Pod Insights True Crime All The Time William Leslie Arnold About this episode In 1958, 16-year-old William Leslie Arnold shot his parents over a dispute involving the family car. Less than a decade into his life sentence, he escaped prison and was on the run for over forty years. In 2022, a genealogy database finally revealed his whereabouts.
Join Mike and Gibby as they discuss William Leslie Arnold. The crimes he committed as a 16-year-old were horrific. They were made even more disturbing because they were carried out against the people who loved him the most. But many have said that his mother was extremely domineering. Was that the motive for the murders? Arnold's escape and life on the run are fascinating, and the fact that he could elude the authorities for so long is almost unbelievable.
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Transcript 12,337 words · 4 speakers
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1:47 Speaker 00 Hello, everyone, and welcome to episode 426 of the True Crime All the Time Podcast. I'm Mike Ferguson, and with me as always is my partner in true crime, Mike Gibson. Gibby, how are you? Hey, I'm good. How about you? I'm doing great. Awesome. We just ate a bucket of chicken. Well, we ate the bucket. Not the whole bucket. But, I mean. My wife had some too. Yeah. Little mashed potatoes, gravy, coleslaw, mac and cheese. It was good. It was weird though. You didn't get it from a chicken place. No. Uh-uh. So, all the best chicken comes from a non-chicken place. Is that what? Mm-hmm. Yeah. You didn't know that? Did not. Let's go ahead and give our Patreon shout-outs. We had Melody King Wyatt. Hey, Melody. Drew Wright. Hey, if you're not right, you're wrong. Eric Hunsacker. Hey, Eric. Debbie Cox.
2:32 Speaker 00 What's up, Debbie? That's funny, because you actually cracked yourself up on that one. I do that sometimes. You do. WG. What up, G? Raul Duke. Hey, Duke. Annie Kurth.
2:43 Speaker 00 Hey, Annie. Lil Caitlin. What's going on, Caitlin? Kelly Clark jumped out to our highest level. Hey, Kelly. Kimberly Hudspith. What's going on, Hudspith? Tammy. Good old Tammy. Connie. There's Connie. And last but not least, Monique. I love some Monique. Okay. If we go back into the vault.
3:02 Speaker 00 This week, we selected Jennifer. Thanks, Jennifer. So, we appreciate all the support, the new support, the continued support. And the future support. And the future support. Also, you know, we don't talk about it a lot, but, you know, Crime Con is coming up this fall in Denver. If you haven't bought your ticket, but you're planning on going, go out to crimecon.com, use our promo code TCAT, T-C-A-T-T. Get a little something off your standard batch. Yeah, we'll be a mile high. Yeah, it's fun. If you haven't been to Crime Con, it's, it's a lot of fun. It is a lot of fun. Gibbs, we have an episode out right now on True Crime All Time Unsolved. We're talking about the mysterious Circleville, Ohio,
3:44 Speaker 00 letters. And this goes back to the seventies. You know, you were probably a teenager, possibly suspect, at the very least, a person of interest. I wrote a lot of letters back then. Because Circleville's only a little bit over an hour from, you know, where we are. But the residents of that town, they started receiving a lot of mysterious and threatening letters. Yeah. So, we'll, we'll get into all of it. All right, buddy. Are you ready to get into this episode of True Crime All the Time? I am ready. We're talking about William Leslie Arnold. William was only 16 years old when he shot both of his parents over a dispute involving the family car.
4:28 Speaker 01 Damn family car dispute.
4:31 Speaker 00 Well, you got the family truckster and you know, as a 16 year old, what's bigger than getting your license and, and you know, getting a little bit of freedom, driving that car?
4:42 Speaker 01 Yeah.
4:42 Speaker 00 I'm sure there have been many fights between 16 year old kids and their parents over the use of the car. I don't know how many of them have led to shootings.
4:53 Speaker 01 They should never lead to that.
4:54 Speaker 00 No, they, I, I know they shouldn't. I don't know how many have. We know this one did, but there's so much more to this case. And you know, I don't even want to give it away because it's hard to believe how much stuff happened in this case. William Leslie Arnold was born in Omaha, Nebraska on August 28th, 1942. His parents were William and Opal Arnold. Bill Arnold owned the Omaha Regional Office of Watkins Products, a direct sales company that sold spices, cleaning supplies and other household goods, door to door. All back in the day where there was a lot of door to door sales, a lot more.
5:38 Speaker 01 Watkins and the vacuum cleaner place and.
5:42 Speaker 00 So you're familiar with Watkins?
5:43 Speaker 01 Oh yeah. I've seen it on people's doors.
5:45 Speaker 00 Oh.
5:46 Speaker 01 Like where they put a little plaque thing up, you know? Yeah.
5:49 Speaker 00 Um, I had, I had never heard of it. Vacuum, I know that was a, a big deal, like the Kirbys.
5:55 Speaker 01 Kirby.
5:55 Speaker 00 They used to come to your house. They wanted to do a demonstration. I think years ago, my wife actually got sucked into buying one of those.
6:03 Speaker 01 Did she really?
6:03 Speaker 00 Yeah.
6:04 Speaker 01 Yeah.
6:04 Speaker 00 And it worked great for a while and then it started smelling real bad for some reason. We could never could, no matter how many times you change the, uh, the little bags, it just,
6:15 Speaker 01 just didn't smell good.
6:16 Speaker 00 No. We ended up getting rid of it, which was terrible because my grandmother had a Kirby for I swear 50 years.
6:23 Speaker 01 Really?
6:23 Speaker 00 And that thing worked like a champ.
6:25 Speaker 01 Well, I remember they, they were, they used to be really good vacuums.
6:30 Speaker 00 And they maybe still are.
6:31 Speaker 01 But they were really expensive.
6:32 Speaker 00 They are really expensive and that was part of the problem of having to get rid of that one. Opal was a stay at home mom. Leslie also had a younger brother named Jim, who was just 13 when his parents were killed. On the outside, the Arnold seemed like a perfectly normal family. The Omaha World Herald described Leslie as a smart but troubled boy, who others failed to understand. Okay, so there's a couple of things here. First of all, how many times do we talk about on the outside looking in, a family seems like, you know, the all American, perfect, normal family? Yeah, we talk about it a lot.
7:12 Speaker 00 But underneath, there, there sometimes are things that are bubbling that people don't see. And here you have Leslie being described as a smart but troubled boy, who others failed to understand. Okay, I think that fits the bill for quite a few people. Yeah, I feel like people don't, don't understand me. No, and you're smart but troubled. Mensa. Those who grew up with Leslie said that he had a fiery temper. Childhood friend Frank Spenceri told the Omaha World Herald, he was wound a little tighter than the average, but he was more intelligent than the average
7:49 Speaker 00 person and very talented. Okay, I, I can see why you are likening yourself to him. You too are also wound very tight. Yes, I am. But you're very intelligent, more intelligent than the average person. And you're also very talented. I, I don't think, you know, that comes through a lot on the podcast, how talented you are, you know, with all your paintings and your, the sculptures, the, the clay modeling and stuff you do. And my novels. And the novels you've written. Yeah. And also posed for on the cover. I mean, you are like, Just one notch below Fabio.
8:32 Speaker 01 Just don't have the hair like Fabio.
8:33 Speaker 00 Right.
8:34 Speaker 01 Yeah.
8:35 Speaker 00 But you're shirtless on a horse. I mean, I don't read them, but I know a lot of people do.
8:41 Speaker 01 I don't know if we know a lot of people.
8:43 Speaker 00 Leslie constantly got in trouble in elementary school, but eventually learned to control himself in the classroom. By high school, he was a B average student and was well liked by his teachers. His only write up was for failing to wear a belt one day. Okay, pretty strict.
9:00 Speaker 01 It is pretty strict.
9:01 Speaker 00 I mean, I get it if your pants are falling down and you know, you're going commando, that could be a big problem. But if, if your pants aren't falling down and you don't have a belt on, you get written up.
9:14 Speaker 01 Hey, young man, you need to go to the office. I see you have no belt on today.
9:18 Speaker 00 But we are talking about what here, the late 50s?
9:21 Speaker 01 Yeah.
