Joseph Newton Chandler III

Robert Ivan Nichols
1999 driver's license photo
Born Robert Ivan Nichols[1]
September 12, 1926[2]
New Albany, Indiana
Died c. July 23, 2002(2002-07-23) (aged 75)
Eastlake, Ohio
Cause of death Suicide by gunshot to the mouth
Known for Formerly unidentified identity thief
Height 5 ft 7 in (1.70 m)
Weight 160 lb (73 kg)

Robert Ivan Nichols, alias Joseph Newton Chandler III (September 12, 1926 – c. July 23, 2002) was a formerly unidentified identity thief who committed suicide in Eastlake, Ohio, in July 2002. After his death, investigators were unable to locate his family and discovered that he had stolen the identity of an eight-year-old boy who was killed in a car crash in Texas in 1945.[3][4]

The lengths to which Nichols went to hide his identity led to speculation that he was a fugitive.[4][5]

In late 2016, U.S. Marshals Service announced that forensic genealogist Dr. Colleen Fitzpatrick of Identifinders International had compared Chandler's Y-STR profile to public genetic genealogy Y-STR databases to determine his possible last name was "Nicholas".[1] In 2017 Fitzpatrick along with Dr. Margaret Press formed the non-profit DNA Doe Project, which revisited the Chandler case by analyzing his autosomal DNA using the same methodology they used in identifying Marcia King and Lyle Stevik. In March 2018 the DNA Doe Project identified Chandler as Robert Ivan Nichols. The U.S. Marshals Service announced the identification at a press conference in Cleveland on June 21, 2018.[6][7][8]

Background

The real Joseph Chandler

Joseph Newton Chandler III, born in Buffalo, New York, was eight years old[3][5][9] when he was killed in a traffic accident along with his parents in Texas on December 21, 1945.[4][5][9] Reports differ on whether the accident took place in Sherman[4][5] or Weatherford.[9][10]

Nichols' life and identity theft

Robert Nichols was born on 12 September 1926 in New Albany, Indiana[2] to Silas and Alpha Nichols who had four boys.[7] He joined the US Navy in World War II and served as a firefighter on the USS Aaron Ward which was bombed by the Japanese in 1945 off Okinawa.[7] He was wounded and awarded the Purple Heart. He burned his uniforms after the war.[2]

Nichols married Laverne Kort in 1947, they had three sons and Nichols worked for General Electric as a draftsman. In 1964, Nichols left his wife and sons and filed for divorce the same year.[2] He moved to Dearborn, Michigan where he told his parents that he worked in the automobile industry. In March 1965 he wrote to his parents that he had moved to Richmond, California[9] and he also sent a letter to his son Phil from Napa, California the same month.[7] His family never heard from him again and they reported him missing in 1965.[11] Nichols worked using his real name until 1976 according to the US Internal Revenue Service.[11]

Nichols stole Chandler's identity in September 1978 in Rapid City, South Dakota after applying for a Social Security card, and moved to the Cleveland area shortly after.

In 1978 he worked for Edko Company, an engineering business in Cleveland[7] and later worked as an electrical designer and draftsman for Lubrizol, a chemical company headquartered in Wickliffe, Ohio.[9] The company laid him off in 1997.[3] He had claimed to have a sister named "Mary Wilson"; however, the address he provided for her in Columbus, Ohio was fictitious.[5] It was eventually revealed that Nichols was actually born at the same address in New Albany.[11]

Nichols was described as being a hermit who only left his home to go to work and eat.[9] Co-workers have said he rarely talked to anyone and appeared to have few or no friends.[4][5] He also took part in behavior perceived as eccentric, such as listening to white noise for hours, and once drove to an L.L. Bean store in Maine (a drive of at least ten hours and 700 miles/1,100 km) only to promptly turn around and drive back to Ohio after discovering that there were no spots available in the store's parking lot.[5]

Suicide

His body was discovered in his apartment on July 30, 2002. He was believed to have killed himself about a week earlier.[9] He had committed suicide by shooting himself in the mouth with a .38-caliber Charter Arms revolver he had purchased a few months earlier.[5][9] He had recently been diagnosed with colon cancer, which may have influenced his decision to commit suicide.[3][4][9]

He had $82,000 in his bank account and had listed his co-workers as emergency contacts.[3] His identity theft was discovered when authorities could not find any relatives and discovered that the real Chandler had died decades prior. Authorities were unable to find any usable fingerprints to assist in identification and were only able to get a DNA sample after discovering he had visited a Lake County, Ohio hospital for colon cancer surgery in 2000.[5][7]

Theories

Authorities had believed that he was a fugitive of some kind.[5][9] There were many theories as to what he may have been running from, none of which were confirmed.

