There's no question that being charismatic is one of the most useful traits you can have as a person. It can make you seem smarter, more trustworthy, more confident, and more personable, more likable, more persuasive, and on and on and on. In this week's story, I'm covering the case of one of the most charismatic people I've ever heard of.

As you'll soon see, he's a man who knows very clearly what his skill can do for him and uses it to his advantage very well. And towards the end of the story. I'll show you some footage that actually exists of one of his encounters. That is quite possibly one of the most impressive things I've ever seen. Not to mention, this guy's entire life could be made into a movie.

It's just that interesting. So, without further ado, settle down. Make yourself comfortable. Grab yourself a snack. Welcome back, guys. My name is Andy Jiang, and this is it. In stores. One night in December 1987, at around 9 p.m., a 29 year old man named Richard Lee McNair broke into a local grain storage facility in Minot, North Dakota, and began stealing anything that seemed valuable to him.

Now, Richard was not your average thief. Even from a young age, people who knew him would often comment on his intelligence and his ability to quickly observe and take in details about his surroundings. In his dad's words, anything he wanted to do, he would figure out. And he was not only a quick learner and a diligent long term planner, he also had a great talent for reading people and situations.

This was so much so that in the eyes of others around him, it was almost like he could just read your mind and become the very person you wanted him to be. An overwhelming majority of people who ever met Richard, even later on in his life, found him very likable. There was just something about his playful, outgoing personality, his six foot frame and attractive features that just made people feel like they were very close friends with him.

But as many of these people would eventually find out, this was all just an illusion. He was just one of those guys that you think you know very well until it becomes painfully obvious that you don't know them at all. In the words of his own brother, he is about the smartest person I've ever met, a good guy that I always admired until he made bad choices.

And as you soon see, these bad choices would turn what could have been a life as an incredible detective or an intelligence agent into a life of crime. And being on the run that night at the green storage facility Richard was trying to break into a small safe that he had felt when he suddenly heard a truck pull over to a stop outside the building, he instantly froze.

Since it was so late at night, he hadn't expected anyone to show up. But it just so happened that that night, two workers at the facility, Richard Katzman and Jerome Tice, had arranged to come transport some grain to a nearby green processor, since it was so dark outside. When they arrived to the building, they didn't notice that one of the normally closed gates was now open, or that there was a track of freshly printed footprints on the ground.

And by the time they came across the room that Richard McNair had been in, completely ransacked in trust, it was far too late. As they stood there, confused, trying to figure out what had happened. Richard came up from behind them with his gun drawn, and before they could turn around, he fired multiple shots at both of them before fleeing from the scene.

When police arrive to the facility soon later they discovered Jerome twice dead and Richard Fitzsimons severely wounded, having been shot four times. An investigation was quickly launched into the murder, but for a while, little progress was made. Although Richard Kitman had caught a glimpse of the men who had shot him, there was very little actual evidence at the scene, so the detectives were completely stopped.

In fact, they likely would have never solved the case if they hadn't gotten really lucky. Three months after the incident, a manager at a local storage facility was checking one of his units since the owner had fallen behind on the event when he discovered something very suspicious. Inside the storage unit was a sealed box that had a label bearing the address of the Minot Air Force Base, and there were also several rolls of carpets and other items that appeared to be stolen since they still had their price tags attached.

When this manager contacted the police, as well as the Air Force base, they discovered that the unit's owner was a man named Richard Lee McNair, who at the time was a sergeant at that Air Force base. And when they dug a bit further, they discovered that not only were many of the items in Richard's storage unit stolen goods like the manager had suspected, Richard also perfectly matched Richard Kit's men's description of his shooter.

Turns out Richard Lee McNair stealing from that grain storage unit that night was not just a one time thing. The truth was, he had stolen from numerous other businesses that didn't have security alarms in and around May, not just over that past year. And every time he stole something, he would just statute for temporary keeping and that storage unit prepared for the day that he would complete his tour of duty and would be able to leave North Dakota for good.

That day that the manager decided to check Richard's storage unit. He had less than a week before the end of his service. Had the unit been took just a few days later, both Richard and his staff would have already been gone and the case would have likely never been solved. But since it had been checked before his departure, the minor chief of detectives was able to summon Richard to the local police station under the pretext of discussing one of the investigations that they were working on together.