9:21 Speaker 00 So, you know, maybe a little more strict. Leslie was in the ROTC. He also did track wrestling and baseball.
9:30 Speaker 01 So he was in the singlets as well.
9:31 Speaker 00 Yeah, and track. His biggest passion though was music. He played saxophone in the marching band and ROTC band and performed at school dances. He loved Elvis and intimidated the singer slicked back hairstyle. Well, let's face it, in the 50s, who didn't love Elvis?
9:51 Speaker 01 Absolutely.
9:52 Speaker 00 I love Elvis now and, and developed that love of Elvis as a kid because my mom was constantly playing his records.
10:00 Speaker 01 Why do I feel like you're going to sing a little Elvis right now?
10:02 Speaker 00 No, I'm not, but this was bloated Elvis.
10:04 Speaker 01 Yeah.
10:05 Speaker 00 You know, now I was listening to his older stuff, but you gotta, you gotta realize, I mean, he died when I was like four or five years old.
10:13 Speaker 01 How much, how much Grecian hair cream he had to put in? Is that what it's called? Grecian?
10:17 Speaker 00 Grecian formula?
10:18 Speaker 01 Yeah.
10:19 Speaker 00 Yeah, I think back then they used, uh, what did they call that stuff? The guy that, the stuff that they used in that brother. Dapper Dan.
10:28 Speaker 01 Dapper Dan.
10:29 Speaker 00 Something like that.
10:31 Speaker 00 At home, Leslie displayed his temper. For example, he destroyed his model airplanes. If they didn't come together the way he wanted. He was waxing the family car one day, and became so frustrated that the wax wasn't sticking, that he slammed his fist into the roof and dented it.
10:48 Speaker 01 That's a temper problem.
10:49 Speaker 00 Yeah, I mean, I think you're seeing just a few examples here of his temper. He also hit his younger brother Jim, who told the World Herald, Les'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 already had him. Okay, for an older brother, okay, is there some jealousy there? Yeah, sometimes there can be, but to think that, well, why do you need another one? You already got one. Why do you need another kid? That seems strange.
11:26 Speaker 01 Can we get rid of that one? Just be me.
11:29 Speaker 00 Leslie felt resentment and anger towards his mother. It was said that Opal Arnold called the shots in the house. Leslie later told psychologists that she was domineering. She once forced him to cut the grass three times until it was up to her standards. She made fun of his interest in music and never attended his athletic events. Leslie believed she favored Jim.
11:56 Speaker 01 I remember one time my mom made me clean the toilets multiple times and one Saturday, until I did it right. Not her fault.
12:03 Speaker 00 Not her fault you couldn't hit the bowl?
12:05 Speaker 01 I just wasn't doing that. And the fact was, I was trying to rush to get the job done, so I could go out and have fun. And so by the second, third time she came in, she just took the little bottle of Comet or Ajax or whatever it was, and she just poured it all over the toilet and on the floor and said, now when all that's cleaned up.
12:29 Speaker 00 It should be clean.
12:30 Speaker 01 Then it'll be clean. I'm like, oh, okay.
12:32 Speaker 00 Here's this idea of a domineering mother. That comes up quite a bit when you're talking about true crime. It can often be, you know, something in someone's life that.
12:46 Speaker 00 You know, doesn't end well. That's true. For certain types of people. Yeah. Neighbor Woody Dillman recalled Jimmy was treated like an only child. Another friend of Leslie said, it seemed to me that Leslie's mother was excessively and compulsively hard on him and Les would become extremely agitated beyond normal. So I'm really getting the sense here that you have these two brothers and is it that uncommon that the older brother or the older sibling gets a lot of the discipline while the younger one skates a little? Oh, yeah. And I think maybe you experienced some of that.
13:31 Speaker 00 For sure. You have an older brother and a younger brother. Yeah, we get the worst of it, the middle kid. And now, I only have two kids, but I wouldn't say we were harder on my oldest. We were just way more protective. Yeah. And then by the time the, the youngest got to those ages, she got away with more. She got to do more because, you know, first of all, we were tired and second of all, we'd already been through it. We didn't feel like we needed to be as protective. Right. A psychiatrist later wrote, is quoted by the World Herald, "The emasculating influence of mother dominance, plus being treated as a child rather than a growing young man could
14:13 Speaker 00 only serve to produce hidden resentment and antagonism towards his parents, which could be classified as a smoldering volcano." Ooh, smoldering volcano. You know what you don't want in your son? A smoldering volcano? Absolutely. Yeah. Especially a son who already has anger problems. When he could drive, Leslie fought with his parents over the family car. He claimed his mother sometimes gave him permission to use it and then changed her mind at the last minute. That's called control. It is. Now, is she doing that to exert dominance, to punish him? I don't know. It could be both of those. Yeah, it could be.
14:55 Speaker 00 In 1958, the main source of conflict between Leslie and Opal centered around his girlfriend, Crystal. They'd been dating a few months and it was said that Leslie was crazy about her, but Opal didn't support the relationship. She called Crystal's family trash. Leslie believed she felt this way because Crystal's father was a truck driver.
15:19 Speaker 01 Feel like we got some gemstones here. Crystal, Opal.
15:22 Speaker 00 Oh, I thought you meant the show Gemstones.
15:24 Speaker 01 No, though I do hear that's very, very good.
15:27 Speaker 00 If you haven't seen that, you're really missing out.
15:30 Speaker 01 Yeah.
15:30 Speaker 00 The third season just started, or the fourth season. Heck, I don't know. Leslie and his mother got into a lot of heated arguments over Crystal. Leslie claimed his mother kicked him out of the house three times. She occasionally locked his father out of the house for unspecified reasons. Bill told his son, they needed to tolerate Opal's behavior to keep the family together. So, you know, we said it, people said she wore the pants in the family. It does sound like that, that she ruled the roost.
16:02 Speaker 01 Sure.
16:03 Speaker 00 Leslie later told a psychologist that his mother had been hospitalized twice for what he called nervous breakdowns, which was a commonly used term back in those days for mental illness. Leslie and Jim didn't know many details about Opal's mental health because the topic was heavily stigmatized at the time. Not something a lot of people talked about.
16:26 Speaker 01 No, not at all.
16:28 Speaker 00 Jim Arnold explained to the World Herald that one of the instances where Leslie was locked out was actually him running away to spend time with his girlfriend rather than going on a weekend trip with the family. And Leslie's punishments were often brought on by his misbehavior.
16:46 Speaker 01 Yes, I think sometimes we forget that we're the reason we were punished, right? Actions that we did. I was not a great kid for a certain period of time growing up. And I would tell my mom one thing and do something differently.
17:02 Speaker 00 Shocker.
17:03 Speaker 01 And she would, would eventually find out. And I would try to cover it up and, but eventually it all would be laid out on the table.
17:13 Speaker 00 And you'd get punished.
17:14 Speaker 01 I get punished and, you know, it wasn't her fault.
17:17 Speaker 00 But I don't, yeah, I don't think that's uncommon though. I, I think, you know, kids are always testing the boundaries. And then they're shocked when, when punishment is doled out as though, you know, it's like, oh, what did I do?
17:30 Speaker 01 Yeah.
17:30 Speaker 00 Well, you know what you did. Leslie planned to take Crystal to a drive-in movie. On the evening of September 27th, 1958, his parents gave him permission to use the car. Leslie spoke to Crystal on the phone that morning. He often took the phone as far as the cord would stretch so they could talk behind a closed door. During this particular conversation, Opal pulled open the door and scolded Leslie, telling them that anything said behind closed doors was not worth saying. Leslie claimed she called Crystal no good and he was worried she overheard.
18:07 Speaker 01 Well, I remember those long cords and trying to go into a closet or, you know, into the stairs of the basement and have a conversation because, you know, your brothers were listening or you didn't want your mom or dad hearing you talk, you know, all sweet with your girlfriend.
18:24 Speaker 00 Yeah. And then, you know, a lot of people don't realize, not everybody had a phone in their room. There was one phone. Eventually they did come out with cordless phones. That was a great invention.
18:35 Speaker 01 Sure was.
18:37 Speaker 00 More so because we had one that would pick up like all the other neighbors' calls.