Some internet sleuths suggested that he might have been the Zodiac killer as he resembled police sketches of the Zodiac and had lived in California, where the Zodiac operated. Another theory was that he was Steven Campbell, an engineer from Cheyenne, Wyoming wanted for attempted murder.[3][4][9] Authorities also considered that he could have been a German soldier or Nazi official from the Second World War that had escaped to the United States.[4]

Investigators are following a potential link to the unsolved 1989 murder of Amy Mihaljevic.[12]

Identification

In 2014, at the request of the local police, Peter J. Elliott, United States Marshal for the Northern District of Ohio, reopened the Chandler case. Based on DNA extracted from a tissue sample from a Lake County, Ohio hospital, a CODIS profile was generated, but no hits were found. In 2016, he asked forensic genealogist Colleen Fitzpatrick to compare Chandler's Y-STR profile obtained from a tissue sample to the public Y-STR genetic genealogy databases.[11] A match indicated his possible surname as Nicholas or Nichols. In 2018, Fitzpatrick and Press’s organization DNA Doe Project used autosomal SNP analysis, with bioinformatics analysis of the DNA results performed by Full Genomes Corporation, and the use GEDmatch, a public personal genomics database, to find DNA matches, to identify Chandler as an engineering draftsman from New Albany, Indiana named Robert Ivan Nichols.[13] [14] A CODIS match with Phil Nichols, Robert Nichols' son, confirmed the identification.[2][8]

See also

  • Lori Erica Ruff, the name used by Kimberly McLean, a woman who ran away from her Philadelphia-area home in 1986 and lived on the stolen identity of a deceased child before committing suicide in Texas in 2010
  • Lyle Stevik, a formerly unidentified male who gave the alias name when he checked into a hotel in Washington. He committed suicide in his room on September 16, 2001. He was identified on May 8, 2018. His identity has been withheld at the request of his family.
  • Peter Bergmann, an alias used by an unidentified male found deceased on Rosses Point beach near Sligo, Ireland on 16 June 2009.

References

  1. 1 2 Golston, Hilary. "FIRST LOOK Infamous Cleveland cold case suspect may be named". wkyc.com. WKYC. Retrieved December 18, 2016.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 Gillespie, Mark (2018-06-21). "Real name of mystery man who died in 2002 revealed". Star Tribune. Retrieved 2018-06-22.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 "Who Was Joseph Newton Chandler?". centredaily.com. Centre Daily Times. Retrieved March 28, 2016.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Goldston, Hillary. "Cold Case: Why did dead Eastlake man steal young boy's identity?". wkyc.com. WKYC. Retrieved March 28, 2016.
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Caniglia, John. "Chasing a ghost: U.S. Marshal investigates dead Eastlake man who stole boy's identity; believes he was a violent fugitive". cleveland.com. Cleveland.com. Retrieved March 28, 2016.
  6. ↑ "Mystery of Joseph Newton Chandler III's true identity to be revealed". WKYC. Retrieved 20 June 2018.
  7. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Caniglia, John (2018-06-21). "Authorities solve cold case of war hero who hid behind dead boy's identity". cleveland.com. Retrieved 2018-06-22.
  8. 1 2 "Real Name of Mystery Man Who Died in 2002 Revealed". New York Times. 2018-06-21. Retrieved 2018-06-22.
  9. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 "Case File: 454UMOH". doenetwork.org. Doe Network. Retrieved March 28, 2016.
  10. ↑ "NamUs UP # 13634". identifyus.org. NamUs. Retrieved March 28, 2016.
  11. 1 2 3 4 Cass, Andrew (2018-06-21). "Joseph Newton Chandler III's true identity is Robert Ivan Nichols, but authorities still don't know why". The News-Herald. Retrieved 2018-06-22.
  12. ↑ McPadden, Michael (25 June 2018). "Is ID Thief Robert Nichols Connected to the 1989 Ohio Murder of 10-Year-Old?". Investigation Discovery. Crime Feed. Retrieved 12 October 2018.
  13. ↑ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2018/06/22/he-stole-the-identity-of-a-dead-8-year-old-police-now-want-to-know-what-he-was-hiding-from/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.37f29dbb5d22,
  14. ↑ press conference "Press Conference Regarding Joseph Newton Chandler III"
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