WEBVTT - 13. "Gary" 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:03.240 Missing in Arizona contains graphic depictions of violence and may 0:00:03.279 --> 0:00:10.960 not be suitable for all listeners. From iHeartRadio and Neon 0:00:11.000 --> 0:00:14.920 thirty three, I'm John Walzac and this is Missing in Arizona, 0:00:15.440 --> 0:00:18.480 the story of a man who disappeared after allegedly killing 0:00:18.480 --> 0:00:21.279 his wife and kids, blowing up their suburban home, and 0:00:21.480 --> 0:00:25.240 escaping into the wilderness. Twenty three years later, I'm hunting 0:00:25.320 --> 0:00:33.640 Robert Fisher and I need your help. April fourth, two 0:00:33.680 --> 0:00:38.320 thousand and two, the Arizona Republic headline Israel intensifies West 0:00:38.400 --> 0:00:42.440 Bank assault, Hesbela missiles prompt fears of new front and 0:00:42.520 --> 0:00:46.240 right above that Robert Fisher likely alive with new identity. 0:00:47.040 --> 0:00:49.440 On the eve of the first anniversary of the murders, 0:00:49.479 --> 0:00:53.960 the paper says two hundred thousand Americans, including presumably Fisher, 0:00:54.280 --> 0:00:57.720 are living under false names to avoid capture for crimes 0:00:57.720 --> 0:01:01.240 both large and small. It cites book called Hide Your 0:01:01.280 --> 0:01:04.400 Assets and Disappear, a step by step guide to vanishing 0:01:04.440 --> 0:01:07.920 without a trace by Edmund Pankow, which answers questions like 0:01:08.080 --> 0:01:10.080 how do I create a new identity, how do I 0:01:10.120 --> 0:01:12.840 stay lost? And how do people fake their own deaths? 0:01:13.120 --> 0:01:16.840 From Amazon quote this invaluable guide outlines exactly what you 0:01:16.840 --> 0:01:20.520 should know before you go, including the ever increasing difficulties 0:01:20.560 --> 0:01:23.319 you'll face as the world becomes more tightly linked through 0:01:23.360 --> 0:01:26.760 electronic networks. The book comes out in nineteen ninety nine. 0:01:27.080 --> 0:01:31.360 It's an instant bestseller New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Amazon, 0:01:31.680 --> 0:01:34.320 one of the top books in the nation. A paperback 0:01:34.400 --> 0:01:37.639 version is released in April two thousand. Is Robert Fisher 0:01:37.680 --> 0:01:40.880 aware of it? I don't know, but much of America is. 0:01:41.240 --> 0:01:44.640 It isn't some obscure book. Many people doubt that Fisher 0:01:44.640 --> 0:01:48.040 could vanish and assume a new name. Impossible, they say, 0:01:48.320 --> 0:01:51.320 And maybe they're right today, But he disappears in a 0:01:51.360 --> 0:01:55.400 different world. Before nine to eleven, hijacks our futures, iPhones 0:01:55.400 --> 0:01:59.480 our retinas, and TikTok our brains, before big genealogy slurps 0:01:59.560 --> 0:02:02.640 up our DNA and caramels pump our face into the cloud. 0:02:03.120 --> 0:02:07.240 Is easier to evaporate, change your name, start anew, and 0:02:07.360 --> 0:02:08.200 many people do. 0:02:08.800 --> 0:02:13.240 Including Crazy Eddie Antar, the. 0:02:13.120 --> 0:02:16.040 Owner of an electronics retail chain, best known for his 0:02:16.200 --> 0:02:18.080 crazy commercials. 0:02:17.840 --> 0:02:19.280 Ladies Gentlemen in Reindeer. 0:02:19.360 --> 0:02:21.000 It's a crazy Any Christmas blow. 0:02:20.800 --> 0:02:22.280 Out Flix, You'll save more money than. 0:02:22.240 --> 0:02:24.239 Ever before, have anything and everything in a home entertainment. 0:02:24.280 --> 0:02:27.560 You're crazy and his prices are insane. 