The American stole the identity of a dead child: it was calculated, but there were only more mysteries

16 years ago, an unremarkable American committed suicide in his own house. Since then, the Ohio authorities have been trying to figure out who this man was: he stole the identity of an eight-year-old boy who died in a car accident more than 50 years ago, and could be one of the most famous serial maniacs in the United States. "Lenta.ru" tells how, over the years of searching, the investigators managed to find out only his real name, but there were even more mysteries.

Photo: WKYC-TV

21 December 1945, the American family went to celebrate Christmas with their grandmother. Chandlers loaded the prepared gifts into the trunk of the family car and hit the road. A few hours later, their car at high speed collided with a truck, whose driver drove into the oncoming lane in an attempt to drive around parked cars.

Joseph Newton Chandler II, Elena "Billy" Chandler and their son Joseph Newton Chandler III died instantly. After 56 years, it was discovered that under the name of an eight-year-old boy who died in a car accident, another person died.

23 June 2002, in the small American town of Eastlake, Ohio, Joe Chandler returned from work, turned off the air conditioner, crossed out the day that had not been spent on the calendar, went to the bathroom and committed suicide. The police found his body a week later due to the sharp smell coming from his home. Next to him was found a revolver.

Joseph Newton Chandler III
Photo: Ohio Department of Motor Vehicles / Wikimedia

Joe worked as an electrician in the chemical company Lubrizol. He was an ordinary, slightly self-contained person who was hardly noticed by his colleagues. Co-workers saw in the behavior of Joe, strangeness, but no more. For example, in order to concentrate, he turned on the TV and specially tuned it to white noise. Once he came to a theme party in a gangster costume, but he never spoke to anyone. Sometimes, according to colleagues, he had bouts of paranoia: it seemed to him that someone was watching him.

The first mysterious details of this case came to light when investigators found thousands of dollars in the bank account of the deceased 82 and began to search for possible heirs. The investigation quickly established that he had no relatives. Neither was Chandler himself - an elderly, closed-minded designer never existed. The real Joseph Newton Chandler III died more than half a century ago. The story was leaked to the media, and the next 16 years were journalists, internet investigators, and other enthusiasts trying to figure out who the lonely American really was.

Versions

First of all, Marshall Pete Elliot, who led the case, decided to look for DNA matches in the database of unkilled dangerous criminals. By the beginning of the investigation, the false Chandler had already been cremated and buried under the name that was familiar to his colleagues. Nevertheless, DNA samples were obtained in the hospital, where he was once diagnosed with a fatal diagnosis. Reconciliation with tens of thousands of other people's samples gave nothing.

The investigation developed several versions at once. For example, experts tried to find out whether the suicide was not some Stephen Campbell, who in 1983 year, filled with jealousy, prepared a bomb for his wife's lover, but almost mistakenly blew it up. He was arrested, released on bail, and no one had ever heard of him again.

Stephen Campbell
Photo: Sweetwater County Jail

In 2018, the authorities officially announced that the remains of the fake Chandler were identified - it turned out to be Robert Ivan Nichols.

Breakthrough

When the family of eight-year-old Joseph Newton Chandler III got into a car accident, Nichols was 19 years old. He was born in 1926, in New Albany, Indiana. In 1945, he served in the Navy as an 2 class firefighter. His ship was attacked by the Japanese near Okinawa, he was wounded and subsequently submitted to a state award. Returning from the war, Nichols burned his form.

Even 13 years, he remained Robert Ivan Nichols, but in 1978, something in his life has changed dramatically. It was then that Nichols appropriated the personality of the long-lost Joseph Newton Chandler III. This Chandler did not have a social security card, in those years only adults could get it. In his map, Nichols indicated the names of the parents and the date of birth of the real Joseph. He also managed to assign a dental card of the deceased boy. Since that time and over the next 24 years, everyone has known Nichols as the calm but slightly eccentric Joe Chandler.

He avoided people, lived modestly, never attracted attention, but nevertheless, according to his friends, was rather strange. The investigation interrogated Nichols' colleagues and neighbors and carefully checked all the unusual episodes in his life in order to understand why he had left his former life and hid under a different person. During the investigation, for example, an unusual fact was discovered: being a Chandler, he once went to the hospital with a torn penis, and explained his injury by masturbating with a vacuum cleaner. For some reason, Chandler also told colleagues about his sister Mary Wilson, but during the investigation it was established that no sister Mary, of course, exists.

Zodiac

In 2005, well-known crime journalist Steve Huff, involved in the creation of the criminal drama series Better Call Soul, put forward his theory about Chandler's personality, which later became one of the most popular. He suggested that Nichols - a serial killer, went down in history as the zodiac.

After the name of the deceased was established, Huff compared the facts of life of Nichols and the famous maniac and built a completely plausible version.

Photo: @stevenhuff

Nichols was a draftsman and had engineering experience. For many years, investigators in the Zodiac case endowed this criminal with the same skills. Many testimonies indicate that the zodiac, like Nichols, was a war veteran. The first crime of the zodiac - the murder of Cherie Joe Bates - was committed a year after the fake Chandler fled from family and friends.

The journalist also points to the resemblance of Nichols and the descriptions of the Zodiac: medium height, disheveled dark hair, balding points typical for men, glasses, a round chin, a slight extension on the bridge of the nose.

Zodiac
Photo: San Francisco Police Department / Wikimedia

Hoffa was particularly concerned about the fact that Nichols' last letter to his son Phil was sent from Napa. The second known murder of the Zodiac occurred precisely in the Napa Valley - next to Lake Berriesa, in 1969. In the history of Nichols' Internet queries, there is also one thing that links him to the Zodiac: he studied plastic explosives. A serial killer in one of the encrypted messages painted a mock bomb.

The journalist admits that he has already fallen into the trap of his own theory: he cannot look at the new facts impartially and is trying to fit them into his own concept. However, both an enthusiastic journalist and an official investigation are not leaving attempts to understand what made the ordinary American abandon family and friends, live life in a strange place in absolute solitude and finally commit suicide.