start a business, buy a subterranean home.

303
00:16:19,960 --> 00:16:23,560
Speaker 1: All it takes is some elbow grease and a time machine.

304
00:16:23,920 --> 00:16:27,000
Speaker 1: In nineteen seventy five, Mechanic attends a health food trade

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00:16:27,040 --> 00:16:29,720
Speaker 1: show in Las Vegas. It's here that he runs into

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00:16:29,760 --> 00:16:33,480
Speaker 1: a problem, or more accurately, it runs into him. Also

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00:16:33,520 --> 00:16:36,880
Speaker 1: in attendance in Vegas is one of Mechanic's former classmates.

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Speaker 1: Ben's aerkor.

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00:16:38,080 --> 00:16:40,720
Speaker 4: He recognized me. I recognized him, and we were like

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Speaker 4: twenty feet away and saw us trying to walk in

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Speaker 4: into direction, and he'd followed me a sidis turned around

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Speaker 4: and said, I Ben, let's go over to your talk.

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Speaker 4: And he was the only person whoever spotted me.

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Speaker 1: Ben doesn't turn him in. In fact, the two men

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00:16:53,800 --> 00:16:58,000
Speaker 1: remain lifelong friends. Each summer, Howard visits Ben, founder of

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Speaker 1: the company Good Earth Tea, and his wife in Santa Cruz, California.

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Speaker 4: We actually went to China in seventy six, which is

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Speaker 4: another story, having a fusire of having to get a passport,

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Speaker 4: and then the passport gets lost and we have a

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Speaker 4: trip to go into China in a couple of weeks

321
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Speaker 4: and I had no passport.

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Speaker 2: You got a legitimate passport.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, all my documents are legitimate. It's a legitimate driver's license.

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Speaker 4: It's a fake name. It's not a legitimate passport. It's

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00:17:21,400 --> 00:17:23,840
Speaker 4: under Gary Treadway. I'm not Gary Treadway. So I was

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Speaker 4: committing passport violation.

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Speaker 1: With his trip to China looming and his passport missing.

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Speaker 4: Mechanic contacted Passport and I said, my passport's gone, Gary Treadway.

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Speaker 4: I was born in the state, and I need to

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Speaker 4: get a dufficate passport. And they said, well, you can't

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Speaker 4: do that. We need to get your driver's license done first,

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Speaker 4: and then you could come back and do it. And

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Speaker 4: I said, I need this in two weeks. They said,

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Speaker 4: the only way you can do that is if you

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Speaker 4: get somebody to walk in the office with you and

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Speaker 4: verify that you are Gary Treadway. And the person I

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00:17:50,359 --> 00:17:52,600
Speaker 4: brought in wasn't Ben. There was somebody who didn't know

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Speaker 4: who I was, who worked at the same company. He

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00:17:54,880 --> 00:17:57,159
Speaker 4: didn't know me, He didn't know that anything about Howard mccank.

340
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Speaker 4: He just went in and he just signed a paper

341
00:17:59,000 --> 00:18:02,640
Speaker 4: stand I'm verified this person is Gary Treadway. And that's

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Speaker 4: how I got to dolicod passport.

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00:18:04,600 --> 00:18:08,359
Speaker 1: Meanwhile, as Mechanic travels to China, investigators are still trying

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00:18:08,400 --> 00:18:11,760
Speaker 1: to find him. Lucky for them, he has a critical weakness.

345
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Speaker 4: One thing I'm going to recommend is if you have

346
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Speaker 4: an identical twin brother, don't be a fugitive.

347
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Speaker 1: That's right, missing fugitive. Howard Mechanic has a twin Harvey Mechanic.

348
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Speaker 4: Pricey posters of Robert Fisher and they have him aged

349
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Speaker 4: this was what he might look like. Because it's been

350
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Speaker 4: so many years, they try to artificially age in the computer.

351
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Speaker 4: And back then they didn't have computers. They had artists.

352
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Speaker 4: But they didn't need that for me because they had

353
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Speaker 4: pictures of Harvey. They would take pictures of Harvey and say,

354
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Speaker 4: this is what he looks like.

355
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Speaker 2: How close did that match up? Later on when you

356
00:18:41,200 --> 00:18:43,320
Speaker 2: were looking at photos that you guys age time.

357
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Speaker 4: Well, actually, I was a heavy one when we were

358
00:18:45,520 --> 00:18:47,400
Speaker 4: a kid. They used to call me load, but now

359
00:18:47,440 --> 00:18:50,800
Speaker 4: he's a heavy one. For decades, they hassled him all

360
00:18:50,840 --> 00:18:53,520
Speaker 4: the time because whenever he was stopped and he showed

361
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Speaker 4: his identification, they thought he could be me, and so

362
00:18:56,240 --> 00:18:59,040
Speaker 4: they brought him into the police station to get him fingerprinted,

363
00:18:59,080 --> 00:19:01,640
Speaker 4: and they have to run a finger prince to Washington

364
00:19:01,800 --> 00:19:03,800
Speaker 4: and they'd hold him for a while until that was cleared,

365
00:19:03,840 --> 00:19:06,359
Speaker 4: and that happened to him on a couple occasions, and

366
00:19:06,480 --> 00:19:09,560
Speaker 4: so he had enough, and he got false identification and

367
00:19:09,600 --> 00:19:12,480
Speaker 4: he was living under his normal name. But if he

368
00:19:12,560 --> 00:19:15,560
Speaker 4: was ever stopped, he pulled out his false identification and

369
00:19:15,720 --> 00:19:17,879
Speaker 4: was never pulled into the police station again.