0:02:27.880 --> 0:02:31.240 Eddie himself didn't appear in the ads. Nonetheless, he became 0:02:31.320 --> 0:02:34.040 such a celebrity that by nineteen eighty six in New 0:02:34.120 --> 0:02:37.840 York he had ninety nine percent name recognition. His commercials 0:02:37.880 --> 0:02:40.400 were parodied on SNL, and there was even a brand 0:02:40.400 --> 0:02:43.880 of heroin named after him. His downfall involved a stabbing 0:02:44.080 --> 0:02:46.920 a wife named Debbie, angry at a mistress named Debbie, 0:02:47.160 --> 0:02:51.680 rampant fraud, insurance scams, sales, tax stuff, a sister slapping 0:02:51.760 --> 0:02:55.560 fight called the New Year's Eve Massacre, and bankruptcy. Color 0:02:55.639 --> 0:02:58.040 me shocked if we don't see a Netflix mini series 0:02:58.080 --> 0:03:01.120 on this within a year. In nightteen nine, according to 0:03:01.160 --> 0:03:03.440 The New York Post, he fled the country with six 0:03:03.520 --> 0:03:07.040 passports in five different names, forty three million in cash, 0:03:07.080 --> 0:03:09.640 and his mistress. He spent the next three years on 0:03:09.680 --> 0:03:13.320 the run in Israel, Switzerland, Brazil, and the Cayman Islands 0:03:13.560 --> 0:03:16.280 before he was arrested and extradited back to the US. 0:03:16.760 --> 0:03:21.359 While at large, he used the aliases Alexander Stewart, Stuart Alexander, 0:03:21.639 --> 0:03:27.600 Joseph Levy, Joseph Levy, Ben Ezrashlomo and Kelso. Upon capture, 0:03:27.760 --> 0:03:30.960 a US attorney called him the Darth Vader of Capitalism. 0:03:31.160 --> 0:03:34.840 Crazieti died in twenty sixteen. My main source here was 0:03:34.840 --> 0:03:38.000 the book Retail Gangster, The insane real life Story of 0:03:38.040 --> 0:03:41.320 Crazyetti by Gary weiss Elmer. 0:03:41.640 --> 0:03:42.640 Edward Sally. 0:03:43.120 --> 0:03:45.960 Sally was imprisoned in nineteen seventy in New Jersey for 0:03:46.080 --> 0:03:49.440 killing his girlfriend's two year old son. Four years later, 0:03:49.560 --> 0:03:52.840 he escaped. He moved to Florida and assumed the identity 0:03:52.880 --> 0:03:56.040 of Vinnie Taylor, a famous guitarist for the band Shah 0:03:56.120 --> 0:03:59.440 Nan Nah. Taylor died of a heroin overdose in nineteen 0:03:59.520 --> 0:04:03.160 seventy four. Sally told people that he really was Taylor. 0:04:03.480 --> 0:04:06.320 He said he faked his death. Then he started booking 0:04:06.320 --> 0:04:10.440 gigs under the alias Daniel Danny C. Catalano. Later, he 0:04:10.560 --> 0:04:13.960 used a real photo to promote himself online. He claimed 0:04:13.960 --> 0:04:16.200 to be a bad boy ex member of Sean Nah 0:04:16.240 --> 0:04:20.159 Nah and Florida's number one greaser. The band considered suing 0:04:20.240 --> 0:04:23.440 him but chose not to. He was captured on May tenth, 0:04:23.480 --> 0:04:26.599 two thousand and one, exactly one month after the Fisher 0:04:26.640 --> 0:04:29.279 House exploded. He died in two thousand and seven. 0:04:30.360 --> 0:04:32.200 Theodore John Conrad. 0:04:32.440 --> 0:04:35.200 On July eleventh, nineteen sixty nine, the day after he 0:04:35.240 --> 0:04:38.760 turned twenty, Ted Conrad, a bank teller, stole two hundred 0:04:38.760 --> 0:04:41.839 and fifteen thousand dollars equivalent to one point eight million 0:04:41.880 --> 0:04:45.440 dollars today from a vault in Cleveland. Because the theft 0:04:45.440 --> 0:04:48.200 came late on a Friday, no one noticed it until Monday, 0:04:48.279 --> 0:04:51.640 July fourteenth, Six days later, Man landed on the moon, 0:04:51.960 --> 0:04:54.960 so Conrad benefited not only from a headstart on the cops, 0:04:55.120 --> 0:04:57.920 but also from a busy news cycle. Who cares about 0:04:57.920 --> 0:05:00.479 a bank robbery when all eyes are focused on the sky. 0:05:01.200 --> 0:05:05.120 Conrad fled to d c then California, then Massachusetts, where 0:05:05.120 --> 0:05:08.120 he took the name Thomas Randell, started a family and 0:05:08.160 --> 0:05:11.320 got jobs at golf clubs and car dealerships. No one 0:05:11.360 --> 0:05:14.640 found him for fifty two years, not until November twenty 0:05:14.680 --> 0:05:17.200 twenty one, and by that point it was too late. 0:05:17.600 --> 0:05:21.000 He died in May twenty twenty one. His daughter Ashley 0:05:21.120 --> 0:05:25.080 released a podcast last year called Smokescreen My Fugitive Dad. 0:05:25.680 --> 0:05:30.360 Jose lazarro Cruise. Cruise allegedly murdered his wife in Virginia 0:05:30.480 --> 0:05:33.160 in nineteen ninety one, he tried to flee to Canada 0:05:33.400 --> 0:05:36.120 before paying a smuggler to help him cross into Mexico. 