Roofman

Have you ever met someone who seemed too good to be true? A stranger who came to town and gave you a vague backstory about secret government work? That would send up a red flag for most people, and it did for Leigh Wainscott, but before she could end things with the new man in her life, police dropped a bombshell: John Zorn wasn’t really who he said he was. His true identity was Army reservist turned McDonald’s robber turned prison escapee, Jeffrey Manchester, also known as Roofman. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:32):
Hey, hey, welcome back to Autumn's oddities. I'm autumn. Uh well,
no business today to discuss. I am fresh off a
trip I shouldn't say fresh to Red River Gorge and
still catching up on rest. I am real tired. Did
several many hikes, uh one with a much sharper elevation

(00:55):
change than I am used to. I was indeed very
wind Well, just we'll put it that way without further ado.
Let's get into today's case, which is soon to be
a motion picture starring Channing Tatum as the roof Man.
Have you ever met someone who seemed too good to
be true? I think we all have, maybe a stranger

(01:18):
who came to town and gave you a vague backstory about
secret government work that would send up a red flag,
that would send out a red flag for most people,
And it did for Lee Wayne Scott. But before she
could end things with the new man in her life,
police dropped a bombshell. John Zorn, her boyfriend wasn't really

(01:43):
who he said he was. His true identity was Army
reservist turned McDonald's robber turned prison escapee Jeffrey Manchester, better
known as the roof Man. Lee Wayne Scott thought her
look had finally turned around. Recently ended a twenty year
marriage and was juggling work and life as a single mother.

(02:05):
One day in October two thousand and four, kind of
like a fairy tale, a newcomer named John showed up
at her church. He was funny, romantic, the most sensitive
man I've ever met, wayIn Scott later told the Charlotte Observer,
the guy that every girl would want. They were soon dating,
sharing dinners at Red Lobster. Don't knock it, I would,

(02:26):
you know, probably only get the Cheddarbay biscuits so I
don't get sick, but whatever, It's cool, and evenings at
her home watching movies. He often gave new toys to
her children, and when Christmas rolled around a few months later,
he donated more items to the church toy drive than
anyone else in the congregation. He was very engaging, down

(02:46):
to earth, a nice fellow, their pastor said. A few
days after New Year's Wayne Scott was at work when
a police officer approached her. He had a photograph in
his hand. That's John, Wayne's, Scott said, Only he wasn't John.
His real name was Jeffrey Manchester. The officer told her
can you even imagine that? Like dating some guy and

(03:08):
you think he's great, and you've just come out of
a twenty freaking year marriage and he's met your children
and everything, and a cop comes to your door like
right after Christmas, right during the holidays, and is like, hey,
your boyfriend is not who he said he is. He is,
in fact, an escaped convict who has been living for
the last six months inside hidden rooms he'd created in

(03:31):
a nearby toys r us in Circuit City. Honestly, this
is one of the strangest stories that I've ever heard.
Like the plot of it seems again it's it's easy
to make this into a movie. It writes itself. I
don't think they had to come up with any material
in order to make this movie. It indeed did right itself.
They didn't know where he was, the police that is,

(03:53):
and detectives needed Lee Wayne Scott's help. As her world
came crashing down around her, Wayne Scott began to cry, Yeah,
I'd do the same thing. I'd be like, really, man,
come on. Her dreams of a future with the man
she fell in love with were shattered. Jeffrey Allen Manchester
was born in Sacramento in nineteen seventy one. By all accounts,

(04:15):
he had a typically sunny California childhood, attending high school
in Rancho Cordoba before enlisting in the military with the
legendary eighty second Airborne Division, Manchester learned the skills of
a paratrooper, repelling, jumping from great heights, and handling weapons.
At age twenty, he got married and started a family.

