Catch Roofman If You Can

He lived in a Toys R Us after breaking out of prison

Image by Edward Anderson via Canva

In November 1998, several businesses claimed to have been robbed. Most of them were McDonald’s, and they all said the same thing. The man who robbed them was very polite. One man claimed that before the criminal locked him in a freezer, he made sure that the man got a coat.

As investigators began trying to piece together, who this was, they were stumped. This man seemed to appear out of nowhere and disappeared just as quickly as he showed himself.

Who was this wunderkind robber? And what was his secret to getting in and out without being detected?

After a few weeks of investigating, they got their first hint as to how the robber was getting in and out of the businesses. He would drill, saw, or somehow create a hole in the roof of the building. This gave them some semblance of how to catch the man.

Yet, they had no idea of how to catch the man.

As was his way, the so-called Roofman, would give law enforcement a helping hand in capturing him. On May 20, 2000, he tried to do something that he had never done before. He tried to rob two McDonalds’ in one day.

North Carolina police were alerted to a robbery after an employee tripped a silent alarm. They showed up and caught the serial thief. This time he had a rifle on his person.

The Roofman finally had a government name, Jeffrey Manchester.

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As the police interrogated Manchester, he confessed to robbing the two McDonalds. He claimed that he was inspired by another robber, though he stopped short of saying who it was.

Law enforcement was convinced that the Roofman robberies were all committed by Manchester. But they were unable to connect him to the others, so he was only charged with the two.

A jury convicted him of the crimes that were known he committed. The judge in his case sentenced him to 45 years in prison. He kept being moved from prison to prison in North Carolina, some believe because he kept attempting to escape.

Finally, he ended up in Brown Creek Correctional Institute.

During his time there, he worked in the metal shop. Manchester was once again found to be trying to find ways to escape. But the guards figured that there was no way he would be able to actually do it.

And even if he did, they’d be able to catch him right away. They were wrong.

On June 15, 2004, Manchester escaped from the prison. He crafted a plywood platform and used some cardboard. Everything was painted black. While a truck driver was making sure everything was off the truck, Manchester secured himself and the platform on the undercarriage of the vehicle.

When the truck stopped again, Manchester hitchhiked to Charlotte, North Carolina. Where his next adventure awaited him.

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Manchester drilled a hole in the roof of a local Toys R Us. Once the store closed at night, he would live on baby food and other snacks. He would exercise and play games to wile away the time.

He planned on robbing the store and taking the cash to build a new life.

What he didn’t anticipate happening was falling in love with someone. Instead of lying low and staying out of the public eye, Manchester inserted himself into the community.

Leigh Wainscott was one of the people he met at the Crossroads Presbyterian Church. The two of them felt a connection and began dating. He began bringing gifts that he stole from the Toys R Us for her children.

To avoid being found out, he told his girlfriend and other people in the community that he was working on a secret government job.

At some point, he moved his living situation to a nearby abandoned Circuit City. Where he would watch the film, Catch Me If You Can on repeat.

When friends asked about his residence, he told them that it was a single room apartment, and he was embarrassed by it.

But word of something strange happening at the Toys R Us began making its way around town. Managers said that someone was eating a lot of inventory, and they couldn’t figure out where some other inventory items were going.

Manchester began to sweat and moved up his plans to rob the store.

In anticipation of needing to move again, he allegedly robbed a pawn shop. And for an unknown reason, he burned down a local dentist office, where he had work done. Something that Wainscott noted later to authorities.

Then everything went sideways.

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On December 26, 2004, Manchester went through with robbing the Toys R Us. Two employees were able to get out and called the police to let them that the store was being robbed. It seemed to be over for the Roofman.

He got out and went into hiding with the cash he got from the store.

But this time the police weren’t far behind him. They found his cubby in the Circuit City and were able to get a fingerprint from a copy of Catch Me If You Can. This solidified for them that Manchester was not only the man who robbed Toys R Us, an escaped convict, but also the Roofman.

Officers went to Wainscott and told her that the man she was dating was Jeffrey Manchester. She was shocked. But some of the stories and reasons why he wanted to stay lower profile began to make sense to her.

She was asked to lure him to her house on January 5, 2005.

When he arrived, he was arrested and charged with robbing the Toys R Us. Once again, he was convicted on the charges and sentenced to more prison time.

And because Manchester didn’t learn his lesson, he tried to escape at least twice more in 2009 and 2017. Neither were successful, and he remains in a North Carolina prison.

On the bright side, for Manchester, he will be portrayed by Channing Tatum in the movie Roofman. And he could be eligible for parole in 2036.

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