On June15, 2004, a prisoner went missing from the Brown Creek Correctional Institution in Anson County. Local media reported the prisoner, 32-year-old Jeffrey Manchester, likely escaped the grounds by hanging on to the undercarriage of a truck as it was leaving the prison’s metal plant. Manchester had been assigned to work in the plant, which made prison beds and footlockers. Corrections Administrator Rick Jackson said the supply truck had been parked inside a secure area of the plant until around 3 p.m. Manchester was first noticed missing during a routine check around 3:30 p.m. Another check at 6:30 p.m. confirmed his escape.
At the time, Jeffrey Manchester was serving a 45-year-sentence for kidnapping, and was four years into his term. He was reported to be the first person to escape from the prison, which opened in 1993.
Authorities were said to be searching Anson County, Gaston County, and the Charlotte area. They also noted Manchester may have been heading to California, where he had family. He was described as being five feet, 10 inches tall and weighing 175 pounds. He was a Caucasian man with brown eyes and brown hair.
Manchester disappeared for almost seven months, until he was arrested in early January of 2005 in Charlotte. What he had been up to would surprise people in the Carolinas who had been following the story.
Before we share the details of his capture, and where he’d been hiding, I want to go back and talk about the crime that sent him to prison in the first place.
Armed Robberies in Gastonia, N.C.
In 2000, Jeffrey Manchester was an Army Reserve sergeant in the 82nd Airborne Division. In the spring of that year, he’d been stationed in Tampa, Florida, and then Morehead City, North Carolina in May. He and a friend were allowed to leave North Carolina early, but Manchester stayed behind, rented a car in New Bern, and drove to Gaston County. On the morning of May 20, the opening crew at a McDonald’s in Belmont were surprised to find a masked gunman dressed all in black in the restaurant. He had dropped into the McDonald’s from a hole he carved in the roof. The gunman held a .22-caliber rifle. He pressed it into the back of 49-year-old Elaine Snyder and ordered her to open the safe. When she started to panic, he changed his tone and told her to breathe slowly.
Snyder gave the robber everything in the safe, including rolls of coins. Police later discovered he’d robbed a McDonald’s in nearby Gastonia the night before after entering through a hole in the roof. All in all, he collected 8,023.67 dollars from the two restaurants. He repeatedly apologized to the crew members inside the restaurant, telling them he knew they were the good people, and he was the bad guy. He let one employee tend to food that was already cooking—McMuffin sausages and apple pies. He moved the crew into the restaurant’s cooler, and told them someone would let them out soon. As soon as he had left, Snyder called the Belmont police.
Unfortunately for Manchester, Belmont was a small town and there was not a lot going on that Saturday morning. A police officer named Tony Adkins out patrolling noticed a car in the Mount Moriah Church parking lot, which should have been empty. The car was a white 1999 Pontiac Sunfire, with a large black bag sitting underneath it.
At the same time, Manchester came running out of the adjacent woods and toward the car. He grabbed the bag, kept running, dropped the bag, and scaled a nearby six-foot-fence. Officer Adkins called for backup, and they quickly caught Manchester hiding in the woods. He had his military ID on him, and after going into the police station, confessed. Manchester, who was recently divorced, said he committed the robberies to make a little extra money and buy things for his three children.
The Belmont police charged Manchester with robbery with a dangerous weapon, breaking and entering, and eight counts of first-degree kidnapping. He was held on a $1 million bond. Prosecutors offered him a plea deal where he would have served 15-22 years in prison. However, Manchester didn’t believe he was guilty of the kidnapping charges, since all he had done was force the employees into a cooler in the McDonald’s.
Manchester Found Guilty
The case went to trial, and jurors were swayed by the testimony of the McDonald’s employees. They had been fearful of being robbed at gunpoint and forced into a cooler and it caused long-lasting mental trauma. The jury found him guilty on all counts and he was sentenced to 35 years in prison.
When Manchester escaped from Brown Creek Correctional Institute, he hitchhiked up Highway 74 and into Charlotte. While walking through a Toys R Us, he discovered a false wall set up as a display and set up a makeshift hideout. He slept on an inflatable pool float and ate baby food and candy after the employees left for the day. He took baby monitors sold inside the store to set up his own surveillance system.
The manager of the Toys R Us, 20-year-old Don Roberson began noticing some strange things around the store. He saw bicycle tire tread in unusual places, his and co-workers schedules randomly changed in the computer system, and reportings of more alarms tripped overnight. No one saw any signs of forced entry, though.
