The Man Who Robbed 40 McDonalds - The Jeffrey Alan Manchester story
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How did Jeffrey Alan Manchester become 'Roofman'?
So this guy, let's call him Hamburglar. And one night, Hamburglar's on the roof of a McDonald's. And it's late, and the staff is still there, but the store is closed. And Hamburglar, he has a bunch of power tools, and he starts drilling and cutting into the roof. And once he has a two by two foot hole big enough, he rappels down into the store. Now the staff, they're still there, closing up the place. And that is when Hamburglar, he pulls out his pew pew. And he doesn't scream at them or anything. He just politely says, will everyone please get into the walk-in freezer? I'm robbing the place. And he's very calm and he's very nice. He even suggests that they take their coats with them, you know, so that they don't get cold.
So the McDonald's staff obeys and they shuffle into the freezer and then Hamburglar, he locks them in and then he robs all the money from the store and then he flees. And once he's gone, he calls police so that they can come and let the staff out so that they don't like die in the freezer. Now Hamburglar, he's an interesting guy because he mostly robs McDonald's. Why mostly McDonald's? Well, because he used to work there as a teenager. So he knows McDonald's stores are very cookie cutter. Most of them have the same layout. A lot of them have the same schedule. And when he robs these stores, he always robs during closing time. And he always lowers himself down through the roof so that he won't attract any unnecessary attention trying to bust through the front doors.
And using this method, he robs somewhere between 40 and 60 McDonald's stores in a two year period. But then one day, Hamburglar gets a little greedy. He robs a McDonald's and then a few hours later, he drives 10 miles away and he finds another McDonald's and he lowers himself in through the roof and he starts to rob it too. So two stores in one day. But in this McDonald's, an employee is actually able to hit the silent alarm and then boom, Hamburglar gets caught and he gets arrested and here's his mugshot. So he goes to trial, he gets sentenced to 45 years in prison and almost immediately he starts thinking of a plan to break himself out. Four years later, he finally gets his chance. See, Hamburglar is very well behaved in prison.
So they allow him to work in the metal shop where the good prisoners get to work. And while he's there, he secretly uses all their tools to make like a fake undercarriage. And he fastens it to an actual undercarriage of a delivery truck. And then he hides in it as that delivery truck is leaving the prison. And this allows him to escape. So now he's on the run. But unfortunately for him, he's got nowhere to stay. So he breaks into a local Toys R Us at night and he stays there. He finds a little cubby hole way behind the bike rack where he can make a little camp and hide and sleep at night. And then every night during closing hours, he comes out and he gets exercised by riding bikes up and down the aisles and he survives by eating baby food off the shelves and he knows where all the security cameras are so he knows how to avoid them and not get caught. And so he just lives here in this Toys R Us comfortably for like several months.
Meanwhile, he starts a sort of normal life out in the community. He joins a local church and he's very active in it. In fact, while he's at this church, he meets a really nice woman. This woman, Lee. And Lee's a nice single mother with three kids, and Lee likes Hamburglar, so they start dating. Now, obviously, he doesn't tell her he's an escaped convict who's living in a nearby Toys R Us. Instead, he tells her he works for the government and that he can't tell her much about his job or his background because he says he has special security clearance and lives in a secret government building. And Lee's just like, all right, cool, because she likes Hamburglar. I mean, she's a single mother, and he's really good with her three kids.
Like, he's always hanging out with them and bringing them new toys, which he stole from Toys R Us, but whatever. And this whole thing, it goes on for several months. But then, as time passes, it starts to get into the Christmas season. And Hamburglar decides this Toys R Us is getting way too much foot traffic for him to keep staying there, hiding out in his little cubbyhole behind the bike rack.
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