You see, at the same time that Richard was running around at night, breaking into and stealing from local businesses, he had also been volunteering as a confidential informant for the Minot Police Department, acting as an underground drug buyer to help bust drug dealers. The detectives that he had been working with were always extremely impressed by just how quickly and easily Richard was able to become friends with and gain the trust of drug dealers.

One said that he had, quote, the gift of gab or the ability to speak with eloquence and fluency. And another said that Richard could steal your car and sell it back to you and you'd still think you got a good deal. But what these detectives had no way of knowing was that while Richard was using his charisma to con these drug dealers, he was also simultaneously doing the exact same thing to them.

The entire reason that he was able to steal from so many places without ever getting caught was because by gaining the trust of the Mignot detectives, he was able to ask seemingly harmless questions about where the city lines were or where police surveillance might be a bit spotty, or how the investigations into his previous crimes were going. He also managed to convince the detectives to allow him to carry a literal police radio with him, which of course made avoiding the police just that much easier.

So when these detectives learned that not only had Richard been playing them this entire time, but he was also likely responsible for the murder they had been investigating. They knew that the best way to get hold of him was to simply pretend that nothing was wrong and to call a meeting about one of their mutual investigations. It was only after Richard had showed up to the police station that they told him that they had discovered his storage unit full of stolen items and that they had also connected him to the murder case.

And when the detectives patted him down and found a gun in his underwear, they arrested him. But still, even after finally getting caught for all of his crimes and likely facing life in jail, Richard didn't seem to be too upset. In fact, he was even joking around after his arrest, admitting that Richard Kidman's drawing of the shooting suspect did kind of look like him.

So maybe they should turn him in and split the reward money. The detectives probably didn't know how to react to this, but since it was lunchtime, they decided that they would just eat first and then decide what to do about the situation afterwards. So they headed off to a local restaurant, leaving Richard handcuffed and under the watch of three other detectives at the police station.

But in hindsight, this probably wasn't the best idea. Even before their food had arrived at their table, the detectives were informed that Richard had somehow escaped. Turns out the three detectives who were with them somehow got distracted by something allowing Richard to take out some greasy lipo from his pocket and wiggle himself free from his handcuffs. After a long chase that lasted over an hour where Richard stole an empty car and almost escaped had the car's engine not stalled.

He ended up on the top floor of a three story apartment building that was completely surrounded by cops and detectives refusing to give up and with no other options, Richard tried jumping out one of the windows onto a tree branch. But unfortunately for him, the branch broke upon impact, causing him to fall hard and hurt his back. As a result, the authorities were really easily able to re-arrest him, letting him right back in custody where he had started.

Following Richard's recapture, his home was searched were shoes that matched the footprints left at the murder scene as well. Spent bullet cells from the murder weapon were felt when Richard Kitman, still recovering from his bullet wounds, was also able to identify Richard McNair as a suitor in a lineup of people. There was no longer a need for a trial, but as originally McNair's plea bargain was pending, he refused to just sit there and wait.

Soon after arriving to his temporary cell at the Ward County Jail, he was caught trying to dig his way out. Soon after that, he was caught secretly carrying another tube of lipo. But still, even after having yet another escape plan of his completely foiled when the Lipoma was discovered, Richard was reported to be smiling. Sometime later, he was sentenced to two life sentences in prison, one for murder and one for attempted murder, plus another 30 years for his burglary charges.

And in July 1988, Richard was sent to the maximum security North Dakota State Penitentiary to begin his sentence. From the moment he got there, he was probably already planning his next escape. But little did he know his odds of being able to successfully do so. We're looking good at all the very moment he walked through the prison's front doors, he was already on the correctional officers free doors.

Turns out Richard's old detective friends from back home, how they've been too happy about being conned by him or him escaping from them. And they had placed a large warning on his prisoner's file stating that he was, quote, highly manipulative, persuasive and personable with a talent for gaining people's confidence by talking smooth. He was also described as a very high escape risk for obvious reasons.

