How to Disappear Completely and Never Be Found Page 4

  A funny thing happens when these dreamers suddenly become planners. They have more or less made the decision to leave and it is like a great weight is lifted from their shoulders. Their work and family life become more bearable. Things seem to be improving for them. But it is only the calm before the storm. One day they wake up and decide that this is going to be the last day, and they walk out the front door into a whole new life they've prepared.

  The comparison between suicide and identity change is an interesting one. In both cases the person feels driven to the act as a solution to his problems. He is depressed and irritable until he seizes on the "final solution," and then his burdens seem lighter and his mood picks up. This could account for how surprised people are when someone commits suicide. How often have you heard the relatives of a suicide victim tell a reporter, "I can't understand why John would want to kill himself. We might have understood it better a few months ago when he was so upset about his life, but he has been so happy lately. It doesn't make sense."

  Disappearing is a form of suicide. It is a revocable kind of death where one destroys his old life but not his chance to start a new one. If the new life doesn't work out as planned he can step back into his old one, though it probably won't be the same. If he's gone very long, he may never be able to regain his family or his job. That's why most disappearees who are gone more than a few weeks never return unless they're fugitives who are hunted down and brought back by the law.

  It is fairly common for people who disappear to want to make their escape look like a suicide. They could probably just as easily walk out the door into a new identity, but for some reason they want people to think they have died. Perhaps they believe it will keep people from searching for them, or that it will be easier for their families to cope with death than with disappearance. Then again, it may be a scam to collect on life insurance. Dr. Richard Seiden of the University of California, an internationally known authority on suicide, has coined a new word for such fake deaths: Pseudocide.

  Pseudocide

  Dr. Seiden investigated 100 cases of apparent suicide from the Golden Gate Bridge in which no body was recovered. Of the 100, he easily found 26 that were alive and well and enjoying the finer side of life. His investigative techniques were not very sophisticated either, so it is likely that many of the remaining 74 "victims" are out walking the streets somewhere. The very first suicide from the San Francisco Bay Bridge was actually a pseudocide. The person in question was a San Francisco Supervisor, similar to a councilman or alderman, who was embroiled in a little dispute with the accounting types over the disposal of some official funds.

  When the situation got serious he took the easy way out and was written off the books as a bridge suicide even though his remains were never located. Sometime later he was discovered selling bibles door-to-door down in Texas.

  I heard about another pseudocide through one of my phone contacts. A young fellow who had suffered as much of his wife and job as he could handle decided the best alternative was to bow out of that life forever. He spent months accumulating documents, planning for his new life, and hatching an elaborate plan for disappearing. In all this he was aided by a close buddy, which is very unusual. Most disappearees go it alone.

  The disappearee left his house late one night in his car to meet his friend. His friend had borrowed his sister's car, which was registered in the name of his brother-in-law. To go with the borrowed car, the friend had a fake driver's license using his brother-in-law's name with his own photograph. The two of them drove their cars to a nearby bridge. I believe it was the Golden Gate, though the caller wouldn't identify the bridge.

  It was a foggy night and visibility on the bridge was almost nil. The disappearee-in-the-making pulled up along the curb at the middle of the bridge, laid his billfold on the seat, then joined his friend who had pulled-up slightly in front of him. Together they flagged down a passing motorist, telling the driver that they had seen someone jump off the bridge but they couldn't get to him in time to stop him. They asked the motorist to go phone the police while they waited at the scene.

  The disappearee had planned his deed well. The billfold he left on the seat was absent any picture identification of the supposed jumper, though there were plenty of pictures of his wife and relatives and a lot of non-picture ID. When the police arrived, they told them the story. The police took down their names; the disappearee had a complete set of fake ID already assembled for his new identity and his friend used his brother-in-law's name and ID.

  The police accepted the story at face value, and why not? Bridge suicides are not uncommon, but witnesses to them are rare. Here the police had two sober, reliable-looking witnesses. There was never a thorough investigation made and as no body was found there wasn't a coroner's inquest which would have required the witnesses to appear in court. The incident was listed officially as a suicide and the young disappearee left the scene feeling like "a new man."

  As clever as this pseudocide was, I believe that a serious identity changer would forgo the fake-death routine for an out-and-out disappearance. Our young bridge-jumper has taken a number of unnecessary risks. For one, his new name is now in official police files and is tied-in with his old identity. What if his "ex"-wife wanted to speak with the witnesses herself? Also, both of the witnesses' names might well appear in a newspaper police-beat column. Think of the surprise of the disappearee's friend's brother-in-law as he read his name in the paper as a witness to a suicide. He might consider it just a coincidence of identical names. Then again, the license number of the brother-in-law's car is likely in the police file, too. What if the wife, unable to track down the witness that was in fact her husband, used the name and license plate of the other witness to track him down? She might be very suspicious if the brother-in-law swears he lent his car that night to a man she knows was her husband's best friend.