18:42 Speaker 01 All sweet.
18:43 Speaker 00 And it was just fun to sit there and listen to their calls. I probably shouldn't have been doing that, but.
18:48 Speaker 01 You're like, oh, that's interesting.
18:49 Speaker 00 Salacious.
18:50 Speaker 01 Yeah. But it would be embarrassing too, if your mom didn't like your girlfriend and she was very vocal about it to the point that your girlfriend can hear.
18:59 Speaker 00 And she's also scolding you in front of your girlfriend. Leslie got into an argument with his mother and told her she'd be sorry if she continued to treat Crystal that way. Opal told him he was not going to the movies. Leslie punched a wall and Opal sent him to his room. Okay. The one thing you don't want to tell your mom is that you'll be sorry.
19:23 Speaker 01 Yeah, that doesn't normally work out well.
19:25 Speaker 00 No. After spending some time stewing, Leslie came down and argued with Opal again. She told him to go outside and cool off. Leslie went for a walk before returning to his room. He was home alone with his mother. His father was at the grocery store and Jim was out ushering a rodeo.
19:45 Speaker 01 When's the last time you ushered a rodeo?
19:47 Speaker 00 Well, I don't think I've ever ushered anything, but especially not a rodeo. Per his later confession, Leslie said, I got a crazy idea in my head. Around 2:30 PM, Leslie went to his parents' bedroom closet and retrieved the 22 caliber rifle. He used to hunt rabbits. He went to the dining room and confronted his mother. He claimed he had no intention to shoot her, but he wanted to show her how serious he was about going to the movies.
20:19 Speaker 01 That's one way to show it.
20:21 Speaker 00 Opal stood in the doorway to the kitchen and mocked Leslie, saying, what are you going to do? Shoot me? Leslie pulled the trigger. Opal fell to the floor and screamed. Leslie said he didn't want to hurt her anymore, but inside he could still hear her laughter. He moved closer and shot her in the chest six times.
20:44 Speaker 01 Wow.
20:45 Speaker 00 With a 22.
20:46 Speaker 01 That internal laughter in his head must have just really drove him to all that.
20:53 Speaker 00 But I also think it's interesting, you know, him saying, I didn't grab the rifle to kill her. I just wanted to show her how serious I was about going to the movies.
21:03 Speaker 01 Yeah.
21:04 Speaker 00 That seems like strange logic.
21:06 Speaker 01 It really does.
21:08 Speaker 00 Hey, I have this gun. Just so you know how serious I am about wanting to go to the, to the movies. He later said in his confession, "I can't explain it. She seemed in pain and I didn't want to hurt her anymore, but I just kept shooting." He tried to apologize to his mother in her final moments. That was when his father came home from the grocery store. Bill shouted, "What have you done?" and ran at Leslie. He took a swing at his son, but missed. Leslie then shot his father six times. So this has gone from bad to worse. You know, you've shot your mom, your dad comes home, you end up shooting him.
21:51 Speaker 01 Not once, but six times as well.
21:53 Speaker 00 Six times. The other thing I thought was strange, when he talks about not wanting to hurt her anymore, his actions kind of scream the exact opposite of that. To fire that many shots, you can almost feel the anger, the rage, as though he did want to hurt her. And he wanted to hurt his dad. Leslie dropped the gun and ran to the living room. He cried while he thought of what to do next. He considered telling someone, but he didn't think they'd understand.
22:27 Speaker 01 I don't know if anybody would ever understand what you just did.
22:30 Speaker 00 No, it would be hard. I mean, what are you gonna say? She mocked me? What are you gonna do? Shoot me? And then after I shot her once, I could hear, I could still hear her laughing at me? It's gonna be hard for somebody to understand that.
22:45 Speaker 01 Sure.
22:46 Speaker 00 But also, we're only getting his side of the story, too. A half hour later, he dragged the bodies down the basement stairs and took the bloody dining room rug to the garage. He called family friend Rose Grossman and told her an elaborate lie. Leslie said his grandparents were traveling by train to California, when his grandfather, who had dementia, got off at a stop in Wyoming and wandered off. His mom and dad got on a train to go look for him. So as far as lies go, that is a pretty elaborate lie.
23:20 Speaker 01 Sure is.
23:22 Speaker 00 Rose agreed to take care of Jim until his parents returned. When Jim came home from the rodeo, Leslie ran outside to meet him and took him to Rose Grossman's home. Jim didn't suspect anything was wrong.
23:36 Speaker 01 And why would he?
23:37 Speaker 00 No, he believed what his brother told him. Afterwards, Leslie went about cleaning himself up to go on his date. He picked up Crystal and her brother and they watched a double feature at the drive-in. Afterwards, they went to a burger and malt shop and then to Crystal's house.
23:56 Speaker 01 Nothing like killing your parents earlier in the day and then going to the movies and having some burgers and shakes later.
24:02 Speaker 00 It's almost as if it didn't bother him at all. Or if it did bother him, it sure didn't to the point where he couldn't enjoy himself, you know, watching movies and eating.
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25:27 Speaker 00 Leslie went home and tried to sleep in his car because he didn't want to be in the house with the bodies, but it was too cold. He went to his room, turned on the radio and closed the door.
25:39 Speaker 01 I'm sure it would have been really creepy.
25:42 Speaker 00 Yeah. So he's jamming to music, falling asleep while his parents are dead in the home.
25:48 Speaker 01 Yeah. Rotting downstairs.
25:50 Speaker 00 Leslie went to church the following day and it was said that the sermon was about a crime and Leslie felt as though it was directed at him. He left during the service.
26:02 Speaker 01 Well, maybe it was.
26:03 Speaker 00 Maybe. In the afternoon, he asked his neighbor Frank Spensary for a shovel. Leslie spent most of the day with Crystal and her family. Once he got home, he started digging a hole. It took several hours and was physically exhausting. Leslie then dragged his parents' bodies out of the basement to the hole. He said a brief prayer before burying the bodies. And I don't know how many people have dug holes like in their backyard. I'm not saying to bury a body. I'm saying to do some type of construction work. Depending on where you live, I know where we live. It's very rocky. The dirt is often very hard.
26:46 Speaker 00 Digging a hole is a lot of work. They make it look so easy, like in movies and on TV.
26:51 Speaker 01 Oh, yeah.
26:51 Speaker 00 That they're, you know, digging a six foot deep hole that they're gonna throw somebody in.
26:58 Speaker 01 Not easy.
26:58 Speaker 00 Not easy.
26:59 Speaker 01 It's like that time you had me dig a hole and I dug the hole and then you came back after lunch and you said, Gibbs, why are you digging a hole on my yard? And I said, boss, you told me to. And you said, put my dirt back in that hole. And I'm like, what?
27:14 Speaker 00 Oh.
27:15 Speaker 01 Nothing like a good Cool Hand Luke reference.
27:17 Speaker 00 Well, I changed my mind.
27:18 Speaker 01 Yeah.
27:20 Speaker 00 Leslie then threw the bloody rug off a bridge into Bib Papillion Creek. At midnight, he showed up at Rose Grossman's home and said he was scared to sleep alone and wanted to be with Jim. Rose noticed that both of Leslie's palms were blistered, but she didn't think much of it. And that's what happens when you try to dig a big ass hole.
27:42 Speaker 01 Sure, yeah.
27:44 Speaker 00 Unless you're used to digging a lot of holes and you know, you've formed calluses, you're going to get blisters.
27:50 Speaker 01 Or like you as a kid, you had a lot of calluses on your hands for other reasons.
27:53 Speaker 00 Oh, it happens. The following morning, a Monday, Leslie drove to his dad's office and opened it up for the day. He asked one of his dad's assistants to take over in his absence, telling the same story that his parents left to help search for his missing grandfather. And I think the one thing that we have to talk about Gibbs is, you know, we're in the late 50s. It was a really hard to get a hold of people.
28:19 Speaker 01 It really was.
28:20 Speaker 00 So much easier to tell this type of lie, harder for people to verify, you know, or get a hold of these individuals to find out that you are lying.
28:32 Speaker 01 Just kind of had to believe them, right?