(04:38):
Manchester would end up being deployed around the world, but
in nineteen ninety nine the family moved into military housing
at the Naval Weapons Station in Concord, California. In November, though,
police were called to the Manchester family home on Hamilton
Avenue for a domestic disturbance, and after that Manchester's wife

(05:01):
filed for divorce and full custody of their children. But
by then the roof Man robberies had already begun. By
the autumn of nineteen ninety eight, Jeffrey Manchester had grown
disenchanted with the ordinary life laid out for him. The
military had honed his patients attention to detail and confidence

(05:21):
in confined spaces, all traits that he would soon apply
to his highly unorthodox second career. Rather than bargin through
front doors, like you know most stick ups, Manchester preferred
the path less, taken through the ceiling tiles. Each job
began long before a single roof was drilled. Manchester would

(05:44):
do reconnaissance. He would spend weeks, sometimes months, observing a
chosen fast food chain, usually a McDonald's that was tucked
along a quiet highway or a retail strip. He mapped
employee routines, he clocked delivery trucks, and he sketched out
alarm placement in his mind. Locals often assumed that the
quiet man lingering in a car at odd hours was harmless,

(06:07):
you know, perhaps a weary traveler with nowhere else to go. Then,
under cover of darkness, Manchester scaled the roof. Armed with
basic tools. He would carefully cut through the tar and plywood,
making just enough space to slip inside. His entrance routes varied,
sometimes a straight drop into the storage loft, sometimes a

(06:30):
duct crawl worthy of a B movie. Once inside, he
never smashed things. He didn't make noise. Instead, he would
hide in the bathroom, calmly and patiently, waiting for the
breakfast shift. I said that weird brikfast ruft. When the
whirr of milkshake machines, and yeah, right, if this is McDonald's,
it's broken. No, you can't have a mcflurry it's broken.

(06:52):
I know it's on our menu, but the machine is
permanently broken. So he would wait for that machine to
be turned on, and then the employees say it's broken
in the hiss of the frying oil, which signaled normal business.
Roofman would then emerge, politely but firmly, pointing a small firearm.
He was never frantic. He never shouted. Instead, he spoke gently,

(07:15):
asked the staff to remain calm, and then guided them
into the walk in refrigerator. On more than one occasion,
because he's so polite, he suggested that the employees get
a jacket before stepping into the sub zero hold. Once
they were locked inside, he raided the store, then called
police to alert them about the workers in the friggin freezer.

(07:38):
He primarily targeted restaurants in northern California, but occasionally ventured
out to Oregon, Nevada, Virginia, and Massachusetts. The Roofman had
a coast to coast reputation as the most courteous thief
in the nation. According to the Sacramento b He was
really polite. He was apologizing, recalled one McDonald's manager. He said,

(08:00):
would you please, ma'am get on the floor, would you please,
ma'am get down? And again, okay, yeah, he may be
being polite, but he does indeed have a gun, so
you can imagine the level of trauma that comes with
having a gun put in your face by a stranger.
He then emptied the tills at his leisure, sometimes even

(08:21):
helping himself to like a breakfast sandwich or a cup
of coffee before escaping the way that he came up
through the roof and into the night or early morning.
Police police later marveled at the sheer scope. By the
time he was caught, Manchester had burglarized and estimated forty

(08:44):
to sixty restaurants in at least six states. He never
left behind really any significant forensic evidence, and witnesses described
him as unfailingly courteous, as if you know a kindly
neighbor had suddenly just of their cash registers at gunpoint.
Remember gunpoint. He didn't just walk in and be like, hey,

(09:06):
give me the stuff and was super there's a gun involved.
To the FBI, he became an obsession, a phantom who
never stayed long enough to catch All in all, the
Roofman's total score was about one hundred thousand dollars. It's
hard to calculate how many specific crimes a burglar commits
in a calendar year, but I think it's safe to

(09:28):
say that, you know, the fewer burglaries you commit on
a chain restaurant, the less chance you might have of
running into trouble with the law. But Roofman didn't see
it that way. He moved across the country, burglarizing McDonald's
after McDonald's because it was just so easy. You know,
each restaurant has a similar floor plan, they're franchised, and

