Dead man with Rapid City ties a mystery

By Staff and AP Reports | Friday, June 06, 2003

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Rapid City police are as perplexed as other law enforcement officials about the identity of a man who was an imposter in life and in death became a John Doe.

Investigators say Joseph Newton Chandler requested his first Social Security card in September 1978, at the age 41, and had the card sent to an address in Rapid City.

It turned out he had stolen the identity of an 8-year-old boy who was killed with his parents in a 1945 car crash near Sherman, Texas.

"The fact that a 41-year-old man was requesting a Social Security card should have sent up a red flag at the time," Rapid City Police Detective Tom Senesac said.

Last July, Joseph N. Chandler committed suicide in his apartment in Eastlake, Ohio. The imposter was described by police as a loner in his 60s.

"We don't know what or who he was hiding from or who he really was," Eastlake Police Detective Lt. Tom Doyle said.

The man left $82,000 in a savings account but didn't leave a will. Police said family members listed on a rental agreement led to non-existent people or addresses.

"We thought at first maybe he was in the Witness Protection Program, but that has been ruled out," Doyle said.

The Eastlake police have been bombarded with phone calls, mostly from media, after the story broke this week.

"I don't know. I guess everyone likes a good whodunit," Dolye said Thursday.

Rapid City police have been working with the Eastlake department to possibly unearth some clues about the man.

Doyle said Chandler may have moved to Rapid City from southern California, and investigators believe he served in the Navy for a time. He is described as a white male, 5 feet 7 inches or 5 feet 8 inches tall, with a medium build. He did electrical engineering work and possibly had been married twice, once to a Cuban woman.

Senesac has visited the address, 2326-1/2 Canyon Lake Drive, where the initial Social Security card was sent. Because the property owner is now deceased, Senesac has been working with the woman's son, hoping to find some answers. He is also searching all possible records for the man's existence in South Dakota.

"We went to the library and went through Polk directories. I've run a complete credit-bureau check on him, and nothing comes up until he's in Philadelphia," Senesac said.

The man went to great lengths during his lifetime to further the guise.

"We found that on all of his applications for jobs, his next of kin were fake," he said. "We're continuing to search in hopes that he slipped up and put one truthful thing down somewhere that may lead us to someone."

A judge has ordered investigators to try to find the man's heirs. If they cannot find any within 18 months, the money will go to the county's unclaimed-funds account.

After police found his body last July 31, the county coroner discovered the man had colon cancer that soon would have killed him.

His closest friend, a former co-worker who knew little of the man's past, was appointed by the court as executor of the estate. Two investigators he hired to notify heirs discovered that the relatives they found were family members of the dead Texas boy.

The man listed his parents as Ellen Christina Kaaber Chandler and Joseph Newton Chandler Jr. and said he was born in Buffalo, N.Y., on March 11, 1937 - all information taken from the Texas boy.

Making identification more difficult, the body was cremated soon after an autopsy, and neither the suicide weapon nor items in the apartment had fingerprints clear enough to be of much use, police said.

"This guy made a life out of another life, and he made a point to stay unknown," Doyle said.