May 19, 2025 • 49 mins
In 1958, Omaha, Nebraska, was a city of quiet neighbourhoods and steady lives. But behind one front door, a teenager harboured a secret so dark it would shatter his family—and stun the entire community. What no one knew was that the story was far from over.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
Omaha and Nebraska sits at the crossroads of the American Midwest.
A city built on the banks of the Missouri River
where cattle once drove, industry and railroads stitched together. Then,
It's a place known for its wide open skies, proud neighborhoods,
and deep rooted values. A city that feels steady, familiar, safe.
(01:10):
In the nineteen fifties, Omaha was a picture of post
war prosperity. Neathouses, laned quiet streets, families gathered for backyard barbecues,
and behind the front doors, life unfolded, much like it
did in any American town of the era. Routine, unremarkable,
and for the most part, peaceful. But peace has its limits.
(01:31):
On a warm September evening in nineteen fifty eight, that
piece was shattered inside a modest family home on North
twenty ninth Street. Police would arrive to find a scene
so disturbing, so unimaginable, that it would shake the entire city.
A teenage boy stood in the middle of it, all calm, quiet.
He didn't deny what had happened. He simply said they
(01:54):
had pushed him too far. He was just sixteen years old,
and in the years to come, he would become both
a symbol of a brutal family tragedy and the center
of one of the most baffling manhunts in American history,
because while the world thought they knew what had happened
to Leslie Arnold, he had already disappeared, and it would
(02:15):
take more than half a century, a grieving son, and
a twist of modern science to finally uncover the truth.
(02:36):
The American dream. It was the promise sold to millions
in post war America, a steady job, a family home
in a quiet suburb, and the comforting clink of dinner
plates on a kitchen table each evening. For many, it
was more than just a dream. It was a goal,
a symbol of success, and a kind of national identity.
(02:56):
And in the heart of Omaha, Nebraska, nestled among the
true freeline sidewalks of Poppleton Avenue, the Arnold family seemed
to embody that dream inful It was the nineteen fifties,
a decade of prosperity, optimism, and consumer culture. Bill Arnold
was the breadwinner of the family, the kind of man
who wore a pressed shirt and a polite smile. He
(03:18):
managed Watkins Products, a successful company that sold food and
household goods directly to homes, using a door to door
delivery model that was thriving in those boom years. His
job provided not only a paycheck, but a level of
comfort that many families aspired to. Two cars in the driveway,
a television in the living room, a respectable address in
(03:38):
a quiet, tidy neighborhood. Yes, the Arnolds had it all,
or at least so it seemed. Bill's wife, Opal, was
the textbook image of a nineteen fifties homemaker. She kept
the house spotless, cooked the meals, and raised their two children,
sixteen year old Leslie and thirteen year old Jim. The
couple had been married nearly twenty years. Their life together
(04:01):
marked by routine and appearances, and that was important appearances,
because behind closed doors, the Arnold home told a much
different story. Neighbors described Obel Arnold as a sharp woman,
quick to anger, even quicker to criticize. The term henpecked
came up repeatedly when people spoke of her husband Bill.
(04:22):
He was mild mannered, the kind of man who preferred
pace over pride. He seemed to have learned how to
navigate the stormy moods of his wife, by staying quiet,
by sinking into the background of his own home. Apparently
Opel had locked him out of the home on several occasions.
Those who knew the family well couldn't ignore one glaring truth.
(04:43):
Opel had a favorite. Her younger son, Jim, was the
golden child. Spoiled, coddled, and protected. Jim could do no wrong. Leslie,
on the other hand, was often traded as an afterthought
or worse, like a burden. One neighbor would he Dilan
said Jimmy was traded like an only child. It seemed
(05:03):
to me Leslie's mother was excessively and compulsively hard on him.
Leslie was said to have a fiery temper. One friend
who grew up with him recalled he was wanned a
little tighter than the average, but he was more intelligent
than the average. Little frustrations seemed to set Leslie off,
and he seemed to take these frustrations out on his brother.
(05:24):
Jim later recalled his older brother wearing socks on his
hands when he struck him, so that it wouldn't leave
a mark. He commented, Less's temper had no stopper. Once
it exploded. I always had the feeling he didn't understand
why mom and Dad had me when they had him
or Ebby. In school, Leslie was known to be rambunctious
and always getting into trouble. However, he eventually learned to
(05:45):
control his emotions in the classroom. At Central High School,
his academic performance was average. Where Leslie truly came alive
was in music. He played saxophone in the school band
with a kind of sincerity that made teachers take notice.
He also joined the Royal Officer's Training Corps, suggesting a
yearning for order and discipline, something that he seemingly didn't
(06:07):
get at home. When he really wanted to escape, Leslie
turned to rock and roll. He styled his hair into
a pompadour, just like his idol, Elvis Presley. He saved
his allowance to buy records, attenned local concerts, and dream
about a life bigger than the small, confining walls of
the Arnold home. He imagined freedom, maybe even fame. But
(06:31):
Leslie's dreams rarely stood a chance, not under opal Arnold's roof.
She had a way of pulling the rug out from
under him emotionally. Friends remembered stories of Leslie making plans,
only for his mother to change her mind at the
last second. Leslie later said that his mother made fun
of his interest in music and showed no interest in
(06:51):
his sports. People who knew Ople described her moose swings
as severe. She could be cold and controlling, then suddenly sweeped.
Some members of the family later said that she had
been hospitalized for mental breakdowns, but at the time when
mental illness was stigmatized and not well understood, she never
received any formal diagnosis. There was no telling which version
(07:14):
of opal you might get on any given day. It
left Leslie walking on eggshells, never knowing how to avoid
the next eruption. And in this pressure cooker of a household,
something was quietly building, a resentment, a rage, a desperation,
because sometimes the American dream isn't a dream at all,
(07:36):
Sometimes it's a trap. By the end of September nineteen
fifty eight, something was off in Poppledon Avenue. Neighbors noticed,
at first, not through any dramatic event, but through absence.
(07:57):
Bill Arnold, who was normally a fixture of routine, was
no longer seen coming and going from work. Opel, who
often spent her mornings priening lilac bushes or collecting the
mail in her housecoat had seemingly vanished, but their son,
Leslie was still at home, and so was Jim. When
a neighbor casually asked about his parents, Leslie responded without hesitation.
(08:20):
They were out of town, he said, on vacation. It
was a plausible answer, at least on the surface. The
Arnolds were a well off family. A trip away wasn't
outside the realm of possibility. But it was the kind
of answer that raised more questions the longer it held.
Leslie seemed to be managing things in his father's absence.
(08:41):
He even contacted Walter Ovitt, a part time employee at
Watkins Products. He explained that his father had accidentally taken
the office key with him and asked Walter to meet
him so that they could open up. Walter agreed. When
he arrived, there was already a line of salesmen waiting
at the office, all expecting their youth usual morning briefing.
(09:02):
Leslie apologized profusely for the inconvenience, explaining once again that
his father had left unexpectedly and accidentally taking the keys
with him. Walter opened up the office and business continued
as usual, but something about the encounter left him uneasy.
He later recalled, Naturally, all the people have been wondering
(09:22):
where mister Arnold was. It wasn't like him to be
gone so long without notifying somebody at the company. It
was true, Bill Arnold was nothing if not dependable. His
absence without so much as a phone call didn't sit right.
(09:45):
The days continued to trickle by, slow and strange. There
was still no sign of Bill or Oppal, still no
word from either of them, and the people who knew
them best were starting to worry. Ben McCammon was one
of those people, just a family friend. He was Bill
and Obel's brother in law, a familiar face at the
dinner table, somebody who dropped by regularly just to say hello.
(10:09):
They hadn't told him anything about a vacation, and the
last time he saw them, just two weeks prior. Nothing
seemed out of the ordinary, at least not at first.
That afternoon, Ben had been at the house when tentions
began to rise. Leslie had been on the phone with
his girlfriend, Cristel, a girl that his mother didn't approve of.
(10:31):
Cristel went to a different school, came from a well
respected family and had even invited Leslie to attend church
with them, but Obel wasn't impressed. Leslie believed it was
because Cristel's father was a truck driver. She apparently called
them trash when Leslie was still on the phone. After
several minutes, Obel intervened. She told him that he'd been
(10:53):
on for too long and ordered him to hang up,
and when Leslie did, an argument rupted. Leslie had made
plans to take Crystal to the movies that evening. He'd
arranged to use the family car, but now Opel said
he wasn't going anywhere. It wasn't the first time that
it seemed like this had unfolded in the Arnold home,
(11:14):
but something about the moment lingered with Ben, something about
Leslie's expression as the argument unfolded. It was the last
time that Ben ever saw Bill or Opel. In the
following days, Ben's unease began to grow. He played the
memory of that afternoon over and over in his head.
