Alcatraz Mystery Solved

[Josefa Palsgrove]

A57-year old mystery involving escapees from the notorious Alcatraz Penitentiary in San Francisco in 1962 has been solved by Irish agency Rothco Accenture Interactive using artificial intelligence (AI).

Working alongside the IDentTV, a California-based firm specialising a range of AI-based services to a number of industries, including advertising, Rothco set out to confirm the identities of two Alcatraz prison escapees depicted in a 1975 photo.

Think of Alcatraz East Crime Museum's new exhibit as a two-for-one: Highlighting the work of a lesser-known Tennessee law enforcement agency while soliciting's the public's help in solving cold cases.

The Pigeon Forge attraction known for showcasing some of the nation's most infamous criminals and getaway cars has opened a new, arresting exhibit based on the history and work of the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation.

"For a very long time, our agency has been wrapped in a lot of mystery," TBI spokesperson Josh Devine told Knox News. "We hope that this small exhibit gives folks the opportunity to appreciate more of the breadth of what we do."

"I feel like many of our visitors are familiar with their local sheriff's office or know what the FBI does, but they don't necessarily know about the work that TBI does and how critical it is to helping solve cases throughout the entire state and bringing additional resources to small communities," Penman said.

Visitors at the museum will have the chance to read about the brutal 2015 murder of Donald Lawton in Kodak, a cold case in which authorities are still looking for answers, and several never-resolved missing children cases.

"We saw this as an opportunity not just to highlight our work and educate the public but also to really also make sure that people are aware of unsolved cases and missing children," Devine said. "It just takes one person to save someone, and that might very well be a visitor to this museum who sees something and knows something that can lead us to an answer."

"I appreciate that his memory is being kept alive, and the sacrifice that he made is something that we'll always cherish," Fraizer's mother Virginia Mondie said. "I hope people see him and know that someone is always looking out for the community and that they have a family too."

Email Allie Clouse at acl...@gannett.com and follow her on Twitter @allie_clouse. If you enjoy Allie's coverage, support strong local journalism by subscribing for full access to all our content on every platform

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 smart but troubled teen shocked Omaha in 1958 by killing his mother and father in their Aksarben-area home, burying the bodies in the backyard, and then continuing to attend school for two weeks before his grim crimes were discovered.

Sentenced to life in prison, the boy served for almost a decade as a model prisoner. Prison officials felt he was likely within just a few years of an official pardon for his youthful crimes and ultimate release.

With the instant cover provided by his Damon alias and big new family, Arnold became an independent traveling salesman. After two years in Chicago, the family moved to Cincinnati in 1969, and then two years later settled in Miami.

Then in the early 1990s, something appeared to spook Arnold. He cut ties to his stepdaughters, had a distinctive mole removed from his face, and moved with his second family overseas, first to New Zealand in 1992, and then to Australia in 1997.

Arnold played in the marching band, dance band and ROTC band at Central and was a good student. But he was also high-strung and carried some deep anger and resentments, most of those feelings revolving around his relationship with his 40-year-old mother.

Leslie Arnold would later tell psychiatrists that his mother ruled over him in a domineering and arbitrary fashion. It seemed there was nothing he could do to satisfy her. Others observed similar things.

When his mother laughed at him and told him to put the gun away, he said, he suddenly raised the weapon and pulled the trigger. The boy then stood over his mother and fired five more shots into her chest.

On Saturday morning Oct. 11, he was taken in for questioning and copped to his crimes. Months later, he pleaded guilty to two counts of second-degree murder and was sentenced to life in the state penitentiary.

But at some point, Arnold soured on prison life. And in 1967, he conspired with fellow convicted killer James Harding to break out of the trusty dorm, a secure facility within penitentiary grounds for lower-risk inmates who were nearing possible release.

Harding, who was recaptured less than a year after the escape and later paroled, told The World-Herald in an exclusive interview before his 2008 death that the last time he saw Arnold was just days after they landed in Chicago.

Arnold's marriage to Bouvia in 1967 thrust him into the role of father to four stepdaughters, from left to right, Deb, Kelly, Shawn and Dawn. The girls later offered mixed reviews of his performance as dad.

As he settled into married life, Arnold and his bride shared some things in common, including a love of movies and music. He bought himself a saxophone, sitting in the corner of the living room on Race Avenue to play. He sometimes had a drummer and guitar player come over to play with him.

Deb recalled that one night on Race Avenue they were awakened by Arnold moaning and crying, like he was having a nightmare. Their mother explained it was a result of their father once contracting malaria. Now Deb wonders if he was tormented by memories of killing his parents.

Kelly recalls their parents took a vacation trip to the Bahamas by way of Miami. Their mother never came back to Cincinnati, instead staying behind to find a new home while Arnold came back to move the family.

This 1976 photo may be the last of Arnold and all his stepdaughters together, as by the next year he had moved to California and filed for divorce. On left are Dawn, front, and Shawn. On right are Kelly, front, and Deb.

The family shared a number of Los Angeles-area addresses, including in Long Beach, Torrance and Glendale, as Arnold continued his work in sales. By then, he had incorporated his own sales company called Damonico, taken from his alias last name.

Even while living overseas, Arnold for nearly a decade continued to at times travel back to the United States for his work. But it seemed the work that had long been the center of his life became secondary once Arnold had children of his own.

Under his John Damon alias, Leslie Arnold holds his saxophone in this family picture from the early 1970s. But late in life, he chose to hide his musical talents, not touching his own son's instrument.

He repeated to his second family the story of growing up in a Chicago orphanage. When pressed for details, he said it had been a difficult life he didn't want to revisit, and that he felt neither the need nor desire to learn any more about his birth parents.

Arnold had been on an extended business trip to California at the time of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. He returned to Australia and did not travel overseas after that, doing most of his sales work online and by phone.

Then not long afterward, he began dealing with blood clots. The condition may have related to a heart attack he had suffered in the late 1990s, or even his frequent long sits during air travel. He was diagnosed with deep vein thrombosis.

The stepdaughters were happy to learn that Arnold seemed to have altered his harsh parenting style when it came to his second family. Parenting changed a lot between the 1960s and 1990s, but Kelly hopes her final conversation with him had an impact in some way, too.

As they think back on the thousands of conversations they had with their father, both the son and daughter have memories of Arnold lamenting at times that he wished there was more he could say about his past.

In this episode of the Omaha.com Podcast, Henry Cordes and Josie Whelan discuss the secret life of Nebraska fugitive Leslie Arnold and how his case was solved. The two open with Henry's 30-year interest in the mystery before moving on to how a DNA technique that solved the Golden State Killer case was used to find Arnold. They then spend the bulk of the podcast breaking down Leslie's life, including what may have led him to murder his parents, his escape from prison, his two families and more. They close out by breaking down the mysteries that remain and what the case being closed means for both Arnold's families and Henry.

It looks like the enigma of who DB Cooper really was may be solved by the end of the year through DNA analysis. Dude had some stones on him, jumping out of the back of an airplane, pitch dark, during a thunderstorm. I would love to know who he really was.

The man, who called himself Dan Cooper, wore a business suit with a white shirt and black tie, according to the FBI. (And remember that black tie, because it could well be the key to unlocking this whole enigma.)

The item of clothing was tested countless times over the decades, enabling investigators to discover thousands of particles scattered among its fibres, including rare metals associated with the aerospace sector.

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