But the crazy thing is, even though the go to new to look out for this guy, it was almost like it didn't matter. Although they were probably expecting Richard to immediately come up to them and start talking to them, trying to be their friend and ask them for stuff that wasn't the case at all. From the very start, he seemed like just another well behaved prisoner who wanted to just avoid any drama and serve his sentence in peace.

In fact, in many ways he was a model inmate and soon developed a reputation for being one. He was like by many of the guards and even the prison's warden. As a result, because of his excellent behavior and friendly demeanor around a year after he had arrived to North Dakota State Penitentiary, he was granted a job in the Rough Rider Industries building, where prisoners helped manufacture office furniture, dumpsters and other items.

What the prison guards and warden had no way of knowing, though, was that this had pretty much been Richard's plan from the very start. The one skill that Richard had at the time that no one knew yet was the skill of patience, the ability to wait long periods of time to carry out an intended goal. As such, just as the prison guards were likely gradually warming up to him and starting to lower their guard, that was exactly what his plan to escape began to finally start going into action.

Having a job at Ruff Ryder Industries allowed Richard to play a key role in starting a monthly prison newspaper titled The Inside Times. Serving as a journalist, Richard began to diligently and regularly contribute articles to this paper, interviewing workers all around the prison on their lives and ideas. He worked so energetically and tirelessly on this project that the prison's executive assistant even sent him a letter commending him on his professionalism and dedication to the paper.

But as we've seen time and time again, of course, Richard had a secret underlying motive behind this dedication. You see, by conducting interviews with people all around the prison, he was able to figure out the locations of weaknesses in the prison security system and infrastructure. As a result, he was able to identify a particularly weakly sealed off air vent that he could potentially escape from.

And after borrowing or cutting towards from rough Ryder Industries and gradually, day after day, using the heat to burn through the metal bars, blocking the entrance to the vent along with two other inmates. It seemed like Richard had finally found his ticket to freedom, but unfortunately for him, just a year before, he would have been able to remove all the bars and escape.

One of the other inmates that he had been planning on escaping with got cold feet and tipped off one of the guards. Just like that. Within one hour, Richard went from being potentially able to see the outside world again to being sentenced to an entire year of solitary confinement, save for 5 hours of your time and 5 hours a week.

Not only that, since it had been nearly three years since he had arrived at the prison, by that point, all the slowly weeding and slowly making progress that he had done over time had been completely for nothing. And the reputation that he had so carefully built up had been ruined once again. For many people, this revelation would have been so mentally crushing that they just wouldn't be able to recover from it.

But even while Richard was still serving out his solitary confinement sentence, he was already planning his next escape. The window that was closest to Richard's isolation cell gave him pretty much the opposite of a scenic view. All he could see through it was a small sliver of sky. The rest of the window was completely covered by the next door building, which was the prison's education building.

However, something about The View began to catch Richard's attention as he was leaving and coming back from a cell. It was a rectangular event on the side of the building, and since Richard had noticed that there wasn't a court tower on this side of the prison, if you could only just manage to get inside of that fence, he could easily escape to freedom.

Around a year later, on October 9th, 1992, very shortly after Richard had just been released from solitary, he and two other inmates made their way to the education building to view a screening of the movie The Ten Commandments. Richard had figured that most prisoners had either already seen the movie before or simply just didn't care to see it at all.

And he had been right. They were the only three people who were there since the guards were all outside patrolling the hallways, not in the actual room that the movie was being shown in itself. Right after the movie started playing, Richard and the others were able to very quietly remove some tiles from the ceiling before breaking into one of the vents and after crawling through the vent for some time.

Richard's plan went perfectly, and the three inmates found themselves coming out the side of the education building with not a single guard in sight. After a few smoke jumps down the side of the building, the three men were able to land cleanly on the outside of the prison's fence before immediately taking off, trying to get as much ground as possible before someone noticed that they were gone.

Unfortunately for them, however, this didn't take long at all. They had pretty much been spotted at the very moment they started running away. But although one of Richard's companions was caught in just 3 hours and the other was caught after two days on the run, as hard as authorities tried, they could not, for the life of them, figure out where Richard had gone.