370
00:19:18,119 --> 00:19:21,919
Speaker 1: Harvey the twin later joins the Harry Krishna movement, shaved

371
00:19:21,960 --> 00:19:25,399
Speaker 1: head devotees in orange robes hand out flowers at airports,

372
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Speaker 1: highly highly visible. Howard is now afraid that Harry Krishna

373
00:19:30,000 --> 00:19:32,960
Speaker 1: will recognize him and then figure out, no, wait, that's

374
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Speaker 1: not Harvey, it's Howard the Fugitive. One time in Tempe,

375
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Speaker 1: Howard is in a grocery store and.

376
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Speaker 4: A guy Christiana guy which she can spot, a Christian

377
00:19:40,880 --> 00:19:43,159
Speaker 4: guy for a mile away sort walked by me and

378
00:19:43,359 --> 00:19:45,920
Speaker 4: turned around and he said, Megendra, what are you doing

379
00:19:45,920 --> 00:19:49,400
Speaker 4: here or something like that. Magendra's Harry Christna name Harvey Head.

380
00:19:49,600 --> 00:19:51,520
Speaker 4: So I said, you got the wrong person, and I

381
00:19:51,600 --> 00:19:52,760
Speaker 4: just sort of left real quick.

382
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Speaker 1: In nineteen seventy two, when he flees Saint Louis, Howard

383
00:19:56,400 --> 00:19:59,000
Speaker 1: leaves his family a note that's the last they hear

384
00:19:59,040 --> 00:20:02,159
Speaker 1: from him. Six months. Then he calls his aunt from

385
00:20:02,200 --> 00:20:04,680
Speaker 1: a payphone, tells her to have his parents come over

386
00:20:04,720 --> 00:20:07,760
Speaker 1: the following Sunday at a set time. This is how

387
00:20:07,800 --> 00:20:11,440
Speaker 1: he speaks to them for years without detection. He knows

388
00:20:11,480 --> 00:20:14,840
Speaker 1: the investigators are surveilling their phone bills, but he guesses

389
00:20:14,920 --> 00:20:17,080
Speaker 1: correctly that no one's monitoring his aunt.

390
00:20:17,320 --> 00:20:19,719
Speaker 2: How often were you able to communicate with your family

391
00:20:19,880 --> 00:20:21,280
Speaker 2: and evade detectionment.

392
00:20:21,040 --> 00:20:23,919
Speaker 4: Well, I evaded detection the whole time for twenty eight years,

393
00:20:24,040 --> 00:20:26,720
Speaker 4: and my parents stayed with me. By the time two

394
00:20:26,720 --> 00:20:29,200
Speaker 4: thousand came around, they were living in the apartment next

395
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Speaker 4: door to me at my apartment hotel. They would winter

396
00:20:31,760 --> 00:20:34,120
Speaker 4: in Arizona. They would come out every winter and stay

397
00:20:34,160 --> 00:20:35,320
Speaker 4: in the apartment next door to me.

398
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Speaker 1: In nineteen eighty, Mechanic marries a woman named Ingrid Gold,

399
00:20:39,240 --> 00:20:42,440
Speaker 1: but before the wedding there's a problem. In the early seventies,

400
00:20:42,520 --> 00:20:46,199
Speaker 1: he visited a forger to obtain fake birth certificates.

401
00:20:45,800 --> 00:20:47,639
Speaker 4: Told them to print a couple for me. Well, he

402
00:20:47,760 --> 00:20:49,480
Speaker 4: printed like fifty of them, and I said, glad to

403
00:20:49,520 --> 00:20:51,760
Speaker 4: give me fifty, He says, Once trinders are running, it's

404
00:20:51,760 --> 00:20:53,479
Speaker 4: only like a minute, So here's fifty.

405
00:20:53,720 --> 00:20:56,240
Speaker 1: Mechanic hides them in the back of his closet. Then,

406
00:20:56,400 --> 00:20:58,840
Speaker 1: while away, one day, his roommate and wife to be

407
00:20:59,080 --> 00:21:00,560
Speaker 1: start rifling around and.

408
00:21:00,520 --> 00:21:03,600
Speaker 4: They found fifty birth certificates. They contact me and say,

409
00:21:03,600 --> 00:21:07,400
Speaker 4: what's going on here? So that's how she found out.

410
00:21:07,560 --> 00:21:10,040
Speaker 2: So she knew when you got married, she knew.

411
00:21:10,200 --> 00:21:13,119
Speaker 1: Yeah, Mechanic tells Ingrid his real identity.

412
00:21:13,359 --> 00:21:16,440
Speaker 2: Well, I imagine on Ingrid's part when she found fifty

413
00:21:16,680 --> 00:21:19,360
Speaker 2: copies of your birth certificate, she knew something was up,

414
00:21:19,400 --> 00:21:21,560
Speaker 2: and then she finds out you're not who you say

415
00:21:21,560 --> 00:21:23,680
Speaker 2: you are. That the best way that could turn out

416
00:21:23,760 --> 00:21:27,320
Speaker 2: is maybe your Howard Mechanic and not Ted Bundy.

417
00:21:27,320 --> 00:21:29,440
Speaker 4: Right, they don't have problems like that.

418
00:21:29,560 --> 00:21:32,000
Speaker 2: She probably just breathe a cyber lisk that you weren't,

419
00:21:32,000 --> 00:21:34,400
Speaker 2: like a serial killer, a run or something.

420
00:21:35,040 --> 00:21:38,320
Speaker 1: In nineteen eighty one, Ingrid gives birth to a baby boy, Ari.

421
00:21:38,720 --> 00:21:41,520
Speaker 1: Three years later, she and Howard divorce, but they remain

422
00:21:41,600 --> 00:21:43,640
Speaker 1: friends and dedicated parents.