(09:49):
that made his job easier each and every time he
did it. It was essentially like walking through your house
at night. The first time you do it, you know,
you'll probably bump into a wall or a table, But
after ten or fifteen attempts, could probably do it with
your eyes closed. Not me, I would break every single
bone in my body. The repetitive nature of Rufman's crimes

(10:09):
is why he was able to rob more than forty
McDonald's over a little over two years before he was caught.
There were some pretty close calls, though, once the roofman
escaped out of a back window right as police rushed
into the McDonald's. Detectives across the country began to suspect
that their man was military trained, especially because he could

(10:31):
hit the floor after a long leap from the ceiling
and not miss a beat. He was extremely fast, strong,
and has kept as cool when cornered. The Bee, reported
the Sacramentobie, I should say not the Bee. At least
one investigator believed that he would never be captured. In
May two thousand, Manchester left Mayor Island with the four

(10:53):
hundred and eighty first Transportation Company, which was in or
probably still is, an Army reserve boat unit, for an
annual training exercise in North Carolina. Shortly after midnight on
May twentieth, Manchester dropped through the roof to rob a
McDonald's in Gastonia that had closed for the night. Five
hours later, and ten miles away, he targeted another McDonald's

(11:17):
that was about to open. He's getting a little bit reckless.
Despite the planning and good manners, Manchester's run couldn't last forever.
By then, his boldness had grown with each smooth getaway
that month. Like I said, he made an unusually rash
decision robbing two McDonald's on this same day, not a

(11:38):
good idea in North Carolina, of course, carrying his twenty
two caliber calib Bi Bibe caliber rifle. At the second location,
a quick thinking employee discreetly triggered a silent alarm. Officers
who were by now well aware of Roofman's signature moves,
fanned out across the area. They found Manchester's hidden in

(12:01):
a church parking lot, which was a trick he often
used to you know, park unnoticed near his target. He
obviously wasn't going to park in the parking lot unless
he's just you know, bottom of the barrel stupid. A
lone policeman caught sight of Manchester emerging from the woods,
moving purposely towards the vehicle. A brief footchase ensued, and

(12:23):
Manchester slipped back into the trees, but was soon cornered
and handcuffed. During questioning, he tried to muddy the waters.
He's like, oh, yeah, I took my inspiration after I
saw the news about some other guy robbing a bunch
of McDonalds and going through the roof. That's where I
took my there certainly wasn't me. I took inspiration from it.
I'm not going to take credit for those other ones,

(12:44):
just these two. But detectives knew better. The polite chatter,
the consistent, you know, modus operandi, the pattern stretching from
California to the Carolinas, all of it pointed to Manchester alone.
It was there in the suburb of Belmont, North Carolina,
that his luck did indeed run out. You know, Manchester

(13:06):
escaped on foot, police gave chase, and they did indeed
find him in the tall grass. And when they found him,
he was reportedly gracious in his defeat, saying, you guys
did a real good job today to the officers that
were resting him into that I say, okay, how strange. Anyway,

(13:26):
In the end, the courts convicted him for just the
two robberies that he committed in May, but the weight
of his wider career hung heavy. Manchester was sentenced to
a staggering forty five years in prison for robbing the
two McDonald's, primarily due to the kidnapping charges for each
individual employee. Yeah, I should have thought about that. So

(13:50):
his brief trip to North Carolina had turned into a
permanent stay. A North Carolina detective said he came to
the wrong place when he came to Belmont. Yeah, sounds
like it. Over the next four years, Manchester was shuttled
from prison to prison, before finally landing at Brown Creek
Correctional Institute, where he seemed to settle down, you know,

(14:11):
at least outwardly. Inside Brown Creek, Manchester proved once again
that patience and a knack for improvisation were his greatest tools.
Assigned to the metal shop, he studied the comings and
goings of delivery trucks for months on end. He noted
shift changes, gate checks, and witch drivers barely bothered to

(14:34):
look underneath their rigs. He fashioned a simple but ingenious
escape plan, a plywood platform cut to fit snugly along
the truck's undercarriage, then painted hitch black. This is really smart, honestly.
He also used scraps of cardboard to further disguise himself.
On June fifteenth, two thousand and four, he executed the plan.

