Meet the fugitive who secretly lived in a TOYS R US store for SIX MONTHS… and is now being played by a Hollywood A-lister

It was the Sunday before Thanksgiving, 2004, and there was a recent addition to Pastor Ron Smith’s congregation at Crossroads Presbyterian Church in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Smith asked the man, who introduced himself as John, whether he was spending the big day with friends and family – adding that, if not, John was welcome to join him and his wife.

‘He was vague,’ Smith told the Daily Mail. ‘Just like, “I’ve got plans.” He didn’t have a specific story.’

Within a month, the startling reason for this evasiveness would become clear.

‘John,’ the generous churchgoer who introduced himself as a government agent when he arrived one month earlier and who had already fallen for a fellow parishioner, was a man with a secret.

His real name was Jeffrey Manchester, and he had escaped from prison six months earlier. He had been evading the law ever since by brazenly hiding out in a den built under a stairwell in the Toys ‘R’ Us store opposite Pastor Smith’s church.

Now, Manchester’s incredible true story, told here by the Daily Mail today, is being turned into a blockbuster Hollywood movie.

Titled ‘Roofman’ – Manchester’s nickname for his practice of rappelling through the roofs of the establishments he robbed – it stars Channing Tatum as Manchester and Kirsten Dunst as his unwitting girlfriend.

Born in Sacramento to a middle-class family, the real-life Manchester gave every appearance of living an exemplary life.

He enlisted in the army, joining the 82nd Airborne division which specializes in parachuting into hostile environments and was married in 1992 at the age of 20. Soon he was father to twin boys and a daughter.

To the outside world he was a polite and unassuming man, living in modest comfort in the golden state. But within seven years of ‘settling down,’ Manchester was living a stunning double life.

In 1998 he embarked on a two-year-long crime spree during which he is believed to have robbed over 40 fast food restaurants from California to Oregon, Nevada to Massachusetts and stolen more than $100,000.

He was skillful, with police rapidly realizing he had military training and precision. And he was efficient – he would drill through the roof, drop down from the ceiling and hold up the staff at gunpoint.

They would be told to put on their coats, then herded into the walk-in freezer, after which Manchester grabbed the money and fled, calling the police to tell them to rescue the terrified staff.

Manchester had ‘a coast-to-coast reputation as the most courteous thief in the nation,’ the Sacramento Bee wrote. One McDonald’s manager told the paper, ‘He was really polite, he was apologizing. He said, “Would you please, ma’am, get on the floor, would you please, ma’am get down?”‘

But in May 2000 his luck ran out.

In North Carolina for an annual training exercise, Manchester robbed a McDonald’s in the town of Gastonia, 40 miles outside of Charlotte, then hit a second outlet 10 minutes away in Belmont.

Belmont police took off after him and found Manchester hiding in tall grass. He told the officers, ‘You guys did a real good job today.’ 

Manchester rappelled through the roof of the McDonalds outlets that he robbed during a two year crime spree from 1998-2000

Jeffrey Manchester, pictured, was arrested in North Carolina in May 2000 when he robbed two McDonald’s outlets within ten miles of each other on the same day

He came across a Toys ‘R’ Us next door to Circuit City, a vacant electrics store. There was a hole in the wall shared by the two buildings and Manchester crawled through it and into the toy store’s stairwell

In November 2000, aged 28, he was sentenced to 45 years for robbing the two McDonald’s – the hefty sentence was the result of prosecutors’ decision to bring kidnapping charges for each employee.

Behind bars, Manchester set to work. He charmed the prison guards convincing them to allow him to work at a metal plant where inmates manufactured bed frames.

Just four years into his decades long sentence, in June 2004, Manchester repaid the guard’s trust by betraying it, seizing an opportunity to escape by clinging to the underside of a plant delivery truck.

Manchester’s wife had filed for divorce in 1999, but police still assumed Manchester would try and head home to California where she and his children lived.

Instead, he remained in North Carolina and made his way to Charlotte.

He came across a Toys ‘R’ Us next door to Circuit City, a vacant electrics store. There was a hole in the wall shared by the two buildings and Manchester crawled through it and into the toy store’s stairwell.

He covered the hole with a screen – painting a piece of plywood to look like cinderblock wall – and set about building his hideout.

He stuck Star Wars and Super Man posters on the walls, made a bed with Spider-Man sheets, lined up toy models of Yoda and put a basketball hoop on the wall.

He even routed water into the hideout. He hoarded diapers, puzzles and games and survived on baby food and snacks, holed up in his makeshift den for days at a time.

He set up baby monitors to surveille the store and when he snuck out, he did so under cover of darkness, creeping out to replenish his stash and amusing himself by fiddling with the Toys ‘R’ Us staff schedule and switching employee shifts.

But time inevitably dragged and, in October 2004, four months after escaping from prison, he was bored enough to break cover.

Channing Tatum as Jeffrey Manchester in ‘Roofman.’ The real life felon set up baby monitors to surveille the store and when he snuck out, he did so under cover of darkness, creeping out to replenish his stash

Channing Tatum in the aisles of Toys ‘R’ Us where armed robber Jeffrey Manchester hid out for four months

Smith’s church was across the parking lot. He recalls being elated when ‘John’ joined his church.