423
00:21:44,000 --> 00:21:45,960
Speaker 2: How old was your son when you told him?

424
00:21:46,000 --> 00:21:47,359
Speaker 4: I think he was about nine.

425
00:21:47,600 --> 00:21:49,560
Speaker 2: How did you tell him and what was his reaction?

426
00:21:49,680 --> 00:21:52,240
Speaker 4: I had him come over and we watched a documentary

427
00:21:52,280 --> 00:21:55,560
Speaker 4: called Berkeley in the Sixties, which is an excellent program.

428
00:21:55,600 --> 00:21:57,240
Speaker 4: After the movie, I said I wanted to talk to

429
00:21:57,280 --> 00:21:59,280
Speaker 4: you about something, and I told him, you know, I

430
00:21:59,320 --> 00:22:02,439
Speaker 4: was involved in activities like that against the war, and

431
00:22:02,800 --> 00:22:04,919
Speaker 4: I was charged with something I didn't do. I had

432
00:22:04,960 --> 00:22:07,520
Speaker 4: spent some time in jail, and then they charged me again,

433
00:22:07,720 --> 00:22:10,840
Speaker 4: and I didn't serve my time. I lived under assume name.

434
00:22:10,960 --> 00:22:11,840
Speaker 4: That's what I told him.

435
00:22:11,840 --> 00:22:13,880
Speaker 2: How did he process that as a nine year old?

436
00:22:14,040 --> 00:22:16,639
Speaker 4: He didn't think it changed anything. I was still as dad.

437
00:22:17,040 --> 00:22:19,960
Speaker 1: In the early eighties, with his natural food business slowing down,

438
00:22:20,080 --> 00:22:22,879
Speaker 1: Mechanic decides to invest in real estate. He buys a

439
00:22:22,920 --> 00:22:26,880
Speaker 1: twelve unit apartment complex, The Abode, in Scottsdale. He initially

440
00:22:26,920 --> 00:22:30,399
Speaker 1: outsources management to friends, but soon it's too much.

441
00:22:30,680 --> 00:22:32,680
Speaker 4: They tell him that I'm going to need to live

442
00:22:32,720 --> 00:22:34,480
Speaker 4: there to run the place, and so I had to

443
00:22:34,520 --> 00:22:36,000
Speaker 4: move out and move to Scottsdale.

444
00:22:36,200 --> 00:22:38,439
Speaker 1: Though he doesn't know it at the time, this is

445
00:22:38,480 --> 00:22:50,040
Speaker 1: the beginning of his demise. If you like this show,

446
00:22:50,119 --> 00:22:53,600
Speaker 1: please download our first two seasons, Missing in Alaska and

447
00:22:53,600 --> 00:22:56,400
Speaker 1: Missing on nine to eleven. For updates, visit meon thirty

448
00:22:56,440 --> 00:22:58,960
Speaker 1: three dot com or follow me on Twitter at John

449
00:22:59,000 --> 00:23:21,359
Speaker 1: wallzac Walczak. Thanks for listening. Howard Mechanic Lives perpetually under

450
00:23:21,359 --> 00:23:25,200
Speaker 1: the sword of Damocles. He's always one mistake away from disaster,

451
00:23:25,560 --> 00:23:28,000
Speaker 1: from being found out going to federal prison.

452
00:23:28,520 --> 00:23:32,320
Speaker 4: One day, he gets a letter from Social Security Administration

453
00:23:32,720 --> 00:23:34,359
Speaker 4: saying that we have a problem.

454
00:23:34,520 --> 00:23:37,399
Speaker 1: In nineteen seventy two, Mechanic assumed the identity of a

455
00:23:37,400 --> 00:23:41,280
Speaker 1: man named Gary Raymond Tredway. The only problem, Gary's not

456
00:23:41,400 --> 00:23:44,760
Speaker 1: actually dead, and now the real Gary and the fake

457
00:23:44,840 --> 00:23:48,040
Speaker 1: Gary are both using the same Social Security number, which

458
00:23:48,119 --> 00:23:52,280
Speaker 1: raises red flags. Mechanic responds quickly saying, Oops, there's been

459
00:23:52,320 --> 00:23:55,399
Speaker 1: a mistake. My name is actually Gary Robert Treadway. The

460
00:23:55,440 --> 00:23:59,520
Speaker 1: Feds ask for a proof, Howard, excuse me. Gary pulls

461
00:23:59,560 --> 00:24:02,760
Speaker 1: out one of his fifty Ford's birth certificates. He plans

462
00:24:02,800 --> 00:24:05,520
Speaker 1: to change his middle name from Raymond to Robert, but

463
00:24:05,640 --> 00:24:08,159
Speaker 1: first he needs to find a typewriter that matches the

464
00:24:08,200 --> 00:24:08,920
Speaker 1: exact print.

465
00:24:09,119 --> 00:24:11,359
Speaker 4: And I actually had to go to four or five

466
00:24:11,560 --> 00:24:14,440
Speaker 4: thrift stores to try to find the same typewriter because

467
00:24:14,440 --> 00:24:16,800
Speaker 4: I got a birth certificate from nineteen forty eight.

468
00:24:17,119 --> 00:24:21,560
Speaker 1: Finally, miraculously he finds the right typewriter. He submits the

469
00:24:21,600 --> 00:24:25,080
Speaker 1: double fake birth certificate. He's free and clear for now,

470
00:24:25,440 --> 00:24:28,000
Speaker 1: But what a close call. He knows he needs a

471
00:24:28,000 --> 00:24:31,720
Speaker 1: backup plan, an escape hatch just in case. He needs

472
00:24:31,720 --> 00:24:34,440
Speaker 1: a third identity so if someone catches him he can

473
00:24:34,440 --> 00:24:37,080
Speaker 1: flee again. He heads to a cemetery.