28:34 Speaker 00 And even if you weren't sure, how could you prove him wrong? Leslie attended school that week. After five days, he and Jim moved back home. On October 5th, 1958, Leslie came home and found his grandmother and grandfather there. The same grandfather he claimed was missing. They had traveled to Omaha because they were concerned that no one knew where Bill and Opal were. And I don't care what type of lies you tell, you know, even in the 1950s, eventually people are going to get suspicious.
29:09 Speaker 01 Right.
29:10 Speaker 00 You know, they had telephones, they just didn't have cell phones. So at some point, you're going to start wondering where your family is.
29:20 Speaker 01 Yeah, I haven't heard from Opal in a while. Where's she at? What's going on?
29:25 Speaker 00 Leslie's grandmother called Rose Grovesman to ask if Opal left any instructions for her. Rose asked about the missing grandfather and she could tell from the grandmother's voice. She had no idea what she was talking about.
29:40 Speaker 01 Oh, we all know that voice, right? When you know, whatever you think was the truth is not the truth.
29:47 Speaker 00 Yeah. And this lie is crumbling. Rose did some digging and learned there was no train scheduled for the time Leslie said his parents left. She also heard from a friend on the street that Opal and Leslie had recently gotten into violent arguments. On October 10th, Rose called the Omaha police and told them what she'd learned. The Arnold family had been considering doing this for days, but Leslie's grandmother said they shouldn't jump to conclusions. That night, Leslie took his girlfriend to a football game. While he was away, the family went to the police. His great uncle reported the parents missing and said Leslie was the
30:26 Speaker 00 last one to see them. So on the morning of October 11th, two detectives picked Leslie up from his dad's office and took him to the station. And pretty quickly, Gibbs, he broke down and gave a full confession. He took the police to his home and showed them where he buried the bodies under a lilac bush.
30:48 Speaker 01 Yeah, I would imagine that's a lot of pressure for a kid.
30:52 Speaker 00 That'd be a lot of pressure for anybody.
30:54 Speaker 01 Yeah.
30:55 Speaker 00 But especially a 16 year old kid who, let's face it, has, you know, told a couple of lies that are falling apart. You know, how's he going to keep this charade up?
31:07 Speaker 01 Well, that's it, right? How can you?
31:08 Speaker 00 It's not, he's not going to be able to. Leslie was charged with two counts of first degree murder because the prosecutor suspected he loaded the rifle, which suggested the murders were premeditated.
31:22 Speaker 01 If you have time to load the rifle, it means you're thinking about it, right?
31:26 Speaker 00 And I don't know how they could know that for sure, but yeah, if the gun was kept unloaded and he went to go get the gun, you know, if he just wanted to show his mom how serious he was, which I still think is a, an idiotic statement for him to make. Could he do that with an unloaded gun?
31:44 Speaker 01 Sure.
31:45 Speaker 00 Possibly, yeah. But no, he loaded it probably to max capacity because we know he fired 12 shots in all. Now Leslie claimed the gun was already loaded. However, workers at the Axar Ben rate horse racing complex near the Arnold household found a box of 22 caliber bullets that Leslie threw over the fence. A psychiatric analysis concluded Leslie was safe. One psychiatrist reported for the World Herald. It is the examiner's opinion that the mother's behavior toward the youth certainly was a force in helping to precipitate his action.
32:26 Speaker 00 And while I'm sure in part that is true, it does come off as though like almost as if she deserved it. I think it's written in a way that's a little demeaning towards the mother.
32:42 Speaker 01 Yeah, I thought so. A little more harsh than it should be.
32:45 Speaker 00 Yeah, I think it could have been said a little bit better. Leslie expressed remorse in a letter to the Grossman family writing, "I've learned 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. How I ever went so wrong, I'll never know. I've got a lot of making up to do." Hmm, okay. So that is either very introspective by a young kid or a budding con artist being manipulated.
33:22 Speaker 01 Sure.
33:22 Speaker 00 One of the two, I don't know which. Leslie was sentenced to life in prison, but prosecutor John Hanley offered him words of encouragement, saying, "It's not going to be forever, Leslie." At this time, the state pardons board normally commuted life sentence for murderers to a set number of years and granted them parole. Leslie would have to serve 10 years before he'd be eligible for a pardon or parole. John Hanley believed Leslie would eventually be released due to his age, his lack of criminal record, and his complex relationship with his mother. Hanley said in a later interview,
34:04 Speaker 00 "When you build up all that resentment, sometimes it just blows up." That's what happened to poor old Leslie.
34:11 Speaker 01 Poor old Leslie. So what, he's saying that Leslie should be out when he's 26 or younger?
34:18 Speaker 00 Yeah, 26 years old, maybe. But to use the words "poor old Leslie", it makes it sound as though like this guy felt bad for him.
34:29 Speaker 01 Sure did.
34:30 Speaker 00 Leslie was sent to the Nebraska State Penitentiary on June 9th, 1959. He was still only 16 years old.
34:39 Speaker 01 Can you imagine walking into a state pen at 16 with all those inmates?
34:46 Speaker 00 He was one of the youngest inmates in the prison.
34:49 Speaker 01 That'd be rough.
34:51 Speaker 00 But most of the staff and inmates were protective of him. It was said that Leslie adjusted to prison life, finished high school, and even became a tutor. He worked several jobs and was editor of the prison newspaper. He also played saxophone in a prison band called The Felonaires.
35:10 Speaker 01 Oh, we got The Felonaires on stage tonight, guys.
35:13 Speaker 00 I did not know that prisons had their own newspaper.
35:17 Speaker 01 I did not know that either. I wonder what that reads like.
35:20 Speaker 00 I don't know. What, are you getting news from the outside? Or is it strictly what's going on in prison?
35:26 Speaker 01 Yeah. Do you have something called like the Cell Corner? You know, they always had that corner part of the newsletter where they give like, you know, tidbits and stuff?
35:37 Speaker 00 I'm assuming it was Big Mo, you know, Shankt. Little Pete. I mean, that's like, you know, the headline. I don't know.
35:47 Speaker 00 Deputy Warden John Greenholt was impressed when Leslie wrote to the warden asking for a job, saying he wanted to make the best of his time in prison. He was assigned as a runner in Greenholt's office. Okay, so again, this is either a kid who truly realized he did something wrong and and he wants to make his time in prison the most productive that it can be, or he's conning everyone and setting up for something.
36:18 Speaker 01 Yeah. Well, you did pretty good in prison that time when you did the help everybody out with their taxes and you set that library up with your friends.
36:28 Speaker 00 I did. That one time I got all my buddies free beers and we drank on the roof after, remember after we tarred that roof?
36:36 Speaker 01 Yeah, I remember. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Good times.
36:38 Speaker 00 In 1964, Leslie filed an unsuccessful appeal, arguing he wasn't told of his right against self-incrimination, that he was pressured into pleading guilty and that he was incarcerated for eight months before the plea deal to let the publicity die down. In 1965, the foreman of the dental lab where Leslie worked wrote to the deputy warden complaining that Leslie was constantly griping and not pulling his weight.
37:09 Speaker 01 How bad do you have to be if you're getting in trouble in prison for not doing your job?
37:13 Speaker 00 I can't imagine. People are working at their maximum capacity. Now, they're being told to, but overall, though, Leslie was considered a model prisoner. In December 1966, Leslie received his only write-up for cooking himself eggs and sausage in the kitchen where he worked as a line cook.
37:38 Speaker 01 You're like, seeing some eggs there, some sausage, and you're like, you know what? I am going to cook myself my own damn breakfast today.
37:45 Speaker 00 And he got in trouble. By early 1965, Leslie was made a trustee, a prison worker with more freedom and privileges. He was transferred to a special dorm for lower-risk inmates.
37:59 Speaker 00 The dorm was actually outside the main prison walls, but still within the fence. It was a secure building with barred windows, locked entrances and exits and guard supervision. As reported by the World Herald, it would be classified as medium security in modern times. The purpose of the special dorm trustee status was to prepare inmates for life outside of prison.
38:25 Speaker 01 It's a good premise.