He wondered if something had happened after he left, if
(11:36):
maybe the argument had gone too far. Each time the
thought surfaced, he talked himself down. He was overreacting, he
told himself surely there was an explanation. That explanation never came.
Bill's parents, Leslie and Helen Arnold, were also growing anxious
living in North Loop, Nebraska, then tried calling their son
(11:58):
and daughter in law repeatedly, but to no avail. Concerned,
they made the drive to Omaha themselves. When they arrived
at the Poblton Avenue home, they were surprised to find
both boys, Leslie and his younger brother Jim, home alone.
There was no sign of Bill, no sign of Opel,
and no clear answer as to where they were. Finally,
(12:20):
on the morning of the eleventh of October, Ben McCammon
made a decision. He walked into Central Police Station and
shared everything he knew. He told officers that Bill and
Oble had been missing for two weeks. He mentioned the
supposed vacation. He described the strange silence, the lack of contact,
and the way Leslie had handled their absence as though
(12:43):
everything was normal, and then he told them about the argument,
the fight between Leslie and his mother, the tension, the
disapproval of Crystal, and the revoked date night. He admitted
that Leslie had gotten into heated arguments with his parents before,
but he never thought it was anything more than the
usual teenage friction. He stated, But the boy isn't bad.
(13:07):
There was never anything but a few words. Police listened carefully.
The situation was strange. No missing person's report had been
filed until now, and there was no evidence of a crime.
That something wasn't setting right. A father who never missed
work gone without a trace, a mother known to be
(13:27):
a creature of habit suddenly vanishing. A teenage son providing
explanations that seemed rehearsed, too convenient. It was enough to
prompt a closer look within ours. Officers arrived at the
Arnold home. When detectives finally sat down with sixteen year
(13:53):
old Leslie Arnold, they expected resistance, perhaps confusion, maybe even
a defensive teeny clinging to his version of events. What
they got, however, with something entirely else. Leslie didn't hesitate.
He didn't ask for a lawyer, he didn't try to
dance around the truth. He simply told them that his
(14:16):
parents were dead and that he had killed them. Ben McCammon,
it turned out had been right. The argument he'd witnessed
between Leslie and Oble wasn't just a harmless family squabble.
It was the prelude to something far darker. Leslie explained
that it happened on the twenty seventh of September run
(14:36):
two pm. He and his mother had argued again about
his girlfriend, his time on the phone, and ultimately the
family car. He said, when he was on the phone
to Crystal, his mother burst in and scolded him. He
had the wire of the phone under his bedroom door
with it closed. Obil told him that anything said behind
closed doors wasn't worth saying. She then called Cristel no good,
(15:01):
something that Leslie was afraid Cristel may have heard. They
set off another roy and Leslie warned his mother she
would be sorry if she continued to treat Crystal so cruelly.
Opel eventually told Leslie that he wasn't allowed to use
the family cars that evening to take Crystal to the movies.
Leslie didn't take no for an answer, not immediately, at least.
(15:24):
He tried sporadically throughout the day to change his mother's mind.
But as the hours passed and her answer stayed the same,
something began to twist inside him. And then, as he
described it two Detectives, a crazy idea entered his mind.
He walked upstairs into his parents' bedroom. His father kept
(15:45):
a twenty two caliber rifle in the closet, a small
weapon typically used to hunt rabbits. Leslie took it. He
walked back downstairs. His mother was standing in the kitchen,
possibly preparing something, maybe thinking about dinner or folding laundry,
mundane ordinary tasks in the final moments of her life.
(16:08):
When she saw the gun, she told Leslie to put
it down. They argued again. Leslie claimed that Opel mocked him,
that she pushed him too far. What are you going
to do? Shoot me? She asked, so Leslie lifted the
rifle and he pulled the trigger. The billet hit Opal
in the chest. She fell, but she wasn't dead. Leslie
(16:31):
walked over to her and shot her again and again.
He wasn't sure how many times. She was dead. Within moments,
he said, he recollected. I can't explain it. She seemed
in pain, and I didn't want to hurt her any more,
but I just kept shooting. Leslie's father, Bill, was at
work when it happened, but not for long for Leslie
(16:54):
even had time to process what he had done before
the adrenaline had faded. Bill came home. Leslie was crouched
over his mother's body, apologizing for what he had done.
Bill opened the front door and walked inside, only to
be met with his wife's lifeless body on the floor
and its teenage son with a rifle. Bill lunged at him,
(17:15):
but Leslie ducked. He raised the rifle once more, and
just like that, he shot his father dead. Then, as
he'd done with his mother, he stood over him and
fired again multiple times to make sure that he was gone.
When the silence returned to the home, it was deafening.
Leslie stood there stunned, and then he walked into the
(17:37):
living room. He laid on on the couch and sobbed.
Leslie decided he needed to cover up what he had done.
He dragged his parents' bodies down into the basement one
at a time. He cleaned up whatever he could, and
then just an hour or so later, around four thirty pm,
he left the house and picked up his younger brother Jim,
(17:58):
from the axe or Benfield, like nothing had happened. He
told Jim that their parents had been called out of town. Suddenly,
Leslie took him to her neighbor's home and explained that
Billinoble had traveled to Wyoming. Their grandfather, he said, was
senile and had wandered off, so his parents had gone
to help and find him. That same night, Leslie picked
(18:18):
up his girlfriend Crystal. They went to the drive in
to see The Undead, a horror movie about which his
past lives and deaths that refused to stay buried. But
for Leslie the horror wasn't on the screen. He couldn't concentrate.
He said later that he felt that his mother's ghosts
was following him, maybe in a way she was. Guilt
(18:42):
has a way of clinging to you, of sitting silently
in the passenger seat. It follows you into the darkness,
into dreams, into places you least expected. And for a
while Leslie thought he had gotten away with it. But ghosts,
whether real or imagined, have a way of refusing to
stay buried. The morning after the murderers, Leslie Arnold got
(19:13):
to work. He borrowed a shovel from a neighborhood friend,
Frank Spincerri, who lived nearby with his uncle Al. When
night fell, Leslie waited for the world to go quiet.
Then he dragged both of his parents' bodies up from
the basement, out into the cool September air and over
to a lilac bush that grew in the family's back garden. There,
(19:34):
under the cover of darkness, Leslie dug The trench was
six feet long, two feet wide, and about three feet deep.
It took a morse. He placed his father in first,
then his mother. Two people who had raised him, fed him,
cared for him, now laying side by side in a
makeshift grave beneath the flowers Opel had once tended. It
(19:58):
was a Sunday night, and the next morning Leslie got up,
got dressed, and went to school at Central High like
nothing had happened. As the days passed, he continued the performance.
He disposed of a couple of blood stained rugs from
the dining room, rolled them up and tossed them in
to Papio Creek. He waved to neighbors, spoke to his teachers,
(20:19):
played the role of the ordinary teenage boy while the
secret festered just beneath the surface of his back yard.
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m O r b I d O l O g Y.
When police arrived at the Arnold home, they already had
a confession in hand, but they needed proof. They headed
straight to the backyard. The officers approached the lilac bushes
beneath the pedals. Something wasn't right. The soil had been disturbed,
(23:36):
loosened freshly turned. The officers picked up their shovels and
began to dig. It didn't take them long. The first
thing they uncovered was a leg human, pale and already
beginning to decompose. The ankles were born together with the belt.
It was opal. Her skin had started to break down
(23:57):
from days underground, which he was still wearing her jewelry,
a necklace, a ring, and a watch that she barely
took off. They continued to dig. Beneath Ople was Bill.
Both bodies were decomposing, and both had been shot six times.
The backyard had become a crime scene. Reporters and curious
(24:18):
neighbors gathered just beyond the yellow tape, watching as the
unthinkable was brought into the light. The Arnold's beloved members
of the community, once thought to be away on vacation,
had been in their backyard the entire time. Despite being
(24:45):
the one to raise the alarm, Ben McCammon never imagined
the truth would be this grim. He'd known Leslie his
entire life. He'd watched him grow up. He'd seen the
family in the oars before they were killed. When he
was told that Leslie had confessed to the murders, Ben
was stunned. He told the Evening World Herald. I didn't
suspect the boy. He isn't a bad kid, never has been.
(25:08):
He gets excited and mad. Maybe he lied a lot,
I don't know. It was a hard truth for anybody
to reconcile, especially those closest to the family. After signing
a full confession, Leslie Arnold was transported to the juvenile
detention ward of the Douglas County Jail. But for a
boy who had just committed something unthinkable, he wasn't steering
(25:30):
in silence. The media descended quickly, and Leslie seemed almost
relieved to have somebody to talk to. He admitted he
hated being there, he was lonely. He asked one of
the reporters if they'd stay with him and keep him company.
