Chandler Family Dead in Car Accident Texas 1945

For years, he was known as Joseph Newton Chandler. At present that we know his real proper noun, can we uncover what he was hiding?

His surreptitious's out.

Joseph Newton Chandler 3 died at age 8 and woke up a 52-year-former man.

How? Considering the real Chandler died in a car crash in Texas on his way to Christmas dinner in 1945. Though his life ended there, Robert Ivan Nichols decided to continue it.

Nichols stole Chandler'due south identity in 1978 and detectives aren't sure why. Until recently, they didn't fifty-fifty know Nichols' real proper name.

Nichols, known as Chandler for the final 24 years of his life, died by suicide in Eastlake in 2002. When police tried to notify his adjacent of kin, they discovered he wasn't who he claimed to be.

All law had was a tissue sample taken from the mystery human in 2000 during a hospital visit. That Dna sample was processed by the Cuyahoga County Medical Examiner, who found no matches.

The case went cold until 2014, when U.S. Marshals took over. They turned to Dr. Colleen Fitzpatrick and Dr. Margaret Press of IdentiFinders in 2016 to clarify the DNA. Months of trials and tests finally led government to the last name Nicholas, or a variation. They shortly pinpointed the name Robert Nichols, answering the first of many questions.

Eventually, authorities tracked downwardly Nichols' son, Phillip, who lives in Cincinnati. He revealed that his father served in the Navy during World War II. His send, the U.S.S. Aaron Ward, was bombed by the Japanese in 1945. Nichols was awarded a Purple Heart and returned home to burn his uniforms.

In 1964, Nichols filed for divorce and left his wife and iii children for Deerborn, Michigan. He moved to California the following year. The last his son heard from his father was in 1965 in a letter postmarked from Napa, California.

In 1978, Nichols stole Chandler's identity and obtained a Social Security card in Rapid City, S Dakota. He shortly moved to Eastlake, Ohio, where he settled into a one-bedchamber apartment and a job at Lubrizol.

At the surface, Nichols seemed to live a quiet life. Simply authorities believe if he was willing to steal the identity of a dead boy, he conspicuously had something to hibernate.

U.S. Marshals said that Nichols kept a suitcase packed and ready to go at all times. Coworkers said Nichols disappeared from time to time and would claim, "They're endmost in." No i knows who "they" were.

"Joe was very shy," a former coworker told WKYC in 2015. "He didn't want to exist bothered past anybody. He didn't desire to talk to other people. He was pretty deep into what he had to practice for work."

By all accounts, the man living as Joseph Chandler was a highly intelligent loner, cracking, orderly and eccentric.

U.S. Marshals are convinced he was hiding from something. But what?

The internet has had enough of theories, the most pop being Nichols' likeness to a sketch of the infamous Zodiac Killer who terrorized Northern California from the 1960s to 1970s.

Nichols settled in California in 1965. That'southward when he cruel from the radar, his family unit never hearing from him again. The Zodiac Killer's beginning known victims were killed in 1968, though a pair of 1963 murders accept been linked to him. The 1966 murder of eighteen-year-old Cheri Josephine Bates in Riverside, California has also been considered a possible killing by the hands of the Zodiac Killer, according to History.

The Zodiac Killer became famously known for sending taunting messages to local media. In a letter dated April xx, 1970, the Zodiac Killer sent a handwritten letter that said, "My proper name is ___" followed by 13 symbols. The proper name Robert Nichols is xiii characters long.

Nichols besides had experience equally an electrical engineer and was known to construct electronic devices, like the Zodiac Killer.

Though it seems like a stretch, even U.S. Marshals say it'southward a possibility. Following a news briefing Thursday during which he revealed Nichols' identity, U.S. Marshal Pete Elliott said his team has non been able to rule out Nichols' proper name every bit a potential Zodiac Killer suspect.

Elliott previously told WKYC he examined a list of criminals when searching for Nichols' identity. He said he even considered Nichols to be a potential Nazi war criminal or Russian spy.

Another internet theory pondered if the human being known as Joseph Newton Chandler could be Stephen Campbell, an engineer from Cheyenne, Wyoming wanted for attempted murder in 1983. That rumor was laid to rest Th.

Another theory suggested the man known every bit Joseph Newton Chandler was actually D.B. Cooper, the man who hijacked a plane en road to Seattle and made several demands prior to jumping from the plane with a parachute. He was never found.

Though U.S. Marshals are relieved to know the true identity of Joseph Newton Chandler, many questions remain.

Authorities were able to pull fingerprints from Nichols' military files, which are at present existence uploaded into databases. Until a potential match is establish, Nichols volition remain a man of mystery.

"The first part of this mystery - identifying Chandler– has been solved, but now we need the public'southward help to determine the why," Elliott said. "There has to exist a reason he assumed the name of a deceased 8 year old boy and went into hiding for so many years. There has to be a reason he never again contacted his family unit; a reason he left $82,000 in a banking concern account without leaving it to his son; a reason he never wanted to exist found throughout his lifetime and even into his expiry. Someone out at that place in the public may hold the cardinal as to why."

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Source: https://www.9news.com/article/news/crime/with-his-true-identity-revealed-what-was-robert-nichols-hiding/73-566728006

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