(14:57):
Tucking beneath a moving truck, passed the guards at the
exit gate, holding his breath as they gave the departing
vehicle no more than a passing glance and with that
he was free. Rather than returned to California, you know,
where his children are, or escape the country as quickly
as possible, which would have been smart, Manchester made the

(15:19):
strange decision to hitchhike to Charlotte, North Carolina. According to
The Daily Beast, Manchester had been convinced that the sentences
for burglary were more lenient in that county than surrounding counties.
So the roofman went to Mecklenburg County and began to
firmly intrench himself into the community. He started going to church,

(15:41):
volunteering and making sure he handed out toys to all
the kids in his community. Investigators thought, you know, maybe
he was making his way back to Sacramento, where his
ex wife and kids were living. But Manchester didn't even
attempt to leave the state. He had found his hideout
a toys r us Like I said, I don't think

(16:03):
the people that made the movie that's going to be
starring Channing Tatum even remotely had to get creative with
the script because it wrote itself. The store at sixty
one hundred East Independence Avenue and Charlotte had everything he needed.
You know, there was baby food to eat, bikes to
ride at night for exercise, and remote controlled cars to

(16:24):
race around the roof. When he was bored, he opened
up packages of baby monitors and used them to watch
the employees come and go. There was also a bit
of serendipity involved. The circuit City next door was permanently closed,
so Manchester tunneled in and using a board spring loaded

(16:44):
with a bungee cord, he made a door inside the
vacant circuit City. Manchester used toys Rus merchandise to decorate
a stairwell space fit for a ten year old. He
made a bed with Spider Man sheets, put up a
Spider Man poster on the wall, and arranged toy models
of Yoda. His stack of DVDs included Matchstick Men Forty

(17:07):
Days and Forty Nights, and of course Spider Man two.
This is ridiculous, isn't it? Like again, like if you
just saw the movie and hadn't heard the story, you'd
be like, this is absurd. This really happened, though, and
during store hours he would stay silent in his loft,
listening to the hum of customers and staff below, to

(17:29):
avoid an accident that would, you know, lead to his detection.
Manchester installed of smoke detector and fire extinguisher. He had
traded a four foot by eight foot cell for a
four foot by ten foot preteen haven. After a few
months in his hideaway, Manchester must have been feeling invincible

(17:50):
and also probably stir crazy. In October he started attending
the nearby Presbyterian church, where he met Lee Wainscott. Oh,
and She'll be played by Kirsty and Dunst by the way.
He told her that he worked for the government, which
isn't entirely a lie, but said that he couldn't tell
her exactly what he did red flag flag on the

(18:12):
play and be like, well, you better tell me, like
what department you work in? At least good sir. When
she asked to see his place, he said it was
a government building a sterile environment. Along with helping with
Wednesday night Bible study, Manchester frequented a local gym, which
is where I assume he would also shower, and even

(18:33):
went to the dentist. He gave his pastor the first
two seasons of Seinfeld on DVD. If you draw donut
around that circuit city and I guess he just means
a circle, a Charlotte police captain later said, I bet
he talked to everyone within a mile. Real smart guy,
real smart. Although Manchester had the basics you know in

(18:53):
his Little Toys Rs. Circuit City cave, he still needed
cash to take his new girlfriend out on dates and
to pay four incidentals. At some point, police believed that
he broke into a pawnshop and stole a gun. He
also surreptitiously changed employee schedules at the Toys r Us,
likely hoping to create windows of time where he could