This was made even more frustrating by the fact that after some time, Richard literally began healing notes back to the staff members at the prison, and authorities still couldn't figure out where he was hiding. It turns out the reason Richard was able to evade the police so well was because he had not only dyed his hair after leaving prison, he had also just stole in a whole bunch of cars and was constantly moving around the U.S., never really staying in one place since he had worked as a car salesman when he was younger.

He knew how to navigate dealership's select vehicles without GPS as installed and then steal the vehicles without getting caught. As such, he could basically just change vehicles whenever he wanted, which made tracking him pretty much impossible. However, on July 5th, 1993, as Richard was stealing from yet another car dealership, which was closed for the July 4th weekend by some incredible stroke of bad luck, he was spotted by the manager of the dealership as the guy just so happened to be driving by the building.

Of course, this manager immediately called the cops to report the intruder. Since Richard had no way of knowing that he had been reported by the time officers had arrived to the scene, it was already too late for him to run. And nine entire months after Richard had escaped from North Dakota State Penitentiary, he was finally caught and once again thrown behind bars after spending three weeks in a jail in Nebraska where he'd been arrested.

Richard was extradited back to North Dakota and sent right back to North Dakota State Penitentiary. If the first time he had arrived to that prison, the guards had him on the Raiders. This second time they refused to even take their eyes off of him. Since Richard had been discovered possessing escape materials at the Nebraska jail, it was clear that nothing had changed at all, and he still clearly intended to escape.

When one of his fellow prisoners at North Dakota State Penitentiary reported to the warden that Richard had been asking Robert for help in getting hacksaw blades less than a month after he had returned. In a month after that, he was discovered with very thick pieces of wire that could help him escape. His escape risk status was upgraded from very high to extremely high.

As a result, he was denied access to most general prison privileges, such as access to a computer. But even then, the authorities at his prison soon realized that no matter what they did, Richard was always going to be a problem for them and was always going to try to find new ways to escape. So how do you control someone like this?

Well, you send them to an institution that no one has ever escaped from. In March 1994, around a year after he had been recaptured, Richard was transferred to the Minnesota Correctional Facility Oak Park Heights in Stillwater, Minnesota, as the state's only super maximum security prison. Oak Park Heights houses the worst of the worst, some of the most violent and dangerous inmates across the country.

And also inmates were deemed as being high risk for escaping. Like Richard. But even with that being the case, the prison has only had a single murder in its entire history. It has never had an escape, which basically tells you everything you need to know about just how secure this place is. But of course, that wasn't going to stop Richard from at least trying.

Two years after he arrived, he was caught trying to create a fake I.D., which caused him to lose his prison job. Two and a half years after that, he was caught in possession of a whole bunch of different escaped materials, which landed him 90 days in solitary confinement. But again, although most people in his shoes would have simply deemed the situation impossible and given up.

That was apparently just not something Richard knew how to do. In 2001 seven entire years after he had arrived to Oak Park Heights, Richard, realizing that a super maximum security prison simply could not be escaped from decided to participate in a sit down strike at his prison. Now, participating in strikes like these, it's pretty much considered just as bad as starting a prison riot.

So as punishment, Richard was transferred right out of Minnesota and right back to North Dakota. But since the prisons in North Dakota still just did not want him, even after all that time, Richard was soon transferred once again. This time to the United States Penitentiary, Florence High in Florence, Colorado, as another maximum security prison that no one had ever escaped from.

Richard soon realized that trying to leave from here wasn't realistic either. As a result, four years after he arrived to Florence, he applied to transfer one last time to the high security United States Penitentiary. Pollock In the town of Pollock, Louisiana, on the grounds that it was a bit closer to his family because of his apparent good behavior at Florence, his transfer was actually accepted, and soon after Richard had arrived to Pollock, he realized finally, this was it.

This was the place he can make his third escape from. On April 5th, 2006, just seven months after Richard's arrival, he was at his job in the prison's factory building, repairing old mailbags. When he launched this plan into action, since Richard, I noticed that all of the mailbox that he had finished fixing would always be placed in this massive stacks on top of wooden pallets before being wrapped all around in plastic for transportation out of the prison.