0:05:36.520 --> 0:05:38.839 He then made his way to El Salvador, where he 0:05:38.920 --> 0:05:40.960 started a new family and got a job as a 0:05:41.000 --> 0:05:44.320 truck driver. He was captured in twenty twenty two and 0:05:44.480 --> 0:05:47.560 extradited to the US. As of this recording, he's a 0:05:47.560 --> 0:05:53.000 waiting trial. My source here was CNN Robert Hogland. July 0:05:53.120 --> 0:05:56.320 twenty seventh, twenty thirteen. After filling up his wife's car 0:05:56.360 --> 0:05:59.160 with gas and buying a road map, Hogland, a fifty 0:05:59.200 --> 0:06:02.880 year old Connecticut real estate appraiser, returned home to pay bills, 0:06:03.000 --> 0:06:06.960 play scrablawnline, and mow the lawn. His wife was on vacation. 0:06:07.400 --> 0:06:10.479 His son left the house later that morning. Sometime in 0:06:10.480 --> 0:06:16.520 the next twenty four hours, Hoagland disappeared, leaving behind his wallet, phone, keys, passport, 0:06:16.560 --> 0:06:21.200 and medications. His family suspected foul play. In twenty sixteen, 0:06:21.360 --> 0:06:24.440 the case was featured on the popular TV show Disappeared 0:06:24.960 --> 0:06:29.279 Still Nothing. After vanishing, Hoagland started a new life in 0:06:29.400 --> 0:06:32.960 rock Hill, New York, only ninety miles away. He used 0:06:33.000 --> 0:06:36.080 the name Richard King, got a job paying cash, and 0:06:36.160 --> 0:06:38.159 paid cash to rent a room from a guy he 0:06:38.240 --> 0:06:42.080 met on Craigslist. He evaded authorities and his family until 0:06:42.120 --> 0:06:44.000 he died in December twenty twenty two. 0:06:44.960 --> 0:06:46.040 Gloria Schultz. 0:06:46.680 --> 0:06:50.320 In July nineteen ninety four, while driving drunk, Schultz crashed 0:06:50.360 --> 0:06:54.400 into and killed a twenty one year old woman in Scottsdale, 0:06:54.440 --> 0:06:57.560 only eight miles from the Fisher House. Out on bail, 0:06:57.680 --> 0:07:00.760 she absconded in May two thousand and one, a month 0:07:00.800 --> 0:07:06.000 after the Fisher murders. She was tried and convicted in absentia. Then, finally, 0:07:06.200 --> 0:07:09.840 on April seventeenth, twenty twenty four, as I scripted this show, 0:07:10.080 --> 0:07:13.160 police found out that Schultz had been living in Yellowknife, Canada, 0:07:13.440 --> 0:07:16.480 under the name Kate Dooley. She died of cancer in 0:07:16.520 --> 0:07:19.880 twenty nineteen. My source here was a report by True 0:07:19.880 --> 0:07:23.720 Crime Arizona host Brianna Whitney. I could go on and on, 0:07:24.080 --> 0:07:27.480 but you get the idea. It is possible to escape 0:07:27.520 --> 0:07:31.040 and assume a new identity, even today, but especially in 0:07:31.080 --> 0:07:36.080 the past. So for now, one final example. On April thirtieth, 0:07:36.080 --> 0:07:38.800 two thousand, a year before the Fisher murders, the New 0:07:38.880 --> 0:07:42.400 York Times magazine ran an article titled Doesn't Anybody Know 0:07:42.440 --> 0:07:45.240 how to be a Fugitive Anymore, which profiled a man 0:07:45.280 --> 0:07:48.520 who lived under an assumed identity for twenty eight years, 0:07:48.960 --> 0:07:52.720 much of it at the Abode Apartment hotel in Scottsdale, 0:07:52.760 --> 0:07:54.920 only a mile and a half from the Fisher House, 0:07:55.400 --> 0:07:58.160 just twenty four hundred feet west of the hospital where 0:07:58.240 --> 0:08:01.360 Robert Fisher worked in the eighties and nine nineties while 0:08:01.440 --> 0:08:02.239 he worked there. 0:08:02.560 --> 0:08:04.720 Okay, So the first question that I always ask people, 0:08:04.760 --> 0:08:07.760 and I think it's especially important in these cases. 0:08:07.440 --> 0:08:09.480 What is your name, Howard Mechanic? 0:08:09.720 --> 0:08:11.840 What was your name for the twenty eight years? 0:08:11.920 --> 0:08:14.040 And what she lived under and assumed the identity was 0:08:14.120 --> 0:08:15.200 Gary Treadwaite. 