Lord Buckingham, I Presume: Charles Stopford

Florida man unhappy with life. Florida man move to Europe. Florida man change name. Florida man take phony title. Uh oh, Florida man get in trouble. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio Zaren Elizabeth.

Speaker 2 (00:05):
How are you doing? Pretty well? I had a good
day to day he did. How about you? It was fun, exciting,
I read some cool stuff.

Speaker 3 (00:12):
I like that.

Speaker 2 (00:13):
Anytime I can like air out my head in new facts,
I'm always started.

Speaker 3 (00:15):
Plus I love that for you.

Speaker 2 (00:17):
How about you?

Speaker 3 (00:18):
It was good day. It was nice and productive, and
then they came here.

Speaker 2 (00:22):
Sorry about that.

Speaker 3 (00:23):
Now, this is the highlight of my day, my week,
my life. Do you know what's ridiculous?

Speaker 2 (00:27):
I do. We recentally lost Matthew Perry, the actor. Yeah,
and before he passed, he wrote this memoir of his life.
And there's one story in the memoir that I find
ridiculous and in a very loving way.

Speaker 3 (00:41):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (00:41):
So you ever wanted to steal a rock star's wife?
Not personally Matthew Perry did. Oh god, yes he was,
he was. I guess. He had the short lived sitcom
with Valerie Burton Nelly. Oh right. The show was called Sydney.

Speaker 3 (00:57):
Okay, I don't remember that.

Speaker 2 (00:58):
Yeah, I was in nineteen ninety. It was a sick
didn't last very long.

Speaker 3 (01:01):
I wasn't born yet.

Speaker 4 (01:02):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:02):
Well, anyway, he fell in love with her while they
were filming that show, apparently, and she was married to
Eddie van Halen of Van Halen fame, And in his
memoir The Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing, he
has this story where he says, and I quote, I
was obsessed with her and harbored elaborate fantasies about her
leaving Eddie van Halen living out the rest of her

(01:22):
days with me. I didn't stand a chance, of course.
That said, there was one night I was over at
Valerie and Eddie's house, just hanging out and gazing at Valerie,
trying to make her laugh. As the night progressed, it
was clear that Eddie had enjoyed the fruits of the
vine a little too hard one more time, and eventually
he just passed out, not ten feet from us. But still,

(01:44):
this was my chance. Oh God, if you think I
didn't actually have a chance in hell, you'd be wrong,
dear reader. Valerie and I had a long, elaborate makeout session.
Oh it was happening. Maybe she felt the same way
I did. I told her I had thought about doing
that for a long time, and she'd said it right
back to me.

Speaker 3 (02:02):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (02:03):
Now, she never mentioned the incident ever again to anybody.

Speaker 3 (02:07):
Well, and I'm sorry, but the kiss and tell aspect
of that come on.

Speaker 2 (02:11):
But then when the memoir was released, she did acknowledge
on TikTok that yes she did have because I think
at that point Eddy van Halen had passed. So it
was like, Okay, I want her to like hoss of him, right,
I know, but like trying to become a rock star's wife,
it's just wild to me. He's like ten feet away.
It's like a high school thing. It's just alwady. He's
like and then you know fruit of the Vine, a

(02:31):
little Oh god, there you go.

Speaker 3 (02:33):
Ridiculous, Yes, Rpeter, two thirds of them. Yeah, it's ridiculous.
Do you want to know what else is ridiculous?

Speaker 2 (02:40):
Please?

Speaker 5 (02:40):
I'm here for it, faking it until you're making it. Oh,

(03:04):
this is Ridiculous Crime A podcast about absurd and outrageous capers.
Heis and cons it's always ninety nine percent murder free
and one hundred percent ridiculous.

Speaker 2 (03:15):
Oh, I know you heard that.

Speaker 3 (03:17):
I totally heard it.

Speaker 5 (03:18):
We've talked about a few dudes before. It never seems
to be ladies who either faked their deaths or created
new identities and started over as someone else.

Speaker 2 (03:29):
Doesn't tend to be a thing that the ladies do.

Speaker 3 (03:31):
Yeah, I mean, I'm sure they do, but.

Speaker 2 (03:32):
They get away with It's why we're not talking about
it yet this show.

Speaker 5 (03:37):
And for some this whole thing is really tempting, you know,
and for a smaller sum that temptation.

Speaker 3 (03:42):
Is too strong to ignore. They do totally.

Speaker 5 (03:45):
I'm fascinated by the psychology behind this. It's like, not
when they're running away from debt.

Speaker 3 (03:50):
Or justice, sure, that's just cowardice.

Speaker 5 (03:53):
I'm talking about when they just want to be someone
they aren't. Ah, you know, when they're so unhappy with
their reality that they ditch it and create this like
false reality in which to live the fake real.

Speaker 3 (04:04):
So I have a Florida fred de Mara.

Speaker 2 (04:06):
The guy who pretend to be a doctor.

Speaker 5 (04:08):
Yeah, yeah, I mean that amount of time that he spent,
he probably could have just like become a doctor medical.
So I got this Florida man.

Speaker 2 (04:15):
Okay, already starts killing.

Speaker 3 (04:16):
He didn't want to be a Florida man's wild.

Speaker 5 (04:19):
Yeah, he was a Florida man who wanted to be
a Cambridge man, a landed man, a fancy lad of course.
Zaren close Eyes I'm just kidding, no, Zaren, I want
you to meet Charles Albert Stopford the third.

Speaker 2 (04:36):
Is that his real name? Yeah, Charles, that's a Florida man.

Speaker 3 (04:39):
Sounds like a proper English.

Speaker 2 (04:41):
See why I was born in the wrong family.

Speaker 3 (04:43):
Oh nay, old chuck. He was born in nineteen sixty
two in Orlando, Florida. Wow with that.

Speaker 5 (04:48):
Name his Yeah, His dad, Charles Albert Stopford Junior, was
a Methodist minister. And there was a big old group
of Stopfords, seven boys and two girls. They had a litter,
Charles the third, he's the eldest.

Speaker 2 (05:03):
So I know what their nighttime activities were.

Speaker 5 (05:06):
So then there's this big family living in a house
provided by the Methodist church in Orlando in the sixties.

Speaker 3 (05:13):
Okay, what a time to be alive.

Speaker 2 (05:15):
Seriously, Charles meant to be like church funded.

Speaker 5 (05:18):
Sure, Charles feisty kid, super fisty. He was funny and
like if a little off color sometimes, and he loved
practical jokes. So you know that he went to like
a joke shop aimed at tourists, and his awakening was
getting one of those buzzers for your hand.

Speaker 3 (05:34):
Yeah, the handshake to like shock people when you shake
their hand. Problem had one of those, I know, I
knew you did, I could, I could have guessed.

Speaker 5 (05:43):
The problem with those is that they're primarily used by kids,
uh huh, and like they have very few opportunities to
shake hands with people, so they like they can't just
sit and wait for it to happen, so they go
around asking to shake everyone's hands, and then they got
like this big disc in their palm.

Speaker 3 (05:58):
It's super obvious ring around. Yeah.

Speaker 5 (06:01):
Anyway, Charles the jokester so when he was in his
teens also.

Speaker 2 (06:05):
Get Slipping a Whooper kitschien under somebody is difficult because
either the seat isn't the right height because you've put
it there already, or he tried to just throw it
in right at the last minute.

Speaker 3 (06:14):
And then if they if they block the outlet, you.

Speaker 2 (06:17):
Don't hear anything.

Speaker 3 (06:18):
Yeah, exactly, but I'll tell you when it's when it's
done right, beauty Chef's kiss, so good, Charles. He is
a teen.

Speaker 5 (06:26):
He stuck to my grandma's motto of act like you know,
and he snuck onto a US military base.

Speaker 2 (06:33):
Wow yeah because a teen.

Speaker 3 (06:35):
Yeah, and he breezed his way into the officers club.

Speaker 2 (06:38):
In fact, but people thought he was like an officer's son.

Speaker 3 (06:41):
Well, no, I don't know.

Speaker 5 (06:42):
He just he was so confidently behaved, and he was like,
you know what, I'm supposed to be here?

Speaker 3 (06:46):
How you doing a yes, sir.