474
00:24:37,280 --> 00:24:40,440
Speaker 4: I found a gravestone and saw the birth date. Anybody

475
00:24:40,480 --> 00:24:42,840
Speaker 4: born forty eight. I was looking for somebody maybe who

476
00:24:42,880 --> 00:24:45,399
Speaker 4: died before. They would have a social Security number if

477
00:24:45,400 --> 00:24:47,080
Speaker 4: they died when they were a kid. And I found

478
00:24:47,119 --> 00:24:49,520
Speaker 4: somebody like that, then you just check to see where

479
00:24:49,560 --> 00:24:52,480
Speaker 4: they were born. This person was born in Phoenix, so

480
00:24:52,600 --> 00:24:54,880
Speaker 4: you're right and say I need a duplicate. Here's my name,

481
00:24:54,960 --> 00:24:57,040
Speaker 4: here's my address. Send me a duplicate, and they send

482
00:24:57,080 --> 00:24:59,800
Speaker 4: the duplicate. So you didn't go to someone who forced papers.

483
00:24:59,840 --> 00:25:01,879
Speaker 4: You just found a name in a cemetery and asked

484
00:25:01,880 --> 00:25:04,199
Speaker 4: for papers. In golf, I got the birstitot. Once you

485
00:25:04,240 --> 00:25:06,720
Speaker 4: have a birst you get your driver's license. Once you

486
00:25:06,760 --> 00:25:08,680
Speaker 4: have that, you can get a passport. That's the way

487
00:25:08,680 --> 00:25:10,880
Speaker 4: it used to be, and you can't do it anymore.

488
00:25:11,000 --> 00:25:13,520
Speaker 2: You had a passport under a different name. If Gary

489
00:25:13,560 --> 00:25:16,000
Speaker 2: Strudway was exposed, were you planning to flee the country?

490
00:25:16,119 --> 00:25:18,800
Speaker 4: That was early on, but by the time I got

491
00:25:18,840 --> 00:25:21,360
Speaker 4: into the nineties and the head of sun and had

492
00:25:21,440 --> 00:25:24,280
Speaker 4: businesses and stuff. Now that wasn't anything I was going

493
00:25:24,359 --> 00:25:25,280
Speaker 4: to consider anymore.

494
00:25:25,400 --> 00:25:27,600
Speaker 2: If you had fled the country early on, where would

495
00:25:27,640 --> 00:25:28,119
Speaker 2: you have gone.

496
00:25:28,240 --> 00:25:30,119
Speaker 4: I didn't want to go to Canada. A lot of

497
00:25:30,119 --> 00:25:32,720
Speaker 4: the people who are subject to the draft they went

498
00:25:32,760 --> 00:25:35,400
Speaker 4: to Canada. A lot of my buddies, not a.

499
00:25:35,320 --> 00:25:36,840
Speaker 2: Lot of the weather that you didn't want to go.

500
00:25:36,960 --> 00:25:39,040
Speaker 4: I could have been, could have been. Also, I felt

501
00:25:39,119 --> 00:25:41,800
Speaker 4: I was an American, even though the United States government

502
00:25:41,840 --> 00:25:44,080
Speaker 4: was treating me so badly. I just filled I was

503
00:25:44,119 --> 00:25:46,639
Speaker 4: an American and I wanted to stay in the United States.

504
00:25:46,800 --> 00:25:49,520
Speaker 1: As Howard settles into Scottsdale, he's kind of lonely.

505
00:25:49,880 --> 00:25:52,360
Speaker 2: What was dating like under an assumed identity?

506
00:25:52,600 --> 00:25:55,760
Speaker 4: Well, I had to hide my background, And maybe that's

507
00:25:55,960 --> 00:25:59,239
Speaker 4: why the way I am right now, Because when I

508
00:25:59,280 --> 00:26:01,960
Speaker 4: was a fugitive, I couldn't get close to people, but

509
00:26:02,040 --> 00:26:05,680
Speaker 4: I still wanted to be with women. But conversations would

510
00:26:05,720 --> 00:26:08,639
Speaker 4: come up about something and I would change the subject,

511
00:26:08,640 --> 00:26:11,360
Speaker 4: and I wouldn't want to have friends because friends would

512
00:26:11,480 --> 00:26:13,560
Speaker 4: want to know a lot. So I became more of

513
00:26:13,600 --> 00:26:17,000
Speaker 4: a loner, and I still enjoy that life. As a

514
00:26:17,040 --> 00:26:19,320
Speaker 4: loaner right now. You know, I live by myself. I

515
00:26:19,359 --> 00:26:21,480
Speaker 4: don't have a relationship with a woman right now.

516
00:26:21,520 --> 00:26:23,840
Speaker 2: So did you have friends during that period?

517
00:26:24,040 --> 00:26:25,119
Speaker 4: I don't think so.

518
00:26:25,200 --> 00:26:28,080
Speaker 1: Sometime in the late nineties, Mechanic places a personal ad

519
00:26:28,080 --> 00:26:31,440
Speaker 1: in a newspaper seeking a quote left thinking non smoking

520
00:26:31,680 --> 00:26:36,040
Speaker 1: vegetarian social activists. A woman named Janet Grossman contacts him.

521
00:26:36,359 --> 00:26:39,359
Speaker 1: They start dating. At the time, his parents are living

522
00:26:39,359 --> 00:26:41,440
Speaker 1: in one of the apartments he owns in the same

523
00:26:41,480 --> 00:26:45,560
Speaker 1: building as him. His twin brother, Harvey, also visits. Howard

524
00:26:45,560 --> 00:26:48,080
Speaker 1: tells Janet that his parents are his aunt and uncle

525
00:26:48,280 --> 00:26:51,280
Speaker 1: and his brother is his cousin. She doesn't buy it.