0:08:15.520 --> 0:08:19.800 May fourth, nineteen seventy Kent State National Guardsmen shoot and 0:08:19.880 --> 0:08:23.720 kill four students protesting the Vietnam War. A photo of 0:08:23.760 --> 0:08:26.600 a girl crying out in anguish as she crouches down 0:08:26.640 --> 0:08:31.080 over a body spreads rapidly around the nation. Anger explodes, 0:08:31.280 --> 0:08:34.560 college campuses burn, A riot breaks out in New York 0:08:34.720 --> 0:08:38.360 as construction workers beat protesters in the streets and thousands 0:08:38.400 --> 0:08:41.480 of people lay siege to city hall. Guardsmen in New 0:08:41.480 --> 0:08:45.760 Mexico stab eleven people with bayonets police kill two students 0:08:45.800 --> 0:08:49.520 in Mississippi. At the White House, President Richard Nixon takes 0:08:49.559 --> 0:08:50.719 questions from reporters. 0:08:51.559 --> 0:08:55.680 President, some Americans believe this country is heading for revolution, 0:08:55.960 --> 0:08:59.880 and others belave the crime and dissent and violent demonstration 0:09:00.280 --> 0:09:03.199 are leading us to an era of repression. I wonder 0:09:03.200 --> 0:09:05.520 if you would give us your view of the state 0:09:05.760 --> 0:09:07.920 of the American society and where it's heading. 0:09:08.240 --> 0:09:10.360 That would require rather extended answer. 0:09:10.920 --> 0:09:14.160 Briefly, this country is not headed for revolution, in part 0:09:14.280 --> 0:09:17.760 because we do have the safety valves of the right. 0:09:17.679 --> 0:09:21.240 To dissent in times of turmoil, He says, leaders should 0:09:21.240 --> 0:09:22.520 abide by a simple rule. 0:09:22.840 --> 0:09:25.240 When the action is hot, keep the rhetoric cool. 0:09:25.559 --> 0:09:28.280 Reporters, twitch gears. How do you view the situation in 0:09:28.320 --> 0:09:29.160 the Middle East. 0:09:29.080 --> 0:09:31.720 Moments if a situation has become ominous. 0:09:31.960 --> 0:09:36.160 Nixon also mentions our fight against inflation before circling back 0:09:36.200 --> 0:09:37.240 to campus unrest. 0:09:37.559 --> 0:09:40.160 When you do have a situation of a crowd throwing 0:09:40.280 --> 0:09:43.040 rocks and the National Guard has caused it, called in 0:09:43.280 --> 0:09:46.400 that there is always the chance that it will escalate 0:09:46.679 --> 0:09:49.000 into the kind of a tragedy that happened at Kent 0:09:49.080 --> 0:09:49.760 State the. 0:09:49.800 --> 0:09:53.280 Day after Kent State. Howard Mechanic attends a protest at 0:09:53.360 --> 0:09:57.120 Washington University in Saint Louis. Two to three thousand furious 0:09:57.160 --> 0:10:01.360 students surround the campus ROTC building. Someone lights it on fire. 0:10:01.760 --> 0:10:04.559 Burn Baby Burn, They can't. According to The New York 0:10:04.600 --> 0:10:08.080 Times Kent State, Kent State, this is not the first 0:10:08.080 --> 0:10:11.040 time Mechanic twenty two, has found himself in the middle 0:10:11.040 --> 0:10:14.000 of a violent bedlam. He was in Chicago in nineteen 0:10:14.080 --> 0:10:18.920 sixty eight as police assaulted protesters outside the Democratic National Convention. 0:10:19.240 --> 0:10:21.400 The guy next to me got his head beat and 0:10:21.480 --> 0:10:24.000 I just sort of tried to pretend I was invisible, 0:10:24.280 --> 0:10:26.360 so had a good hit, but I was God's pretty bad. 0:10:26.640 --> 0:10:28.959 Well, there have been moments in my life, you know, 0:10:29.040 --> 0:10:32.000 I'm young, where it feels like everything is crumbling, especially 0:10:32.000 --> 0:10:34.240 in the last few years, and I think that that's 0:10:34.440 --> 0:10:37.199 a feeling shared by people on both sides of the 0:10:37.240 --> 0:10:41.040 political aisle, whatever your beliefs, that we're at this crossoads moment. 0:10:41.200 --> 0:10:43.880 I'm really just curious to hear your view on that. 0:10:43.960 --> 0:10:46.920 As someone who lived through a very volatile time in 0:10:46.960 --> 0:10:49.640 the sixties and were president at some of these very 0:10:49.679 --> 0:10:52.319 interesting moments, what does today feel like compared to nineteen 0:10:52.360 --> 0:10:52.840 sixty eight. 