The Curious Crimes of Jeffrey Manchester: Escaped Prison And Secretly Lived Behind The Bikes At Toys R Us For Months

Most career criminals make headlines for their violence or brash defiance. Jeffrey Manchester, however, earned his notoriety by being unfailingly polite, oddly considerate, and for living in places most people would never dream of calling home. Nicknamed “Roofman” by baffled detectives, Manchester’s story is a study in improbable break-ins, makeshift hideouts, and a charm that left even his victims scratching their heads.

From Schoolboy to Soldier

Jeffrey Manchester grew up in Rancho Cordova, California, where he attended high school before swapping textbooks for fatigues. He joined the US Army and served with the elite 82nd Airborne Division, picking up practical skills like rappelling and weapons handling, talents that would later be repurposed in ways his instructors probably never foresaw. At 20, he married young, but the union ended in divorce by 1999 while he was stationed at Concord Naval Weapons Station. By then, Manchester’s boredom with civilian life was fermenting into something far less lawful.

The Roofman Emerges

By the autumn of 1998, Jeffrey Manchester had grown disenchanted with the ordinary life laid out for him. The military had honed his patience, attention to detail, and confidence in confined spaces — all traits he would soon apply to a highly unorthodox second career. Rather than barge through the front doors like most stick-up men, Manchester preferred the path less taken: through the ceiling tiles.

Each job began long before a single roof was drilled. Manchester would spend weeks, sometimes months, observing a chosen fast-food outlet, usually a McDonald’s tucked along a quiet highway or retail strip. He mapped employee routines, clocked delivery trucks, and sketched out alarm placement in his mind. Locals often assumed the quiet man lingering in a car at odd hours was harmless, perhaps a weary traveller with nowhere better to be.

Then, under cover of darkness, Manchester scaled the roof. Armed with basic tools, he would carefully cut through tar and plywood, making just enough space to slip inside. His entrance routes varied: sometimes a straight drop into the storage loft, sometimes a duct crawl worthy of a B-movie. Once inside, he never smashed things or made noise; instead, he’d hide in the toilet, calm and patient, waiting for the breakfast shift.

When the whir of milkshake machines and the hiss of frying oil signalled normal business, Roofman would emerge, politely but firmly pointing a small firearm. He was never frantic, never shouted. Instead, he spoke gently, asked staff to remain calm, and guided them into the walk-in fridge. On more than one occasion, he suggested they fetch a jacket before stepping inside the sub-zero hold. He’d then empty the tills at his leisure, sometimes even helping himself to a quick bite or a coffee, before escaping the way he came, up, through the ceiling and into the night.

Police later marvelled at the sheer scope: by the time he was caught, Manchester had burglarised an estimated forty to sixty restaurants in at least six states. He never left behind significant forensic evidence. Witnesses described him as “unfailingly courteous”, as if a kindly neighbour had suddenly borrowed their cash registers at gunpoint. To the FBI, he became an obsession: a phantom who never stayed long enough to catch.

Capture and a Long Prison Stretch

Despite the planning and good manners, Manchester’s run could not last forever. By May 2000, his boldness had grown with each smooth getaway. That month, he made an unusually rash decision: robbing two McDonald’s on the same day in North Carolina, carrying only a .22 calibre rifle. At the second location, a quick-thinking employee discreetly triggered a silent alarm.

Officers, now well aware of Roofman’s signature moves, fanned out across the area. They found Manchester’s car hidden in a church car park, a trick he often used to park unnoticed near his target. A lone policeman caught sight of a man emerging from the woods, moving purposefully towards the vehicle. A brief foot chase followed; Manchester slipped back into the trees but was soon cornered and handcuffed.

During questioning, he tried to muddy the waters, claiming he had been inspired by stories of another McDonald’s roof burglar. But detectives knew better: the polite chatter, the consistent modus operandi, the pattern stretching from California to the Carolinas, it all pointed to Manchester alone.

In the end, the courts convicted him for just the two May robberies, but the weight of his wider career hung heavy. He received a punishing 45-year sentence, enough to keep even the most creative thief behind bars for decades. Over the next four years, Manchester was shuttled from prison to prison before landing at Brown Creek Correctional Institution, where he seemed to settle — at least outwardly.

Great Escapes and Living in Toyland

Inside Brown Creek, Manchester proved once again that patience and a knack for improvisation were his greatest tools. Assigned to the metal shop, he studied the comings and goings of delivery trucks for months on end. He noted shift changes, gate checks and which drivers rarely bothered to look underneath their rigs.

He fashioned a simple but ingenious escape aid: a plywood platform, cut to fit snugly along a truck’s undercarriage, then painted pitch-black. He also used scraps of cardboard to disguise himself further.