Speaker 5 (06:49):
Another time he dressed up as a fake DEA agent
in seventies Orlando. Wow, he got a fake gun and everything,
and then he went and shook down a local drug
dealer and confiscated his cash.

Speaker 3 (07:00):
For real, son of a preacher man.

Speaker 2 (07:02):
Dude, that's the move. That's my kind of criminal, right there. See,
no one cares if you're robbing drug dealers exactly.

Speaker 3 (07:08):
So while all this tomfoolery is going on, Charles.

Speaker 5 (07:11):
Was growing more and more enamored of the United Kingdom,
oh well England to be precise.

Speaker 2 (07:16):
Yeah, I figured.

Speaker 3 (07:17):
So he had the.

Speaker 5 (07:18):
Union jack flag aka the Butcher's apron on his bedroom wall, Like,
was it the who the sex pistols who radicalized him?

Speaker 2 (07:26):
Seriously?

Speaker 3 (07:28):
Turns out it was the Beatles, Beatlemania strikes again, the
Gateway Band and Monty Python.

Speaker 2 (07:35):
Oh wow, he's of course, but the joking, Yes, I
could see that.

Speaker 5 (07:38):
So he'd hang out in his room and like listen
to Beatles' albums, watch Monty Python sketches, just like soak
up the Britannia of an all Britannia, and so much
so that he practiced his English accent and honed it
into something impressive.

Speaker 2 (07:51):
Did you ever do that when you're a kid, No,
you didn't. Do you ever practice any accents as a kid?

Speaker 3 (07:55):
No?

Speaker 2 (07:56):
Oh, My sister and I practiced all sorts of accents.
Unfortunately though it was like, yeah, picking the wrong like
model samulate, so like using like I don't know, the
Dick van Dyke Mary Poppins British accent's.

Speaker 5 (08:08):
Going to get you nowhere exact well, like his dad.
His dad got a kick out of his accent. Oh
r bad, and he joined in and they would like
practice the accent together.

Speaker 2 (08:17):
He plays on audience every Sunday, exactly. He's a performer exactly.

Speaker 3 (08:20):
He showfolk.

Speaker 5 (08:21):
So he got so Charles got so good at it
that he would convince substitute teachers that he was English really,
and he said, the reason he was at this Orlando
school is because his dad was like this well regarded
scientist on temporary loan to NASA.

Speaker 2 (08:37):
It's a good story to tell.

Speaker 5 (08:38):
I'd have worked the Disney angle, but that's just me,
although I would guess then that people would be asking
for like tickets, more questions. Yeah, exactly, So I take
it back, I would not work the Orlando Disney.

Speaker 2 (08:48):
A NASA sounds impressive without going can I get in right?

Speaker 3 (08:51):
Right?

Speaker 5 (08:52):
So that was Charles until he was sixteen, and then
things changed for him. It was nineteen seventy eight and
his preacher dad stepped out on his mom Ooh yeah,
he actually ran off with a lady from the church.

Speaker 2 (09:05):
Of course, where else do you think he's going to
find people?

Speaker 5 (09:09):
So he left his wife and kids high and dry,
took off, left them in the parsonage, and took.

Speaker 3 (09:16):
Off with the new guys.

Speaker 2 (09:16):
Are you for real?

Speaker 3 (09:17):
I'm totally for real. So since none of the remaining
family members.

Speaker 2 (09:21):
Your family, forgive me, I'm out.

Speaker 5 (09:24):
None of the remaining family members were Methodist preachers, okay,
so they got evicted from said parsonage. Of course, the
church congregation took pity on them. They tried to like
help get them on their feet, but like somebody God, Yeah,
like how here's meet the deacon. The pain and the humiliation.

(09:45):
So Charles he got a job for a little while.

Speaker 3 (09:47):
At Disney World, this is the late seventies.

Speaker 5 (09:49):
Yeah, late seventies, and he had that amazing English accent. Course,
so he scored a gig in Epcot Center's United Kingdom pavilion.

Speaker 2 (09:57):
Oh wow, good for him.

Speaker 3 (09:58):
Then when he graduated, way to make it.

Speaker 2 (10:00):
Work, get paid for that act.

Speaker 5 (10:02):
That works exactly, exactly. Don't hide your light under a bushel.
He graduates in nineteen eighty and joins the navy. Okay,
so remember how he loved pranks and such.

Speaker 2 (10:13):
Oh yeah, I didn't for I forget that.

Speaker 3 (10:14):
Please don't ever forget that. Well, he escalated.

Speaker 2 (10:17):
Good for him.

Speaker 5 (10:17):
He thought he'd make a funny and he put an
explosive what I'm guessing is like an M eight firecrack probably,
and did the tailpipe of a car. Oh and choice
a car belonging to a member of the Deep State.
It belonged to the manager of a Burger King.

Speaker 2 (10:33):
It's not the deep State, It's not No oh no Kings, Elizabeth,
No Burger Kings.

Speaker 3 (10:41):
I thought the Burger King like controlled everything.

Speaker 2 (10:43):
No, no, you're thinking across Junior.

Speaker 5 (10:45):
Well have it your way, Okay, Well it totaled the
car really, yeah, blew it right up?

Speaker 3 (10:51):
Oops, This is.

Speaker 2 (10:52):
Like I was gonna say, that's the danger, that's the
danger of it. You put it in a combustion across.

Speaker 3 (10:56):
A burger king manager.

Speaker 2 (10:57):
Oh yeah, and like track you down.

Speaker 3 (10:59):
Oh, black helicopters over your house and they.

Speaker 2 (11:01):
You're still going with the deep state.

Speaker 3 (11:03):
I'm wedded.

Speaker 2 (11:05):
It's more fun.

Speaker 3 (11:06):
Like you'll hear a click on the phone line. What
was that when you're talking?

Speaker 2 (11:09):
You heard me, mister Hoover. You're gonna go through with it?

Speaker 3 (11:11):
Your friend on the other one, what are you talking about? Now?

Speaker 2 (11:14):
Heard? Do you heard that? Right?

Speaker 3 (11:16):
All right?

Speaker 2 (11:16):
So it's behind us in the car.

Speaker 5 (11:18):
It's just before the Beverly Hills cop banana and the
tailpipe thing of course.

Speaker 3 (11:22):
Yeah, he's pretty trailblazing Maverick.

Speaker 2 (11:24):
And also he didn't do the thing where you back
up the exhaust which then caused the car to bog
and do that. No, he blew up the gas.

Speaker 3 (11:32):
The interior of it. Yeah. So the stunt got him attention,
that's for sure.

Speaker 2 (11:37):
I bet it did.

Speaker 5 (11:37):
He got arrested kind of attention. He got charged with arson,
criminal mischief and explosives possession. And the explosive charge is
what they went with, and that earned him sixty days
behind bars and then probation.

Speaker 2 (11:50):
Something he did a British accent, not an Irish accent.
They'd be going.

Speaker 3 (11:54):
A little iron cable, honey. Yeah. Needless to say, he
got kicked out of the Navy. I bet they didn't
like that.

Speaker 2 (12:00):
They wanted to have you do their ordinances, not your
own exactly.

Speaker 5 (12:04):
But in July of nineteen eighty two, he violated his probation.
I don't know how, Like maybe he didn't check in
or something.

Speaker 2 (12:10):
Maybe voted, could be.

Speaker 3 (12:14):
Either way. They he went into a Burger King. Yeah,
and the Burger King spies like someone lowered their newspaper,
like spoken to an earpiece.

Speaker 2 (12:24):
We got him. I love your commitment to the pit
condors on the move.

Speaker 5 (12:28):
All right, So they revised the agreement. Now he had
to meet weekly with his probation officer. Plus he had
to go to college.

Speaker 2 (12:36):
That was the punishment. Yeah, I guess we're going to
make a good man out of you.

Speaker 5 (12:39):
So but January the next year, Charles is totally not
having it. He went out and he got a passport expedited.
He threw some clothes in a suitcase, grabbed his other
ID stuff like his driver's license, bur certificet all that
sort of the real ones, the real ones. And he
bought a one way ticket out of the United States. Okay,
it's like probation is one thing, but forcing him to
go to community college to better himself was a.

Speaker 3 (13:01):
Bridge too far.

Speaker 2 (13:03):
I ain't cracking no books.

Speaker 3 (13:05):
He didn't tell his family that he was on the run. No,
he told him he got a job.