0:10:53.080 --> 0:10:55.440 Well, if you asked me back in sixty eight what 0:10:55.559 --> 0:10:58.360 things would look like in twenty twenty three, I would 0:10:58.360 --> 0:11:00.439 have expected there'd be a lot more difference. 0:11:00.760 --> 0:11:03.480 He also wouldn't have expected to spend twenty eight years 0:11:03.480 --> 0:11:06.880 as a fugitive starting a new life using a fake name, 0:11:07.160 --> 0:11:10.599 dodging law enforcement. That saga begins at the protest the 0:11:10.720 --> 0:11:14.679 night of May fifth, nineteen seventy, as the ROTC Building burns, 0:11:14.880 --> 0:11:18.040 angry students block fire trucks and throw rocks at cops 0:11:18.040 --> 0:11:22.640 and firefighters. Someone also tosses a large firecracker called a cherrybomb. 0:11:23.160 --> 0:11:27.000 A witness says it was mechanic who threw it. He's arrested, and, 0:11:27.160 --> 0:11:29.640 in a stroke of bad luck, he's the first person 0:11:29.679 --> 0:11:32.560 in the nation charged under an oppressive new law, the 0:11:32.640 --> 0:11:35.920 nineteen sixty eight Anti Riot Act. He gets a five 0:11:36.000 --> 0:11:40.240 year prison sentence for throwing a firecracker, which he denies doing, 0:11:40.600 --> 0:11:44.080 based on testimony from a single witness, a student named 0:11:44.080 --> 0:11:47.320 Donald Bird, whose story changes repeatedly. 0:11:47.320 --> 0:11:49.800 Saying part of the time that the cherry bomb could 0:11:49.800 --> 0:11:52.760 have come from any of several people in my vicinity. 0:11:52.880 --> 0:11:55.760 Then he said it was propelled from my body. Then 0:11:55.800 --> 0:11:58.520 he said I shot it with a slang shot, and 0:11:58.559 --> 0:12:00.079 he also said I threw a cherry. 0:12:00.440 --> 0:12:03.840 Bird dies in nineteen eighty three. Someone else later confesses 0:12:03.920 --> 0:12:06.960 to throwing the cherry bomb, but in nineteen seventy, Mechanic 0:12:07.000 --> 0:12:09.840 feels a sense of panic. First, he has to serve 0:12:09.920 --> 0:12:12.720 four months in a local jail for violating a restraining 0:12:12.840 --> 0:12:16.080 order intended to keep him off his college campus. After that, 0:12:16.240 --> 0:12:19.199 he faces five years in federal prison for a crime 0:12:19.240 --> 0:12:22.960 he didn't commit. While in jail, hippie hating guards, many 0:12:22.960 --> 0:12:26.560 of them ex military, repeatedly threaten him. Once says that. 0:12:26.480 --> 0:12:27.960 If he had a chance, he's going to put a 0:12:27.960 --> 0:12:28.800 bullet in my head. 0:12:29.160 --> 0:12:32.640 Guards tell other prisoners they aren't allowed to speak to Mechanic. 0:12:32.440 --> 0:12:35.720 Because most of them are African Americans and they thought 0:12:35.840 --> 0:12:38.040 I was going to radicalize them. 0:12:38.200 --> 0:12:41.320 Mechanic worries someone's going to kill him, probably a guard. 0:12:41.640 --> 0:12:45.160 He plans to appeal his federal conviction. He hopes it works, 0:12:45.600 --> 0:12:48.640 but sitting in jail, he decides that no matter what. 0:12:48.720 --> 0:12:50.400 I wasn't going to serve five years. 0:12:50.559 --> 0:12:53.079 So you decided if the appeal failed that you would 0:12:53.080 --> 0:12:53.880 see right. 0:12:54.480 --> 0:12:58.319 The appeal fails, Mechanic gets ready to run. He needs 0:12:58.440 --> 0:13:03.160 cash quickly. Off his record in stamp collections. That helps 0:13:03.200 --> 0:13:06.199 a bit, but he really only has one thing of value, 0:13:06.520 --> 0:13:09.360 a set of commemorative envelopes issued by NASA during the 0:13:09.360 --> 0:13:13.240 Space Race, autographed by astronauts and even famed engineer Verner 0:13:13.360 --> 0:13:16.920 von Braun. He sells it, and now it's time to go. 0:13:17.280 --> 0:13:20.439 When I left Saint Louis, I was Howard Mechanic and 0:13:20.440 --> 0:13:22.520 when I got on the bus, that was Gary Treadway. 