He realized that he could actually hide inside the stack of mailbags without being noticed and make his escape that way that day. That's exactly what he did, carrying a small cordwood straw that he could use to poke through the plastic on the inside to allow him to breathe. Richard waited patiently as the pallet that he was sitting on was carried onto a truck and transported to a nearby warehouse.

When he couldn't hear anyone in the room anymore, he dug himself out of the mailbags in plastic and began running away as far as he could. Although Richard had a couple of hours of a head start before someone at the prison finally noticed that he was gone. The very moment they did notice, they immediately began sending out reports to all the police departments in the area, which included a photo of Richard as well.

And shortly after 4 p.m. that afternoon, as Richard was running alongside a train track in Ball, Louisiana, his heart sank as he was pulled over by a police officer. And since he couldn't outrun a car, he figured that it was all over. Now, the name of the officer who had pulled him over was Carl Bordelon, and he had just recently received notice about an escaped convict in the area.

As such, when he came across a man running on the side of that train track who seemed to look exactly like the photo he had received of that escaped convict. He could hardly believe his luck, but still not wanting to accidentally arrest some random, innocent person and wanted to make sure that he had the right guy. He decided to start asking the man some questions.

Officer Bordelons dashcam footage captured the following encounter. You live around here, but know where you live and down the road by a windmill. POWELL Uh huh. Okay. Do you have any formal identification on your real name? What's your name? Robert Jones. Robert Jones. Nice. Not on the track. No, that's not a problem right now. What's your address? I don't have an address.

I'm at the hotel. We're working on houses and stuff. I guess we're looking. Roofing? Yep. Okay. From my brother. All right. Oh, oh, oh. What is. We got an escapee. Oh, we're from a prison. From the prison here? Yeah. Oh, after these sort encounters, Officer Bordelon then asked Richard to wait as he called the local sheriff's office to try to get more details on the escaped convict.

Since the photo that he had of the convict was very grainy and not entirely clear. He began asking about the convicts eyes, hair and other features, all while comparing what he heard to the men standing in front of him. And after he got off the call, he straight up told Richard that unfortunately he matched the description of the men that they were looking for.

You know, the bad thing about it, you know, matched up to him. That's not good. Yeah. Oh, what are you saying? That that Titus B or Titus, you know, to see him alone, you know, where's that a? I don't know. Address. We just got into town about a week ago and he dropped me off. DeJong I always jog about 12 miles.

Day Where he dropped you off up there on that road that there's construction going on up there. And how can he drop me off? And he'll be back at the hotel in about probably 10 minutes, 15 minutes at this point in the conversation, despite all of the evidence pointing to the fact that Richard was indeed the escaped convict.

His incredibly calm demeanor, his friendliness, his charisma had already pretty much convinced Officer Bordelon that he had the wrong person. In fact, I don't think anyone in the officer's shoes would be able to confidently say that such a relaxed and confident looking man could be a prisoner on the run. But although Richard's lies had been pretty seamless up until this point, he soon made a huge mistake.

Out of Dallas, Texas, the. What's your name again? Jimmy Jones. What's your name? Robert Jones. In the heat of the moment, he accidentally slipped up and said a different name than he had said just 5 minutes earlier. But extremely luckily, Officer Bordelon never picked up on this mistake. And after around five more minutes of questioning and at this point, literally just friendly banter and laughter between the two, the officer told Richard, Be careful, buddy.

And drove away as Richard watched as Officer Bordelons police cruiser disappeared into the distance. Feelings of relief, disbelief and bewilderment instantly rushed through him, since he had completely renounced violence and violent acts after his very first arrest. He had been completely prepared to run if the conversation had gone south, but somehow he had managed to convince this officer of his innocence.

In the following days, more than 150 law enforcement officers were deployed around the Louisiana area to search for Richard. Roads were closed. Random cars were searched. Helicopters patrolled the skies and boats covered all the local rivers for widespread publicity and awareness about his escape. Richard was placed on the U.S. Marshals Service's list of 15 most wanted fugitives in the nation.