526
00:26:51,560 --> 00:26:54,479
Speaker 4: When she saw my twin brother, she knows something was phony,

527
00:26:54,640 --> 00:26:57,240
Speaker 4: and she wasn't supposed to be around because she wasn't

528
00:26:57,240 --> 00:26:59,240
Speaker 4: living there at the time she was visiting. She had

529
00:26:59,240 --> 00:27:01,680
Speaker 4: her own place, and she was over, And I didn't

530
00:27:01,680 --> 00:27:03,920
Speaker 4: really want her to be over when Harvey was there,

531
00:27:04,080 --> 00:27:06,959
Speaker 4: because that would make sense for somebody named Harvey Mechanic

532
00:27:07,000 --> 00:27:09,000
Speaker 4: to be my twin brother, and I'm Gary Treadwaite, so

533
00:27:09,040 --> 00:27:10,040
Speaker 4: I had to tell her.

534
00:27:10,359 --> 00:27:14,400
Speaker 1: As the new millennium approaches, Mechanic feels increasingly confident. It's

535
00:27:14,440 --> 00:27:18,560
Speaker 1: been nearly thirty years. Surely no one's looking for him anymore. Right,

536
00:27:19,000 --> 00:27:21,439
Speaker 1: He lets down his guard starts to get involved in

537
00:27:21,480 --> 00:27:25,879
Speaker 1: state and local politics. He becomes an activist. Actually, he says.

538
00:27:25,800 --> 00:27:28,080
Speaker 4: When you say I became an activist, it wasn't I

539
00:27:28,200 --> 00:27:31,520
Speaker 4: became an activist. I was holding down my activism for

540
00:27:31,560 --> 00:27:34,080
Speaker 4: the first three years. I was already an activist starting

541
00:27:34,119 --> 00:27:35,159
Speaker 4: in sixty seven.

542
00:27:35,600 --> 00:27:39,320
Speaker 1: This is important. As time passes, Gary Treadway melts away,

543
00:27:39,640 --> 00:27:43,399
Speaker 1: Howard Mechanic emerges from the permafrost. Now more than ever.

544
00:27:43,600 --> 00:27:46,080
Speaker 1: He feels like he can be himself. As he leans

545
00:27:46,119 --> 00:27:50,320
Speaker 1: into activism, he becomes increasingly brazen. On April ninth, nineteen

546
00:27:50,400 --> 00:27:53,520
Speaker 1: ninety nine, exactly two years before the Fisher's final day,

547
00:27:53,840 --> 00:27:56,400
Speaker 1: he's quoted on the front page of the Arizona Republic

548
00:27:56,680 --> 00:28:02,600
Speaker 1: as Gary Treadway slamming public subsidies for developers. The attention snowballs.

549
00:28:02,880 --> 00:28:06,600
Speaker 1: He fights to limit corporate financing of political campaigns. His

550
00:28:06,600 --> 00:28:10,000
Speaker 1: photo runs in a small newspaper, then a local TV

551
00:28:10,119 --> 00:28:12,320
Speaker 1: station interviews him. He's good at this.

552
00:28:12,760 --> 00:28:14,879
Speaker 4: People were asking me to run for office, and I

553
00:28:14,920 --> 00:28:18,200
Speaker 4: didn't say no. Most fugitives are not asked please run

554
00:28:18,240 --> 00:28:21,119
Speaker 4: for office. People wanted me to run for office, and

555
00:28:21,359 --> 00:28:23,600
Speaker 4: I should have said no, but I didn't. By that time,

556
00:28:23,640 --> 00:28:25,480
Speaker 4: I thought I'd get away with it, but I was wrong.

557
00:28:25,720 --> 00:28:28,880
Speaker 1: In late nineteen ninety nine, Gary Truadway launches a campaign

558
00:28:29,000 --> 00:28:32,560
Speaker 1: for Scottsdale City Council. If elected, Robert Fisher will be

559
00:28:32,600 --> 00:28:36,040
Speaker 1: one of his constituents. Now his photo runs not just

560
00:28:36,080 --> 00:28:39,240
Speaker 1: in any newspaper, but in the Arizona Republic, which has

561
00:28:39,280 --> 00:28:43,520
Speaker 1: a half million subscribers. In February two thousand, Penny Overton,

562
00:28:43,640 --> 00:28:47,240
Speaker 1: a reporter for the Scottsdale Tribune, contacts Treadway. She wants

563
00:28:47,320 --> 00:28:50,520
Speaker 1: to write a basic profile of him, boring standard stuff,

564
00:28:50,960 --> 00:28:53,280
Speaker 1: not as exciting as the big story of the time,

565
00:28:53,640 --> 00:28:56,360
Speaker 1: a woman who tossed her husband's headless torso in a

566
00:28:56,400 --> 00:29:00,120
Speaker 1: dumpster behind a local grocery store. Instead of the torsost,

567
00:29:00,520 --> 00:29:04,680
Speaker 1: Penny gets stuck profiling Gary Treadway, boring old Gary Treadway.

568
00:29:05,040 --> 00:29:07,120
Speaker 1: She tells him she's going to run a background check.

569
00:29:07,320 --> 00:29:08,880
Speaker 2: How did you react in that moment?

570
00:29:09,000 --> 00:29:10,160
Speaker 4: Well, I was pretty freaked out.

571
00:29:10,320 --> 00:29:14,400
Speaker 1: Gary starts to sweat, He's visibly shaken. Penny doesn't get it.

