How to Disappear Completely and Never Be Found, Doug Richmond [a court of thorns and roses ebook free txt] 📗

man. Even with the extra cash, matters got worse at home, the fights became more frequent, his marriage became miserable and intolerable. Every time he looked at his wife he was reminded of the dreams he had set aside for her sake. Eventually the price he was paying didn't seem worth the relationship and they decided to divorce.

"His wife got the house, the car and custody of the kids. Suddenly my friend realized he had absolutely nothing to show for his years of hard work. He got stuck paying alimony and child support, which meant he had to keep both jobs and continue working through his summers. That summer vacation was about the only thing he enjoyed about his teaching job and now that was gone like everything else.

"The final blow was a bill from the orthodontist for fifteen hundred dollars. His wife was obviously out to get as much as she could out of him before the kids became legal adults and the child-support ended. That bill would have wiped out the meager savings he had been able to put aside. He called his lawyer who advised him to pay the bill. He could fight it out in court but he would end up paying both the bill and his attorney's fees and court costs. My friend got so depressed he seriously contemplated suicide.

"What probably saved him was an article he remembered reading about a man in Providence who was in similar straits and simply walked out one evening and never returned. He took a hard look at his life and recognized that everything he had worked for was gone along with his enthusiasm for the future. He loved his kids, but they would soon be adults building lives of their own. He wouldn't have even considered disappearing if his children were still at that youthful stage where they need to have a father around. So he rounded up all the cash he could get his hands on and hopped on a bus for Boston late one summer night, and he's never looked back."

"Have you seen your friend since he disappeared?" I asked. "I wonder if he had any regrets."

"Yes, I'm still in touch with my friend," he said, with a smile exchanged between those who hold a secret, "and he has had regrets, of course. He misses his kids terribly. But he figures his wife got enough out of the divorce to take care of the kids until they're old enough to start their own careers. And as for his wife, hell, it might do her some good to have to work for a living. Maybe she'll understand the kind of pressures that finally got to her husband.

As for my friend's new life, it couldn't be better. He's not a teacher anymore, nor a gas station attendant. Let's say he found a job far more interesting than he ever imagined he could get. And he's with a wonderful woman now who earns her own keep, to boot. Yes, even though he has some regrets, they are far outweighed by the fantastic improvement in the quality of his life."

Social Security

A surprisingly large number of "retired" people establish a second identity so they can work and still draw their maximum Social Security benefits. They feel they have paid into their account all their lives and they are entitled to a pension just as they would be entitled to an annuity that has been bought and paid for. They cannot see the logic in the law's reducing their benefits if they continue to work. So they devise another identity, obtain a second Social Security number, and re-enter the ranks of the employed on a

sub-rosa

basis.

Although the instances of using a second identity to defeat the inequitable Social Security system are many--in fact, a helluva lot more than the S.S.A. would care to think about--ordinarily a disappearance is not involved. I mention these cases here only because they usually involve a well-thought-out identity invention together with painstaking documentation.

On the Lam & In the Slammer

A great number of disappearees are suspected or convicted criminals engaged in unlawful flight to avoid prosecution. Criminals, like the battered women discussed earlier, are very reluctant to discuss their stories with strangers. Indeed, I did not hear any true criminal disappearance stories during my research for this book. This is not surprising, considering that it is the criminal identity-changer's insistence on absolute privacy that keeps him out of the clutches of the law. A jilted spouse will usually give up a difficult hunt, but the feds never stop.

With the exception of paperhangers, embezzlers, con men and similar white-collar-type criminals, most lawbreakers do not plan their disappearances well enough to evade a determined police effort to apprehend them. Every day one reads about some wanted man being picked up in his girl friend's apartment or even at his mother's house--the very last places in the world he has any business being!

A perfect example of this ineptness was the convict in a Michigan slammer whose friends sprung him with an elaborate helicopter caper, a la the movie Breakout. Instead of putting considerable distance between himself and the high stone walls the moment he was sprung, he proceeded to enjoy the finer things of life in the local watering holes. The cops wound up arresting him in a gin mill about fifteen miles from the main gate. He was free a total of one week.

One unique attribute of criminal disappearees is that they tend to get better with practice. Middle-class husbands who duck out on their wives' attorneys are rarely ever located but criminals on the run are often brought back time and again. After their first or second rearrest they begin to understand what it takes to stay free and they plan very carefully for their next foray into the free world. The seasoned identity changer is probably the most difficult disappearee to locate.

A very few of the people who disappear and change their identities are serving time and don't