He said that he couldn't talk about the murders anymore,
that his uncle Ben had told him not to, but
(25:52):
still he made other requests. He asked for books and
for a visit from his pastor. He said that he
hadn't been slaping well, but that he had felt better
after getting everything off his chest. His girlfriend Crystal had
even come to visit, and that, he said, made him
feel a lot better. The next day, Leslie Arnold was
(26:13):
formally charged with two counts of first degree murder. His
court appointed defense attorney, Shepherd Taylor, quickly announced that they
would be pursuing a psychiatric evaluation for Leslie. In the meantime,
Leslie was brought before the court for his arraignment. There
neatly dressed and with tears in his eyes, he pleaded
not guilty to both cons of murder. The judge ordered
(26:36):
to be held without bond while awaiting trial, and as
he was let out of the courtroom sobbing, the reporters
captured what little was left of the boy who had
once seemed so normal, a church going teenager, a decent student,
a brother, a son, now unaccused killer. On the first
(27:06):
of June nineteen fifty nine, Leslie Arnold stood once again
before the court. It had been eight months since he
shot and killed his parents and buried them beneath the garden.
At just sixteen years old, Leslie had become one of
the most shocking figures in Omaha's criminal history. It was
expected that his murder trial would begin that day, but
(27:26):
when Leslie entered the courtroom, it quickly became clear that
something had changed. A plea deal had been quietly arranged
behind the scenes. At the time, Nebraska law didn't allow
a defendant to plead guilty to first degree murder, so
instead the charges were reduced to second degree. The amended
charges claimed that Leslie had acted maliciously and purposefully, but
(27:49):
without premeditation. And to those charges, Leslie pleaded guilty. As
he did, his voice cracked, he was visibly emotional. His
defense attorney, Shepard Taylor, told Judge Patrick Lynch that the
thorough study of Leslie's background warranted leniency. Even the prosecution,
which was led by County Attorney John Hanley, acknowledged the
(28:12):
challenge of proving premeditation. He stated, under all the evidence
in this case, I'm satisfied that the state couldn't sustain
the burden of proving premeditation. With this plea, Leslie Arnold
had avoided the death penalty, and with the reduced charges,
he could be eligible for parole in just ten years.
But the judge wasn't sweat Leslie Arnold was sentenced to
(28:35):
life imprisoned at the Nebraska State Penitentiary in Lincoln, and
for a while, that's exactly where he stayed. By all accounts,
Leslie was a model prisoner. He pursued his education, worked
inside the prison, kept a low profile. His girlfriend's parents
had become his legal guardians. He befriended an Omaha Nunn
(28:57):
named Teresa Castey, who recollected he looked like a kid,
which he was. He was very personable and articulate. Some
would say that's the con artist, but I don't think so.
In nineteen sixty five, now twenty three years old, Leslie
made a move. He fiuled the motion, arguing that his
imprisonment was unlawful. He claimed he'd been arrested without a warrant,
(29:22):
denied legal counseling during questioning, and coerced into confessing. He
said police had promised him he wouldn't face the electric
chair if he pleaded guilty, that his own attorney had
pressured him, and that he had been kept in jail
for eight months while the publicity died down, something he
now claimed had tainted his right to a fair trial.
(29:43):
The court, however, didn't agree. His request was denied. But
Leslie wasn't done because just two years later, Leslie would
walk out of prison, not through a parole hearing, not
through the courts, but through a plan of his making.
(30:10):
By the summer of nineteen sixty seven, Leslie Arnold had
worked his way into the most trusted tear of the
Nebraska State Penitentiary. He was no longer behind the main
prison walls. Instead, he was living in a trusty dormitory,
a low security building just west of the prison. There
were a round two hundred and thirty inmates house there,
all considered low risk. There were no guards posted inside.
(30:32):
Twenty four to seven. Leslie had earned it. He worked
in the prison kitchen and played in the prison band.
He served as editor to the prison newspaper, worked out,
and kept to himself. He had a spotless record. He
had even assisted at the Nebraska Governor's mansion on two
previous Christmases. Chuck Wolfe, the prison administrator, later said he
(30:56):
had talent, made use of it in prison, and got
along real well. We all just kind of felt he
would ultimately make parole and make a success out of himself.
He seemed to be on his way to the ultimate
fate of many killers during the more merciful time estate
pardon and release. But whatever internal reformation he'd presented on
the surface, Leslie Arnold had no intention of growing old
(31:19):
behind bars. On the morning of the fifteenth of July
nineteen sixty seven, routine five a m. Checks were conducted
at the dorm. Every inmate was allegedly present and accounted for,
but just over two hours later, at seven thirty a m.
It was noticed that two inmates were missing Leslie Arnold
(31:39):
and James Edward Harding. Harding had been convicted of first
degree murder back in nineteen sixty after he shot and
killed a man named Richard Whitehill during a bar hold
up in Omaha. It was clear that the two men
had escaped some time between the five a m. And
seven thirty a m. Bed checks. It became clear that
dead saw the bars of the window in a music
(32:01):
room and then used chewing gum to hold the bars
in place so that nobody would notice. Once outside, they
scaled a twelve foot high security fence, leaving behind a
makeshift rope made from a T shirt that was snagged
on the bowered wire. A massive dragnet was deployed immediately,
please scarred the eastern half of Nebraska. Then they widened
(32:22):
their search to include Iowa, Kansas, and Missouri. They searched
on foot, by vehicle, and from air, but Leslie and
Harding had vanished. Colonel James Krueger of the Nebraska State
Patrol stated, We've got everybody working on it, but no
matter how many resources were thrown at the search, there
was no trace. Warden Murray Sigler eventually admitted, we have
(32:47):
no idea where they are. We haven't heard a thing
since they left. We think they're holed up somewhere. They
could be out of the country, but as the days
turned into weeks, it became obvious the two men were gone.
The escape was so seamless that the warden would later
call it one of the cleanest getaways he'd ever seen.
He stated, we haven't even had one rumor. In the
(33:12):
aftermath of the escape, two prison officers and two guards
were suspended for what the warden described as grossed our
eliction of judy. They had failed to follow basic safety protocols.
They were entrusted to conduct early counts, but this hadn't happened,
and they had let two convicted murderers vanish into thin air.
(33:32):
The FBI then got involved. Posters were circulated, leads were chased,
but still nothing. Leslie Arnold had disappeared. On the second
(33:54):
of May nineteen sixty eight, almost ten months after the
Daring prison break, James Edward Harding was in Los Angeles, California.
He was alone, living under a new name and blending
in like he'd always belonged, and it was pure coincidence
that led to his arrest. Harding happened to be inside
a bar when a fellow patron glanced over Diddle double
(34:15):
take and thought he looked strikingly similar to James Earl Ray,
the man wanted for assassinating doctor Martin Luther King just
a month earlier. The man then called police. Authorities responded immediately,
and Harding was taken into custody without incident. While the
man in the bar wasn't James Earl Ray, he was
(34:36):
a fugitive from Nebraska, Harding told investigators he had no
idea where Leslie Arnold was. He said that after escaping,
the pair had made it to Chicago, where a priest
had given them temporary shelter. A few days later, Leslie
had landed a dishwashing job at a restaurant in the Loop.
Then he met a girl and moved in with her.
(34:58):
That was the last he saw of Leslie. For his
role in the escape, Hoarding was handed an additional year
behind bars, but he didn't seem to regret it. In
a later interview, Harding reflected, it was kind of worth it.
I got nine months of freedom for one more year inside.
(35:19):
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Harding ultimately served just eight more years before his sentence
(36:05):
was commuted and he was released on parole. He lived
the rest of his life as a free man, never
looking back. Before his death in two thousand and eight,
Harding admitted that the timeline release by the prison had
been wrong. He and Leslie hadn't escaped during the early
morning headcount on July fifteenth, It actually vanished the night before,
(36:27):
around eleven pm. He said that they had stuffed pillows
and blankets under their sheets to create the illusion that
they were still asleep in their beds. Then, using rubber
masks they had managed to trick any casual glance from
the guards. They scaled the twelve foot high fence, ran
across the nearby railroad tracks, and disappeared into a wooded
(36:47):
area where an ex con accomplice was waiting in a
getaway car. He drove them to Omaha and dropped them
off at the bus station. The search for Leslie Arnold
spanned decades in miles from coast to coast, across borders,
even into Mexico, but there was one major problem. From
the very start, there were no recent photographs of Leslie.
(37:11):
The only image that the authorities had was from when
he entered the Nebraska State Penitentiary at just sixteen years old.