572
00:29:14,720 --> 00:29:18,680
Speaker 1: She leaves confused. What's up with this guy? Gary asks

573
00:29:18,720 --> 00:29:21,800
Speaker 1: to meet again. Sitting pollside, he tells her the truth.

574
00:29:22,280 --> 00:29:25,800
Speaker 1: He begs her not to reveal it. She leaves once more,

575
00:29:26,080 --> 00:29:28,920
Speaker 1: not sure what to do that weekend. According to The

576
00:29:28,960 --> 00:29:32,040
Speaker 1: New York Times, she goes hiking. In the meantime, Gary

577
00:29:32,080 --> 00:29:34,800
Speaker 1: announces he's dropping out of the race. He says he

578
00:29:34,880 --> 00:29:38,440
Speaker 1: has leukemia. I need to concentrate my energies on fighting

579
00:29:38,480 --> 00:29:42,280
Speaker 1: the disease, he says, rather than running for office. This

580
00:29:42,480 --> 00:29:45,640
Speaker 1: is the breaking point. Gary lied about his identity while

581
00:29:45,720 --> 00:29:49,480
Speaker 1: running for public office, then lied again about having cancer.

582
00:29:50,120 --> 00:29:54,600
Speaker 1: The Tribune runs Penny's story, Gary Treadway is Howard Mechanic.

583
00:29:55,320 --> 00:29:59,720
Speaker 1: Everything falls apart us Marshall's arrest Mechanic On February tenth,

584
00:29:59,760 --> 00:30:02,880
Speaker 1: two thousand, fourteen months to the day before the Fisher

585
00:30:02,880 --> 00:30:05,840
Speaker 1: House explodes. He sent to prison to serve the five

586
00:30:05,920 --> 00:30:09,200
Speaker 1: year sentence he fled in nineteen seventy two. He later

587
00:30:09,240 --> 00:30:12,160
Speaker 1: pleads guilty to additional charges of failing to report to

588
00:30:12,200 --> 00:30:15,840
Speaker 1: prison and using false information to obtain a passport. Fellow

589
00:30:15,840 --> 00:30:18,880
Speaker 1: inmates are confused by his last name. They ask him,

590
00:30:19,080 --> 00:30:19,320
Speaker 1: why do.

591
00:30:19,360 --> 00:30:21,840
Speaker 4: They call you a mechanic? Do you take contracts? Did

592
00:30:21,880 --> 00:30:24,280
Speaker 4: you know that's what mechanics used for a hit man.

593
00:30:24,520 --> 00:30:27,160
Speaker 4: Check out Charles Browns the movies called The Mechanic.

594
00:30:27,400 --> 00:30:30,280
Speaker 1: On January twentieth, two thousand and one, in the final

595
00:30:30,280 --> 00:30:33,880
Speaker 1: hours of his presidency, Bill Clinton grants Mechanic a pardon.

596
00:30:34,480 --> 00:30:38,640
Speaker 1: He's free In the end, what lessons can we learn

597
00:30:38,680 --> 00:30:42,320
Speaker 1: from Mechanic? What can his experience teach us about Robert Fisher?

598
00:30:42,880 --> 00:30:44,800
Speaker 1: I still have so many questions.

599
00:30:45,120 --> 00:30:46,800
Speaker 2: Did you ever consider faking your own duff?

600
00:30:47,040 --> 00:30:49,360
Speaker 4: No, because it wouldn't helped anything. Really, if I was

601
00:30:49,560 --> 00:30:51,280
Speaker 4: under a man hunt and I was on the top

602
00:30:51,320 --> 00:30:53,960
Speaker 4: ten most wanted, that might be a good strategy to

603
00:30:54,040 --> 00:30:55,600
Speaker 4: get people from stop looking.

604
00:30:55,640 --> 00:30:58,080
Speaker 2: Did you do anything to change your physical appearance when

605
00:30:58,120 --> 00:30:58,640
Speaker 2: you flipped?

606
00:30:58,760 --> 00:31:01,840
Speaker 4: No, I thought about changing my fingerprints. But if somebody

607
00:31:02,000 --> 00:31:04,760
Speaker 4: had a doctor, that would make sense. But I wouldn't

608
00:31:04,760 --> 00:31:07,120
Speaker 4: walk into a doctor and say please do this. The

609
00:31:07,160 --> 00:31:08,240
Speaker 4: doctor would turn me in.

610
00:31:08,320 --> 00:31:10,600
Speaker 2: Maybe, meaning if you knew someone like you had a

611
00:31:10,600 --> 00:31:12,040
Speaker 2: friend who was willing to help you.

612
00:31:12,240 --> 00:31:14,280
Speaker 4: If there was a doctor I knew could trust that

613
00:31:14,320 --> 00:31:16,960
Speaker 4: would never say that, that would be something I considered,

614
00:31:17,040 --> 00:31:19,440
Speaker 4: and it probably came into mind on a few occasions

615
00:31:19,520 --> 00:31:21,640
Speaker 4: because I thought that would be what would get me

616
00:31:22,080 --> 00:31:24,320
Speaker 4: was my fingerprints. As it turned out, that would not

617
00:31:24,360 --> 00:31:24,960
Speaker 4: help any.

618
00:31:25,400 --> 00:31:27,719
Speaker 2: When you say you considered changing your fingerprints, do you

619
00:31:27,760 --> 00:31:30,760
Speaker 2: mean burning your fingertips to obscure your fingerprints.

620
00:31:30,880 --> 00:31:33,280
Speaker 4: Actually, that's probably what it would be. And maybe I

621
00:31:33,320 --> 00:31:36,080
Speaker 4: wasn't thinking clearly about the options, but I did think

622
00:31:36,120 --> 00:31:36,560
Speaker 4: about it.