0:13:46.520 --> 0:13:48.559 How did you choose where to go? And how did 0:13:48.600 --> 0:13:49.720 you get to Arizona. 0:13:50.120 --> 0:13:52.640 Bought a ticket to go to Albuquerque on a bus 0:13:52.760 --> 0:13:55.880 and it was early September. And when I got to 0:13:55.960 --> 0:13:58.560 Albuquerque and got out of the bus, it was really cold. 0:13:58.720 --> 0:14:01.280 I asked somebody, it's usually is cold around this time 0:14:01.280 --> 0:14:03.200 of year, and they say, yeah, yeah, it is. And 0:14:03.240 --> 0:14:05.400 I want to go to the Southwest because I grew 0:14:05.440 --> 0:14:07.680 up in Cleveland. It was pretty cold, a lot of snow. 0:14:07.840 --> 0:14:10.440 It was really thinking about the West. It was like 0:14:10.559 --> 0:14:13.280 a vacation from a vacation to me. That's why I 0:14:13.320 --> 0:14:15.960 wanted to get a place that was warmer. And somebody said, 0:14:16.040 --> 0:14:18.160 this is about what it's like in Albuquerque, and I 0:14:18.200 --> 0:14:21.040 asked them, well, where's the best place to go that's warmer, 0:14:21.160 --> 0:14:23.880 and they said, well, Phoenix. So I had to buy 0:14:23.920 --> 0:14:26.040 another ticket and I just got right back on the 0:14:26.080 --> 0:14:28.280 bus and went to Tempee because I knew that was 0:14:28.280 --> 0:14:30.840 a college town and I figured that's where I could 0:14:30.880 --> 0:14:34.160 fit in a little better, which is exactly what happened, 0:14:34.200 --> 0:14:36.680 because I was just a couple of years out of college, 0:14:36.760 --> 0:14:39.200 and in a college town, people come and go all 0:14:39.240 --> 0:14:41.520 the time. I mean, if I went to a small 0:14:41.600 --> 0:14:44.240 town somewhere, I'd be sticking out like a sore thumb. 0:14:44.360 --> 0:14:48.120 So you chose this area in Tempee specifically because of 0:14:48.200 --> 0:14:50.080 the weather and your ability to go on that. 0:14:50.320 --> 0:14:53.520 Right mechanic craft of fake biography for cover. 0:14:54.160 --> 0:14:56.760 My story was that I didn't have a family because 0:14:56.840 --> 0:14:59.600 my parents both died in an auto accident and I 0:14:59.640 --> 0:15:02.080 had no siblings, so that's why they never saw me 0:15:02.200 --> 0:15:03.120 with any family. 0:15:03.560 --> 0:15:06.320 He tells people his father was a diplomat in Africa. 0:15:06.800 --> 0:15:08.960 He gets a job at a health food store, but 0:15:09.080 --> 0:15:13.400 his manager is immediately suspicious. This new employee, who allegedly 0:15:13.440 --> 0:15:16.720 didn't go to college, is too educated and worldly. What's 0:15:16.720 --> 0:15:20.320 he doing in retail earning minimum wage, Mechanic begins to 0:15:20.360 --> 0:15:24.720 purposely seem less intelligent. He also cuts himself off entirely 0:15:24.800 --> 0:15:25.880 from his old life. 0:15:26.040 --> 0:15:28.960 When you left Saint Louis and came to Arizona, how 0:15:28.960 --> 0:15:30.960 many people did you remain in contact with? 0:15:31.480 --> 0:15:31.880 None. 0:15:32.440 --> 0:15:35.720 Within a few years, Mechanics starts his own company, distributing 0:15:35.760 --> 0:15:38.360 health food. At the time, it's hard to find something 0:15:38.400 --> 0:15:41.200 as simple as brown rice. He does well for himself. 0:15:41.520 --> 0:15:44.760 I was a successful businessman. A lot of people when 0:15:44.760 --> 0:15:47.600 they think of a fugitive, they think of Richard Jensen, 0:15:47.640 --> 0:15:50.440 who is the star of the Fugitive TV program. And 0:15:50.600 --> 0:15:52.600 he stayed in a town and had a job for 0:15:52.640 --> 0:15:54.480 a couple of weeks and then had to move on. 0:15:54.840 --> 0:15:57.800 Something happened, And every episode he was in a new town. 0:15:58.000 --> 0:16:00.640 When I was a fugitive for twenty eight years, I 0:16:00.720 --> 0:16:03.160 was never more than five miles from where I got 0:16:03.160 --> 0:16:03.920 off the bus. 0:16:04.160 --> 0:16:07.240 In fact, Mechanic does so well. He buys an eco friendly, 0:16:07.400 --> 0:16:11.960 earth sheltered subterranean house and Tempe truly the American dream. 