The boyish mugshot would become even more useless as time
went on. People change faces, age, and Leslie had a
long head start. There was one moment, a glimmer of hope.
In nineteen seventy four, police and Oregon stopped a man
(37:33):
for drunken driving. They ran his fingerprints and they came
back as a match for Leslie Arnold. But by the
time the FBI relayed the information to Oregon authorities, Leslie
was gone. He'd been released before they could act. That
was the last known lead for years. As the years
ticked by, theories multiplied. Some people were convinced that Leslie
(37:56):
had died shortly after his escape. Others believed he started
over somewhere, maybe with a new name, a new job,
a new family. Homicide detective Maurice Barnet shared his thoughts
with reporters Steering Albett. He's married somewhere and has a
couple of kids. I have no evidence, just a gut feeling.
(38:17):
Bart believed that Leslie may have escaped to Canada. He
had once spent time before the murders with a distant
relative at a cavern there a quiet, remote hideaway. But
many found it hard to believe that somebody could stay
hidden for so long. Could somebody truly erase their identity
for decades? In nineteen ninety two, Omaha Police to Lieutenant R. W.
(38:39):
Walker reopened the file. He became obsessed diving into leslie
psychiatric profile for a clue. He commented he was kind
of a cold individual. Harding said that Arnold played in
the prison band and that he was an excellent musician,
but played with absolutely no emotion. Very mechanical, and he
(39:00):
didn't seem to have any feelings at all or remorse
about killing his parents. But despite that cold, exterior, remorse
had been there, it just hadn't been public. In twenty seventeen,
a previously unseen letter surfaced. It was sent to a
neighbor by Leslie from behind bars. He'd written, I've learned
(39:22):
a great deal since I've been in here, and I
wish I knew then what I know now. My parents
were wonderful people. This I learned too late, and I'm
sorry I ever went so wrong. I'll never know. I've
got a lot of making up to do. It would
be another six years before the final piece of this
decade's long mystery would fall into place, because in twenty
(39:45):
twenty three, the truth about Leslie Arnold finally came out.
When asked about his past, John Damon would always give
the same old story. He was an orphan from Chicago.
(40:06):
It was short, believable, and it stopped the questions from coming.
But it wasn't the truth because John Damon was, in
fact Leslie Arnold, the teenager who had killed his parents
in nineteen fifty eight, the boy who had escaped from
a Nebraska prison in nineteen sixty seven, and the man
who just four months later was married and living an
(40:29):
entirely new life. Leslie had met Jane Boovia, a divorced
mother of four who worked as a waitress at the
same Chicago restaurant where Leslie had found work as a cook.
Almost overnight, he went from prison escape bay to husband
and father of four young girls. One of his stepdaughters, Kelly, remembered,
(40:49):
he didn't eat much like one pea and a little
mashed potato. He seemed nice enough, he didn't talk much.
He didn't talk about himself at all. He was a
mystery kind one. Her sister deb reflected on those early
years in Chicago. We were per from the other side
of the tracks. Here was this savior who pulled us
(41:09):
out of this rough life and Sean, one of the girls,
recalled telling her mother he was either ignorant or brave
to marry a woman with four girls. Now, I think
John took it on because he needed to what a
perfect cover in his new life. Leslie worked hard. He
eventually became a traveling salesman, and the family moved first
(41:31):
to Cincinnati and then to Miami. He taught the girl's music.
He took them to concerts. He helped them find structure,
but he was also strict. They remembered the list of
chores and the expectation to get jobs. By the age
of thirteen, he rarely socialized with anybody outside of the family.
On one occasion, Jeane threw him surprise party and Leslie
(41:54):
lashed out. He hated attention, he didn't want to be known,
and still he had given them a better life with
stability that they never forgot. Eventually, Jane and Leslie separated,
and by nineteen seventy seven he'd moved to Los Angeles.
He stayed in touch with the girls for a while,
but then he disappeared from their lives completely. No calls,
(42:18):
no letters, nothing. By nineteen eighty three, Leslie had married again,
this time to a foreign exchange student. He became a
father to two biological children, a daughter in nineteen eighty
six and a son in nineteen ninety one. For a while,
life seemed normal, but then came nineteen ninety two, something changed.
(42:40):
Leslie suddenly announced that they were leaving the country. He
told his wife and kids that the United States was
becoming too dangerous. Crime was on the rise, and he
didn't feel that it was safe anymore. Looking back, it
was clear that Leslie wasn't afraid of crime. He was
afraid of being caught. Because the world was changing. The
(43:01):
Internet was growing, public records were becoming digitized, fingerprints, facial recognition,
background checks. The past was no longer safe, and Leslie
Knott Leslie Arnold moved his family to Australia. He was
(43:27):
no longer the cold, emotionless teenager from the headlines. He
was a doting father, a man who loved music, science
and technology. His son described him as charismatic and patriotic,
the kind of dad who showed up, taught life lessons
and genuinely cared. Leslie taught him how to play the saxophone,
(43:47):
his own first love. Leslie never picked one up again.
That part of him, the saxophone player, the prison escape
by the son who killed his parents, was gone. As
his son would later say, you give up the things
you loved, so nothing links back to you. Leslie told
his children that they were his purpose. The becoming a
(44:09):
father had changed him, and in a way it had gone.
Was the strict disciplinarian that his stepdaughters had once feared
In his final chapter, he was light hearted, generous, and present.
He gave his family the same story that he'd always given.
He'd grown up in an orphanage. It was traumatic, he
(44:29):
said something he didn't like to talk about, and they
never questioned it. But eventually time caught up with Leslie,
not the law. In the early two thousands, he began
suffering from blood clots. He was diagnosed with deep veined thrombrosis,
and his condition worsened quickly. On the sixth of August
twenty ten, Leslie Arnold collapsed at home in Australia. He
(44:54):
died just two weeks shy of his sixty eighth birthday.
His obituary claimed that he was sixty nine. It claimed
a lot of things, but not the truth, because his
secret went with him to the grave, or at least
so it seemed. Leslie's son was nineteen years old when
his father died, and something inside him needed answers. He
(45:15):
flew over to Chicago, hoping to uncover more about his
father's life, but there were immediate red flags. The orphanage
that Leslie claimed to grow up in didn't exist. His
son also discovered that his birth certificate was fake when
he handed it to the record's department. He returned home
with more questions than answers. In twenty twenty two, over
(45:38):
a decade after his father's death, he took a leap.
He submitted his DNA for analysis and shared it to
a public genetic registry, hoping that a match from his
father's side might emerge. But when a match did come back,
it wasn't from a long lost cousin. It was from
a Deputy US Marshal in Omaha. Mithew Wesliver had inherited
(46:01):
the hold case of Leslie Arnold back in twenty hundred
and twenty. He tracked down Leslie's brother Jim and uploaded
his DNA into the same system. When Leslie's son uploaded
his DNA, it was a perfect match. Westover recalled, I
was like game set match. I knew this was going
to be our guy. On August twenty fourth, he spoke
(46:24):
to Leslie's widow and son over video chat. He told
them the truth that John Damon was actually Leslie Arnold,
the teenager who murdered his parents in nineteen fifty eight,
the inmate who escaped from prison in nineteen sixty seven,
the fugitive who had been on the run for over
four decades, and in twenty twenty three, US authorities traveled
(46:48):
to Australia to officially close the case. For the law,
it was a long overdue conclusion, but for Leslie's family,
it was the start of something else. When asked if
the shocking discovery changed the way he saw his father,
Leslie's son responded, my dad's legacy is a lot more
(47:08):
than the initial crime and escape. I'm comfortable with who
I am. He was a good father who committed his
entire life to my sister and I and I pretty
much owe him everything. Leslie Arnold had vanished without a trace,
and for fifty six years, the world had wondered was
he dead? Was he hiding? Was he still looking over
(47:30):
his shoulder? The answer, it turned out, was much more complicated,
because Leslie Arnold didn't just disappear. He built an entirely
new life. And for those who knew John Damon, that
life was real. It was good, but it was just
never completely honest, and maybe, just maybe that's the price
(47:53):
of starting over. Well, Bessie's that is it for this
(48:18):
episode of Morbidology. As always, thank you so much for
listening and I'd like to say a massive thank you
to my newest Patreon supporters, Sharon, Elizabeth and Cynthia. Morbidology
is a one woman podcast of the support upon there
s hereously goes such a long way, and I am
eternally grateful. If you'd like to join us up on Patreon,
the link is in the show notes and you can
(48:38):
join for as little as one dollar a month. I
upload afree in early release episodes behind the scenes, and
there are also a bunch of bonus episodes of Morbidology
plus that are on the regular podcast platforms. I also
send out a handwritten thank you card along with some
cool merch Remember to check us out at Morbiology for
(49:00):
more information about this episode and to read some true
crime articles. Until next time, take care of yourselves, stay safe,
and have an amazing week.