  If the bridge-jumper had a life insurance policy, chances are they would investigate even if the police didn't. Insurance companies are all-too-familiar with the phony bridge suicide routine, as they have uncovered quite a few not-very-intelligent frauds by people who hoped to use their own life insurance proceeds to get themselves out of debt. With the information contained in the police report the insurance investigators would probably have enough grounds to withhold payment even if they couldn't find the disappearee.

  The greatest mistake of our bridge-jumping friend was involving someone else in his plans. One of the ground rules of successful identity change is to keep your plans to yourself. The friend who so freely helps you execute your plans may not be able to withstand the pressures exerted by relatives or the police to locate the missing person.

  Your friend may help you destroy your old life but doesn't want to see your scheme destroy his life. And you won't be there to hold his hand as the police try to coerce your whereabouts out of him.

  Do It Alone

  Successful identity changers keep their plans to themselves. Further, they rarely take anyone with them when they go. Regardless of what you read in the tabloids, it is very unusual for a man to take his mistress with him into his new life. Of course, women often run off with men and change their names, whether they get married or not. But this does not constitute a disappearance and identity change in the context of this book. It is very difficult for a person to successfully change identities alone. It is damn near impossible to do it in tandem. Children pose a somewhat different problem. Every now and then the mass media have a heyday with the case of a father who "kidnaps" his own children, removing them from the lawful custody of their mother and the jurisdiction of the local courts. While this makes for entertaining reading, it is highly difficult for a father to place beyond-school-starting-age children in a school for the first time without leaving a paper trail back to their original homes and identities.

  Money

  Although many disappearees leave with little or no money in their pockets, this is most emphatically doing it the hard way. A financial cushion is a gre
at boon to the lamster. A new identity is a very fragile and delicate thing while it is being established. Like any kind of lie, it can be quickly unraveled if it isn't well thought out. A cash reserve allows a little breathing spell in which to get used to the new identity. If a man is flat broke when he disappears he is going to face some serious hurdles. Where will he live? If he turns to friends or relatives he risks being caught and leaving an easy trail by which to find him. If he sleeps in boxcars and under bridges he greatly increases his chances of an undesirable run-in with the law. How will he get money? He may have a difficult time finding a job if he hasn't been able to document his new identity. Even if he has documentation, careful scrutiny by a personnel department can lead to disaster for someone who hasn't built confidence in his new identity. And if he turns to crime to survive, we're back to the police again.

  Identification

  Identification is the key to establishing a new identity. Unless you are going to live like a wild man in the woods you are going to need some ID, and even then it couldn't hurt. The disappearee is somewhat aided here by the fixation in the modern world for paperwork. It isn't who you are that counts, but whether you can prove it! Most disappearees do not find it necessary to disguise their appearance or even change their lifestyles. So long as they can manipulate their paper identity they have very little chance of being discovered. There is a whole chapter of this book devoted to establishing ID, so I won't go into great detail here, except to say that it is important to consider ID before making a break for it. It can take months for even a quick operator to put together a complete set of identification, and this under relatively ideal circumstances of having a stable residence and a confidential mailing address. After all, if you're planning to disappear you don't want the whole world to know you're collecting false identification. You don't want to find yourself in a situation where you need to get your hands on some ID fast. It's best to have your new identity set up in advance even if you will quickly shed your first identity for yet another one.

  Mail Drops

  As suggested above, one of the first things you should consider when contemplating disappearing is getting a confidential mailing address. You will likely want to get information about identity changing, like this book, that you don't want other people to know about. You'll also need the address for getting fake ID. And you may want to send some assets from your former life ahead of you into your new life. There are several ways to get such an address. The first, and perhaps best way, is to rent an address. People and businesses all over the globe will sell you the use of their address for a nominal fee. These services are known as mail drops. It works like this: for a fee, someone will allow you to use their address for sending and receiving mail. Along with this basic service, mail drops provide a variety of extras. You can arrange to have them forward the mail you receive, or open certain mail on your instructions, or destroy mail, etc. They will also re-mail materials according to your instructions. For more information about how mail drops work and addresses and fees of mail drops, see the Directory of Mail Drops in the U.S. and Canada, listed in the reference chapter.

  If your needs involve more than the services of a typical mail drop you may want to check on the huge number of enterprises in any large city that rent desk space, telephone service, secretarial service, etc. These firms cater to salesmen, construction workers, photographers, and other people with one-man businesses who need to have the appearance of a full-time office and staff. You can use their address as your business or residence address and hire them to handle phone calls and mail according to your instructions. Such services are especially handy when combined with mail drops for fabricating references on employment applications. More on this subject in the chapter on Coping.

