In 2022, a man who wishes to remain anonymous [we will call him Mr X] received an email from Matthew Westover, a deputy US Marshall based in Omaha.
At first, Mr X didn’t know what to make of the email where a US Marshall was claiming that his father, John Damon, had been linked to a 50-year-old unsolved crime in Omaha.
For decades, Mr X had known his father to be John, a happy and hardworking man who would do anything for his family.
Mr X had taken a DNA test (23andMe) to learn more about his heritage. By taking that test, Mr X unknowingly opened a large can of worms.
His father, John Damon, had a shady past that he had been running from since he was 25 years old.
Home, Sweet Home
In 1942, Opal and Bill Arnold welcomed their son, Leslie Arnold, into the world, and the family lived in a comfortable home in Omaha, Nebraska. Not much is known about Leslie’s early life or the lives of his family.
We know that Leslie had a younger brother, James Arnold, who was 3 years his junior. Throughout the late 1940s, Leslie attended school and began to grow into his own person.
Unfortunately for the Arnolds, this would be a person filled with hatred and resentment. By 1958, Leslie was 16 and was dating a girl named Crystal. The pair would drive around Omaha in the Arnold family car, pulling into lovers’ lanes and drive-in theatres.
It was well known that Opal held a strong dislike for Crystal, referring to her as ‘white trash’. This sparked tensions and resentment within the Arnold family home.
In September 1958, Leslie begged his mother to let him take the family’s brand-new Mercury Sedan for a spin with Crystal. He explained that the pair wanted to see a drive-in movie, but Opal said no.
Tensions had already been bubbling between the two, and this was the final straw for Leslie. On September 27th, 1958, Leslie skulked into his parents’ bedroom and grabbed his father’s rifle.
Leslie quietly moved downstairs before he was face to face with his mother. Opal almost laughed in his face, saying, “What are you going to do, shoot me?” in the blink of an eye, 6 shots had been discharged, and Opal was laid out on the floor.
There was no time for Leslie to think about what he had done as Bill Arnold walked through the front door just moments later.
Bill saw his wife in a pool of her own blood, along with their son, Leslie, beside her. He immediately knew what had transpired and rushed to wrestle the gun from his son’s hand.
The two struggled and fought for a few minutes, but Leslie was ultimately able to overpower him. Leslie fired several shots at his father, ending the feud.
Drive-in Horror
After gunning down his parents in cold blood and leaving his teen brother, James, unharmed, Leslie grabbed the keys to the Mercury Sedan and swung by Crystal’s place.
The pair drove to the local drive-in theatre and watched a showing of The Undead, a horror film that had been released the previous year.
Once the film had finished, Leslie and Crystal snuck a few more moments together before Leslie drove her home. When he arrived at his own home, an eerie blanket of silence welcomed him.
According to reports, he whisked 13-year-old James off to the neighbour’s house, telling them their parents had gone away to ‘help their grandparents’. Leslie went to bed with the bodies of his parents still downstairs.
Shockingly, Leslie went to school two days later, on September 29th 1958 and acted as if nothing had happened. He attended all of his classes, and his friends did not note anything out of the ordinary.
Little did his classmates know that he had just spent the previous night digging shallow graves for his parents. Under the lilac bush in the Arnold’s garden is where Leslie decided his parents should rest.
He continued living normally for around 2 weeks. He continued to attend school, go on dates with Crystal and socialize with his friends.
In October 1958, Leslie’s grandparents travelled to Omaha, Nebraska, after failing to contact his parents. At first, Leslie tried to make up tall stories of where his parents had gone, but eventually, he cracked.
Leslie broke down to his grandparents, telling them he had buried Bill and Opal in the garden. The Omaha Police Department was immediately called, and Leslie was taken into custody.
The community was tight-knit, and everyone knew everyone else, so they were shocked to hear that Leslie had taken the lives of his own parents.
As a youngster, Leslie was known for his incredible saxophone skills and good school grades. The neighbourhood began to talk, speculating that Leslie was mentally ill.
The Omaha Police had all the evidence they needed, including a strange letter written by Leslie: “My parents were wonderful people. This I learned too late and I am sorry. How I ever went so wrong, I’ll never know.”
Life In Prison
A year after he killed his parents, Leslie Arnold pled guilty to two counts of murder. A judge sentenced him to serve life at the Nebraska State Penitentiary. Leslie was just 17 years old when this sentence passed.
At first, Leslie was terrified of prison life, but he quickly adjusted and even joined the prison’s musical schemes. He played saxophone in a band made up of other prisoners.
According to guards at the Nebraska State Penitentiary, Leslie was a ‘model inmate’. He didn’t cause trouble or get into fights and kept out of harm’s way. It didn’t take long for Leslie to make a friend who would change the course of his life: James Harding.
The pair talked daily and realised they were slowly wasting away behind bars; the world had so much to offer, and they wanted to be a part of it.