38:26 Speaker 00 Yeah, I get it. And I think that's pretty normal, right? To have trustees who get a little more freedoms than than maybe the the rest of the general population. But as time passed, Leslie's desire for freedom only grew stronger. He decided he wanted to escape prison rather than wait for a chance at parole.
38:49 Speaker 01 You got that itch.
38:50 Speaker 00 Which seems strange because it seems like the time that he should be coming up for parole pretty shortly. Although I don't know how long a day, a month, a year is in prison. Imagine it seems like an eternity.
39:09 Speaker 01 I would think.
39:10 Speaker 00 Compared to being on the outside. In 1967, a fellow inmate who took a liking to Leslie, connected him to a man named Jim Harding. The inmate knew Harding also wanted to escape and thought he and Leslie could work together. I just wonder how many prisoners with, you know, maybe quite a bit of time on their hands are scheming nonstop. You know, how do I get out of this? How do, you know, what can we do here?
39:40 Speaker 01 Oh, I'm sure there's plenty of them trying to figure a way to get out of there if they're lifers.
39:45 Speaker 00 Yeah, I mean, I think about Ted Bundy losing weight so that he could squeeze through a like a hole where the light was.
39:52 Speaker 01 Yeah, I'd be digging a little. Hole in the wall, try to make it bigger every day if I was in, was in there.
39:58 Speaker 00 Harding, who died in 2008, was in prison for killing a man during an armed robbery. In 2001, he told the Omaha World Herald that he didn't like Leslie, saying he was kind of a boy scout. And I was kind of a crook. He wasn't your run of the mill con. Well, I don't think he was. I mean, he was younger than most. He wasn't a career criminal. He wasn't a serial killer. Harding didn't know Leslie's exact reasons for wanting to escape, but it didn't matter to him. They weren't friends, but they were united by this one shared goal. And sometimes that's all it takes. They plotted their escape during their free time in the day room and dining hall.
40:44 Speaker 00 The key to their success was an inmate who was going to be paroled in May 1967. He agreed to help Leslie and Harding from outside. They chose July 14th, 1967 as the day of their escape.
41:00 Speaker 01 I don't know why anybody that is getting out on parole would ever want to risk their parole by helping other people escape.
41:07 Speaker 00 Yeah, I get it. You develop some close bonds maybe in prison, but hey, I'm free. I'm not doing anything that is going to put me back in this awful place.
41:19 Speaker 01 Exactly.
41:21 Speaker 00 On the morning of July 5th, 1967, a secret message was planted in the personal section of the Omaha World Herald that said, NOF arrives July 14th. The parole lead took out this ad to serve as confirmation to Leslie and Jim Harding that they would go through with the escape. Okay, a little bit of a Red Dragon vibes. You know, where Ralph Fiennes plays the killer and he's writing to Hannibal Lecter, who's in prison in Code. There's a whole classifieds thing going on.
42:00 Speaker 01 You're good at remembering that kind of stuff.
42:02 Speaker 00 I like those movies.
42:04 Speaker 01 Yeah.
42:05 Speaker 00 Soon after the ad ran, the parole lead drove by the prison fence in the middle of the night and tossed over a cardboard tube that contained hacksaw blades and two rubber masks.
42:18 Speaker 00 Seems, seems pretty easy. It really does. I just drove by and threw over some hacksaw blades and you know. We were set. We were set. Harding collected the tube during an early morning walk and hid it. Now granted, these guys are what trustees, they got more freedom than most people. The inmates chose the music room where Leslie spent most of his time is their escape point. Over a couple of days, Leslie and Harding skipped dinner to hide in the music room and saw the bars over the windows. They held the bars in place with chewing gum to avoid detection. So that's some real Shawshank shit right there. Oh, it is. Yeah. That's some good chewing gum too to hold that in place.
43:03 Speaker 00 Must have been. Before the 11:00 PM head count on July 14th, Leslie and Harding stuffed pillows and blankets under their bedding and used the rubber masks to make heads for the dummies, which did trick the guards during count. This is like Alcoatras. It's, it's like all these escape movies wrapped into one. Then they escaped through the music room. The men had to run 30 feet to the fence line, which had lights and a guard tower just 100 yards away. Their escape hinged on the guards failing to look in their direction. They threw a jacket over the barbed wire.
43:44 Speaker 00 Leslie went over first. He got tangled up and landed clumsily on the other side, but wasn't injured. And then Harding followed. The men ran across the railroad tracks to the trees where their accomplice was waiting with a car. Harding recalled to the World Herald, "I couldn't believe he did it for us. He must have been nuts." He had to be nuts. I mean, it goes, goes back to what you said. I mean, this is a man who just got paroled, but is willing to go out on this type of limb to help these guys escape. Around midnight, they were let out near a bowling alley in Omaha. Leslie used a payphone to call his old friend Jim Child, telling him,
44:27 Speaker 00 "Jim, this is Las Arles. I escaped with another guy. I need your help." Okay. I've gotten a lot of strange phone calls in my life. I'm sure you have as well. I don't think I've ever gotten one that's strange. No. Out of the blue because this guy had been in prison for a few years now.
44:46 Speaker 01 Oh, yeah.
44:47 Speaker 00 I'm assuming this was a shocking phone call to receive.
44:50 Speaker 01 Just trying to figure out how that would go with you and me. Hey, Mike, this is Gibby. It's been a while. I'm out.
44:58 Speaker 01 Because I escaped and need your help. Mike, are you there? Click. Are you there?
45:05 Speaker 00 I hope you never find yourself in that position. But if you do, do not believe that I will be the man who steps up for you and risks going to jail myself. So this guy Jim was shocked, right? He gets this call. He was also studying to be a minister and was home for the summer. And had visited Leslie in prison just six days earlier. But he didn't hesitate to help his friend. He even packed Leslie some clothes and sandwiches for the trip.
45:37 Speaker 01 Awesome sandwiches, too.
45:39 Speaker 00 He drove the fugitives to a bus depot in Omaha where there was a 3 a.m. bus bound for Chicago. He bought their tickets and gave them $40 in cash, which was all he had at the time.
45:51 Speaker 01 Pretty nice guy.
45:52 Speaker 00 I mean, I feel like I got some good friends. But I don't know if I have any friends that would do all this for me. And I'm so shocked that this guy is studying to be a minister. But yet he's like, yeah, sure. No problem.
46:08 Speaker 01 Yeah, I'll break the law for you.
46:09 Speaker 00 Let me pack some sandwiches, get all the money I have and I'll get you out of town.
46:16 Speaker 00 Harding and Leslie got off the bus in downtown Chicago and went to a Catholic church where they were given money to spend the night at the YMCA. They went their separate ways the following day. And, you know, to be honest with you, Chicago's a pretty good place. If you're wanted to try to hide, I would think.
46:38 Speaker 01 Blend in.
46:39 Speaker 00 Or any big city, but you know, back then, Chicago was a very big city as it still is today.
46:44 Speaker 01 Hey, so what the fugitive did.
46:46 Speaker 00 Meanwhile, back in Nebraska, the inmates were reported missing on the morning of July 15. Officers searched a 30 mile radius around the prison, but they were long gone by that point.
46:58 Speaker 01 You think they asked somebody like Tommy Lee that took a map out and drew a big circle? And like said, this is our search radius.
47:07 Speaker 00 I love Tommy Lee Jones.
47:08 Speaker 01 Yeah.
47:09 Speaker 00 As an actor, going all the way back to, uh, when he played, uh, like Dewey in Coal Miner's Daughter.
47:16 Speaker 01 Oh, yeah. He's really old now, though.
47:18 Speaker 00 Yes, he is.
47:22 Speaker 01 I was just thinking of that movie.
47:23 Speaker 00 You know why? Because we were really young.
47:25 Speaker 01 That's true.
47:26 Speaker 00 When he was, you know, an actor.
47:29 Speaker 01 Yeah.
47:30 Speaker 00 Not even just starting out. Within days of his escape, Leslie was living under an alias. And he had a job at a local restaurant. He met Harding for a previously arranged check-in. Leslie told Harding, he didn't need him anymore and they never saw each other again. I mean, this story is so unbelievable that, you know, if you told somebody, he'd be like, ah, no, that didn't happen. This really happened. Jim Child admitted that he lied to an FBI agent who came to his house and asked if he knew about the escape. Child told the World Herald, I have some ambiguity about it, but nothing that approaches guilt.