Speaker 2 (13:09):
Oh he did tell them something.

Speaker 3 (13:10):
Yeah, He's like, I got a tech job. Guys. So
I mean it's eighty two and it's like the beginning
of like.

Speaker 2 (13:16):
Yeah, howay for so we were not aware of like
you know, Apple, And.

Speaker 5 (13:20):
He's like, so it's a tech job, but it's it's
overseas by and so they bought it because they'd hear
from him. They'd get postcards from him from like these
far flung places across the globe, like, oh, my job's great,
I'm loving life. He reached out to them from Germany, Spain, Italy, Greece, Egypt,
South Africa, Japan, and of course his favorite place, the

(13:42):
United Kingdom. Wait, did he really legitimately went to these places?
He just traveled the world. Sometimes he sent pictures to
his mom, like she's trying to process the whole thing,
like her family was sort of disintegrating in her hands
at this point.

Speaker 2 (13:56):
Oh, I bet you still got younger kids.

Speaker 5 (13:58):
Got younger kids, Yeah, because he's the old of the kids.
She later told ABC News, quote, I know he was
upset about the divorce between his father and I. That
upset him quite a bit, and I think he wanted
to get away from it. From Israel, Germany, some of
the English countryside. We always wait for him to send
the pictures and we would always.

Speaker 3 (14:18):
Look at them. Sweet, she's so sweet.

Speaker 2 (14:20):
Do you think he was like, you know, on like ships,
like working his way.

Speaker 3 (14:24):
Around It could be, it could be. We will never know.

Speaker 2 (14:27):
Yeah, I'm just curious.

Speaker 3 (14:28):
But then one day his.

Speaker 5 (14:29):
Mom gets his little package, not photos, not a postcard,
just as Lost magazine put it, Charles's quote passport, birth certificate,
social security card, driver's license, Disney World ID, and every
other known piece of documentation proving the existence of Charles
Albert Stopford II. And after that the postcard stopped coming.

Speaker 2 (14:50):
Did he have any letter explaining what he was doing?
Otherwise that's like, did he join the French Foreign Legion?
Was he abducted? What happened?

Speaker 4 (14:58):
Was it?

Speaker 2 (14:59):
The King of Burger was it the king.

Speaker 5 (15:01):
So nothing by post after that, like, no tales of
cool adventures. But then in nineteen eighty six he did
something more than right.

Speaker 2 (15:08):
He called good for him.

Speaker 3 (15:10):
You wanted to put you and.

Speaker 5 (15:11):
You wanted to let his family know I'm okay, I'm
actually married. He told them he and his wife are
expecting a child, a daughter. Good for and think Also
he'd changed his name, so his brother, Wesley Stopford later said,
we didn't think anything of it at the time.

Speaker 3 (15:28):
People do that.

Speaker 2 (15:28):
Yeah, people changed their names. Vice brother changed any like
three four times.

Speaker 3 (15:31):
That's right.

Speaker 5 (15:32):
So you know who's to say his name now? Was
Christopher Buckingham.

Speaker 2 (15:37):
Wow, bro, you can't name yourself after the palace he.

Speaker 3 (15:41):
Called.

Speaker 2 (15:42):
It's like a Disney name. That's like a name for
a cartoon character.

Speaker 3 (15:45):
He called his family in nineteen eighty six.

Speaker 5 (15:47):
But it was actually three years earlier that he'd done
the whole name change thing. It was right after he
got to England. He was done trot the globe. He
wanted to settle down in what he thought of as
his like spiritual home.

Speaker 2 (15:58):
Sure I feel that, yeah, So.

Speaker 5 (15:59):
He went to the government archive and started searching and
I'm sure you know where this is going. It's a
classic identity theft move. He scanned through birth and death
records and he was looking specifically for a boy child
who died, as he would later put it at zero,
died at zero.

Speaker 2 (16:16):
I'm just supposed to do it before they get a
Social Security card, are the equivalent, and he needed to.

Speaker 5 (16:20):
Get the birth certificate of a boy who died in
infancy so he could assume that identity. He found a
bunch of kids in the right age range with the
name Christopher Buckingham.

Speaker 2 (16:28):
It totally works. I know people have done that, and
he liked.

Speaker 5 (16:31):
The name, so he picked one of the Christopher Buckingham,
specifically Christopher Edward Buckingham.

Speaker 3 (16:37):
Wow, yeah, so that.

Speaker 2 (16:39):
I shouldn't laugh. But my mother once dated a guy
named Buckingham. She used to tease me my parents got divorced.
You're lucky you almost were Zaron Buckingham. I'm like, you
would not have named he after the other guy.

Speaker 3 (16:54):
And then Jimmy Buckingham Christopher Buckingh so weird right now.

Speaker 5 (16:59):
The real Christopher Edward Buckingham was born on December twenty.

Speaker 3 (17:03):
Fourth, nineteen sixty two, and like Christmas baby, Yeah, he.

Speaker 5 (17:06):
Died about six months later, while on vacation with his parents.

Speaker 2 (17:10):
You know, Christopher means a gift of Christ, like they
really win.

Speaker 5 (17:13):
Well, that's probably why they went with it, Edward and Audrey,
his parents, which is, it's so tragic to lose this
infant on vacation like beyond and the woo woo in
me thinks that the worst mojo of all is to
play around with something like that, to take that name.
But whatever, that's just me. Anyway, he put.

Speaker 2 (17:32):
In, is there any child passing away that you would
think you could take their name? It wouldn't pass on
some bad woo woo? No, okay, don't do that, So
no name changes for you?

Speaker 3 (17:39):
Then none.

Speaker 5 (17:40):
No, I'm dying with the one I got. So he
put in a request for the birth certificate. A week
later it's his and now he just had to get
the rest of the pieces in place. He applied for
a national insurance number SMART and a driver's license and
then a passport at all. It took him like eight months.

Speaker 2 (17:59):
Yeah, I don't want.

Speaker 5 (17:59):
To yeah, and he later told Lost magazine quote, I
relied on the inconsistencies in the system.

Speaker 3 (18:05):
I just filled in the forms and sent them through
the post, so just you know, plain as day.

Speaker 5 (18:11):
And so it was that on June twenty third, nineteen
eighty three, Charles Stopford the Third ceased to exist and
was reborn as Christopher Buckingham. Let's take a break for
some ads, and when we return, we're going to find
out what life has in store for.

Speaker 3 (18:27):
Chris Zarin, Elizabeth, welcome, welcome back.

Speaker 2 (18:51):
Thank you. I was just enjoying some burger king.

Speaker 3 (18:54):
You stopped.

Speaker 2 (18:56):
You're making me where to get the burgers. You play
a deep state.

Speaker 3 (18:59):
Put the wrapper outs in the garbage before I say
anything for there. So it's all it's got. It's wired,
and nano robots in the milkshakes. It's crazy. Sure, I'm
sure they do. It's anyway.

Speaker 5 (19:16):
So Charles Stopford he became Christopher Buckingham. So long Orlando. Hello,
Southern Bavaria. Yeah, Buckingham. He didn't use his new English
identity to stay in England.

Speaker 3 (19:28):
Smart, he got a job in Germany.

Speaker 2 (19:30):
That's really smart, actually.

Speaker 5 (19:31):
And when I first read Southern Bavaria, I thought it
said Southern Belgravia, and I like, hadn't heard such a
parsing of the posh London neighborhood before.

Speaker 3 (19:39):
But what do I know?

Speaker 5 (19:40):
And it turns out very little. But it also turns
out that he was in southern Bavaria, Germany.

Speaker 2 (19:45):
That's a really smart move because they're going to have
even harder levels of trying to check. I mean, that's wowed.

Speaker 3 (19:51):
He got a job at a dish on this show.

Speaker 5 (19:54):
Well, he got a job as a dishwasher in a
cafe at like a tourist resort, and that's where.

Speaker 3 (20:00):
He met a lovely young Canadian who was also working there.
Jody Doe. That's her real name.

Speaker 5 (20:07):
It's not like you know, sometimes they run out of
Jane Doe's and they just, you know, unidentified bodies.

Speaker 3 (20:14):
No, that's her name.