Speaking to the Daily Mail, he said, ‘He fit in perfectly. He was our target: not a really religious person but wanting to learn. He seemed genuinely curious.’

It was there that Manchester met Leigh Wainscott – a recent divorcee, and single mother.

Wainscott later told the Charlotte Observer that he was ‘funny, romantic, the most sensitive man I’ve ever met.’ He was, she added, ‘The guy that every girl would want.’

As the budding relationship took off, Manchester and Wainscott spent time at her house watching movies. They enjoyed dinners out at Red Lobster, and he often turned up with toys for her children, endearing himself to them all.

‘He was very engaging,’ said Smith. ‘He’d volunteer if we ever needed help. At Christmas, he helped cleaning up the church and did some things for underprivileged kids, wrapping gifts and so on. He was a regular at our Wednesday night Bible study.’

‘John’ was widely liked and rapidly became a respected member of their community. Perhaps unsurprisingly he was the most generous donor to the church Christmas toy drive and equally magnanimous to the pastor to whom he gave a set of Seinfeld DVDs.

Smith intended to thank John for his Christmas present when he saw him at church the following day.

But Manchester was a no-show on December 26 – he was too busy robbing the tills of the Toys ‘R’ Us where he was hiding. It was his biggest heist yet and it was the beginning of the end for ‘Roofman.’

His photo, caught on surveillance cameras, was plastered across local media. 

Channing Tatum on the North Carolina set of ‘Roofman.’ Jeffrey Archer stole toys from the Toys ‘R’ Us store where he hid out and gave them to his girlfriend’s children

Smith recalled, ‘My late wife spotted it, on TV on New Year’s Eve…the lead story in the news is about this escaped convict seen in the area.

‘And Jan says, “That’s John.” I said, “Nah, I don’t think so.” She said, “That’s John.”

‘She didn’t sleep that night. The next morning, she’s there when the paper arrives. It’s got his picture. She says, “That’s him.” Two or three hours later, I’m at my office, and the police knock on my door.’

Someone else in the congregation had shared the same suspicion with Charlotte-Mecklenberg police.

Sergeant Katherine Scheimreif led the team tasked with finding the state’s most wanted felon.

She told the Daily Mail, ‘I had 25 men working for me. These guys were ex-marines, ex-army and all great minds.’

The team worked quickly to piece together a profile of their prey. They delved into Manchester’s history and quickly realized they were dealing with an intelligent and ingenious adversary.

They were initially baffled because they couldn’t work out how he had got away from the Toys ‘R’ Us. There was no roof entrance – his usual modus operandi – and no getaway car.

It was only when they brought in the canine unit that the jaw dropping truth became clear.

Eddie Levins one of the SWAT team officers explained to the Daily Mail, ‘The dogs were tracking the scent to the door but nowhere else. The dogs were going, “He’s still here”. Then we found the den.’

‘John’ was widely liked and rapidly became a respected member of their community. Perhaps unsurprisingly he was the most generous donor to the church Christmas toy drive

Wainscott told the Charlotte Observer that he was ‘funny, romantic, the most sensitive man I’ve ever met.’ He was, she added, ‘The guy that every girl would want.’

But though he had returned to his hiding place in the immediate aftermath of the robbery, Manchester, by now aware that the police were onto him, was on the move.

Law enforcement knew that he had struck up a relationship with Wainscott. Having convinced her that he was a government spy he had told her that he had to leave town between Christmas and New Year.

When the cops told her the shocking truth, Wainscott reluctantly agreed to help capture the man she had invited into her heart.

Scheimreif said, ‘She was so conflicted mentally. It took a bit of convincing initially. She didn’t want to do it.’

Ultimately, Wainscott called Manchester and asked him to come to her apartment complex to say goodbye.

On January 5, 2005, he did just that. The SWAT team was in place, poised to intercept swoop on him.

Scheimreif said, ‘We’re tailing him at the time. But you can’t grab him out the car. We knew he’d [also] broken into a pawn shop and stolen guns. He had already shown aggressive behavior. So, I was like, we’re really not taking a chance.

‘He’s driving to her apartment, then does a U turn. And we’re like – alright, we’ve been burned. [But] he goes to a convenience store to get flowers for her.’

Levins said, ‘We had a SWAT team surrounding him and we took him down as soon as he arrived.’

Despite their fears Manchester did not resist. His time on the lam was over.

All these years on, Scheimreif admitted, ‘I do worry that the film will make light of his crimes.

‘He terrorized people, for years. Those poor kids working in McDonald’s – he put guns to their faces. And he gave away toys, but they were all stolen.’

Scheimreif, Levins and Smith have all met with director, Derek Cianfrance, and will be there when the movie premiers in October.

But the ‘star’ of the story will be absent. Now 54, Manchester is back behind bars and serving out a 47-year sentence at Central Prison in Raleigh, North Carolina.