Omaha and Nebraska sits at the crossroads of the American Midwest.
A city built on the banks of the Missouri River
where cattle once drove, industry and railroads stitched together. Then,
It's a place known for its wide open skies, proud neighborhoods,
and deep rooted values. A city that feels steady, familiar, safe.
(01:10):
In the nineteen fifties, Omaha was a picture of post
war prosperity. Neathouses, laned quiet streets, families gathered for backyard barbecues,
and behind the front doors, life unfolded, much like it
did in any American town of the era. Routine, unremarkable,
and for the most part, peaceful. But peace has its limits.
(01:31):
On a warm September evening in nineteen fifty eight, that
piece was shattered inside a modest family home on North
twenty ninth Street. Police would arrive to find a scene
so disturbing, so unimaginable, that it would shake the entire city.
A teenage boy stood in the middle of it, all calm, quiet.
He didn't deny what had happened. He simply said they
(01:54):
had pushed him too far. He was just sixteen years old,
and in the years to come, he would become both
a symbol of a brutal family tragedy and the center
of one of the most baffling manhunts in American history,
because while the world thought they knew what had happened
to Leslie Arnold, he had already disappeared, and it would
(02:15):
take more than half a century, a grieving son, and
a twist of modern science to finally uncover the truth.
(02:36):
The American dream. It was the promise sold to millions
in post war America, a steady job, a family home
in a quiet suburb, and the comforting clink of dinner
plates on a kitchen table each evening. For many, it
was more than just a dream. It was a goal,
a symbol of success, and a kind of national identity.
(02:56):
And in the heart of Omaha, Nebraska, nestled among the
true freeline sidewalks of Poppleton Avenue, the Arnold family seemed
to embody that dream inful It was the nineteen fifties,
a decade of prosperity, optimism, and consumer culture. Bill Arnold
was the breadwinner of the family, the kind of man
who wore a pressed shirt and a polite smile. He
(03:18):
managed Watkins Products, a successful company that sold food and
household goods directly to homes, using a door to door
delivery model that was thriving in those boom years. His
job provided not only a paycheck, but a level of
comfort that many families aspired to. Two cars in the driveway,
a television in the living room, a respectable address in
(03:38):
a quiet, tidy neighborhood. Yes, the Arnolds had it all,
or at least so it seemed. Bill's wife, Opal, was
the textbook image of a nineteen fifties homemaker. She kept
the house spotless, cooked the meals, and raised their two children,
sixteen year old Leslie and thirteen year old Jim. The
couple had been married nearly twenty years. Their life together
(04:01):
marked by routine and appearances, and that was important appearances,
because behind closed doors, the Arnold home told a much
different story. Neighbors described Obel Arnold as a sharp woman,
quick to anger, even quicker to criticize. The term henpecked
came up repeatedly when people spoke of her husband Bill.
(04:22):
He was mild mannered, the kind of man who preferred
pace over pride. He seemed to have learned how to
navigate the stormy moods of his wife, by staying quiet,
by sinking into the background of his own home. Apparently
Opel had locked him out of the home on several occasions.
Those who knew the family well couldn't ignore one glaring truth.
(04:43):
Opel had a favorite. Her younger son, Jim, was the
golden child. Spoiled, coddled, and protected. Jim could do no wrong. Leslie,
on the other hand, was often traded as an afterthought
or worse, like a burden. One neighbor would he Dilan
said Jimmy was traded like an only child. It seemed
(05:03):
to me Leslie's mother was excessively and compulsively hard on him.
Leslie was said to have a fiery temper. One friend
who grew up with him recalled he was wanned a
little tighter than the average, but he was more intelligent
than the average. Little frustrations seemed to set Leslie off,
and he seemed to take these frustrations out on his brother.
(05:24):
Jim later recalled his older brother wearing socks on his
hands when he struck him, so that it wouldn't leave
a mark. He commented, Less's temper had no stopper. Once
it exploded. I always had the feeling he didn't understand
why mom and Dad had me when they had him
or Ebby. In school, Leslie was known to be rambunctious
and always getting into trouble. However, he eventually learned to
(05:45):
control his emotions in the classroom. At Central High School,
his academic performance was average. Where Leslie truly came alive
was in music. He played saxophone in the school band
with a kind of sincerity that made teachers take notice.
He also joined the Royal Officer's Training Corps, suggesting a
yearning for order and discipline, something that he seemingly didn't
(06:07):
get at home. When he really wanted to escape, Leslie
turned to rock and roll. He styled his hair into
a pompadour, just like his idol, Elvis Presley. He saved
his allowance to buy records, attenned local concerts, and dream
about a life bigger than the small, confining walls of
the Arnold home. He imagined freedom, maybe even fame. But
(06:31):
Leslie's dreams rarely stood a chance, not under opal Arnold's roof.
She had a way of pulling the rug out from
under him emotionally. Friends remembered stories of Leslie making plans,
only for his mother to change her mind at the
last second. Leslie later said that his mother made fun
of his interest in music and showed no interest in
(06:51):
his sports. People who knew Ople described her moose swings
as severe. She could be cold and controlling, then suddenly sweeped.
Some members of the family later said that she had
been hospitalized for mental breakdowns, but at the time when
mental illness was stigmatized and not well understood, she never
received any formal diagnosis. There was no telling which version
(07:14):
of opal you might get on any given day. It
left Leslie walking on eggshells, never knowing how to avoid
the next eruption. And in this pressure cooker of a household,
something was quietly building, a resentment, a rage, a desperation,
because sometimes the American dream isn't a dream at all,
(07:36):
Sometimes it's a trap. By the end of September nineteen
fifty eight, something was off in Poppledon Avenue. Neighbors noticed,
at first, not through any dramatic event, but through absence.
(07:57):
Bill Arnold, who was normally a fixture of routine, was
no longer seen coming and going from work. Opel, who
often spent her mornings priening lilac bushes or collecting the
mail in her housecoat had seemingly vanished, but their son,
Leslie was still at home, and so was Jim. When
a neighbor casually asked about his parents, Leslie responded without hesitation.
(08:20):
They were out of town, he said, on vacation. It
was a plausible answer, at least on the surface. The
Arnolds were a well off family. A trip away wasn't
outside the realm of possibility. But it was the kind
of answer that raised more questions the longer it held.
Leslie seemed to be managing things in his father's absence.
(08:41):
He even contacted Walter Ovitt, a part time employee at
Watkins Products. He explained that his father had accidentally taken
the office key with him and asked Walter to meet
him so that they could open up. Walter agreed. When
he arrived, there was already a line of salesmen waiting
at the office, all expecting their youth usual morning briefing.
(09:02):
Leslie apologized profusely for the inconvenience, explaining once again that
his father had left unexpectedly and accidentally taking the keys
with him. Walter opened up the office and business continued
as usual, but something about the encounter left him uneasy.
He later recalled, Naturally, all the people have been wondering
(09:22):
where mister Arnold was. It wasn't like him to be
gone so long without notifying somebody at the company. It
was true, Bill Arnold was nothing if not dependable. His
absence without so much as a phone call didn't sit right.
(09:45):
The days continued to trickle by, slow and strange. There
was still no sign of Bill or Oppal, still no
word from either of them, and the people who knew
them best were starting to worry. Ben McCammon was one
of those people, just a family friend. He was Bill
and Obel's brother in law, a familiar face at the
dinner table, somebody who dropped by regularly just to say hello.
(10:09):
They hadn't told him anything about a vacation, and the
last time he saw them, just two weeks prior. Nothing
seemed out of the ordinary, at least not at first.
That afternoon, Ben had been at the house when tentions
began to rise. Leslie had been on the phone with
his girlfriend, Cristel, a girl that his mother didn't approve of.
(10:31):
Cristel went to a different school, came from a well
respected family and had even invited Leslie to attend church
with them, but Obel wasn't impressed. Leslie believed it was
because Cristel's father was a truck driver. She apparently called
them trash when Leslie was still on the phone. After
several minutes, Obel intervened. She told him that he'd been
(10:53):
on for too long and ordered him to hang up,
and when Leslie did, an argument rupted. Leslie had made
plans to take Crystal to the movies that evening. He'd
arranged to use the family car, but now Opel said
he wasn't going anywhere. It wasn't the first time that
it seemed like this had unfolded in the Arnold home,
(11:14):
but something about the moment lingered with Ben, something about
Leslie's expression as the argument unfolded. It was the last
time that Ben ever saw Bill or Opel. In the
following days, Ben's unease began to grow. He played the
memory of that afternoon over and over in his head.