48:12 Speaker 00 I don't know if he, uh, if he ever became a minister or not, but, uh, he came right out and said it.
48:19 Speaker 01 Yeah.
48:20 Speaker 00 I'm not guilty about what I did. Now, it doesn't surprise me that they would come to his home. I'm sure they would check the, the visitor log and see who had visited both of these guys. And they would go check on those individuals.
48:35 Speaker 01 Yeah, makes sense.
48:36 Speaker 00 Child kept the secret for years, even from his wife, but in 2005, he shared his story with a reporter. He explained that he was willing to help Leslie because he believed he was a good person caught in a bad situation. And he didn't think he would hurt anyone again. And I'm assuming that the bad situation was his domineering mother Oprah.
49:01 Speaker 01 Yeah, we heard that mentioned a few times, right?
49:04 Speaker 00 In May 1968, Jim Harding was arrested in Los Angeles during the nationwide manhunt for James Earl Ray, the man who assassinated Martin Luther King Jr. Harding happened to look like Ray and was caught after a woman saw him in a bar and called the police. Well, that's just bad luck.
49:23 Speaker 01 That really is.
49:24 Speaker 00 That you happened to look like one of the most wanted men in America. Harding spent eight more years in prison and was paroled in 1976. He was relieved that he could spend the rest of his life in true freedom instead of constantly looking over his shoulder.
49:40 Speaker 01 That would be so tough every day to wonder if today's the day they're coming down the driveway.
49:45 Speaker 00 Yeah, I do think that would be very tough. I'm also shocked that, you know, he only spent eight more years in prison. That must have meant either he was pretty close to parole anyway when he escaped, or they just didn't tack on much for prison escapes back then.
50:05 Speaker 01 Yeah.
50:06 Speaker 00 Harding got a job on the setup crew for Omaha's Civic Auditorium. He got married and retired in 1997. He then died of cancer in 2008. In his 2001 interview with the World Herald, Harding shared his theory about what happened to Leslie Arnold, saying, "My best guess is he's in South America. He showed me a book once that showed if you impregnate a Brazilian citizen, they won't bring you back for anything."
50:36 Speaker 01 Huh.
50:37 Speaker 00 Yeah, I didn't know what to say about that either, to be honest with you. But, you know, it shows you as they're, you know, kind of planning this escape, Leslie Arnold was thinking through a number of things. Now, it was said that Jim only visited his brother in prison once. After the murders, Jim moved to the Kansas City area to live with an aunt and uncle. His former principal told him he shouldn't tell anyone what happened, and he kept the secret for years, telling people his parents died in a car accident.
51:13 Speaker 01 Well, I think that would be tough to say, "My brother killed my parents." Things just be a weird conversation to have with people.
51:22 Speaker 00 Well, especially as a kid in school. Once everybody knows that, are they going to want to hang out with you? Are you going to be invited to the parties?
51:31 Speaker 01 No.
51:32 Speaker 00 Probably not.
51:33 Speaker 01 I remember I worked with a kid right out of high school. We were loading the, uh, unloading the UPS trucks. And I learned, he just, one day he told me that he just recently got out of, uh, prison, uh, because as a kid, he shot some other kid that came up to his porch and killed him. And I just didn't really feel all that comfortable around him anymore if you made him upset. Cause I thought, obviously he, he's got an issue with temper.
52:01 Speaker 00 And what's the screening process over there at UPS back in the day?
52:05 Speaker 01 I was like, huh?
52:08 Speaker 00 Anybody gets a pair of those brown shorts, I guess?
52:10 Speaker 01 I guess, damn.
52:12 Speaker 00 Jim started a career as a music teacher in Missouri, got married and had two children. After struggling with trauma and nightmares for many years, he started going to therapy in the nineties. And his counselor encouraged him to tell people what happened. Jim told his adult children the truth and let go of the guilt he felt for not being there. And I'm sure that this principal back in the day was trying to help.
52:39 Speaker 01 Sure.
52:39 Speaker 00 But is it really good to keep all that inside, to tell lies about it? Probably not.
52:48 Speaker 01 No, I don't think so.
52:49 Speaker 00 Over the years, there were numerous sightings and false leads regarding Leslie Arnold's whereabouts. The FBI worked the case into the nineties before it was given back to the Nebraska Department of Correctional Services, who eventually transferred the case to the US Marshals. And that's probably where Tommy Lee Jones got involved.
53:09 Speaker 01 Absolutely.
53:10 Speaker 00 Jeff Britton worked the case from 2004 to 2013 with the Nebraska DOC and continued researching after he moved to California. I think the one thing we have to talk about is how much time has passed. You know, they escape, what, in the mid, late 60s? This guy is working it in 2013 still. Around 2011, Britton went to a law enforcement conference and learned a method to see if anyone ever searched for their name online. He discovered that someone recently searched Nebraska investigator Jeff Britton. He couldn't find the exact location, but the service provider was in South America.
53:55 Speaker 00 Around that time, someone also looked up Leslie Arnold on the DOC inmate database, but they looked him up by his inmate number and not his name. And this was unusual because very few people know inmate numbers.
54:11 Speaker 01 Interesting.
54:12 Speaker 00 Yeah, I know you still remember all of yours, but most people who are not the inmate probably don't know the inmate's number. In 2017, the Omaha World Herald released a three-part series on Leslie Arnold, written by Henry Cortez. The series generated new leads in the case. So we're up to 2017 and this man has been on the run for like 50 years.
54:40 Speaker 01 That's a heck of a run.
54:42 Speaker 00 An Omaha man named David Finney did some research on the genealogy website, FamilySearch, and found a Brazilian immigration document issued to William Leslie Arnold on December 7th, 1968. Leslie used his real name, birth date, and place of birth.
55:02 Speaker 01 So maybe not the smartest individual.
55:04 Speaker 00 Or he was very sure of what he had read in this book.
55:09 Speaker 01 Yeah.
55:10 Speaker 00 That as long as he had a child with someone in Brazil, they could never deport him for any reason.
55:20 Speaker 01 Imagine getting to Brazil and be like, okay, ladies.
55:26 Speaker 01 Which one of you want to go first?
55:28 Speaker 00 I know that's the way you would do it. I don't think most people have the swagger to pull that off. But it does seem strange, though, that he used his real name, birthday, place of birth. I'm sure he could have done it a different way back then.
55:42 Speaker 01 I would have thought.
55:44 Speaker 00 The immigration card didn't say how and where Leslie entered Brazil, but it was stored in Sao Paulo, suggesting he came to that city. A typed notation on the back of the card suggests Interpol noted that the man was wanted by the FBI and requested more information on him. And this was a notation made in 1968.
56:06 Speaker 01 Wow.
56:07 Speaker 00 It just apparently never went anywhere.
56:09 Speaker 01 Just stopped right there.
56:11 Speaker 00 A subsequent entry was made in 1971. Both entries were written in Portuguese. And the second entry uses bureaucratic language and abbreviations. It ends with "without capture." So depending on how it's translated, it could mean the authorities tried to capture Arnold and failed, that they tried to locate him, but didn't want to make an immediate arrest, or that they did not want to arrest him at all. I'm not really sure.
56:41 Speaker 01 Well, that's a big difference.
56:43 Speaker 00 Between the three?
56:44 Speaker 01 Yeah.
56:44 Speaker 00 Sure, absolutely. The case was finally solved by Deputy U.S. Marshal Matt Westover, who was assigned the case in August 2020. He reached out to former lead investigator Jeff Britton, and they discussed the case frequently over the years. Deputy Westover looked into the Brazilian immigration document. But as reported by the New York Times, Brazilian officials didn't have any record of Leslie Arnold, and it was unclear why his name was on that document. So that seems like a kind of a mystery. It does. It's like he enters the country using his real name and real information, but then they have no record of him.