(19:14):
roam the store uninterrupted. And this was a different time
like this two thousand four ish, two thousand to two
thousand and four. They certainly were not using like apps
to sit to your It was a paper schedule, you know,
you walked in on Monday and you saw your schedule
for the rest of the week, and you could trade
around shifts with people. But it was definitely on paper,

(19:35):
and he could do something like that. By late two
thousand and four, Jeffrey Manchester had woven a precarious web
of half truths and just bold face lies and trespasses.
He was living rent free inside a shuttered electronics store
and masquerading as a government agent to his girlfriend and
church friends, and he was running on borrowed time. The

(19:58):
Toys Rs plan grew more elabor by the week. He
began to put together a plan to hit the place
that he was staying, but his method of preparing for
it showed that despite his polite veneer rufe, man was
capable of darker turns. And to that, I say, he
was carrying a gun the whole time, so it was
already pretty dark. Manchester knew that to pull off his

(20:19):
grand finale he would need a firearm. He also worried
that the local dentist's office that he went to, where
you know, he'd had some dental work done, might give
him away, yeah, dental records. Finally, he robbed a local
pawn shop to secure a new weapon, all while still
slipping back each night into his secret bunk beneath the

(20:39):
Circuit City staircase. On December twenty six, two thousand and four,
while most families were dozing off Christmas dinner, Manchester made
his move. He slipped back into the Toys Rs. Before opening.
He was armed and ready. Using his surveillance knowledge, he
isolated employees, locked them down, and helped himself to a

(21:00):
substantial haul of cash from the store's safe and tills.
True to form, he spoke gently and tried to reassure
his captives, but this time two staff managed to slip
free and dashed outside to alert law enforcement. Police dogs
were brought in and they sniffed out seven thousand dollars
worth of toys that Manchester had hidden above the ceiling tile.

(21:23):
So that's how he was donating all those toys to
the church and giving them out to his girlfriend's kids
and neighborhood children alike. But Manchester was gone and the
damage was already done. One sloppy decision was about to
take down his tiny, weird little empire. A few days later,

(21:43):
a Charlotte police officer named Fred Allen was patrolling the
empty circuit city when he noticed something odd. Although the
vacant store had its electricity on, one part of the
store was completely dark. As Alan approached the dark spot,
but he saw a makeshift door painted to blend in

(22:04):
with the wall. Inside, he discovered the lair and he
was probably like, is there a fucking child living down here?
Like what is going on? I would have been scared
that somebody was like keeping a child captive there because
I'm sure that's what it looked like. But a fingerprint
found inside the hideaway matched that of an escaped convict
named Jeffrey Manchester. Alan told reporters that he'd never seen

(22:28):
anybody so determined he wasn't going to make a stupid mistake,
and that they had to find him. Manchester's mugshot went
out on the nightly news before sunrise. The next day,
he returned to his dentist office to set it on fire,
and of course police believe in obviously this is what
he was doing. He was trying to destroy his medical records.

(22:51):
It was no use, though. Several church members who saw
his mugshot called police with suspicions about the clean cut
thirty three year old who materialized out of thin air
only six months prior. But the pressure on Lee Wainscott,
you know, the totally innocent and unwitting girlfriend, was immense.
She had already grown suspicious and when police laid out

(23:13):
the evidence, she agreed to help in the farce. On
January fifth, two thousand and five, at the police requests,
Wayne Scott called Jeffrey Manchester and invited him over. He
arrived unsuspecting and likely hoping to calm her nerves with,
of course, another tall tail. Instead, he walked right in

(23:34):
to the arms of waiting officers, bringing an end once
again to his unusual brand of polite law breaking. In
the end, setting fire to his dentist office might have
been one of his largest missteps. And here's something else
to think of. Visiting the dentist isn't cheap, and you know,

(23:57):
to get the money that he would have needed to
get worked done because he obviously wasn't using insurance. Because
he's a prison escapee and going under a false name,
Manchester likely had to rob another business. It's likely that
Manchester was pulling off a lot of crimes while living
inside the Toys r Us After the police apparently inside