He wondered if something had happened after he left, if
(11:36):
maybe the argument had gone too far. Each time the
thought surfaced, he talked himself down. He was overreacting, he
told himself surely there was an explanation. That explanation never came.
Bill's parents, Leslie and Helen Arnold, were also growing anxious
living in North Loop, Nebraska, then tried calling their son
(11:58):
and daughter in law repeatedly, but to no avail. Concerned,
they made the drive to Omaha themselves. When they arrived
at the Poblton Avenue home, they were surprised to find
both boys, Leslie and his younger brother Jim, home alone.
There was no sign of Bill, no sign of Opel,
and no clear answer as to where they were. Finally,
(12:20):
on the morning of the eleventh of October, Ben McCammon
made a decision. He walked into Central Police Station and
shared everything he knew. He told officers that Bill and
Oble had been missing for two weeks. He mentioned the
supposed vacation. He described the strange silence, the lack of contact,
and the way Leslie had handled their absence as though
(12:43):
everything was normal, and then he told them about the argument,
the fight between Leslie and his mother, the tension, the
disapproval of Crystal, and the revoked date night. He admitted
that Leslie had gotten into heated arguments with his parents before,
but he never thought it was anything more than the
usual teenage friction. He stated, But the boy isn't bad.
(13:07):
There was never anything but a few words. Police listened carefully.
The situation was strange. No missing person's report had been
filed until now, and there was no evidence of a crime.
That something wasn't setting right. A father who never missed
work gone without a trace, a mother known to be
(13:27):
a creature of habit suddenly vanishing. A teenage son providing
explanations that seemed rehearsed, too convenient. It was enough to
prompt a closer look within ours. Officers arrived at the
Arnold home. When detectives finally sat down with sixteen year
(13:53):
old Leslie Arnold, they expected resistance, perhaps confusion, maybe even
a defensive teeny clinging to his version of events. What
they got, however, with something entirely else. Leslie didn't hesitate.
He didn't ask for a lawyer, he didn't try to
dance around the truth. He simply told them that his
(14:16):
parents were dead and that he had killed them. Ben McCammon,
it turned out had been right. The argument he'd witnessed
between Leslie and Oble wasn't just a harmless family squabble.
It was the prelude to something far darker. Leslie explained
that it happened on the twenty seventh of September run
(14:36):
two pm. He and his mother had argued again about
his girlfriend, his time on the phone, and ultimately the
family car. He said, when he was on the phone
to Crystal, his mother burst in and scolded him. He
had the wire of the phone under his bedroom door
with it closed. Obil told him that anything said behind
closed doors wasn't worth saying. She then called Cristel no good,
(15:01):
something that Leslie was afraid Cristel may have heard. They
set off another roy and Leslie warned his mother she
would be sorry if she continued to treat Crystal so cruelly.
Opel eventually told Leslie that he wasn't allowed to use
the family cars that evening to take Crystal to the movies.
Leslie didn't take no for an answer, not immediately, at least.
(15:24):
He tried sporadically throughout the day to change his mother's mind.
But as the hours passed and her answer stayed the same,
something began to twist inside him. And then, as he
described it two Detectives, a crazy idea entered his mind.
He walked upstairs into his parents' bedroom. His father kept
(15:45):
a twenty two caliber rifle in the closet, a small
weapon typically used to hunt rabbits. Leslie took it. He
walked back downstairs. His mother was standing in the kitchen,
possibly preparing something, maybe thinking about dinner or folding laundry,
mundane ordinary tasks in the final moments of her life.
(16:08):
When she saw the gun, she told Leslie to put
it down. They argued again. Leslie claimed that Opel mocked him,
that she pushed him too far. What are you going
to do? Shoot me? She asked, so Leslie lifted the
rifle and he pulled the trigger. The billet hit Opal
in the chest. She fell, but she wasn't dead. Leslie
(16:31):
walked over to her and shot her again and again.
He wasn't sure how many times. She was dead. Within moments,
he said, he recollected. I can't explain it. She seemed
in pain, and I didn't want to hurt her any more,
but I just kept shooting. Leslie's father, Bill, was at
work when it happened, but not for long for Leslie
(16:54):
even had time to process what he had done before
the adrenaline had faded. Bill came home. Leslie was crouched
over his mother's body, apologizing for what he had done.
Bill opened the front door and walked inside, only to
be met with his wife's lifeless body on the floor
and its teenage son with a rifle. Bill lunged at him,
(17:15):
but Leslie ducked. He raised the rifle once more, and
just like that, he shot his father dead. Then, as
he'd done with his mother, he stood over him and
fired again multiple times to make sure that he was gone.
When the silence returned to the home, it was deafening.
Leslie stood there stunned, and then he walked into the
(17:37):
living room. He laid on on the couch and sobbed.
Leslie decided he needed to cover up what he had done.
He dragged his parents' bodies down into the basement one
at a time. He cleaned up whatever he could, and
then just an hour or so later, around four thirty pm,
he left the house and picked up his younger brother Jim,
(17:58):
from the axe or Benfield, like nothing had happened. He
told Jim that their parents had been called out of town. Suddenly,
Leslie took him to her neighbor's home and explained that
Billinoble had traveled to Wyoming. Their grandfather, he said, was
senile and had wandered off, so his parents had gone
to help and find him. That same night, Leslie picked
(18:18):
up his girlfriend Crystal. They went to the drive in
to see The Undead, a horror movie about which his
past lives and deaths that refused to stay buried. But
for Leslie the horror wasn't on the screen. He couldn't concentrate.
He said later that he felt that his mother's ghosts
was following him, maybe in a way she was. Guilt
(18:42):
has a way of clinging to you, of sitting silently
in the passenger seat. It follows you into the darkness,
into dreams, into places you least expected. And for a
while Leslie thought he had gotten away with it. But ghosts,
whether real or imagined, have a way of refusing to
stay buried. The morning after the murderers, Leslie Arnold got
(19:13):
to work. He borrowed a shovel from a neighborhood friend,
Frank Spincerri, who lived nearby with his uncle Al. When
night fell, Leslie waited for the world to go quiet.
Then he dragged both of his parents' bodies up from
the basement, out into the cool September air and over
to a lilac bush that grew in the family's back garden. There,
(19:34):
under the cover of darkness, Leslie dug The trench was
six feet long, two feet wide, and about three feet deep.
It took a morse. He placed his father in first,
then his mother. Two people who had raised him, fed him,
cared for him, now laying side by side in a
makeshift grave beneath the flowers Opel had once tended. It
(19:58):
was a Sunday night, and the next morning Leslie got up,
got dressed, and went to school at Central High like
nothing had happened. As the days passed, he continued the performance.
He disposed of a couple of blood stained rugs from
the dining room, rolled them up and tossed them in
to Papio Creek. He waved to neighbors, spoke to his teachers,
(20:19):
played the role of the ordinary teenage boy while the
secret festered just beneath the surface of his back yard.
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m O r b I d O l O g Y.
When police arrived at the Arnold home, they already had
a confession in hand, but they needed proof. They headed
straight to the backyard. The officers approached the lilac bushes
beneath the pedals. Something wasn't right. The soil had been disturbed,
(23:36):
loosened freshly turned. The officers picked up their shovels and
began to dig. It didn't take them long. The first
thing they uncovered was a leg human, pale and already
beginning to decompose. The ankles were born together with the belt.
It was opal. Her skin had started to break down
(23:57):
from days underground, which he was still wearing her jewelry,
a necklace, a ring, and a watch that she barely
took off. They continued to dig. Beneath Ople was Bill.
Both bodies were decomposing, and both had been shot six times.
The backyard had become a crime scene. Reporters and curious
(24:18):
neighbors gathered just beyond the yellow tape, watching as the
unthinkable was brought into the light. The Arnold's beloved members
of the community, once thought to be away on vacation,
had been in their backyard the entire time. Despite being
(24:45):
the one to raise the alarm, Ben McCammon never imagined
the truth would be this grim. He'd known Leslie his
entire life. He'd watched him grow up. He'd seen the
family in the oars before they were killed. When he
was told that Leslie had confessed to the murders, Ben
was stunned. He told the Evening World Herald. I didn't
suspect the boy. He isn't a bad kid, never has been.
(25:08):
He gets excited and mad. Maybe he lied a lot,
I don't know. It was a hard truth for anybody
to reconcile, especially those closest to the family. After signing
a full confession, Leslie Arnold was transported to the juvenile
detention ward of the Douglas County Jail. But for a
boy who had just committed something unthinkable, he wasn't steering
(25:30):
in silence. The media descended quickly, and Leslie seemed almost
relieved to have somebody to talk to. He admitted he
hated being there, he was lonely. He asked one of
the reporters if they'd stay with him and keep him company.