  Cars

  It is amazing the number of people who take their cars with them when they disappear. When they do, it makes the Missing Persons Bureau's job so very, very easy. All they have to do is wait until the current license or registration expires, then get their information from the renewal or switch. Whether you sell it, swap it or ditch it, your car will be a very valuable and readily discovered clue to your new location and identity. I interviewed one man who had taken off with his car but had no intention of allowing it to lead to his discovery. The car was a brand new, expensive model that had become the bone of contention between him and his wife. He grew to detest the car almost as much as he loathed her. When he left, he took the car with him halfway across the country.

  He then located an auto wrecking yard on the outskirts of a small Midwestern metropolitan area where the employees stripped the car of any re-sellable items that couldn't be directly identified as having come from this specific car. He had all the legal papers to prove that he was at least co-owner of the car, so the owner of the yard had no objection to carrying out the man's request. The man then donated the parts to the yard in exchange for them not making an issue out of the paperwork that is supposed to go to the Department of Motor Vehicles in such cases. He also got a much more gratifying form of compensation than money: they let him watch as they "baled" the car, picking it up with a large, four-pronged claw, then dropping it into a machine that folded it and squeezed it into an unrecognizable cube of scrap metal.

  Most disappearees who take their cars with them, however, sell them to work up a little extra cash. This inevitably leaves a paper trail that could in turn lead to their discovery and/or apprehension. It is best to forget the car and use public transportation to effect your escape.

  Leaving the Country

  A well-planned disappearance should not involve immediately leaving the country unless one has a complete set of U.S. identification papers in the new identity. The majority of foreign countries require a passport or birth certificate and supplemental ID--drivers license, credit cards, other licenses, etc.--from U.S. citizens. Further, these regulations are subject to change from time to time, often without prior notice. As a practical matter, unless one has the proper documentation he is not allowed to board an international flight or a ship bound for a foreign port. If the individual does not have the correct papers, the carrier will be unable to land him at his destination and may be liable for a number of expensive fines. It is advisable to have a passport when traveling anywhere outside the U.S., even to Canada and Mexico where it may not be a legal requirement.

  Mexico

  As I have spent a considerable amount of time traveling "south of the border," it might help to clear up a few popular misconceptions about Mexico. The published information on Mexican migracion regulations gives the picture as it's supposed to be, not as it really is. According to the articles in the Sunday Paper travel section, Mexico requires a birth certificate, passport or other positive means of identification from U.S. citizens before they will be allowed to enter the Republic. Actually, the Mexicans think it is nice if the Yankee turista has a birth certificate and/or all those other good things, but they aren't going to refuse admission to a potential contributor to their shaky economy just because he's short a piece of paper. Not too many U.S. citizens travel with their birth certificates and most of them don't even have a passport!

  What Mexico actually demands is "proof" of nationality. Drivers licenses and a lot of other things are acceptable. And Mexican rules provide for issuing tourist permits even in the absence of these things, and allow the immigration officials to charge a small fee (about $25 U.S. the last time I heard) or not, as they see fit. Or they may refuse entry altogether. If this situation occurs, a small propina is definitely in order, say in the neighborhood of $5 to $10 U.S.

  This is a good place to explain the often misunderstood difference between a "propina" and the infamous "mordita". A propina is a gratuity, freely offered and usually readily accepted. You leave a propina for the waitress or the guy who washes your car. In the example above, the $5 offered the immigration official is a propina, but if he turns it down and demands $50, it becomes a mordita pure and simple.

  When dealing with Mex
ican border officials, the rule regarding propinas is "don't overdo it!" If you give $50 when $5 is more in order the official may wonder at the reason for your generosity. He knows if he can get $50 without asking he stands a mighty good chance to boost the ante by taking you down to the carcel and bouncing you around a little.

  Nearly all magazine articles on Mexico emphasize the "fact" that a single parent taking his child or children into Mexico must have notarized permission from the other parent before they will be admitted. It just ain't so in my own experience traveling in the Republic with minor children. Sometimes a woman is hassled a little, but even this is not too common. A small propina helps at times, but is seldom obligatory.

  The ordinary tourist permit is issued for 180 days, although it is often issued for lesser periods. When the permit expires, Mexican law states that it must be renewed at the border or at a Mexican Consulate. This is why it is common at ports of entry to see expatriate Yanks walk across the border, turn around and head back into the Republic.

  Theoretically it is possible for a foreigner to become a full citizen of Mexico, but practically it is impossible. I have met people who have been trying for 30 years to get their Mexican citizenship but were always thwarted at the very last instant by some minute, invisible defect in their paperwork. For what it's worth, the easiest way to become a citizen of the Republic is to get yourself born there. In some cases, this can be accomplished "after the fact" through a small donation to some official's "favorite charity," or by having the right friends.