Leslie Arnold mystery solved: Man who died in Australia was enigmatic Nebraska fugitive

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https://omaha.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/leslie-arnold-mystery-solved-man-who-died-in-australia-was-enigmatic-nebraska-fugitive/article_2946eba0-e5e8-11ed-9a05-afaeaf38df7c.html#tracking-source=mp-homepage

Leslie Arnold mystery solved: Man who died in Australia was enigmatic Nebraska fugitive
By Henry J. Cordes
4.30.2023


Leslie Arnold points to where his parents' bodies were buried in their backyard on Oct. 11, 1958. He is handcuffed to detectives Glenn Gates, left, and Earl White Jr.

When asked about his origin story, John Damon always told his family he was an orphan from Chicago. Which was true, in a way.

In 1958, the 16-year-old Omaha boy indeed became an orphan — when he shot his parents to death.

And nine years later, after he sawed through prison bars and escaped the Nebraska State Penitentiary, the fugitive did flee to Chicago to launch his new life.

But back in those days, Damon was known by a different name: William Leslie Arnold.

After more than half a century, the mystery of Leslie Arnold has been solved.

U.S. marshals in Omaha recently through DNA evidence determined a career salesman under the alias John Damon who died in Australia in 2010 was actually Arnold, the long-lost convicted killer who escaped the state penitentiary in 1967 and vanished without a trace.

The 67-year-old Arnold left behind a wife and two children in Australia — as well as three surviving stepdaughters from a previous marriage here in the United States — all of whom were oblivious to his dark, secretive past.

“It’s a total shock,” said Arnold's stepdaughter Kelly, who like her sisters requested that her last name not be used, citing privacy concerns. “Mind blowing.”

The jaw-dropping revelation has his family rethinking the entirety of the life of the man they thought they knew. Where they previously saw a loner who didn’t keep a lot of friends and valued his privacy, they now see a man who, of necessity, mostly kept a low profile.

In fact, Arnold, who was known as a talented saxophone player both at Omaha’s Central High School and in prison, went so far to hide his true identity late in life that even after his own son took up the instrument, the father never once touched it.

“That’s part of the mystery of my dad,” his son said. “As a function of his past, he had to live his life in a certain way.”

The resolution of the case comes five years after The World-Herald published “The Mystery of Leslie Arnold,” a series of stories detailing the captivating Arnold saga.

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Poster's comment:
A fascinating story about someone who murdered his parents at age 16, went to prison, then escaped and remained uncaught until death. It's a little long, but worth the time. My impression upon reading it was "how often do you see a news story written as well as this, any more...?"