He said that he couldn't talk about the murders anymore,
that his uncle Ben had told him not to, but
(25:52):
still he made other requests. He asked for books and
for a visit from his pastor. He said that he
hadn't been slaping well, but that he had felt better
after getting everything off his chest. His girlfriend Crystal had
even come to visit, and that, he said, made him
feel a lot better. The next day, Leslie Arnold was
(26:13):
formally charged with two counts of first degree murder. His
court appointed defense attorney, Shepherd Taylor, quickly announced that they
would be pursuing a psychiatric evaluation for Leslie. In the meantime,
Leslie was brought before the court for his arraignment. There
neatly dressed and with tears in his eyes, he pleaded
not guilty to both cons of murder. The judge ordered
(26:36):
to be held without bond while awaiting trial, and as
he was let out of the courtroom sobbing, the reporters
captured what little was left of the boy who had
once seemed so normal, a church going teenager, a decent student,
a brother, a son, now unaccused killer. On the first
(27:06):
of June nineteen fifty nine, Leslie Arnold stood once again
before the court. It had been eight months since he
shot and killed his parents and buried them beneath the garden.
At just sixteen years old, Leslie had become one of
the most shocking figures in Omaha's criminal history. It was
expected that his murder trial would begin that day, but
(27:26):
when Leslie entered the courtroom, it quickly became clear that
something had changed. A plea deal had been quietly arranged
behind the scenes. At the time, Nebraska law didn't allow
a defendant to plead guilty to first degree murder, so
instead the charges were reduced to second degree. The amended
charges claimed that Leslie had acted maliciously and purposefully, but
(27:49):
without premeditation. And to those charges, Leslie pleaded guilty. As
he did, his voice cracked, he was visibly emotional. His
defense attorney, Shepard Taylor, told Judge Patrick Lynch that the
thorough study of Leslie's background warranted leniency. Even the prosecution,
which was led by County Attorney John Hanley, acknowledged the
(28:12):
challenge of proving premeditation. He stated, under all the evidence
in this case, I'm satisfied that the state couldn't sustain
the burden of proving premeditation. With this plea, Leslie Arnold
had avoided the death penalty, and with the reduced charges,
he could be eligible for parole in just ten years.
But the judge wasn't sweat Leslie Arnold was sentenced to
(28:35):
life imprisoned at the Nebraska State Penitentiary in Lincoln, and
for a while, that's exactly where he stayed. By all accounts,
Leslie was a model prisoner. He pursued his education, worked
inside the prison, kept a low profile. His girlfriend's parents
had become his legal guardians. He befriended an Omaha Nunn
(28:57):
named Teresa Castey, who recollected he looked like a kid,
which he was. He was very personable and articulate. Some
would say that's the con artist, but I don't think so.
In nineteen sixty five, now twenty three years old, Leslie
made a move. He fiuled the motion, arguing that his
imprisonment was unlawful. He claimed he'd been arrested without a warrant,
(29:22):
denied legal counseling during questioning, and coerced into confessing. He
said police had promised him he wouldn't face the electric
chair if he pleaded guilty, that his own attorney had
pressured him, and that he had been kept in jail
for eight months while the publicity died down, something he
now claimed had tainted his right to a fair trial.
(29:43):
The court, however, didn't agree. His request was denied. But
Leslie wasn't done because just two years later, Leslie would
walk out of prison, not through a parole hearing, not
through the courts, but through a plan of his making.
(30:10):
By the summer of nineteen sixty seven, Leslie Arnold had
worked his way into the most trusted tear of the
Nebraska State Penitentiary. He was no longer behind the main
prison walls. Instead, he was living in a trusty dormitory,
a low security building just west of the prison. There
were a round two hundred and thirty inmates house there,
all considered low risk. There were no guards posted inside.
(30:32):
Twenty four to seven. Leslie had earned it. He worked
in the prison kitchen and played in the prison band.
He served as editor to the prison newspaper, worked out,
and kept to himself. He had a spotless record. He
had even assisted at the Nebraska Governor's mansion on two
previous Christmases. Chuck Wolfe, the prison administrator, later said he
(30:56):
had talent, made use of it in prison, and got
along real well. We all just kind of felt he
would ultimately make parole and make a success out of himself.
He seemed to be on his way to the ultimate
fate of many killers during the more merciful time estate
pardon and release. But whatever internal reformation he'd presented on
the surface, Leslie Arnold had no intention of growing old
(31:19):
behind bars. On the morning of the fifteenth of July
nineteen sixty seven, routine five a m. Checks were conducted
at the dorm. Every inmate was allegedly present and accounted for,
but just over two hours later, at seven thirty a m.
It was noticed that two inmates were missing Leslie Arnold
(31:39):
and James Edward Harding. Harding had been convicted of first
degree murder back in nineteen sixty after he shot and
killed a man named Richard Whitehill during a bar hold
up in Omaha. It was clear that the two men
had escaped some time between the five a m. And
seven thirty a m. Bed checks. It became clear that
dead saw the bars of the window in a music
(32:01):
room and then used chewing gum to hold the bars
in place so that nobody would notice. Once outside, they
scaled a twelve foot high security fence, leaving behind a
makeshift rope made from a T shirt that was snagged
on the bowered wire. A massive dragnet was deployed immediately,
please scarred the eastern half of Nebraska. Then they widened
(32:22):
their search to include Iowa, Kansas, and Missouri. They searched
on foot, by vehicle, and from air, but Leslie and
Harding had vanished. Colonel James Krueger of the Nebraska State
Patrol stated, We've got everybody working on it, but no
matter how many resources were thrown at the search, there
was no trace. Warden Murray Sigler eventually admitted, we have
(32:47):
no idea where they are. We haven't heard a thing
since they left. We think they're holed up somewhere. They
could be out of the country, but as the days
turned into weeks, it became obvious the two men were gone.
The escape was so seamless that the warden would later
call it one of the cleanest getaways he'd ever seen.
He stated, we haven't even had one rumor. In the
(33:12):
aftermath of the escape, two prison officers and two guards
were suspended for what the warden described as grossed our
eliction of judy. They had failed to follow basic safety protocols.
They were entrusted to conduct early counts, but this hadn't happened,
and they had let two convicted murderers vanish into thin air.
(33:32):
The FBI then got involved. Posters were circulated, leads were chased,
but still nothing. Leslie Arnold had disappeared. On the second
(33:54):
of May nineteen sixty eight, almost ten months after the
Daring prison break, James Edward Harding was in Los Angeles, California.
He was alone, living under a new name and blending
in like he'd always belonged, and it was pure coincidence
that led to his arrest. Harding happened to be inside
a bar when a fellow patron glanced over Diddle double
(34:15):
take and thought he looked strikingly similar to James Earl Ray,
the man wanted for assassinating doctor Martin Luther King just
a month earlier. The man then called police. Authorities responded immediately,
and Harding was taken into custody without incident. While the
man in the bar wasn't James Earl Ray, he was
(34:36):
a fugitive from Nebraska, Harding told investigators he had no
idea where Leslie Arnold was. He said that after escaping,
the pair had made it to Chicago, where a priest
had given them temporary shelter. A few days later, Leslie
had landed a dishwashing job at a restaurant in the Loop.
Then he met a girl and moved in with her.
(34:58):
That was the last he saw of Leslie. For his
role in the escape, Hoarding was handed an additional year
behind bars, but he didn't seem to regret it. In
a later interview, Harding reflected, it was kind of worth it.
I got nine months of freedom for one more year inside.
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Harding ultimately served just eight more years before his sentence
(36:05):
was commuted and he was released on parole. He lived
the rest of his life as a free man, never
looking back. Before his death in two thousand and eight,
Harding admitted that the timeline release by the prison had
been wrong. He and Leslie hadn't escaped during the early
morning headcount on July fifteenth, It actually vanished the night before,
(36:27):
around eleven pm. He said that they had stuffed pillows
and blankets under their sheets to create the illusion that
they were still asleep in their beds. Then, using rubber
masks they had managed to trick any casual glance from
the guards. They scaled the twelve foot high fence, ran
across the nearby railroad tracks, and disappeared into a wooded
(36:47):
area where an ex con accomplice was waiting in a
getaway car. He drove them to Omaha and dropped them
off at the bus station. The search for Leslie Arnold
spanned decades in miles from coast to coast, across borders,
even into Mexico, but there was one major problem. From
the very start, there were no recent photographs of Leslie.
(37:11):
The only image that the authorities had was from when
he entered the Nebraska State Penitentiary at just sixteen years old.
The boyish mugshot would become even more useless as time
went on. People change faces, age, and Leslie had a
long head start. There was one moment, a glimmer of hope.
