John Damon was known as a family man in Australia. In the US, he was an escaped murderer.

Just an hour away from Brisbane lies a grave for a man named John Vincent Damon.

He died on August 6, 2010, aged 69, and was remembered as a successful businessman and a great father.

But his name wasn't John Damon. It was William Leslie Arnold.

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In 1958, 16-year-old Arnold shot his parents in their Nebraska home because they'd refused to let him take their car to a drive-in.

He buried them in the backyard and lived in the home for the next two weeks as if nothing happened.

He attended school, went to church and even opened his father's business, telling people his parents were out of town visiting his grandparents. 

But then his grandparents came to visit Arnold and his mother and father.

When police eventually turned up at the family home, Arnold took the officers to where he had buried his parents.

Image: Omaha World-Herald.

The following year, the teenager pleaded guilty to their murders and was sentenced to life in prison at Nebraska State Penitentiary.

For the next eight years, Arnold was a "model prisoner", according to a news release. But on July 14, 1967, he and another inmate escaped, fleeing to Chicago, where they went their separate ways.

While the other fugitive was found and captured, Arnold continued on the run for days, then weeks, and then years.

The FBI worked on his case into the 1990s before handing it back to the Nebraska police, who eventually gave it to the US Marshals.

The case went cold.

However, in the past couple of years, investigators with the US Marshal Service found evidence that led to them cracking the case through DNA testing.

In April 2023, investigators announced they had found Arnold – the man otherwise known as John Vincent Damon.

Arnold became Damon almost immediately after his escape. 

As Damon, he married a single mother with four daughters in Chicago.

The couple eventually split, with Damon moving to California, divorcing his wife, remarrying and having two children of his own. The family of four moved overseas in the early 1990s, first to New Zealand and then to Australia. Over the next 15 years or so, Arnold built a new life for himself as Damon.

He became a successful salesman, was known as a great father, and stayed with his second wife until he died.

Meanwhile, the Arnold case was passed down over the years as people retired or changed jobs. Matthew Westover, who joined the US Marshals in 2015, took over the case in August 2020 – originally as a joke.

It piqued his interest and he spent hours researching the case and looking into online theories about Arnold's whereabouts.

Knowing how promising a tool DNA testing was, Westover and his colleague travelled to Missouri to collect a sample from Arnold's brother and got permission to submit it to a genetic genealogy service in 2020.

He didn't immediately get any useful hits, so he waited, hoping a relative of Arnold's would get curious about their ancestry and submit their own DNA to the database.

On August 9, 2022, Westover received an update. There was a hit.

Someone had submitted their DNA to the database and also sent a message to Westover, thinking he was the source of the DNA and possibly a relative.

The man told Westover he was trying to find out more about his father, who was an orphan from Chicago.

Over the next couple of weeks, Westover, who still hadn’t told the man he was a law enforcement officer, continued to talk to him. He wanted to confirm that the family man known as John Damon was, in fact, Arnold.

He also wanted to make sure he had died before telling anyone, in case he found out and went on the run again.

Then came the hard part: telling the man that his father – who he knew as Damon – was actually an escaped convict who had killed his parents.

"It was difficult for me as well, just seeing the pure emotion and seeing this guy be told basically his dad is a murderer that escaped prison," Westover said. 

"I can’t imagine how tough that would have been."

In March 2023, Westover flew to Australia to meet with Arnold's son. He also visited John Vincent Damon's grave at Tamborine Mountain Cemetary in Queensland, where he took a photo of the headstone, with his US Marshal's badge on one side and Arnold's wanted poster on the other.

Image: Omaha World-Herald.

He also got an official sample of the son's DNA, which would prove that Damon was Arnold.

The news about Arnold came as a shock to his surviving family members, who authorities said were completely oblivious to his past.

"Although it’s shocking to know that his life began with a terrible crime, his legacy is so much more than that," Arnold's son told CNN.

"I want him to be remembered for being a good father and provider to us, and instilling in me a passion for music, and a drive to always be the best person I can be.

"But I don’t regret doing it, and I’m glad I now know the truth about my dad."

Feature image: Omaha World-Herald.