In the fall of 2004, an employee approached Roberson and told him there was evidence someone had been living in the store. He showed the manager an area where the Power Wheels were stored, and pointed out part of the wall that, at first glance, seemed to be closed off and finished. The wall was rigged to conceal a false wall. The small place behind it contained an inflatable pool float, a collection of toys, a Nerf basketball hoop, and a Spider Man 2 movie poster. They assumed a homeless person had taken up residence during that time and it explained the unusual occurrences around the store, so they shrugged it off as over. This must be when Manchester moved over to the vacant Circuit City.
Manchester Finds Community
After four months, Manchester got lonely. He walked over to the nearby Crossroads Church on Monroe Road, where he was welcomed by the congregation and the pastor, Ron Smith. He met a single mom named Leigh Wainscott. She had three children and was charmed by Manchester, who called himself John Zorn. He said he had a government job that he couldn’t talk about. Manchester quickly ingratiated himself into the church community—attending a bible study group and volunteering with Loaves and Fishes.
He and Wainscott dated over the next few months, going to movies and dinners out, but often spending quiet evenings at her apartment with her kids. When she asked about his living situation, he told her he had been placed in a sterile government housing situation that didn’t allow visitors. For Christmas, he collected more toys than anyone for the church toy drive, and gave Leigh a pair of diamond earrings.
But I’m guessing he was running low on funds. The day after Christmas in 2004, Manchester robbed the Toys R Us store he’d been living next to, taking an off-duty deputy’s gun. While investigators were on the scene of the robbery, they discovered a secret door connecting the Toys R Us to the Circuit City, and discovered a stash of food, a portable toilet, a DVD player, a map of the local bus route. They also uncovered a fingerprint that they matched to Jeffrey Manchester. They made a statement to the public that he might be in the area, and someone from the church recognized his photo and called the police. They visited Leigh Wainscott at work and showed her a picture of Jeffrey Manchester. She identified him as her boyfriend, John Zorn.
Manchester is Set Up
On January 5, 2005, someone set fire to a dentist’s office on Sardis Road in the early morning hours. Police charged Manchester with the fire, thinking he did it to cover up his dental records. Apparently, he had been going to the office for dental care while he was in hiding. Police believed he was fearful some of the office staff would recognize him from his photos.
That day was also Leigh Wainscott’s birthday. She was turning 40, and never expected the police to show up at her office with a photo of her boyfriend, the man she knew as John Zorn. They broke the news that he was escaped convict Jeffrey Manchester and she was stunned. They shared the crimes he’d been convicted for and his escape from the correctional facility. All the things that struck her as odd—his secret government job, why she couldn’t visit his residence, his lack of a vehicle, suddenly clicked into place. In fact, she said she’d finally convinced him to buy a car, and drove him to a nearby used car lot. He picked out a green 1999 Chrysler Concorde, and paid $5,000 in cash for it. However, he insisted they put the car in her name.
Although Wainscott had nothing but good things to say about Manchester, she agreed to help the police apprehend him. She arranged for him to pick her up at the apartment so they could go out to dinner. He stopped at a store to buy flowers at first, and when he got to her place, the police arrested him. Leigh wasn’t at the apartment—she was with police in another location down the street.
The pastor of Crossroads Presbyterian was blindsided by the news. After Manchester’s arrest, he told The Charlotte Observer, “My B.S. meter is pretty good. It’s pretty tough to scam me. There is a good side to this guy. That’s what I’m struggling with now, the other side.”
Leigh Wainscott, now Leigh Moore, still live in Charlotte and has remarried. She still talks to Manchester regularly on the phone and has forgiven him.
So where is Jeffrey Manchester now? He’s currently incarcerated at Central Prison in Raleigh. He attempted to escape prison two more times, in 2009 and 2017. He spent nine years in solitary confinement after that. Manchester told WBTV last fall that he’s retired from all the shenanigans and waiting out his time. He’s scheduled for release on December 4, 2036. He will be 64 years old.
Show Sources:
https://people.com/roofman-true-story-11828198
https://www.today.com/popculture/movies/roofman-true-story-jeffrey-manchester-rcna236165
https://time.com/7314555/roofman-true-story-channing-tatum-jeffrey-manchester
The Charlotte Observer
June 19, 2004
Search widens for man who fled Anson prison
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The Charlotte Observer
January 6, 2005
Police arrest prison escapee
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The Charlotte Observer
January 7, 2005
Captured fugitive was captured in plain sight
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The Charlotte Observer
January 7, 2005
Her dream guy toyed with a lot of people’s trust
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The Charlotte Observer (Opinion Page)
January 11, 2005
View from church: We accept risk of openness
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October 5, 2025
Charlotte Observer
The Real “Roofman”
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The Charlotte Observer
October 5, 2025
After jailbreak
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