Speaker 5 (20:15):
So he told all sorts of tall tales about his life,
inventing a backstory as he went. He said that he
was originally from England. I mean, that's the accent of
his dad was a diplomat, he said. Tragically, both of
his parents had died in the plane crash in Egypt.

Speaker 2 (20:33):
When he was a boy.

Speaker 5 (20:35):
You can't meet them, Kenja in jaw So he can't.
You can't ask him anything, you can't meet them. And
you know what, he's.

Speaker 3 (20:46):
A citizen of the world.

Speaker 5 (20:47):
It's like, I've traveled all over which he had. He
told her, A loner, a rebel. He told her that
before this Bavarian dishwashing adventure, that he had lived on
a kibbutz in Israel for a few months. So you know,
she's sold. Soon enough, they're married, She's like, I love this.
They stuck around Bavaria working at these various alpine hotels

(21:09):
and resorts. You know, they kind of became townies.

Speaker 3 (21:12):
I suppose.

Speaker 5 (21:13):
In July of nineteen eighty six, their daughter Lindsay was
born Lindsay Buckingham. I love that for her.

Speaker 3 (21:20):
She'll be someone's silver spring one day. So that was
about the time that he last I.

Speaker 2 (21:25):
Mean they had to know, they had to know and
kicking it in like eighty six, Lindsay Buckingham, why would
you do that.

Speaker 3 (21:32):
To your daughter? So that was about the time that
he last reached hilarious that.

Speaker 2 (21:35):
They didn't know and then they found out, Like when
she's four or five and she's memorized her name, they're like.

Speaker 3 (21:40):
Who who Lee would what they it could be?

Speaker 2 (21:42):
I don't listen to that that commusic.

Speaker 3 (21:44):
They just listened to classical music.

Speaker 2 (21:46):
Yeah, they they don't know all about the about that bok.

Speaker 5 (21:49):
Yeah, so he she gets she's born, and that's around
the time that he calls his mom.

Speaker 2 (21:53):
Yeah, I was guessing.

Speaker 5 (21:54):
And so when the babies a year old, they moved
to London and actually to like a grubby studio flat
just outside London. London's crazy expensive and it was then too,
Yeah it is big. Buckingham was doing his best to
work his way up, so he got a job an
it gig at Reuter's.

Speaker 2 (22:11):
He really isn't tech, yeah, I.

Speaker 5 (22:13):
Guess he does like computers, and it was this solid job. Sure,
and his wife gave birth to their son.

Speaker 2 (22:19):
Edward mcfleetwood.

Speaker 3 (22:21):
Edward mcfleetwood Buckingham.

Speaker 2 (22:24):
Edwards named it after farmer King's.

Speaker 5 (22:27):
Yeah, but isn't that like yeah, he just sounds British.

Speaker 3 (22:31):
But I think that was also his fake middle name.

Speaker 2 (22:34):
Oh right, Yeah. Then they called him Teddy.

Speaker 3 (22:37):
Teddy Buckingham, Teddy Bucks.

Speaker 5 (22:40):
So he worked bucking He worked his way up through
through Reuter's little by little, and he went from general
it to like computer security. He just rose to ranks
and he was finally able to buy a house for
his family in Northampton, between London and Birmingham. Pretty much,
and there they lived happily until nineteen ninety six. Things
weren't were between Christopher and Jody, so they separated. Oh yeah,

(23:04):
Jody had been growing.

Speaker 2 (23:08):
Packed out the trauma of his own child.

Speaker 5 (23:12):
Jody was suspicious of her husband, like he disappear for
days at a time, and he was so secretive about
his life before they met. He didn't have any keepsakes
or mementos, nothing, nothing, and he didn't like to talk
about his past or offer specific so she started digging.
So first she put an ad in the Times of London,
which is like, you're hoping he doesn't see it.

Speaker 3 (23:34):
I don't know.

Speaker 5 (23:35):
She detailed her husband's basic biographical details and asked for
any further information anyone might have. That's bold, but maybe
she's like, I know he doesn't read, he.

Speaker 2 (23:45):
Doesn't awsapuy, I do respect like you. She wants answers.
I'm going to do exactly.

Speaker 5 (23:51):
So then she reached out to the UK Home Office
because she's like, I want to know information about his
dad's diplomatic career. And then she contacts the Egyptian embassy.

Speaker 2 (24:01):
Oh no, she went to consulates, yes, and.

Speaker 5 (24:03):
She's like, I'll want all the information available about this
plane crash that claimed this these people's lives. She contacted
the schools he said he went to. He said he
went to Harrow and Cambridge and like, can I get
the student records? And they're like, I don't have anything.

Speaker 2 (24:18):
So then would you have gone this far?

Speaker 4 (24:19):
Oh?

Speaker 3 (24:20):
Yeah? If I'm starting against this is the beginning.

Speaker 2 (24:23):
It's the she.

Speaker 3 (24:25):
Has to listen to the animal brain telling her. She
goes to the local cop and it's like, can you
run a background check on my husband? Uh? And they're
like they run it.

Speaker 5 (24:34):
No secret crimes, no hidden side family, no creeping dead,
there's nothing.

Speaker 3 (24:38):
It's the problem.

Speaker 5 (24:39):
He didn't exist on paper prior to nineteen eighty three,
so there's no records of anything. Jody's just said a loss.
So it's not like there are records that disprove anything.

Speaker 3 (24:48):
There's just nothing nothing.

Speaker 2 (24:49):
Do you think that part of her thought that maybe
he was like from some fabulously wealthy family and he
just didn't want anyone to find out.

Speaker 3 (24:56):
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (24:57):
Do you think she was just suspicious in the negative?

Speaker 5 (24:59):
I probably just suspicious in the negative. I feel like
he didn't feed her enough breadcrumbs to make her suspicious
in the positive in that sense.

Speaker 2 (25:06):
Well, I mean having a father is an ambassador in England,
that's just like, oh you come from landed stuff always
that may be connected to the true Well, so you.

Speaker 3 (25:17):
Know, she it could have been, it could have been.

Speaker 2 (25:19):
You know, I'm not sure she's think about getting divorced.
Maybe she's like, before I divorce, before I do that.

Speaker 5 (25:25):
So the divorce gets finalized and then she just honestly
gave up. She's like she stopped looking for more information.
What's the point, you know, like good riddance to bad rubbish.
So after the divorce, Buckingham moved to Switzerland and he
was an executive now, so no ski cafe dishwashing gigs
for him. No, he started a bunch of LLC's because

(25:45):
that's what business guys did.

Speaker 3 (25:47):
Sure business thing.

Speaker 5 (25:48):
I've heard that they weren't passed through LLC's that were
just for him. They were these like big companies at
least on paper, and they were rife with corporate officers,
so like men such as Richard James Thomas, David Allen, Thomas,
David Robert Allen, first name, pul David Keene German Haunts,
Peter Schmidt and a fellow named Alexei Romanoff.

Speaker 3 (26:11):
No relation.

Speaker 2 (26:13):
The guys were these guys, these fictitious sounding names.

Speaker 3 (26:18):
Great question, Dave. This will come as a major shock
to you.

Speaker 5 (26:21):
They were all fake. Yeah, they didn't exist. They only
existed in Buckingham's imagination. Well, okay, one was real. Paul
David Keene.

Speaker 3 (26:30):
He was actually a friend of He was a fellow
computer nerd. It'd been roommates at one time.

Speaker 5 (26:38):
And the other interesting thing about Paul David Keene was
that he'd been dead for years at this point. So
he's his dead friend's name. He loves that.

Speaker 3 (26:48):
In no way does he have the wo He's very like,
you know, Mesopotamian of like this is our lives are over.

Speaker 5 (26:57):
That's it nothing, there's no Yeah.

Speaker 2 (27:00):
It's a mess of it. I love that.

Speaker 5 (27:02):
So we got Buckingham divorce, living in Switzerland, starting all
manner of fake companies.

Speaker 3 (27:08):
Why not go for broken, not like gild Lily. Why
not take it to the next level?

Speaker 2 (27:13):
What is the next level?

Speaker 5 (27:14):
I love that question because I was going to ask
the same thing. Bestowing upon himself the title of lord.
He started calling himself Lord Buckingham.

Speaker 2 (27:22):
Of obe status.

Speaker 4 (27:24):
Huh.