(24:19):
his lair, found Lee Wainscott's information because she was indeed
the first person they went to after what they found
inside the toy store. She didn't believe the police at first,
but once they proved who she was really dating, Wayne
Scott cooperated with the police and helped set up the
sting operation. She invited Manchester to her house for her

(24:41):
fortieth birthday on January fifth, which you know, was a
full ten days after he had fled his toys r
us lair, and instead of getting the f out of town,
Manchester stuck around to see his girlfriend one final time.
Just twelve hours after he set the dentist's office on fire,
Manchester arrived at Wayne Scott's apartment with a bouquet of flowers.

(25:04):
He was arrested as soon as he arrived. After the arrest,
Manchester was able to get in touch with his girlfriend
for their last conversation. She said that he was very
sad and humbled and felt terrified or terrible. Excuse me
that he had to deceive us. Well, girl, he didn't
have to deceive you. That's some bullshit language. He encouraged
me and told me to be strong and to do

(25:26):
the things we had discussed. He wasn't upset. Well, why
would he be upset? The police came to you and
you have children and this man who's been lying to
you about who he is and he uses a fucking
gun in robberies, I'm just saying, And he burned down
a dentist office, Like, what makes you think that if
he thought that you were going to do something to
turn him in, that he wouldn't have done the same

(25:48):
to your house or threatened your children like really truly
his ultimate blunder. Charlotte Police Sergeant Catherine Scheimriff told the
Chronicle San Francisco, to be specific, was going back for
the girl one last time. In December that year, a
North Carolina court tried Manchester for the fresh offenses he
had committed, burglary, weapons charges, arson, escape, and more. He

(26:14):
received a further forty years on top of his original sentence,
sealing his fate for decades to come. After his recapture,
Manchester was first held at Marian Correctional Institution before being
transferred to Central Prison in Raleigh. It's a high security
facility which is much less likely to overlook a man

(26:35):
so skilled at slipping through the cracks. Even so, ruth
Mann never fully gave up on outwitting the system. He
attempted to escape yet again in both two thousand and
nine and twenty seventeen, reminding authorities that the patient quietly
smiling fugitive could never be written off. As it stands,

(26:58):
Jeffrey Manchester is expected to remain behind bars until December
twenty thirty six. At the time of his release, he
will be sixty five, more than half of his life
accidentally spent in North Carolina. Whether the Roofman is finally
at peace with a less adventurous you know, life is
anyone's guess. But you can be sure that the wardens

(27:20):
still check the ceilings, you know, a little more often
than they used to. In February of this year, it
was announced that Channing Tatum would play Manchester in a
movie which is ridiculous, and the movie is entitled Roofman.
Easy Peasy. They don't look alike. They try to, like
ugly up Channing Tatum a little bit. I mean, still,

(27:41):
they don't look alike. It's, you know, it's it's an
actor playing a regular guy. Although Manchester's escapades have, you know,
kind of like a Robin Hood flair to them, He's
no hero whatsoever, As police are quick to point out,
Manchester abandoned his children, joined a new family like never
went back for his children. He deceived everyone around him

(28:04):
for his own gain, and he pistol whipped at least
one fast food worker at a robbery in Citrus Heights,
not to mention traumatizing countless others. He held up at gunpoint.
I have never been held up at gunpoint. I hope
to God that I never am. I know people who
have been it left a lot of damage, like really

(28:25):
truly messed them up. Manchester is still serving that sentence
in Central Prison. Maybe he'll get out at sixty five,
maybe he won't. And although Manchester was always cooperative in
police custody, he has never explained why he cast aside
his comfortable life for a lawless alter ego. And I
think it was just because he was an ordinary guy.