0:16:12.360 --> 0:16:15.520 Sell your stamp collection, hop on a bus, change your name, 0:16:15.800 --> 0:16:19.640 get a retail job, start a business, buy a subterranean home. 0:16:19.960 --> 0:16:23.560 All it takes is some elbow grease and a time machine. 0:16:23.920 --> 0:16:27.000 In nineteen seventy five, Mechanic attends a health food trade 0:16:27.040 --> 0:16:29.720 show in Las Vegas. It's here that he runs into 0:16:29.760 --> 0:16:33.480 a problem, or more accurately, it runs into him. Also 0:16:33.520 --> 0:16:36.880 in attendance in Vegas is one of Mechanic's former classmates. 0:16:37.040 --> 0:16:37.840 Ben's aerkor. 0:16:38.080 --> 0:16:40.720 He recognized me. I recognized him, and we were like 0:16:40.880 --> 0:16:43.320 twenty feet away and saw us trying to walk in 0:16:43.320 --> 0:16:46.160 into direction, and he'd followed me a sidis turned around 0:16:46.240 --> 0:16:48.320 and said, I Ben, let's go over to your talk. 0:16:48.560 --> 0:16:50.720 And he was the only person whoever spotted me. 0:16:51.120 --> 0:16:53.760 Ben doesn't turn him in. In fact, the two men 0:16:53.800 --> 0:16:58.000 remain lifelong friends. Each summer, Howard visits Ben, founder of 0:16:58.040 --> 0:17:01.560 the company Good Earth Tea, and his wife in Santa Cruz, California. 0:17:02.000 --> 0:17:04.560 We actually went to China in seventy six, which is 0:17:04.600 --> 0:17:07.320 another story, having a fusire of having to get a passport, 0:17:07.440 --> 0:17:10.000 and then the passport gets lost and we have a 0:17:10.080 --> 0:17:12.200 trip to go into China in a couple of weeks 0:17:12.200 --> 0:17:13.200 and I had no passport. 0:17:13.520 --> 0:17:14.800 You got a legitimate passport. 0:17:15.119 --> 0:17:18.639 Yeah, all my documents are legitimate. It's a legitimate driver's license. 0:17:18.680 --> 0:17:21.320 It's a fake name. It's not a legitimate passport. It's 0:17:21.400 --> 0:17:23.840 under Gary Treadway. I'm not Gary Treadway. So I was 0:17:23.920 --> 0:17:25.800 committing passport violation. 0:17:25.760 --> 0:17:28.639 With his trip to China looming and his passport missing. 0:17:28.760 --> 0:17:33.120 Mechanic contacted Passport and I said, my passport's gone, Gary Treadway. 0:17:33.200 --> 0:17:35.119 I was born in the state, and I need to 0:17:35.119 --> 0:17:37.400 get a dufficate passport. And they said, well, you can't 0:17:37.440 --> 0:17:40.240 do that. We need to get your driver's license done first, 0:17:40.240 --> 0:17:41.560 and then you could come back and do it. And 0:17:41.560 --> 0:17:43.440 I said, I need this in two weeks. They said, 0:17:43.440 --> 0:17:45.080 the only way you can do that is if you 0:17:45.080 --> 0:17:47.359 get somebody to walk in the office with you and 0:17:47.480 --> 0:17:50.320 verify that you are Gary Treadway. And the person I 0:17:50.359 --> 0:17:52.600 brought in wasn't Ben. There was somebody who didn't know 0:17:52.640 --> 0:17:54.840 who I was, who worked at the same company. He 0:17:54.880 --> 0:17:57.159 didn't know me, He didn't know that anything about Howard mccank. 0:17:57.240 --> 0:17:58.919 He just went in and he just signed a paper 0:17:59.000 --> 0:18:02.640 stand I'm verified this person is Gary Treadway. And that's 0:18:02.640 --> 0:18:04.160 how I got to dolicod passport. 0:18:04.600 --> 0:18:08.359 Meanwhile, as Mechanic travels to China, investigators are still trying 0:18:08.400 --> 0:18:11.760 to find him. Lucky for them, he has a critical weakness. 0:18:12.040 --> 0:18:13.760 One thing I'm going to recommend is if you have 0:18:13.800 --> 0:18:16.400 an identical twin brother, don't be a fugitive. 0:18:16.840 --> 0:18:21.720 That's right, missing fugitive. Howard Mechanic has a twin Harvey Mechanic. 0:18:22.119 --> 0:18:25.000 Pricey posters of Robert Fisher and they have him aged 0:18:25.080 --> 0:18:27.320 this was what he might look like. Because it's been 0:18:27.359 --> 0:18:29.960 so many years, they try to artificially age in the computer. 