57:27 Speaker 00 Westover found a postcard from Canada and one from California with Leslie's name, but these leads didn't pan out either. In November 2020, Westover located Jim Arnold in Missouri. He agreed to give a DNA sample, which was entered into a public DNA registry. In August 2022, the DNA registry notified the US Marshals that Jim Arnold's DNA was a close match to a man in Australia. Now we're in Australia. That month, Westover got in contact with the man, who said he was trying to learn more about his father, John Damon, an orphan from Chicago who died in 2010.
58:13 Speaker 00 Westover learned that Leslie was married with two kids. He became a businessman and lived a great life and apparently changed his ways. He was a great father to them. That's what Westover was quoted as saying. Beyond traffic stops, John Damon had no criminal record. Westover said about telling the family the truth about John Damon, per the New York Times, that was a really hard conversation to have. Their family didn't know any of this stuff. And so it's hard not to feel bad for them. And that would be tough, right? This guy who you think is a, or all you've ever known, great husband, great father.
58:58 Speaker 00 First of all, is not really Johnny Damon, who played for the Red Sox and the Yankees. He is William Leslie Arnold. Authorities worked to track Leslie Arnold's movements from 1967 to his death in 2010. And we mentioned it earlier, right? Once he got to Chicago, he got this job as a line cook at a restaurant. It was here that he met waitress Jean Bouvier, a single mother of four. Jean brought John over to her apartment to meet the kids. Her daughter Kelly recalled how John didn't eat or talk much, but he seemed nice. So again, right? He's going by this name, John Damon.
59:43 Speaker 00 The couple married on November 25th, 1967. At the time, Jean was 34 and Leslie was only 25 years old.
59:52 Speaker 01 Yeah, young guy.
59:53 Speaker 00 The marriage was beneficial for both parties. For Jeannie, it allowed her and her kids to move into a nicer apartment in the city. It gave Leslie a cover and a new life. Jean's oldest daughter Deb said, "It was a tough go for a single mom, but and I can see why she would want someone who could support us. Maybe she had an inkling of what was going on, but we'll never know." The kids were told that John grew up in an orphanage. They knew very little about his past. Leslie was able to obtain an official looking but fake birth certificate under the name John Damon, listing his birth year as 1941.
1:00:34 Speaker 00 His mother was listed as Jean Stanley, which was Jean Bouvier's maiden name. This allowed him to obtain identification such as a driver's license and a social security card.
1:00:49 Speaker 01 So he's got good identification now.
1:00:51 Speaker 00 Yeah, I think much easier back then, right? John Damon later started working as a traveling salesman. He sold linens, vending machines, chemicals and instruments. He made good money, which allowed the family to move to Cincinnati in 1969. Jean's daughter Deb told the World Herald, "In Chicago, we were poor. From the other side of the tracks, here was this savior who pulled us out of this rough life." So, I mean, it was in all the papers, Gibbs. The kids had fond memories of John. They said, "He taught them about music. He took them to concerts, but he was also demanding, strict and unforgiving.
1:01:35 Speaker 00 He gave them chore lists. They were required to have jobs by the age of 13, and he didn't tolerate any backtalk. He grounded them when they disobeyed, sometimes for a month or longer."
1:01:49 Speaker 01 Sounds like he had a little bit of his mom in him.
1:01:52 Speaker 00 Well, and don't most of us, right? We, we take stuff from our parents. A lot of us have maybe a little, maybe a lot of one or more parents' personality traits. That doesn't surprise me at all. In 1971, the family unexpectedly moved to Miami. Jean's daughter Kelly recalled that their move to Miami was suspicious. John and Jean traveled to Miami to go on a trip to the Bahamas. Jean never returned to Cincinnati. She stayed behind to find housing for them and John returned to help them move. Okay, I've been to Miami a number of times.
1:02:32 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:02:33 Speaker 00 Some of those to go on cruises or, you know, sometimes to the Bahamas. Never once did I get off the boat and say, you know what? We're just going to move here.
1:02:45 Speaker 01 This is our new home.
1:02:47 Speaker 00 Honey, you stay here with the kids, find a house or whatever. I'll go back, sell our house, pack up and move. But could it happen? Yeah. Could you also see why the kids later on would say, that seems suspicious?
1:03:01 Speaker 01 It would be.
1:03:02 Speaker 00 A little bit.
1:03:02 Speaker 01 I think so.
1:03:03 Speaker 00 Deb decided to stay in Cincinnati and finish her senior year of high school. After John left, an FBI agent came to her door and asked about John Damon. She told him she didn't know where he was, just as her mother instructed her to do. So it sounds to me as though Leslie knew somehow, and there's no details around how, but he knew that they were on to him in Cincinnati. And the move to Miami was pretty much a necessity.
1:03:36 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:03:37 Speaker 00 Leslie didn't socialize much. He got back into music and even did a few gigs in Miami, but he kept a pretty low profile overall. And wouldn't you have to? I, I think as a person on the run, you, you have to keep somewhat of a low profile.
1:03:54 Speaker 01 Well, I think it's probably important.
1:03:56 Speaker 00 It was said that he was furious when Jean once invited their neighbors over for a surprise party.
1:04:03 Speaker 01 I bet so.
1:04:04 Speaker 00 I don't like to be surprised at all.
1:04:06 Speaker 01 No.
1:04:06 Speaker 00 But I especially would not like to be surprised if I'm on the land.
1:04:11 Speaker 01 Yeah, you just never know who's going to show up, what conversations are going to be had and well. Somebody recognize you.
1:04:19 Speaker 00 After a few years in Miami, John talked about moving the family to Costa Rica. Jean and the kids had no desire to move. John convinced Jean to buy land in Hawaii with the idea of moving there one day, but she didn't want to. This led to the end of their relationship. According to Kelly, John started working longer hours and after a while stopped coming home on the weekends. By 1977, he was living in an apartment in Burbank. On July 27, 1977, John Damon filed for divorce. Jean did not contest and the divorce was granted in February 1978. They agreed to split the family assets, but Jean felt like he didn't keep his end of
1:05:04 Speaker 00 the bargain. So she mailed his smashed saxophone to California. She later said, he was a great provider, but a lousy husband.
1:05:16 Speaker 01 Smash that saxophone.
1:05:18 Speaker 00 John maintained contact with the girls. He called and visited and attended Deb's nursing school graduation. So, I mean, you know, these aren't even his girls. Now, he'd been with them for a long time. He helped raise them. So he obviously had a pretty strong emotional attachment to them.
1:05:41 Speaker 01 Yeah, it sounds like it. It sounds like he cared about the girls.
1:05:44 Speaker 00 Yes. But again, this is not a serial killer, you know, devoid of emotion.
1:05:50 Speaker 01 No.
1:05:51 Speaker 00 This is a kid who happened to kill his parents when he was 16 years old and escaped and started a new life. In 1992, he asked to meet the kids in person. Earlier, he had talked about leaving the country. So they suspected it might be the last time they saw him. They turned out to be right. John stopped contacting them and they never saw him again. And that's kind of, you know, how I thought maybe it would go once the breakup happened. Right? He would just disappear.
1:06:23 Speaker 01 Right.
1:06:24 Speaker 00 So I was shocked to find out that he kept in touch with the girls. He even, you know, went and visited them and attended some of their stuff.
1:06:34 Speaker 01 But I'm guessing he realized that that was putting himself at risk to being caught.
1:06:38 Speaker 00 Yeah, yeah, it probably was. Leslie Arnold remained in the Los Angeles area for several years under the alias John Damon. He continued working in sales and even incorporated his own company called Dominico. I mean, this guy's having a life that that most people would love to have. While on the run from the FBI and the US Marshal Service, I mean, he's doing pretty well.
1:07:09 Speaker 01 Yeah, I think he's adjusting fine out there in the world.
1:07:13 Speaker 00 He met his second wife when she was a foreign exchange student in Los Angeles. They got married in 1983. They had two children together, a daughter born in 1986 and a son born in 1991. Leslie's son agreed to talk to the world herald as long as he, his family and their hometown were not identified. His son described him as a charismatic man who was interested in science and technology and raised his kids to love music. In 1992, John decided his family should leave the country because he felt that the US was not a good place to raise a family. His wife opposed the move, but eventually went along with it.
1:07:57 Speaker 00 Before they left, he had a distinctive mole removed from his face. This mole was noted in police descriptions. John told his family he was tired of cutting it while shaving.