The Great Escape
It would take years for Leslie’s and James’ plan to come to life. In the mid-1960s, they took out an advert in the Lincoln Journal Star seeking a prison parolee.
Somehow, this went undetected, and through adverts and letters, the pair were able to communicate with someone who had the know-how to set them free.
The pair planned meticulously, and thanks to the help of the parolee, they obtained the necessary equipment – rubber masks and saw blades.
Over several weeks/months, Leslie and James sawed away the window bars in the music room. To conceal their master plan, the pair were said to have used chewing gum to keep the bars in place when guards were around.
On July 14th 1967, Leslie Arnold and James Harding slipped out the music room’s window. When officers went to perform a headcount, the pair were counted as present, thanks to the rubber masks they had put on their pillows.
After climbing out the window, the pair scaled a 12-foot barbed wire fence using an old t-shirt before taking their first steps as free-ish men. The two travelled over 689 miles from Nebraska to Illinois, ending up in Chicago.
Upon arrival, the two men parted ways, and Leslie Arnold became a ghost. As for the Nebraska State Penitentiary, they did not realise two inmates were missing until the pair were well on their way to Chicago.
Watch How I Disappear
In 1968, the law caught up with James Harding, and he was sent back to the Nebraska State Penitentiary. Leslie Arnold proved to be a little harder to find, and the Nebraska Department of Correctional Services and the U.S. Marshals began an official hunt and investigation.
In the immediate days after the escape, helicopters, patrol troopers, fixed-wing aircraft and police officers conducted large-scale searches that stretched over 4 states. When this search was unsuccessful, they returned to Nebraska and began crafting a new plan.
While officials scrambled to find Leslie Arnold, he was busy crafting a new life in Chicago. As per official records, Leslie married a woman with 4 children from a previous relationship.
He worked in a Chicago restaurant to support his new wife and step-children, and after James Harding was captured, he realised he needed to go.
Leslie convinced his wife and step-children to move to Cincinnati, Ohio, where he would take the name of John Damon. Not only did Leslie have a new name, but he had a new passport and new documents.
He was now free to live without fear of the police and FBI swooping in. The family’s time in Ohio was short, and months later, they moved to Miami.
Unfortunately, Leslie could not make the relationship work, and the pair divorced soon after their move to Miami. Following his divorce, Leslie, now going by John, continued working as a travelling salesman.
This was the perfect job for Leslie as he never needed to worry about being in one place for too long in case he was spotted or recognised.
A Trip Down Under
Not long after Leslie’s first divorce had settled, he met his second wife in Los Angeles. The relationship moved quickly, and by the 1990s, the couple had a son and a daughter together.
Leslie’s son, Mr X, would later comment that his father worked extremely hard to support the family and would pour all of his money into his and his sister’s education. In 1992, Leslie had a bright idea.
The Damons packed up in Los Angeles and got on a flight bound for New Zealand. The family lived here comfortably for 5 years before making their final move to Australia.
Mr X described his upbringing as normal and happy, and there were no inklings that his father was a wanted murderer.
Family life continued as usual for the Damons until August 6th 2010, when John Damon, aka Leslie Arnold, passed away.
Back in the USA, the U.S. Marshals still hoped to find Leslie Arnold and bring him to justice.
James Arnold, Leslie’s brother, agreed to submit a DNA sample in 2007, which investigators hoped would lead them to possible relatives. Their first search was unsuccessful, and the idea was placed on the back burner for several years.
In 2020, the case was transferred to Deputy U.S Marshal Matthew Westover, who told Fox News, “It was kind of like a joke. Here’s a cold case that’s never going to get solved.
But the U.S. Marshals, we don’t give up.” With the advancements of genetic genealogy, Westover asked James Arnold’s permission to upload his DNA to a ‘public database’ such as 23andme or GEDMatch. Initially, nothing came of it, that was until mid-2022.
In Australia, Mr X took a DNA test to learn more about his lineage. Instead of getting pages of family trees and birth records, Mr X received an email from the U.S. Marshals Office.
After further DNA testing and interviews, the U.S. Marshals discovered that John Damon, who died in Australia in 2010, was missing fugitive Leslie Arnold.
Mr X had been told by his father that he was an orphan from Chicago. During one conversation, Westover responded, “Well, he actually was an orphan. Your dad wasn’t lying about that. He was an orphan because he killed his parents.”
Mr X couldn’t believe what he was hearing and has struggled with the news ever since.
He told Fox News, “I don’t want to sugarcoat this story. He was a great father and I feel so fortunate about the life I’ve heard, but I know other people suffered because of his actions.”
With this new revelation, the case of missing fugitive Leslie Arnold was officially closed. Arnold was able to live a full life, free of consequences, until his passing in 2010.
Sources
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/06/us/cold-case-john-damon-william-leslie-arnold.html