(28:47):
And you know how people like that are, They really
want to be extraordinary. It's like, okay, you don't. Everybody
doesn't have to be extraordinary. Yeah, you did stuff in
the military. Why didn't you just stay doing that? Why
wasn't it enough? It's strange to me, honestly. The timing
of the Roofman robberies, you know, right after his marriage
fell apart, certainly suggest a perverse chance to reinvent himself.

(29:11):
Or maybe he just liked having a secret identity, you know,
like the superheroes he plastered around his hideout. Shortly after
his final arrest, Manchester spoke to his mother from prison.
His demeanor, cool and calm, was unchanged when she asked
about his recapture. Manchester was brief mom he said, I
kind of lost focus. And that's it. That's the tale

(29:34):
of Jeffrey Manchester, the roofman. I don't have to say
what the fuck happened. We know what the fuck happened. Why, like, really,
why he seemed I don't know. I don't want to
say that he seemed. He did not seem nice. You know,
his first his wife called the police. It was a

(29:55):
domestic violent situation. I'm assuming he put hands on her. So, oh,
I'm gonna say he's not a great guy. I'm going
to say he's not a nice guy. I'm gonna say
his guy with a lot of problems who instead of
getting help.

Speaker 2 (30:08):
Just decided to start robbing places, Like I don't understand
if you did that while you had a wife and family,
because he was doing it up until the point they
you know, got divorced and then continued to do it.

Speaker 1 (30:22):
What were you doing with that money? You know, if
you have a wife, she's gonna ask like, where the
hell are you getting all this money? He took about
one hundred thousand dollars total. How much of that was
during the time he was married still, I'm not sure,
but seriously, he didn't never give any of that money

(30:42):
to his family either, like he didn't send money back home,
he wasn't doing any of that. I assume he was
having to pay child support. I would hope, and well,
if he was in the military, he had to because
they garnish your wages if you don't pay your child support.
So I'm sure he was paying child support, not by choice,
and then reimbursing himself. I don't know with money he

(31:05):
stole from the restaurants. I really don't know. It's it
all seems like an odd control thing to me, like
he just wanted control of something and he wanted to
be smarter than everybody else. And I don't really think
he's that smart, you know, he's just good at at
sneaking and lying. Like, I don't think we should glorify

(31:26):
this dude at all, because I feel like this movie
is going to turn him into like an anti hero,
and that's kind of shitty because he sucks. Like he
abandoned his kids, he never went back for them. I
don't know, you know, if any of that money went
to his family, I kind of hope it didn't, so
that they aren't implicated in any way in his crimes.

(31:48):
He went and started a relationship with a woman who
had just come out of a twenty year marriage and
had children, Like, why what was the point of doing that? See,
I'm thinking it's narcissistic behavior. Really, he's going in, swooping in,
pretending to be a knight and shining armor. He's some
sort of secret government operative and that's why she can't
come to his house. And that's why he's so secretive

(32:09):
and why it has so much money and is just
giving away all these toys. I'm like, or something you
never think of. He lives in a Toys r US
slash circuit city and is stealing shit from inside of it. Like, Okay,
that's fine that you gave toys to kids, that's totally fine,
but you're you're stealing from Like I know, it was

(32:31):
a corporation, but it's bankrupt now, so they I don't know.
I don't care about loss of you know, profit for
a corporation. I don't that I don't really care about.
But he was committing extremely serious crime seven thousand dollars
worth of toys. It's like, okay, well, maybe Toys r
Us was going to donate toys, which I'm sure they did.