Speaker 5 (27:24):
According to Lost magazine, he said quote he had acquired
it through purchase of what he described as several small
manorial properties scattered across England. At first it was a
bit of a joke, he explained. I thought it would
be a whot to start calling myself Lord Buckingham.

Speaker 3 (27:39):
But what I noticed was using the title you respect
and the consideration that should be due.

Speaker 2 (27:44):
Lord Buckingham also sounds like some like dirty landed property
owner who like party. But Ben Franklin in the Hell
Fire Club.

Speaker 3 (27:52):
You know right, it's spot on.

Speaker 5 (27:53):
Yeah, here's the thing, and it's tied to the culture
he loves so much. There was then, perhaps maybe not
so much now, but still to a degree, a certain
deference given to those with titles in England.

Speaker 3 (28:09):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (28:09):
Well, there's this detective book series, the Inspector Linley novels,
and they made him into a TV series that has
since been rebooted. I haven't watched any of the Shower,
but I started getting into the books a little while
back because I ran out of Michael Connolly.

Speaker 3 (28:23):
Books to read.

Speaker 5 (28:24):
Anyway, the first few were good, but I had to
stop because I felt like the female characters are basically
like tortured in one way or another throughout their plot lives.
It just was it felt like a little anti woman.
It was a woman writer, but you know whatever, it
was not a pleasant and it became a little too
bleak for me, which is hard to imagine.

Speaker 3 (28:43):
But yeah, anyway, I wasn't feeling it.

Speaker 5 (28:46):
I've read Val mcdermodd is like, that's bleak Scottish mystery,
right anyway, so your mileage mayverery and I may be
off base anyway. Tomato tomato to each their own, come
se comsa, how do you do? The Inspector Linley in
the story is the eighth Earl of Asherton. He doesn't
need to work.

Speaker 3 (29:04):
He just loves justice.

Speaker 5 (29:06):
He toodles around in like a classic sports car, and
he wears bespoke suits, and his partner is like a
tough talking east Ender lady and whatever and Yin and
yang house to.

Speaker 2 (29:16):
The National Trust.

Speaker 5 (29:17):
He's like people, they don't have to they're not they're
not suffering like that they have the palatial Oh wow.

Speaker 3 (29:23):
So in the books, when.

Speaker 5 (29:24):
People dismiss Linley thinking he's just some cop and can't
tell him what to do, like sometimes he has to
bust out who he really is, meaning his title and
then they like peel over themselves and cowtown do whatever
he wants. And I have issue with that mainly because
I feel like his accent would give that away immediately.

Speaker 2 (29:40):
You would think he's putting on a fake as.

Speaker 3 (29:42):
I also felt like he didn't do it enough.

Speaker 5 (29:43):
He didn't smack him down, like some of these fools
need to be taken down a notch, like do.

Speaker 3 (29:48):
You know who I am?

Speaker 2 (29:49):
Archy?

Speaker 5 (29:49):
Yeah, And the reason I mentioned is that there's deference
paid to the landed gentry, so titles.

Speaker 3 (29:55):
Get respect and like a lot of latitude, the.

Speaker 2 (29:57):
Whole thing about there are better there are.

Speaker 3 (30:00):
You can have weird behaviors, English eccentric.

Speaker 2 (30:04):
Oh yeah, you can lick a dog's face.

Speaker 5 (30:06):
You know they could, They would and they should. So
it may have been like a hoot for Buckingham to
call himself lord. But if you want to get away
with like crimes or bad behavior, title game is a
way to go.

Speaker 2 (30:17):
Yeah for real, you know. Now I'm thinking about it,
I'm like, how do I get a time?

Speaker 5 (30:21):
But also it got me wondering about Buckingham's accent. So
it was an Orlando homebrew accent exactly like cobbled together
from Monty Python and Paul McCartney and like god knows.

Speaker 2 (30:32):
Who else he's probably doing Graham Chapman.

Speaker 5 (30:33):
I think he was the richest and oh yeah, so
like in the US and basically anywhere else in the world,
accents or regional, but they're also you know, class.

Speaker 2 (30:43):
In England by a huge factory.

Speaker 5 (30:45):
Well and in the South too, So I was very
inspired by England. True, So I'm curious to know what
accent he had and like how convincing it was. But
he must have like honed it to a good degree
as far as he did.

Speaker 2 (30:57):
Anyway, maybe it's watching a lot of PBS.

Speaker 3 (31:00):
Probably Mystery.

Speaker 2 (31:04):
House.

Speaker 3 (31:06):
So he started living.

Speaker 5 (31:07):
Like Lord Buckingham and acting like he knew so he
got fine stationary with the Buckingham coat of arms. He
rented an apartment in Germany and he explained to the
owner that it wasn't for him. He was a lord,
he had lots of money and property and things. He
was renting the apartment as a place to store some
of the furniture from his castle in England because like

(31:27):
I guess the furniture was studying abroad I don't know,
and needed an extent. Why would you put your furniture
in a German apartment.

Speaker 2 (31:35):
Whatever, How would he say, it's for my guest, but
you know that's.

Speaker 3 (31:38):
Yeah, it's too simple either way.

Speaker 5 (31:39):
He was living his life as this English lord, bouncing
between Switzerland and Germany. And in twenty and one he
got a job not as a Scotland yard detective, but
as an IT security consultant at an insurance company in Switzerland.
And then the next year tragedy struck. He was on
a road trip back from Northampton. I guess he went
to see the kids. He was in France and he

(32:02):
got rear ended and the collision shoved his car forward
and he slammed into the brick wall of a toll booth.

Speaker 2 (32:08):
Horrible.

Speaker 5 (32:09):
So he got his skull crushed in the accident, and
he went into a coma. For months, he's in his
hospital in France, and then he was when he was
awake and stable and able to be moved, they took
him to a Swiss hospital and it was there that
he started dating his nurse, the Swiss woman, Anita Keller.

Speaker 2 (32:27):
Like a lord.

Speaker 3 (32:27):
Now oh yeah. He also he.

Speaker 5 (32:30):
Pocketed like a good settlement as a result of the accident.
So he recovered and continued his life as Lord Buckingham,
now with a Swiss nurse on his arm, life going
along swimmingly. He got some like mild after effects from
the accident, but nothing that interfered with his day to
day life. He was Lord Buckingham and while the accident

(32:53):
was traumatic, it didn't stop him from driving back and
forth to England occasionally, you know, easy enough.

Speaker 3 (32:59):
So he goes to What if.

Speaker 2 (33:00):
He was like one of those guys, you know, people
have head wounds and then they get like the accent
from somewhere else. What if he got an American accent
back and he couldn't stop.

Speaker 3 (33:09):
Telling me incredible. So he's in Calais, Yeah, so he
would like go to cala and France.

Speaker 5 (33:15):
He puts his car on the ferry, pops over to Dover,
done that around the Motherland. Oh yeah, you've done it.

Speaker 2 (33:20):
I did on the what do you called the hovercraft? Okay, yeah,
it's fun Hollercraft ferry.

Speaker 5 (33:25):
Yeah yeah. Well, and it was fun for him too,
tootling around. But that changed for him on the afternoon
of January fifteenth, two thousand and five. Zaren, let's take
a break, Okay, I want ads and I want him
now and when we come back, we'll talk about January fifteenth,
two thousand and five.

Speaker 2 (34:02):
Zaren Elizabeth Elizabeth.

Speaker 3 (34:04):
January fifteenth, two thousand Let's go there. Okay, let's close
your eyes.

Speaker 2 (34:10):
Oh you did say that.

Speaker 3 (34:11):
I want you get up. Picture it.

Speaker 5 (34:20):
It's a beautiful Saturday afternoon, January fifteenth, two thousand and five.
You are Detective Constable David Sprigg, a police officer at
the Port of Dover in England. You are the eyes
and ears at this busy port. You're sitting at your
desk listening to the latest hits on BBC one Radio,
Girls Aloud, Robbie Williams, Destiny's Child, Green Day, Gwen Stefani

(34:43):
and one tune you particularly like these days. You can
do it by ice Cube featuring Mac ten and his toy.
You often find yourself singing to yourself.

Speaker 3 (34:53):
You can do it.

Speaker 5 (34:53):
Put your back into it. That's your twenty first century.
Keep calm and carry on, don't stop getting get it.