623
00:31:36,640 --> 00:31:39,280
Speaker 2: What was your mental process like during those years? Were

624
00:31:39,280 --> 00:31:41,120
Speaker 2: you able to push this out of your head for

625
00:31:41,120 --> 00:31:43,440
Speaker 2: a while or was it always there? You always had

626
00:31:43,440 --> 00:31:45,400
Speaker 2: the anxiety of dealing with this.

627
00:31:45,720 --> 00:31:49,000
Speaker 4: Over the years, it gets diminished. But what never diminished

628
00:31:49,240 --> 00:31:53,480
Speaker 4: were the nightmares until two thousand when I was discovered

629
00:31:53,560 --> 00:31:56,080
Speaker 4: and turned myself in. As soon as I turned myself in,

630
00:31:56,120 --> 00:31:59,200
Speaker 4: the nightmares ended, but I had a continuing nightmare I

631
00:31:59,280 --> 00:32:01,959
Speaker 4: was being chased, I was being caught. I'd have a

632
00:32:02,000 --> 00:32:04,680
Speaker 4: cold sweat and I'd jump out of bed. So that

633
00:32:04,840 --> 00:32:08,080
Speaker 4: never ended, but it ended immediately after I became Howard

634
00:32:08,080 --> 00:32:08,880
Speaker 4: Mechanic again.

635
00:32:09,280 --> 00:32:12,840
Speaker 1: Our interview now turns to Robert Fisher. Mechanic lived only

636
00:32:12,880 --> 00:32:15,200
Speaker 1: a mile and a half north of his house, less

637
00:32:15,200 --> 00:32:17,400
Speaker 1: than a half mile west of the hospital where he

638
00:32:17,480 --> 00:32:18,920
Speaker 1: worked in the eighties and nineties.

639
00:32:19,160 --> 00:32:21,280
Speaker 4: I used to walk by the hospital all the time.

640
00:32:21,560 --> 00:32:25,680
Speaker 1: It's an astounding coincidence that one of America's greatest examples

641
00:32:25,760 --> 00:32:28,840
Speaker 1: of a fugitive hiding under an assumed identity for decades

642
00:32:29,080 --> 00:32:32,120
Speaker 1: lived so close to a man who later became one

643
00:32:32,160 --> 00:32:35,160
Speaker 1: of the greatest examples of an American fugitive whose fate

644
00:32:35,240 --> 00:32:36,520
Speaker 1: remains unknown today.

645
00:32:36,960 --> 00:32:39,040
Speaker 2: Your knowledge, did you ever meet Barbert Fisher?

646
00:32:39,240 --> 00:32:39,320
Speaker 3: Not?

647
00:32:39,400 --> 00:32:40,040
Speaker 4: To my knowledge.

648
00:32:40,080 --> 00:32:43,000
Speaker 2: Did you ever go to a store called Popular Outdoor Outfitters?

649
00:32:43,080 --> 00:32:43,520
Speaker 4: Yeah?

650
00:32:43,560 --> 00:32:43,920
Speaker 2: He did.

651
00:32:44,120 --> 00:32:44,600
Speaker 4: Yeah.

652
00:32:44,720 --> 00:32:47,840
Speaker 2: Do you have any recommendations about how to trip up

653
00:32:48,000 --> 00:32:51,120
Speaker 2: Robert Fisher? If somebody wanted to trip you up? How

654
00:32:51,160 --> 00:32:53,200
Speaker 2: would you go someone into making that mistake?

655
00:32:53,600 --> 00:32:53,760
Speaker 3: Bough.

656
00:32:53,800 --> 00:32:55,960
Speaker 4: I still hat that the Marshalls made a mistake and

657
00:32:56,080 --> 00:32:59,400
Speaker 4: not take my picture around to yoga groups because they

658
00:32:59,440 --> 00:33:02,040
Speaker 4: knew I back to cioga in prison every day, and

659
00:33:02,320 --> 00:33:05,280
Speaker 4: if they had taken my picture around the yoga group

660
00:33:05,360 --> 00:33:07,520
Speaker 4: in Phoenix, they would have identified me.

661
00:33:07,920 --> 00:33:10,000
Speaker 1: This is a great point, not only that it is

662
00:33:10,080 --> 00:33:13,280
Speaker 1: possible to find fugitives via their new social circles, but

663
00:33:13,320 --> 00:33:15,960
Speaker 1: also that even under a fake name, at their core,

664
00:33:16,160 --> 00:33:19,520
Speaker 1: there's still the same person. A reporter who interviewed Howard

665
00:33:19,520 --> 00:33:20,520
Speaker 1: twenty years ago.

666
00:33:20,560 --> 00:33:22,640
Speaker 4: Had an angle that I was living a lie. He

667
00:33:22,800 --> 00:33:25,680
Speaker 4: interviewed people and what about his lives he was living

668
00:33:25,680 --> 00:33:28,160
Speaker 4: a lie. I wasn't living a lie. Everything I did

669
00:33:28,240 --> 00:33:30,520
Speaker 4: was authentic except a document or two.

670
00:33:30,840 --> 00:33:33,560
Speaker 1: Today, Mechanic lives in the same small city as Robert

671
00:33:33,600 --> 00:33:36,760
Speaker 1: Fisher's mom. He and Janet Grossman are no longer together.

672
00:33:37,080 --> 00:33:40,160
Speaker 1: He's still an activist. He's suing the state of Arizona,

673
00:33:40,320 --> 00:33:43,600
Speaker 1: fighting a fifteen million dollar subsidy for a private rodeo.