(32:53):
They're toys r US. Maybe they're going to donate toys,
and after you stole seven thousand dollars worth of shit,
maybe they couldn't donate that. Who knows. I don't, And
again I don't really care. It's an it's an out
of business corporation. But I did like toys r wrestle
out when I was a kid. If you got to
experience it, I think you know, it was pretty freaking
great to me. He's just an very average guy. Very

(33:18):
average guy wants to be more than average, wants to
be smarter and better and you know, quicker than other people.
It's like, well, you're not smarter or better or quicker.
You snuck around and did all these things and no
one knew you were doing them, and if anyone knew
that you were doing them, you would have been caught.
And as soon as somebody figured out you were doing it,
you were caught. Like getting out of prison too, same thing,

(33:41):
breaking out of prison. I don't know. It's like, Okay,
somebody was nice to you at a prison and let
you work and not be in your cell all day,
and for the for that you you escaped and got
out and committed even more crimes. And burnt down a
dentist office like that was there was a lot of
people's jobs. As someone who's worked in the dental field

(34:03):
and currently does, that was people's jobs. That was people's
lives that you just fucked with because they have your
dental records, like you think you can't. Did you also
burn off all your fingerprints because the army has those,
you stupid sack of shit, like the army has all
of that. And I guarantee he went to a dentist

(34:24):
on a base at some point. I guarantee he did
had X rays taken on and on and on. The
military very well documents the bodies of their property. Because
when you were in the military, in the United States military,
you are property of the US government. They're allowed to
pretty much do whatever they want to you. If you've
ever served, you know that you stand in a line

(34:46):
and you take your vaccines, whatever they're gonna put in
your arm, and they don't tell you what it is,
and it doesn't matter. You're not allowed to say no
as far as I know. I know they've relaxed some
of their restrictions, but I don't really think you're allowed
to say no to my much like my husband said,
he has no idea what the fuck. He's been injected
with pretty much everything. He never gets sick ever, And

(35:10):
I'm like, hmm, I wonder what they gave you. They
give you like super soldier serum or or something alliteration aside.
I don't need to speculate too long on this guy.
I think he's just a very regular guy who learned
some things as a paratrooper, and instead of just being
satisfied with his life, he felt the need to, you know,

(35:32):
have delusion, narcissistic shit again, delusions of grand or thinking
you're smarter than everyone else. Well, if you were smarter
than everyone else and you were as grand as he
thought you were, your ass wouldn't have been arrested. Yeah,
sure you escape, but you're back in now. I really
just hate that he did that to that that poor woman,
Like she's a totally innocent bystander in this. It's really

(35:58):
really truly disgusting, Like she fell in love with the guy,
was making future plans with him, he was involved in
her kid's life. Meanwhile, you know he's burning down dentist
off as, stealing guns, pistol, whipping people, and robbing McDonald's
stores and fucking toys r us. I don't know. It's
pretty pretty gross. That's why I'm like, I'm not gonna

(36:19):
I'm sure the movie's gonna be funny and everything, because
Channing Tatum is hilarious. But this guy's a sack of shit.
And even if he was nice during a robbery, he's
still putting a gun in someone's face. Don't forget that
yet again. If you've ever had a gun put on
your face, I'm sure it caused you trauma. I'm sure
it bothers you even hearing me say it, and I
apologize for that. I should have put a trigger warning

(36:41):
up at the top. All that to say, I don't
think this guy is a hero. I don't think he's
an anti hero. I don't think he's a Robin Hood
type character. I think he's a selfish sack of shit
with a god complex, and I think he's right where
he belongs. If you liked this episode, you can hear
more episodes every Friday, recorded on all podcast platforms. Are

(37:03):
released on all podcast platforms either way. On social media,
you can find me on Instagram and threads at Autumn's Podcast,
Facebook at Autumn's Audities, and Patreon at Autumn's Audities. Any
level of paid subscription gets you bonus content that is
not released on the public feed, and also ad free episodes.

(37:24):
I know, I hate episodes in my ads. You be
getting into it and then it's like an ad for
Quints or whatever the hell. I don't think I'm fancy
enough to have an ad for Quints. If I do,
let me know. I don't get to choose my ads, Spreker.
My platform puts them in there for me, so I
don't know what's in there. Sorry. If there's weird shit,

(37:44):
my apologies, and as always, I appreciate you listening, and
remember if it's creepy and weird, you'll find it here.

Speaker 2 (38:00):
T