Speaker 3 (35:00):
It's so inspiring. Suddenly there's a knock at your door
and reach over.

Speaker 5 (35:04):
And you switch off the radio and then you call out,
come in. Two members of the UK Special Branch enter
your office. Good blokes, they work here with you at
the border station. Elite forces them. The tall one tells
you that a passenger with a British passport checked in
earlier that day at the port of Calais in France. Okay,
he was boarding the car ferry headed this way. His

(35:25):
information was plugged into the system and raised an alert.
Seems the information on the passport matched an entry in
the UK Register of Debts. Got a dead man coming
through the Man Christopher Buckingham apparently died in infancy in
nineteen sixty three, four months shy of his first birthday.
His passport had been flagged a couple of years back
in a routine run of active passports against the records

(35:47):
of births and deaths.

Speaker 3 (35:49):
It should have been revoked.

Speaker 5 (35:50):
Then, curious, you tell them you all know what this means,
fake identity. The special branch fellows tell you that he
boarded the ferry and would be arriving in Dover momentarily.

Speaker 3 (36:01):
Care to join us? They ask you.

Speaker 5 (36:03):
Grab your jacket and head out to the inspection point
with the special branchers.

Speaker 3 (36:07):
You pull two port policemen aside and put him run
down the car.

Speaker 5 (36:10):
The man the story they know to pull him aside
as soon as he rolls off the boat, and that's
what happens. You all see an aggressively nondescript white guy
with brown hair cheerfully pull his car over to the
inspection area. You watch as an officer speaks with the man.
The man speaks and then nods, granting approval for the
officer on the passenger side of the car to open
the door and remove things from the front seat. He

(36:33):
does so and walks the materials over to you. There's
a Swiss driver's license, a ferry ticket in the name
of Air Buckingham, a photocopy of his British passport, and
a sheaf of blank letterhead emblazoned with a coat of
arms above the phrase.

Speaker 3 (36:46):
From the office of Lord Buckingham. The officer tells you
that the man says he's a member of the House
of Lords. Seemed a little surprised to be stopped, but
happy to help. The man said he hadn't attended a
session of the House of Lords since moving to Switzer
some years ago. You walk over to the computer positioned
at a tall table beside you. You type away, searching

(37:06):
for Lord Buckingham in the list of members of the
House of Lords. Nothing.

Speaker 5 (37:10):
You open Google and tap tapped up. The tall guy
from Special Branch asks you anything. You've got one hit
on your search. You tell him that, well, what does
it say, he asked you, It's a pedigreed cat. Bring
him to my office, you tell the officers and head
back to the building. Don't stop, get it, get it,
You think to yourself, you can do it. Okay there

(37:35):
when you or rather, Detective Constable Sprigg questioned Buckingham.

Speaker 3 (37:39):
He swore his passport wasn't a fake.

Speaker 5 (37:42):
Sprigg asked him all sorts of questions about his life
is past, and Buckingham's answers.

Speaker 3 (37:47):
Were a mess. He couldn't nail down where he went
to school, like you.

Speaker 5 (37:51):
Forgot right, No, but then he threw out some names,
and but then you know, he couldn't remember like was
he born at home or in a hospital.

Speaker 2 (38:00):
He was young.

Speaker 5 (38:03):
He said he got his title because he owned or
inherited four manorial manorial titles. Yeah, but he couldn't name
them all his title and he was just vague about everything.
He had a German passport, which he said was because
of his mom's ancestry. And then he said that the
Swiss wanted to give him citizenship because of his quote

(38:25):
special skills in computer security. He told Sprigg that he
had just hadn't gotten around applying for it yet, you know,
just like these little fun facts. And then he told
the story that he had given lots of people His
dad was a diplomat in Egypt. Parents died in a
plane crash in Egypt when he was a teen, like, sure, Jan.

Speaker 3 (38:43):
Spriggs, like, you are full of it.

Speaker 5 (38:45):
And upon investigation the story totally fell apart. So he
got charged with using false information to obtain a passport
and they he got out on bail on one condition.
He had to come back the next week for further questioning,
sure said, and then he left ye during that week
the investigation continued, So the Special Branch sent that Lord

(39:09):
Buckingham letterhead over to the Royal College of Arms, which
is the official record keeper of all the British childry.
So they took a look at it, and they determined
that the title Lord Buckingham belonged to an extinct lineage,
and in fact it died out with the second Duke
of Buckingham in sixteen eighty seven.

Speaker 3 (39:28):
Long lost son.

Speaker 5 (39:30):
So sprigu he went about trying to track down all
of the school records at least and come to find
out that the school that he said he went to
didn't exist. And then he reached out to the Home Office.
Was Buckingham's dad a diplomat? Did he die in a
plane crash? And they're like, well, the dad didn't exist
and neither did the plane crash. So everything's bogus. And

(39:51):
now this guy is cut loose and he's out there
doing you know, who knows what's Lord Buckingham knows what,
but it was he wasn't Lord Buckingham.

Speaker 3 (40:01):
There is no Lord Buckingham. So who is this character?

Speaker 5 (40:05):
And would he come back like he promised to or
he figured out a way to weasel out of the
country and onto the continent. Surprise, Buckingham actually came back
the next week.

Speaker 2 (40:15):
Really yeah, did he think he was gonna be able
to smooz infinatly?

Speaker 5 (40:17):
I think he felt like, you know, I can keep
up this ruse. Sprigg laid everything out, all the lies,
all the missing information. Buckingham's only response, no comment, and
with that he's arrested again. But then he's out on bail.

Speaker 3 (40:30):
The next day.

Speaker 5 (40:31):
Once again, he went to court in October of two
thousand and five, and they charged him with that lying
to obtain a passport. He asked the judge if he
could be allowed to go to Switzerland because that's where
he had a safety deposit box, and in the box
was all the proof anyone would ever need to understand
and believe that he was one hundred percent Christopher Edward Buckingham.

Speaker 2 (40:53):
Are you gonna trust the internet or your lying eye?

Speaker 5 (40:55):
Well, the court just couldn't send someone to retrieve it, because,
you know, Buckingham like high tech guy.

Speaker 3 (40:59):
Right, high tech high high tech.

Speaker 5 (41:01):
Scooter computer got to get into the box, you scan
your thumb print.

Speaker 3 (41:05):
No, right had to be him. And the judge was like, hm,
that's interesting. No, you cannot go.

Speaker 2 (41:11):
I didn't see that.

Speaker 5 (41:12):
And so Buckingham's like, all right, fine, I'm guilty. Like
the judge called his bluff, Buckingham pleads guilty, which cracks
me up.

Speaker 3 (41:20):
Like.

Speaker 5 (41:22):
Fine, you know, I give up. He's supposed to be
sentenced in the next month. He's facing two years in
the clink, but after that he'd be free and could
still call himself Christopher Buckingham. They the idea, yeah, which
seems absolutely.

Speaker 3 (41:35):
Nuts to me.

Speaker 2 (41:36):
That does seem nuts to me too.

Speaker 3 (41:37):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (41:37):
Whatever, So Sprig, he's about to retire. And instead of
saying like I'm too old for this.

Speaker 2 (41:42):
Ish that's like keeping the proceeds of your criminal or
your crime, you know what I mean, Like you don't
get to keep the proceeds crime. He's like, oh, yeah,
I got to keep my life.

Speaker 3 (41:49):
He to be this little boy.

Speaker 5 (41:50):
Yeah, Sprig's about to retire.

Speaker 3 (41:53):
You know what he does, He puts his back into it.

Speaker 5 (41:55):
Oh, he wanted one last score in the anti crime way.
And he knew in his bones that Buckingham was hiding
something big and he had a limited amount of time
to uncover it. So we got to work. So the
cops released Buckingham's mugshot to the press and social media,
and they asked the public for help in identifying this man.
Tons of people called in, they wrote, and they were

(42:18):
all dead ends or just garbage, and they're like, yeah,
it's you know Jason Bourne.

Speaker 2 (42:21):
Like I was having an affair with him from nineteen
forty eight to nineteen fifty two.

Speaker 3 (42:25):
He is the head of the Burger King cartel.