In nineteen seventy four, police and Oregon stopped a man
(37:33):
for drunken driving. They ran his fingerprints and they came
back as a match for Leslie Arnold. But by the
time the FBI relayed the information to Oregon authorities, Leslie
was gone. He'd been released before they could act. That
was the last known lead for years. As the years
ticked by, theories multiplied. Some people were convinced that Leslie
(37:56):
had died shortly after his escape. Others believed he started
over somewhere, maybe with a new name, a new job,
a new family. Homicide detective Maurice Barnet shared his thoughts
with reporters Steering Albett. He's married somewhere and has a
couple of kids. I have no evidence, just a gut feeling.
(38:17):
Bart believed that Leslie may have escaped to Canada. He
had once spent time before the murders with a distant
relative at a cavern there a quiet, remote hideaway. But
many found it hard to believe that somebody could stay
hidden for so long. Could somebody truly erase their identity
for decades? In nineteen ninety two, Omaha Police to Lieutenant R. W.
(38:39):
Walker reopened the file. He became obsessed diving into leslie
psychiatric profile for a clue. He commented he was kind
of a cold individual. Harding said that Arnold played in
the prison band and that he was an excellent musician,
but played with absolutely no emotion. Very mechanical, and he
(39:00):
didn't seem to have any feelings at all or remorse
about killing his parents. But despite that cold, exterior, remorse
had been there, it just hadn't been public. In twenty seventeen,
a previously unseen letter surfaced. It was sent to a
neighbor by Leslie from behind bars. He'd written, I've learned
(39:22):
a great deal since I've been in here, and I
wish I knew then what I know now. My parents
were wonderful people. This I learned too late, and I'm
sorry I ever went so wrong. I'll never know. I've
got a lot of making up to do. It would
be another six years before the final piece of this
decade's long mystery would fall into place, because in twenty
(39:45):
twenty three, the truth about Leslie Arnold finally came out.
When asked about his past, John Damon would always give
the same old story. He was an orphan from Chicago.
(40:06):
It was short, believable, and it stopped the questions from coming.
But it wasn't the truth because John Damon was, in
fact Leslie Arnold, the teenager who had killed his parents
in nineteen fifty eight, the boy who had escaped from
a Nebraska prison in nineteen sixty seven, and the man
who just four months later was married and living an
(40:29):
entirely new life. Leslie had met Jane Boovia, a divorced
mother of four who worked as a waitress at the
same Chicago restaurant where Leslie had found work as a cook.
Almost overnight, he went from prison escape bay to husband
and father of four young girls. One of his stepdaughters, Kelly, remembered,
(40:49):
he didn't eat much like one pea and a little
mashed potato. He seemed nice enough, he didn't talk much.
He didn't talk about himself at all. He was a
mystery kind one. Her sister deb reflected on those early
years in Chicago. We were per from the other side
of the tracks. Here was this savior who pulled us
(41:09):
out of this rough life and Sean, one of the girls,
recalled telling her mother he was either ignorant or brave
to marry a woman with four girls. Now, I think
John took it on because he needed to what a
perfect cover in his new life. Leslie worked hard. He
eventually became a traveling salesman, and the family moved first
(41:31):
to Cincinnati and then to Miami. He taught the girl's music.
He took them to concerts. He helped them find structure,
but he was also strict. They remembered the list of
chores and the expectation to get jobs. By the age
of thirteen, he rarely socialized with anybody outside of the family.
On one occasion, Jeane threw him surprise party and Leslie
(41:54):
lashed out. He hated attention, he didn't want to be known,
and still he had given them a better life with
stability that they never forgot. Eventually, Jane and Leslie separated,
and by nineteen seventy seven he'd moved to Los Angeles.
He stayed in touch with the girls for a while,
but then he disappeared from their lives completely. No calls,
(42:18):
no letters, nothing. By nineteen eighty three, Leslie had married again,
this time to a foreign exchange student. He became a
father to two biological children, a daughter in nineteen eighty
six and a son in nineteen ninety one. For a while,
life seemed normal, but then came nineteen ninety two, something changed.
(42:40):
Leslie suddenly announced that they were leaving the country. He
told his wife and kids that the United States was
becoming too dangerous. Crime was on the rise, and he
didn't feel that it was safe anymore. Looking back, it
was clear that Leslie wasn't afraid of crime. He was
afraid of being caught. Because the world was changing. The
(43:01):
Internet was growing, public records were becoming digitized, fingerprints, facial recognition,
background checks. The past was no longer safe, and Leslie
Knott Leslie Arnold moved his family to Australia. He was
(43:27):
no longer the cold, emotionless teenager from the headlines. He
was a doting father, a man who loved music, science
and technology. His son described him as charismatic and patriotic,
the kind of dad who showed up, taught life lessons
and genuinely cared. Leslie taught him how to play the saxophone,
(43:47):
his own first love. Leslie never picked one up again.
That part of him, the saxophone player, the prison escape
by the son who killed his parents, was gone. As
his son would later say, you give up the things
you loved, so nothing links back to you. Leslie told
his children that they were his purpose. The becoming a
(44:09):
father had changed him, and in a way it had gone.
Was the strict disciplinarian that his stepdaughters had once feared
In his final chapter, he was light hearted, generous, and present.
He gave his family the same story that he'd always given.
He'd grown up in an orphanage. It was traumatic, he
(44:29):
said something he didn't like to talk about, and they
never questioned it. But eventually time caught up with Leslie,
not the law. In the early two thousands, he began
suffering from blood clots. He was diagnosed with deep veined thrombrosis,
and his condition worsened quickly. On the sixth of August
twenty ten, Leslie Arnold collapsed at home in Australia. He
(44:54):
died just two weeks shy of his sixty eighth birthday.
His obituary claimed that he was sixty nine. It claimed
a lot of things, but not the truth, because his
secret went with him to the grave, or at least
so it seemed. Leslie's son was nineteen years old when
his father died, and something inside him needed answers. He
(45:15):
flew over to Chicago, hoping to uncover more about his
father's life, but there were immediate red flags. The orphanage
that Leslie claimed to grow up in didn't exist. His
son also discovered that his birth certificate was fake when
he handed it to the record's department. He returned home
with more questions than answers. In twenty twenty two, over
(45:38):
a decade after his father's death, he took a leap.
He submitted his DNA for analysis and shared it to
a public genetic registry, hoping that a match from his
father's side might emerge. But when a match did come back,
it wasn't from a long lost cousin. It was from
a Deputy US Marshal in Omaha. Mithew Wesliver had inherited
(46:01):
the hold case of Leslie Arnold back in twenty hundred
and twenty. He tracked down Leslie's brother Jim and uploaded
his DNA into the same system. When Leslie's son uploaded
his DNA, it was a perfect match. Westover recalled, I
was like game set match. I knew this was going
to be our guy. On August twenty fourth, he spoke
(46:24):
to Leslie's widow and son over video chat. He told
them the truth that John Damon was actually Leslie Arnold,
the teenager who murdered his parents in nineteen fifty eight,
the inmate who escaped from prison in nineteen sixty seven,
the fugitive who had been on the run for over
four decades, and in twenty twenty three, US authorities traveled
(46:48):
to Australia to officially close the case. For the law,
it was a long overdue conclusion, but for Leslie's family,
it was the start of something else. When asked if
the shocking discovery changed the way he saw his father,
Leslie's son responded, my dad's legacy is a lot more
(47:08):
than the initial crime and escape. I'm comfortable with who
I am. He was a good father who committed his
entire life to my sister and I and I pretty
much owe him everything. Leslie Arnold had vanished without a trace,
and for fifty six years, the world had wondered was
he dead? Was he hiding? Was he still looking over
(47:30):
his shoulder? The answer, it turned out, was much more complicated,
because Leslie Arnold didn't just disappear. He built an entirely
new life. And for those who knew John Damon, that
life was real. It was good, but it was just
never completely honest, and maybe, just maybe that's the price
(47:53):
of starting over. Well, Bessie's that is it for this
(48:18):
episode of Morbidology. As always, thank you so much for
listening and I'd like to say a massive thank you
to my newest Patreon supporters, Sharon, Elizabeth and Cynthia. Morbidology
is a one woman podcast of the support upon there
s hereously goes such a long way, and I am
eternally grateful. If you'd like to join us up on Patreon,
the link is in the show notes and you can
(48:38):
join for as little as one dollar a month. I
upload afree in early release episodes behind the scenes, and
there are also a bunch of bonus episodes of Morbidology
plus that are on the regular podcast platforms. I also
send out a handwritten thank you card along with some
cool merch Remember to check us out at Morbiology for
(49:00):
more information about this episode and to read some true
crime articles. Until next time, take care of yourselves, stay safe,
and have an amazing week.
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