They noted that he was the first person to successfully escape from a maximum security federal prison in 13 years. And a $25,000 reward was offered for his capture. But despite people all around the country looking for him, at that point, Richard was still nowhere to be found. Ten days after his escape, Richard's mom received a letter from him that originated from South Texas.

But as the authorities moved their search area to that region, in reality, the letter had been an intentional misdirection. And Richard was actually already in Washington state, crossing the border into Canada. He had again been using the car stealing and swapping strategy of traveling that he had mastered in his previous time out on the run. And again, it was working extremely well for him.

Two weeks after his escape, however, Richard was sitting in a stolen car in British Columbia when two officers suddenly approached him. It was clear that they had realized that the car was stolen. So when the officers asked Richard to step out, he did and immediately ran. Very luckily, since the officers figured that they were just dealing with a random car thief.

When Richard got away, they didn't arrange for a more intensive manhunt. They simply impounded his stolen car and left it at that. It was only the next night when one of the officers just so happened to be watching that week's episode of America's Most Wanted. And finally recognized Richard and realized just how hard they had fumbled. And by the time the fingerprints on the car were confirmed to be, Richard's around a week later, he was already long gone from the area.

Over the next few months, Richard continue to make his way around by stealing cars, but being a lot more careful. He even started selling a few of them, earning himself a ton of money in the process through making a fake Alaska I.D. for himself and also through always changing up his appearance, such as his hair and facial hair.

He was able to go outside into the public without being noticed. And by keeping a very close eye on the news coverage on his story and the ongoing investigation. He was able to get a pretty good idea of when he needed to move to a new location. Still, however, living such a risky life of crime while being out on the run, Richard's luck was bound to run out.

On October 24, 2007, Richard was sitting inside a stolen van in Mass Creek, New Brunswick, when he was once again noticed by a cop. Just like Richard's first close call, the cops suspected that the vehicle had been stolen after realizing that while the van itself seemed very expensive, the tint on the windows looked extremely crappy, which made sense since Richard had done them himself.

However, isn't this cop was off duty. He decided to simply note the license plate number and alert the other cops in the area to keep an eye out for the van. The very next day, a constable who had only been on the job for six weeks at the time just so happened to come across. Richard's then on the route.

When he tried to pull the vehicle over, Richard once again tried to escape on foot, hoping that the same scenario would play out from his first close call. Unfortunately for him, however, this time since the constable was much younger and fitter than he was after his sorties, he was easily able to catch up to him and arrest him despite everything.

After being brought into the local station, Richard was still laughing and joking around with the officers and later described them as quote, good men doing their jobs. When asked about his recapture, Richard stated that it was just a product of bad luck and, quote, it was just one of those days. But the fact remains, after almost 15 months out on the run after escaping from the usb polic.

Richard was finally going back to prison after his third escape and recapture, Richard was sent to ADX Florence, a supermax prison that is often described as the Alcatraz of the Rockies and as one of the most impossible to escape from prisons in the entire world. Richard himself later described his section of the prison as, quote, the most secure section of the most secure prison in the world.

During his time there, he also stated, Thank God for prisons. There are some very sick people in here, animals you would never want living near your family or the public in general. I don't know how corrections staff deal with it. They get spit on, sit on, abused, and I've seen them risk their own lives and save a prisoner many times in 2022.

However, Richard was transferred back to the maximum security USP Florence High and is still there to this day. As I mentioned earlier, even people who meet him today and over the past few years tend to find him very likable. People have even tried to start petitions to get him freed and he's been very friendly in his interactions with the press and with journalists, which is how his story is known in so much detail and so completely nowadays.

Richard has his own Twitter account, where he occasionally stirs his thoughts through his conversations with a crime reporter named Byron Christopher, who runs the account for him in 2022. Richard stated on his Twitter account that he was done with escaping for good. But whether that's actually true or not, I guess we'll just have to see. With that being said, I hope you found this week's Hidden Story interesting if you're new here.

Hi, my name is Andy. I tell bizarre, true hidden stories once a week. As always, let me know your comments, thoughts, feedback, stories, suggestions down below. And you can also check out other episodes of hidden stories from previous weeks that you may have missed in the playlist link in the description. Take care, guys. I'll see you guys next week.