In June 2004, Jeffrey Manchester was serving a 45-year prison sentence for a string of McDonald’s robberies he’d pulled off by dropping through their roofs. He had other plans.
Using skills from his time in the military’s 82nd Airborne Division, Manchester built a hidden platform, spray-painted it black, and clung to the underside of an outgoing delivery truck until he was outside the prison walls. He hitchhiked to Charlotte, North Carolina, and needed somewhere to hide.
He chose a Toys R Us.
Manchester carved out a secret room behind a false wall in the store’s backroom, where large box items were stored and staff rarely ventured. He survived on baby food, candy, and snacks pilfered from the shelves, sleeping through the day and emerging at night once the last employee had gone home.
Over time, he got comfortable. He used the store’s own baby monitors and surveillance system to track employee movements and learn their routines. He began adjusting their schedules, subtly rearranging things to give himself more freedom to move around the store undetected.
Manchester began stealing toys from the store’s shelves and donating them to a church charity drive, quietly dropping them off while living as a ghost in the building they came from.
He also joined the church under the fake name John Zorn, became a beloved member of the congregation, and started dating a woman named Leigh Wainscott, who had no idea she was falling for an escaped convict living in a toy store.
It lasted six months. On December 26, 2004, he robbed the very store he’d been calling home. Police investigating the robbery discovered the secret room, then a hidden passageway leading to the abandoned Circuit City next door, where he’d also been living. His girlfriend, devastated after seeing his mugshot on the news, helped police set a trap. He was caught on January 5, 2005.
An additional 40 years were added to his sentence. He won’t be released until 2036.
Escaped Prisoner Hid Inside Toys “R” Us for Six Months While Pretending to Be a