1:08:10 Speaker 01 Yeah, I'm sure he wanted his mole removed so people would not identify him as Leslie Arnold.
1:08:17 Speaker 00 Yeah, I'm sure. He was probably also tired of people staring at it and going molly, molly, molly, molly, molly. The family moved to New Zealand and lived there for five years before settling in Australia. This guy's all over the place. With multiple families, John traveled back to the US for work occasionally, but he was more focused on family life. He told his kids that being a father changed him and gave him a new purpose. They considered him a loving, doting, and lighthearted father who wanted the best for him. He never talked much about his past, only telling his family he was an orphan from Chicago. He said he didn't want to discuss the details because he had a difficult life.
1:09:00 Speaker 00 He claimed he didn't want to know about his birth parents. He modified pieces of information from his old life. For example, he told his family he once worked as a dental technician, but he didn't say it was a prison job.
1:09:14 Speaker 01 Right, just kept that part out.
1:09:16 Speaker 00 Yeah, so you know, the, the best lies are, are based on truths.
1:09:23 Speaker 01 Sure.
1:09:24 Speaker 00 If that makes sense, or have, have truths in, in them. His son said, "A lot of what we knew and had been told were partial truths. He didn't open up and I didn't ask questions." John stopped traveling overseas after the September 11 terrorist attacks. Soon after, he began dealing with blood clots and was diagnosed with deep vein thrombosis. His health declined and he died on August 6, 2010. No one, even his own family, knew his real identity or even suspected he was not who they thought he was.
1:10:03 Speaker 00 And I'm just shocked at what a life this guy was able to live after his escape from prison.
1:10:10 Speaker 01 Yeah, he was able to, uh, seems like have a pretty decent life.
1:10:14 Speaker 00 Yeah, had no problem getting jobs, seems like he made good money.
1:10:19 Speaker 01 And traveling to different parts of the world and coming back to the US. So obviously he was never flagged because of his different name.
1:10:28 Speaker 00 Yeah, Leslie's son was just 19 when his father died. He decided he wanted to learn more about his father and went to Chicago in 2018. That was how he learned his dad's birth certificate was fake. He spoke to his dad's stepdaughters, but they didn't know much about his life either. This influenced his decision to put his DNA into the database.
1:10:53 Speaker 00 Leslie's son told the Omaha World Herald that he didn't regret taking the DNA test because ultimately, I just wanted to know more about my father's life and legacy. And that's what I got. In March 2023, US Marshals traveled to Australia to interview Leslie's family and collect evidence. They visited Leslie's grave. The following month, after doing everything they could to verify that Leslie Arnold was really dead, the US Marshals officially closed the case, bringing closure to a mystery that spanned decades. And this is kind of a strange case for us on TCAD. Really?
1:11:33 Speaker 00 I mean, obviously you have a guy, you know, who, even though he was only 16 years old, committed two horrific murders. Right. I mean, he killed his mom and dad. As some people have suggested, you know, did it have something to do with his mother being domineering? I mean, we've seen it in other individuals that can have a negative effect. Doesn't excuse what he did. No. But you're trying to figure out the reason for it. Could that be part of it? And I would say, yeah, it could. I think the fascinating part for me here is that as far as we know,
1:12:13 Speaker 00 he didn't go on to commit other crimes besides fake identities and, and, and stuff that he needed to keep him from getting caught. Right. But I don't know that he was out murdering people. But again, I don't think the guy was a serial killer. This is the type of person you could make the argument who, if he had not escaped and would have waited to be paroled, probably would have led a productive life and not reoffend. Yeah. I think that's pretty safe to say. I think so. Now, could he do that today in 2025? I don't think so. Even if you could escape.
1:12:56 Speaker 00 I just feel like it would be so much harder to stay off the radar. But he sure was able to do it. And it's not like he was a hermit.
1:13:07 Speaker 01 No, he was traveling the world.
1:13:10 Speaker 00 And creating families and living life. I mean, he wasn't living in Kozinski's cabin in the middle of Montana.
1:13:20 Speaker 01 No, I mean, he lived in major cities, Chicago, Cincinnati, Miami, you know, Burbank.
1:13:26 Speaker 00 Plus you were gonna stay Australia.
1:13:28 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:13:30 Speaker 00 Or New Zealand. Those are major cities for sure. But I don't know how to feel about this case. Because on the one hand, he did something horrible.
1:13:42 Speaker 01 He did.
1:13:43 Speaker 00 And he didn't fully pay, right? He didn't spend his required amount of time in prison.
1:13:51 Speaker 01 Right.
1:13:51 Speaker 00 So for that, you'd have to say he got off light.
1:13:55 Speaker 01 Sure.
1:13:56 Speaker 00 But when he got out, it doesn't seem like he hurt anybody. Now, we don't know that for sure.
1:14:00 Speaker 01 We don't.
1:14:01 Speaker 00 It seems like he was a good father. He might not have been a great husband, but all of his kids said he was a good father. But a strange case for sure.
1:14:09 Speaker 01 It is.
1:14:10 Speaker 00 No doubt about it.
1:14:11 Speaker 01 It was a good case, though. I found it fascinating.
1:14:16 Speaker 00 I did, too, just the fact that he was was able to never get caught again. I mean, he died in in 2010, and it was still another decade after that before they finally figured out who he was.
1:14:30 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:14:31 Speaker 00 But that's it for our episode on William Leslie Arnold. We got some voicemails, Gibbs, you want to check those out?
1:14:36 Speaker 01 Let's hear them.
1:14:37 Speaker 02 Well, I can give you what is up. It is Joe from the Chicagoland area. Love the show. I called you guys a couple of years ago. I wanted to give you a really neat case suggestion from my hometown. It's Christie Wesselman. It was a high school girl. She actually went to my high school. She was found dead back in 1985. And then 30 years later, DNA was matched to a random person on a random unrelated charge. So really a crazy story of. Um, of science kind of prevailing and allowing justice to be served. I'm not sure if you guys still do the hometown episodes, but I'd love to, love to help out. So yeah,
1:15:20 Speaker 02 uh, let me know. Love the show. Keep your head in the swivel and keep your own time ticking. Thanks, guys.
1:15:25 Speaker 01 And I was just saying the other day, what happened to Joe in Chicago?
1:15:29 Speaker 00 We haven't heard from him for two years.
1:15:30 Speaker 01 Yes.
1:15:31 Speaker 00 Now, we only did the one hometown case and it was because we couldn't control the audio of the person, the, the third person who was coming in. I thought it was an interesting concept. It's just, you know, the audio wasn't quite where we wanted it to be, but we'll definitely put that on the list. Also have ties to Chicago in this one. So absolutely.
1:15:55 Speaker 03 Hi, Mike and Gibby. My name is Brittany. I'm calling from Louisville, Kentucky. I am a new fan, so I'm only on episode 70, but I have been binging for a couple of months. Uh, I'm an Amazon delivery driver, so I listen to as many episodes as I can in my 10 hour shift, but I just want to say you guys are amazing and I love you guys. Hopefully I'll hear my voicemail one day soon, but keep up the good work and keep your own time ticking.
1:16:24 Speaker 01 You think she goes out and goes, it's Brittany, bitches.
1:16:28 Speaker 00 I doubt it, but maybe. I don't know. I know you love saying that. Uh, I, I don't know though. If, if you got a 10 hour shift, you can get through a lot of episodes.
1:16:40 Speaker 01 Sure can.
1:16:41 Speaker 00 So you might hear this sooner than you think.
1:16:43 Speaker 01 Yeah. Got some packages on there for me too, I think.
1:16:46 Speaker 00 Uh, for, for my wife, for sure.
1:16:48 Speaker 01 That's a guarantee there.
1:16:49 Speaker 00 Oh my gosh. That's like my only job during the day is to go out and collect Amazon packages if any come. And more often than not, they do.
1:16:58 Speaker 01 That's why you rent that warehouse to put those packages.
1:17:02 Speaker 00 All right, buddy. That is it for another episode of True Crime All the Time. So for Mike. And Gabby. Stay safe and keep your own time ticking.
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