Speaker 5 (42:28):
I've said too much, Like, so I'm telling you too,
Buckingham is so nondescript, like he's like a sample identic
kit drawing, like he's you. Yeah, so it looks like
anybody The Mail on Sunday, The Daily Mail Sunday edition
sent reporters to Buckingham's neighborhood, and one of them convinced
a neighbor who had an emergency key for Buckingham's place

(42:50):
to hand it over so they could poke around. Remember
this is the era of like hacking voicemails.

Speaker 2 (42:56):
Yeah, care like Pierce Morgan's going to.

Speaker 3 (42:58):
Hack you, right, right?

Speaker 5 (42:59):
So anyway, they found a quote, a brass bed, a television,
and a wooden table. There was a box of unused
fireworks in the kitchen, along with two chemical containers contents unknown.
Resting on the television was a pistol, a non firing
replica of the Walter P ninety nine made famous by
James Bond.

Speaker 3 (43:17):
H The Burger King planted the fireworks.

Speaker 2 (43:20):
So I guess once you're like hacking royalty, Like what
do they care about going into a lord's house?

Speaker 5 (43:25):
Oh yeah, no, exactly, good call. And it was a
mess up in there. And I don't mean just like untidy.
I mean he owned the place, but it was in foreclosure.
So he started just trashing it, like breaking things really,
which is such a weird thing that people do, Like
I've never got Yeah, yeah, I found a friend of
mine bought a house in foreclosure and they like ripped
out the toilets, like pulled sinks from the wall.

Speaker 2 (43:48):
You know, when I used to I used to be
a house panter for a very long time. We usipate
industrial stuff. So I once painted in La this church
that was in the valley right, but it was like
the kind of church that they also have like an
attached like school area and a multipurpose room and a
bunch of other stuff that isn't the church. And as
we were painting, they're paying us to paint it, they're

(44:08):
over there taking the light fixtures out, the door handles
off the doors, anything that they could harvest from this
place that they were renting, they took. They took everything.
We couldn't believe. We're just standing there like we actually
ended up calling the landlord because we're like this, this
is not right. We're witnesses to a crime. They're gonna
they're gonna say something like, why didn't you call anyone.
We're like, we didn't think of it. I mean they

(44:30):
were out there. They were taking the baseboard off the walls.

Speaker 3 (44:32):
You're kidding, just.

Speaker 2 (44:33):
Popping it off, like we can put this somewhere else.
It was nuts to see. Yeah, and it was the
bass player from corn Wait. It was his church, not
like he didn't own it, but he was a member.
So there's all these pictures of him like all around
like big, like you know, cardboard cutouts. Yeah. So he
was there and the church exactly like you could like
pose next to him in the church. Yeah. They had

(44:56):
like they had like movies on YouTube. They were like
cartoons for kids and stuf. They were like a hustle.

Speaker 3 (45:01):
It was a big thing. Okay, wow, I'm still trying
to process this.

Speaker 2 (45:05):
The part for me was the popping the baseboard off,
I mean the light bulbs and that was one thing,
and the fixtures was another thing. The door handles was wild,
but the baseboard is okay, you did not put that
out exactly.

Speaker 5 (45:17):
So Buckingham, this world, Buckingham sentencing is approaching and there's
no leads. And on November eighth, two thousand and five,
he got sentenced to twenty one months in prison. And
he was also at this point still refusing to divulge
his true identity, and a few months later he won
an appeal and his prison sentence was brought.

Speaker 3 (45:37):
Down to time served.

Speaker 2 (45:38):
Wow.

Speaker 5 (45:39):
I don't know out he went, but where he was stateless,
no real identity, and so he was remanded into the
custody of UK immigration authorities. They thought better of this whole. Yeah,
you can still be Christopher.

Speaker 2 (45:52):
I don't know how you're allow that. No, So I
mean I'm rooting for the guy.

Speaker 5 (45:55):
But still a few months later, though, there was a break.
Lindsey bucking was at the center of this. And I'm
not talking about the Fleetwood macuitarist.

Speaker 3 (46:04):
I'm talking about his daughter.

Speaker 5 (46:05):
She got an email from a guy named Kevin Stopford.
According to Lost magazine quote, the subject line read your
father I know him. Attached was a full color family
photograph showing a younger version of her father, blonde and tan,
surrounded by brothers and sisters. Kevin Stopford also emailed officers
at the Frontier Crime Unit, insisting that he knew Buckingham's

(46:29):
real name. The person who claims to be Christopher Edward
Buckingham is known to me as Charles Albert Stopford. His
current alias has been known to my mother for many
years and more recently to my brothers and sisters. So
she didn't tell anyone about the phone call. The mom
yeah it's her baby.

Speaker 3 (46:47):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (46:47):
So, according to NBC News quote, over the years, family
members in Florida had searched for their brother using his name,
but recently one did an Internet search using the name
Buckingham and spotted a story in the London Times about
a jailed man in England calling himself Lord Buckingham. They
got in touch with British authorities, so you can imagine
they're just like, what has ever happened to him?

Speaker 2 (47:08):
Like let me.

Speaker 4 (47:10):
Well.

Speaker 5 (47:10):
The moms like, well, okay, a little something funny, like
I don't know, twenty something years ago, got a call.

Speaker 2 (47:16):
I should have told you guys this, but yeah.

Speaker 5 (47:18):
So Lindsay told Cosmo that she was shocked that to
hear that her dad was American, because he was always
just like ripping on Americans and calling him quote stupid, brash,
loud idiots.

Speaker 3 (47:32):
That's why he left, I guess.

Speaker 5 (47:34):
His philandering father told the Guardian newspaper quote, Charles always
had an obsession with the English, maybe because he knew
that my ancestry is English.

Speaker 3 (47:43):
Yeah, it's all about you, dude. Sure, the Brits they
sent Buckingham's fingerprints to the US, and of course there
was a hit.

Speaker 5 (47:51):
He's confirmed as Charles Stopford. And now they just had
to deport him, and so he's Florida's problem. Again, this
wasn't an immediate process. And so while waiting for that deportation,
a bunch of his brothers and sisters headed over.

Speaker 3 (48:04):
The Pond to visit him in jail.

Speaker 2 (48:06):
Wow.

Speaker 5 (48:07):
Yeah, And so I mean, imagine you don't know where
your brother's been all these years, and you just have
these like vague stories from the mom but then everything
cuts off, you know, in eighty six.

Speaker 2 (48:18):
And I guess they probably still loved him in that
way that they wanted to sure, And also it's just
fun to go to.

Speaker 3 (48:23):
England and why not. So Jody, the ex wife, she
got wind of this and called Buckingham to give him
a heads up and he freaked.

Speaker 2 (48:30):
Out that thought.

Speaker 3 (48:31):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (48:32):
He told her that he had amnesia since the car
accident in France and had no memories of his life
before becoming Buckingham. And not just that, he also said
he only kind of remembered being married to her and
he had no idea who his kids were. So Jody
pointed out, like, you know what, We've spoken to each
other and seen each other kids included since the accident.

Speaker 3 (48:51):
And there was no amnesia then.

Speaker 5 (48:53):
And I don't know why she bothers like this guy lies,
like he totally two one thousand and six, they put
him on a flight to Orlando, him and a bunch
of Disney heads, and according to the Orlando Sentral newspaper quote,
upon his return, he hid an Orlando International Airports terminal,
telling long estranged family members through a cell phone that

(49:14):
he wouldn't greet them until members of the media left.
Stopford's family left the airport without a reunion. So back
on American soil. He did not want to be Charles Stopford.
He wanted to be Christopher Buckings. He made people call
him Christopher. He's like, that's my name, and he still
used the English accent, which, to be fair, he did

(49:35):
live there for decades, and so we probably couldn't shake
it even if he wanted to.

Speaker 2 (49:38):
And he's been faking it for so long. He's been
made it.

Speaker 5 (49:40):
Yeah, And so a reporter asked him why he did it, Like,
why did you invent this new identity, and he's like,
you know what, I have amnesia from an accident and
I can't remember. He's loving that. It was just like
just a lob to him. You can use this forever.
So he got banned from travel to both the UK

(50:00):
and Switzerland. WHOA, and once in the States, he acted
like his UK family didn't exist, cut all contact. He
did keep in touch with that Swiss nurse, Anita Keller
Dad and then when asked about how Anita was handling
all this, Buckingham told Lost Magazine quote, she really didn't

(50:21):
pass any judgment. She was confused and a little upset,
but in the end she said she didn't care. She
always knew me as Christopher anyway, so there was no
change for her.