0:18:30.080 --> 0:18:32.440 And back then they didn't have computers. They had artists. 0:18:32.480 --> 0:18:34.560 But they didn't need that for me because they had 0:18:34.560 --> 0:18:37.200 pictures of Harvey. They would take pictures of Harvey and say, 0:18:37.200 --> 0:18:38.280 this is what he looks like. 0:18:38.640 --> 0:18:41.159 How close did that match up? Later on when you 0:18:41.200 --> 0:18:43.320 were looking at photos that you guys age time. 0:18:43.400 --> 0:18:45.520 Well, actually, I was a heavy one when we were 0:18:45.520 --> 0:18:47.400 a kid. They used to call me load, but now 0:18:47.440 --> 0:18:50.800 he's a heavy one. For decades, they hassled him all 0:18:50.840 --> 0:18:53.520 the time because whenever he was stopped and he showed 0:18:53.520 --> 0:18:56.240 his identification, they thought he could be me, and so 0:18:56.240 --> 0:18:59.040 they brought him into the police station to get him fingerprinted, 0:18:59.080 --> 0:19:01.640 and they have to run a finger prince to Washington 0:19:01.800 --> 0:19:03.800 and they'd hold him for a while until that was cleared, 0:19:03.840 --> 0:19:06.359 and that happened to him on a couple occasions, and 0:19:06.480 --> 0:19:09.560 so he had enough, and he got false identification and 0:19:09.600 --> 0:19:12.480 he was living under his normal name. But if he 0:19:12.560 --> 0:19:15.560 was ever stopped, he pulled out his false identification and 0:19:15.720 --> 0:19:17.879 was never pulled into the police station again. 0:19:18.119 --> 0:19:21.919 Harvey the twin later joins the Harry Krishna movement, shaved 0:19:21.960 --> 0:19:25.399 head devotees in orange robes hand out flowers at airports, 0:19:25.800 --> 0:19:29.959 highly highly visible. Howard is now afraid that Harry Krishna 0:19:30.000 --> 0:19:32.960 will recognize him and then figure out, no, wait, that's 0:19:32.960 --> 0:19:36.679 not Harvey, it's Howard the Fugitive. One time in Tempe, 0:19:36.720 --> 0:19:38.440 Howard is in a grocery store and. 0:19:38.359 --> 0:19:40.840 A guy Christiana guy which she can spot, a Christian 0:19:40.880 --> 0:19:43.159 guy for a mile away sort walked by me and 0:19:43.359 --> 0:19:45.920 turned around and he said, Megendra, what are you doing 0:19:45.920 --> 0:19:49.400 here or something like that. Magendra's Harry Christna name Harvey Head. 0:19:49.600 --> 0:19:51.520 So I said, you got the wrong person, and I 0:19:51.600 --> 0:19:52.760 just sort of left real quick. 0:19:53.320 --> 0:19:56.320 In nineteen seventy two, when he flees Saint Louis, Howard 0:19:56.400 --> 0:19:59.000 leaves his family a note that's the last they hear 0:19:59.040 --> 0:20:02.159 from him. Six months. Then he calls his aunt from 0:20:02.200 --> 0:20:04.680 a payphone, tells her to have his parents come over 0:20:04.720 --> 0:20:07.760 the following Sunday at a set time. This is how 0:20:07.800 --> 0:20:11.440 he speaks to them for years without detection. He knows 0:20:11.480 --> 0:20:14.840 the investigators are surveilling their phone bills, but he guesses 0:20:14.920 --> 0:20:17.080 correctly that no one's monitoring his aunt. 0:20:17.320 --> 0:20:19.719 How often were you able to communicate with your family 0:20:19.880 --> 0:20:21.280 and evade detectionment. 0:20:21.040 --> 0:20:23.919 Well, I evaded detection the whole time for twenty eight years, 0:20:24.040 --> 0:20:26.720 and my parents stayed with me. By the time two 0:20:26.720 --> 0:20:29.200 thousand came around, they were living in the apartment next 0:20:29.200 --> 0:20:31.680 door to me at my apartment hotel. They would winter 0:20:31.760 --> 0:20:34.120 in Arizona. They would come out every winter and stay 0:20:34.160 --> 0:20:35.320 in the apartment next door to me. 0:20:35.560 --> 0:20:38.919 In nineteen eighty, Mechanic marries a woman named Ingrid Gold, 0:20:39.240 --> 0:20:42.440 but before the wedding there's a problem. In the early seventies, 0:20:42.520 --> 0:20:46.199 he visited a forger to obtain fake birth certificates. 0:20:45.800 --> 0:20:47.639