Jailed robber used A View To A Kill villain Max Zorin as inspiration

By day he was known as John Zoren, a generous churchgoer who attended Bible study, donated toys to needy children and dressed as the Easter Bunny for the Sunday School Christmas party.

By night, though, the Good Samaritan who prayed at Crossroads Presbyterian Church in Charlotte, North Carolina, was Jeffrey Manchester, a jailbreaker on the run who lived in a secret cubby-hole in the bicycle department of a Toys R Us store - reports Asia1.

He dined on baby food he stole from the shelves, rode bicycles up and down the empty aisles for exercise, took the remote-control cars up on the roof for test drives.

When the store became busy over Christmas, the 33-year-old convicted robber tunnelled into an empty electronics superstore for some peace and quiet, reported US newspapers.

There he built a den beneath a staircase where he whiled away the hours watching films on a DVD player and perfecting his skills on an X-Box video game system, both stolen from the shop.

He painted the walls, decorated them with Superman and Spider-Man posters and rigged up a basketball hoop.

Keen not to lose out on creature comforts, he installed a portable nappy-disposal bin as a toilet, diverted the water flow from the neighbouring store straight to his lair and fitted a smoke alarm and a fire extinguisher in case of mishaps.

'It appears that when he first came to Charlotte he took up space inside a wall display unit inside a Toys R Us store,' said Captain Eddie Levins of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg police department.

'After several months he moved into the adjoining building.'

Sergeant Katherine Scheimreif said: 'You hate to compliment the guy because he's a dirt-bag. But we can learn a lot from him.'

Manchester was back behind bars on Wednesday, seven months after he broke out of a correctional institution in Polkton, North Carolina, by clinging to the undercarriage of a delivery truck.

He had been serving a 45-year sentence for robbing two branches of McDonald's, where he herded staff into walk-in freezers after first allowing them to get their coats.

Police believe that he actually raided more than 40 McDonald's restaurants across the US, gaining entry by drilling holes through the roofs - a modus operandi that earned him the nickname Roofman.

As a fugitive, Manchester created a new name for himself, based loosely on that of the fictitious criminal genius Max Zorin, from the James Bond film, A View to a Kill.

He joined the church, where he found himself a girlfriend at a singles lunch.

Said the girlfriend, Ms Leigh Waynes Cott, 40: 'He said he had a government job, but he couldn't tell anybody what he did.

'I asked about going to his place. He said it was a government building, a sterile environment.'

He lavished presents on her and her three children, attended Bible class every Wednesday and helped the church's charity projects for the poor.

He even handed out toys - stolen from Toys R Us - to underprivileged children.

Manchester was caught after staging an armed robbery at the Toys R Us store where he had been living, having spied on the security routine via a baby monitor that he rigged up in his den next door.

Detectives discovered his hideout while searching the shop for clues.

Church pastor Ron Smith, who described Manchester as a 'very engaging, down-to-earth, nice fellow', was shocked at having been duped.

'My bullshit meter is pretty good, it's pretty tough to scam me,' he said. 'There is a good side to this guy, that's what I'm struggling with now - the other side.'

Could this 'Toy Shop Story' be made into a movie?

Jeffrey Manchester was charged on Tuesday in a North Carolina court, of a spate of new crimes related to his extraordinary life as a fugitive.

'This would make a great movie,' said Sergeant Johnny Jennings, of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department.

Roofman

Thanks to `Ken` for the alert.

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