Speaker 3 (50:29):
She just thinks it's.

Speaker 5 (50:30):
Good that I'm seeing my family finally and wants me
to get back to Switzerland as soon as possible.

Speaker 2 (50:35):
Sir, I'd like to hear her side of the story.

Speaker 3 (50:37):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (50:37):
By fall of two thousand and seven, he managed to
do just that. Like, despite the ban, he made his
way to Zurich. Who knows, Lost Magazine laid it all
out quote he had legally obtained a US passport in
his adopted identity, but lied about his birthday on the application,
writing in that of the real Christopher Buckingham rather than

(51:00):
than his own. From there, he had simply boarded a
plane and flown to Zurich. The Swiss raised no fuss
at his return. He told them he'd been traveling abroad.
They took him at his word, and just like that,
he was back Swiss. Yeah, so for real. He moved
in with Anita in the same place they'd lived before,
got his old job back as the computer security consultant,

(51:21):
went back to calling himself Lord Buckingham.

Speaker 3 (51:25):
Absolutely nothing had changed, and.

Speaker 5 (51:27):
I'll leave you with these bits from the Lost Magazine
interview quote. Over the years, he had successfully passed himself
off as a British aristocrat, Russian royalty and a German businessman,
a retired Cold War spy, and even a dead man. However,
when asked why he didn't use any of these after
his arrest, he said, in the end, I'm not criminally
minded for the intent of criminality, and I mean you

(51:50):
have to face the music someday if the hunters ever
got too close. Buckingham assured me he was prepared to
disappear again. He was certain he would leave no traces.
I have vanished many times. He told me, no one's
sure where he is today or what he's up to,
but I'm sure it's ridiculous.

Speaker 3 (52:08):
I'm met, Saron. What's your ridiculous takeaway?

Speaker 2 (52:11):
This is one of the rare ones where the guy
does a lot. He basically doesn't fake his death, but
he just you know, assumes a new identity. And I
kept thinking when you got to the LLC part that
he was going to go for broken criminality and like
a massive fortune of millions ill gotten gained, maybe rip
off a charity or two, and it's like, nope, I
just want to be a lord. Yeah. I mean, he's
just like playing dress up, but at the criminal level

(52:33):
of dress up. This is make believe to the level
of you can go to prison for make belief.

Speaker 3 (52:38):
Sir, right, right, it's wild.

Speaker 2 (52:39):
So what's yours of Elizabeth?

Speaker 3 (52:41):
Again?

Speaker 5 (52:41):
I don't that The whole psychology of this is just
boggles my mind. You know, you can change your name
legally and then you can just go around calling yourself
this thing, and you know, but on your official records
do I don't know. There are other ways to do
this where you're not lying and.

Speaker 2 (52:58):
Realized I almost changed my name because my father and
I have the same nameh were both writers that to
make things easy on the internet. I was going to
change my name and I told him that. He's like no,
I was like, really, okay, then I guess I'm not going.

Speaker 3 (53:09):
To change my namesake.

Speaker 2 (53:11):
Yeah, He's like, I named you that for a reason,
and I was like, oh, I did your work out
of respect, I kept the name.

Speaker 3 (53:22):
You know what I think would top this off? Well,
talk back?

Speaker 2 (53:25):
Oh those are always fun. Oh, oh my god.

Speaker 3 (53:35):
I went get.

Speaker 4 (53:39):
Hey, Saron and Elizabeth, I love, love, love your show.
But one thing I just have to say, because it's
frustrating me, is I don't know how you put up
with it, Elizabeth. Every time you try to say anything,
Saron's talking over you, and it gets frustrating for the listener.
So no offense. Still love you, Take.

Speaker 2 (53:58):
Care I spoke too soon. They're not always that's good
construct but honestly it did.

Speaker 5 (54:05):
Like, so this is a conversation, Like it's a conversation
like when I'm telling a story, I have bullet point
notes that I hit and maybe like the quotes are
written out, but the rest of it is just us talking.

Speaker 2 (54:16):
We know each other really well, so it's yeah, I.

Speaker 5 (54:19):
Mean I can understand, like if it's difficult to listen to,
it's not difficult for me.

Speaker 3 (54:23):
But you know, well, I'm.

Speaker 2 (54:24):
Glad you say that, and I do. By the way,
I apologize for that tendency. I come from a family
where people talk over each other and Elizabeth does not,
and so she's gotten used to me doing it and
doesn't necessarily take offense to it because it's not meant
other than just excitement, Like I can expect her to
keep talking even though I'm talking. I'm sure as a
listener that can be frustrating. So I apologize to listeners

(54:44):
who that frustrates, and I am working on it. I
constantly tell myself not to do it, but I get
very excited talking to Elizabeth's why we have so much
fun doing the show, and part of my excitement is
to start talking or to finish the thought she's having
with like the word of like I think I did
it today with Heraldry, like oh yeah, Harold, because I
was so excited. I'm like a kid, I'm like a puppy,
and I can't help myself, so I.

Speaker 5 (55:05):
Do is appealing in that and that's why I think
it doesn't bother me. But also you made a good point,
is that there are families that talk over each other
and families that don't. Yes, and your family is definitely
a cross talk and like loud back and forth family.
And I come from very mellow.

Speaker 2 (55:22):
You guys can speaking like I'm used to listening. If
I don't have at least three people talking at once
in a family function, it's like something is somewhat upset,
like they and I'm really good at tracking three different
conversations at the same time, which makes a lot of
people really nervous, but it actually makes me feel calm.

Speaker 5 (55:39):
I have sometimes think it's like Also like your family
is from.

Speaker 3 (55:42):
The East Coast, Yes, it's very much an easy in
the coast.

Speaker 5 (55:44):
West Coast is where these like long time yeah, Blifornia
open spaces.

Speaker 2 (55:49):
You don't need to shout. Also, you you come in
sometimes the office before we do the show, and I
will be listening to a radio show on my phone,
i will be watching something about fantasy football on my computer,
and I'll be talking like to somebody. I can have
lots of conversations, so to me, they're just layers as
opposed to like, there's one.

Speaker 3 (56:08):
Thing happening and I got to do the one thing.

Speaker 2 (56:10):
I can't I respect that.

Speaker 5 (56:11):
Or it's like when I'm driving and it gets crazy,
I got to turn the radio off.

Speaker 2 (56:16):
You're like, I'm going to park turn the radio off.
I know I've seen it, but again, I'm sorry, listeners.
I am working on it though.

Speaker 5 (56:23):
But I do like the fact that we've got like
good constructive criticism, you.

Speaker 2 (56:26):
Know, I feel like that.

Speaker 3 (56:28):
Not ripping in on us, but at the same time
pointing out what what they like or don't like. I mean,
let's not start that as a trend of everyone telling
us what's because then we're all going to get the
talk backs of Elizabeth doesn't know how to say words.
Thank you.

Speaker 2 (56:41):
Yeah. I think I'm better because I know I'm already messing.

Speaker 3 (56:44):
I'm a delicate flower. That's it for today.

Speaker 5 (56:48):
You can find us online at ridiculous Crime dot com.
We're also at Ridiculous Crime on blue Sky and Instagram,
and we're on YouTube at Ridiculous Crime Pod. You can
email us at ridiculous Crime at gmail dot com, and
as always, leave a talkback on the free iHeart app.
Reach Out Ridiculous Crime is hosted by Elizabeth Dutton and

(57:12):
Zaren Burnett, produced and edited by Lord Dave Cousten. The
ninth Earl of Ice Cubington, starring Annalise Rutger as Judith.
Research is by Dame Marisa Brown and Count Jabari Davis.
The theme song is by Orlando Area Methodist Minister Thomas
Lee and Orlando Area Burger King Day manager Travis Dutton.
Host wardrobe is provided by Botany five hundred guests Hare

(57:34):
and makeup by Sparkleshot and Mister Andre. Executive producers are
Swiss LLC Freelance Executive Officer Ben Bollen and bavarian Ski
instructor Noel Browns.

Speaker 3 (57:51):
Quime Say It One More Times.

Speaker 1 (57:55):
QUI Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio. For more
podcasts to my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.