On 15 June 2004, he executed the plan. Tucked beneath a moving lorry, he crept past the guards at the exit gate, holding his breath as they gave the departing vehicle no more than a passing glance.

Back on the outside, Manchester hitchhiked to Charlotte, North Carolina. This time, rather than slip through roofs, he turned to what could only be called suburban squatting. He broke into a Toys “R” Us, chose a forgotten corner above the storeroom, and transformed it into a secret flat. For food, he raided the baby aisle — jars of puréed carrots, formula milk, and boxes of animal crackers kept him going.

When night fell, Roofman came alive: riding display bicycles up and down the aisles for exercise, testing remote-control toys, and sometimes rearranging stock to amuse himself. During store hours, he lay silent in his loft, listening to the hum of customers and staff below.

As Christmas drew near and the toy store bustled with families, Manchester prudently shifted his nest to the abandoned Circuit City next door. There, he hollowed out a nook under a stairwell, painted it bright, hung movie posters, and watched DVDs to pass the time, among them, fittingly, Catch Me If You Can.

Far from just hiding, he was preparing. He fitted baby monitors around Toys “R” Us for surveillance and manipulated rotas to pave the way for his biggest heist yet. All the while, he wove himself into local life: he joined Crossroads Presbyterian Church, began dating Leigh Wainscott, and spun elaborate lies about being a covert government operative needing ‘secure accommodation’. For a few surreal months, Roofman lived both as a fugitive in a crawlspace and as the friendly boyfriend handing out toys to his girlfriend’s children.

The Final Caper: Fire, a Pawn Shop and Boxing Day Mischief

By late 2004, Jeffrey Manchester had woven a precarious web of half-truths and bold trespasses. Living rent-free inside a shuttered electronics store and masquerading as a government agent to his girlfriend and church friends, he was running on borrowed time. The Toys “R” Us plan grew more elaborate by the week, but his method of preparing for it showed that, despite his polite veneer, Roofman was capable of darker turns.

Manchester knew that to pull off his grand finale, he would need a firearm. He also worried that a local dentist’s office, where he’d had some dental work done, might give him away. So, in a move that startled even seasoned detectives later, he reportedly set fire to the practice, reducing any potential records to ash. Not content with arson alone, he robbed a local pawn shop to secure a new weapon, all while still slipping back each night to his secret bunk beneath Circuit City’s staircase.

On 26 December 2004, while most families were dozing off Christmas dinner and hunting Boxing Day bargains, Manchester made his move. He slipped back into Toys “R” Us before opening, armed and ready. Using his surveillance knowledge, he isolated employees, locked them down, and helped himself to a substantial haul of cash from the store’s safe and tills. True to form, he spoke gently and tried to reassure his captives, but this time, two staff managed to slip free and dashed outside to alert law enforcement.

When officers arrived, Manchester was already gone. However, the net closed quickly. In the frantic search that followed, police scoured the abandoned Circuit City and discovered his hidden lair: mattress, snacks, stashed DVDs, even that fateful copy of Catch Me If You Can, which ironically bore his only identifiable fingerprint. It was the sort of discovery that made hardened detectives laugh in disbelief: a criminal so brazen he lived on the high street, right under the city’s nose.

Love, Lies and Betrayal

Despite the chaos, Manchester did not bolt from Charlotte. Instead, he tried to resume life as “John Zorn”, the affectionate churchgoer with the secret government job. But the pressure on Leigh Wainscott, the unwitting girlfriend, was immense. She had grown suspicious, and when police laid out the evidence, she agreed to help end the farce.

On 5 January 2005, at the police’s request, Wainscott rang Manchester and invited him over. He arrived, unsuspecting and likely hoping to calm her nerves with another tall tale. Instead, he walked into the arms of waiting officers, bringing an end, once again, to his unusual brand of polite lawbreaking.

In December that year, a North Carolina court tried Manchester for the fresh offences: burglary, weapons charges, arson, escape and more. He received a further forty years on top of his original sentence, sealing his fate for decades to come.

Roofman Today

After his recapture, Manchester was first held at Marion Correctional Institution before being transferred to Central Prison in Raleigh, a high-security facility less likely to overlook a man so skilled at slipping through the cracks. Even so, Roofman never fully gave up on outwitting the system: he attempted new escapes in both 2009 and 2017, reminding authorities that the patient, quietly smiling fugitive could never quite be written off.

As it stands, Jeffrey Manchester is expected to remain behind bars until December 2036. Whether the Roofman is finally at peace with a life less adventurous is anyone’s guess, but you can be sure the wardens still check the ceilings a little more often than they used to.

---