674
00:33:44,160 --> 00:33:47,120
Speaker 1: Perhaps the most important part of my interview with Mechanic

675
00:33:47,400 --> 00:33:49,560
Speaker 1: is not what he tells me, but what he doesn't

676
00:33:49,640 --> 00:33:53,400
Speaker 1: tell me. He's open about almost everything except the people

677
00:33:53,440 --> 00:33:57,040
Speaker 1: who helped him escape and remain hidden. Fifty two years later,

678
00:33:57,120 --> 00:34:01,000
Speaker 1: he still vehemently protects their privacy. Without their help, he

679
00:34:01,200 --> 00:34:03,360
Speaker 1: likely wouldn't have been able to flee and start a

680
00:34:03,400 --> 00:34:06,400
Speaker 1: new life. In nineteen seventy two, a friend gave him

681
00:34:06,440 --> 00:34:10,239
Speaker 1: fake identity papers for Gary Treadway. Someone else mailed his

682
00:34:10,280 --> 00:34:13,480
Speaker 1: parents a letter on his behalf. Another friend gave him

683
00:34:13,480 --> 00:34:15,480
Speaker 1: a ride out of Saint Louis so he could hop

684
00:34:15,480 --> 00:34:18,400
Speaker 1: on a bus. Numerous people helped him in other ways,

685
00:34:18,600 --> 00:34:23,000
Speaker 1: for example, forging fifty birth certificates. Between nineteen seventy two

686
00:34:23,120 --> 00:34:26,480
Speaker 1: and two thousand, a dozen people figured out his true identity,

687
00:34:26,719 --> 00:34:29,200
Speaker 1: either because he confessed to them or they caught him.

688
00:34:29,560 --> 00:34:33,640
Speaker 1: None contacted law enforcement. This teaches us some critical lessons

689
00:34:33,640 --> 00:34:37,360
Speaker 1: about Robert Fisher. First, it would have been nearly impossible

690
00:34:37,400 --> 00:34:41,080
Speaker 1: for him to disappear without help. Second, it's likely that

691
00:34:41,200 --> 00:34:43,919
Speaker 1: in the past twenty three years he slipped up at

692
00:34:43,960 --> 00:34:47,280
Speaker 1: some point with someone in some way big or small,

693
00:34:47,520 --> 00:34:50,560
Speaker 1: about his true identity. The key to finding Fisher then

694
00:34:50,719 --> 00:34:53,680
Speaker 1: might not be Fisher. It might be the people around him.

695
00:34:53,760 --> 00:34:57,240
Speaker 1: In two thousand and one or twenty twenty four, Finally,

696
00:34:57,360 --> 00:35:00,439
Speaker 1: despite long odds, Howard Mechanic did run in to people

697
00:35:00,440 --> 00:35:03,880
Speaker 1: who recognized him twice, one in Vegas and one in

698
00:35:03,880 --> 00:35:07,399
Speaker 1: a grocery store, Which makes me wonder, what if one

699
00:35:07,400 --> 00:35:10,000
Speaker 1: of the many alleged sightings of Fisher, none of which

700
00:35:10,000 --> 00:35:14,279
Speaker 1: have been confirmed, was actually him. Wouldn't that be wild?

701
00:35:16,360 --> 00:35:18,560
Speaker 1: Next time I'm missing in Arizona.

702
00:35:18,280 --> 00:35:20,239
Speaker 2: You should just go down it. Let's let's go down.

703
00:35:20,280 --> 00:35:21,680
Speaker 1: Let's go down a little bit, and then turn around.

704
00:35:21,760 --> 00:35:23,319
Speaker 2: Go what are they gonna do? Arrest us?

705
00:35:26,320 --> 00:35:28,719
Speaker 1: You can reach us by phone at one eight three

706
00:35:28,800 --> 00:35:32,560
Speaker 1: three new Tips. That's one eight three three six three

707
00:35:32,719 --> 00:35:36,120
Speaker 1: nine eight four seven seven by email at tips at

708
00:35:36,120 --> 00:35:41,040
Speaker 1: iHeartMedia dot com, tip s at iHeartMedia dot com, online

709
00:35:41,200 --> 00:35:44,080
Speaker 1: at meon thirty three dot com, or on Twitter at

710
00:35:44,160 --> 00:35:49,399
Speaker 1: John waalzac j O, n w A l Czak. Paul

711
00:35:49,480 --> 00:35:53,200
Speaker 1: Ducan is our executive producer, Chris Brown is our supervising producer.

712
00:35:53,480 --> 00:35:57,200
Speaker 1: Hannah Rose Snyder is our producer. Paul Gemperline is our researcher,

713
00:35:57,360 --> 00:36:00,000
Speaker 1: Ben Bollen is a consulting producer, and I'm your host

714
00:36:00,120 --> 00:36:04,040
Speaker 1: and executive producer John Walzack. This episode produced by Taylor

715
00:36:04,160 --> 00:36:07,880
Speaker 1: Chicogne and Evan Tyer. Cover art by Pam Peacock. Neon

716
00:36:07,880 --> 00:36:11,080
Speaker 1: thirty three. Logo designed by Derek Rudy. Our intro song

717
00:36:11,160 --> 00:36:14,319
Speaker 1: is Utopia by Ruby Cube. Please download the first two

718
00:36:14,360 --> 00:36:17,400
Speaker 1: seasons of our show, Missing in Alaska and Missing on

719
00:36:17,480 --> 00:36:20,120
Speaker 1: nine to eleven, and if you're so inclined, give us

720
00:36:20,120 --> 00:36:22,719
Speaker 1: a five star rating. Missing in Arizona is a co

721
00:36:22,760 --> 00:36:26,200
Speaker 1: production of iHeartRadio and Neon thirty three