THE REAL-LIFE ROOFMAN

A prison escapee who hides for months inside a Toys “R” Us store and then falls for a single mum sounds like the plot of a great crime drama.

- Sara Tapia

And while it is, in fact, the storyline of the new film Roofman (in cinemas now), it is also the very real tale of Jeffrey Allen Manchester.

A former US Army reservist, Manchester became notorious in the late-1990s for his unique method of robbing fast-food franchises, mostly McDonald’s restaurants. His modus operandi? Drilling, hacking or sawing a hole in the establishment's roof - earning him the nickname “Roofman” - and dropping in during the early hours of the morning, before waiting to hold up the employees when the day shift began.

According to his victims, Manchester was remarkably polite when conducting his robberies, rarely resorting to violence and even making sure they put on their coats and jackets before he locked them in their workplaces’ walk-in freezers. Before he was caught and sentenced to 45 years in prison in 2000, he managed to rob more than 40 takeaway joints over a two-year period.

While, for some, this could have been the end of the story, for Manchester, it was just the beginning. Four years into his sentence, he made his escape from a Polkton prison in North Carolina, clinging onto the bottom of a bread delivery truck and disappearing without a trace.