Joseph Newton Chandler III
Robert Ivan Nichols, alias Joseph Newton Chandler III (September 12, 1926 – c. July 23, 2002), was a formerly unidentified American identity thief who committed suicide in Eastlake, Ohio, in July 2002. After his death, investigators were unable to locate his family and discovered that he had stolen the identity of an eight-year-old boy who was killed in a car crash in Texas in 1945.
Robert Ivan Nichols | |
|---|---|
Nichols's 1999 driver's license photo | |
| Born | Robert Ivan Nichols September 12, 1926 New Albany, Indiana, U.S. |
| Disappeared | c. 1965 Napa, California, U.S. |
| Died | c. July 23, 2002 (aged 75) Eastlake, Ohio, U.S. |
| Cause of death | Suicide by gunshot |
| Resting place | Riverside Cemetery, Painesville, Ohio, U.S. |
| Other names | Joseph Newton Chandler III |
| Known for | Formerly unidentified identity thief |
| Height | 5 ft 7 in (1.70 m) |
| Spouse |
Laverne Kort
(m. 1947; div. 1964) |
| Children | 3 |
| Military career | |
| Service/ | United States Navy |
| Battles/wars | World War II
|
| Awards | Purple Heart |
The lengths to which Nichols went to hide his identity has led to speculation that he was a fugitive.
In late 2016, the U.S. Marshals Service, Cleveland, Ohio, announced that forensic genealogist Dr. Colleen Fitzpatrick of Identifinders International had compared the then-unidentified man's Y-STR profile to public genetic genealogy Y-STR databases to determine his possible last name was "Nicholas". In March 2018, the DNA Doe Project identified the man as Robert Ivan Nichols. The U.S. Marshals Service announced the identification at a press conference in Cleveland on June 21, 2018.