GUILTY WA - 'John Doe' Scott Shain charged with stealing 20+ identities, Seattle, 2007

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superunknown

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I couldn't find this posted anywhere else, so I hope this is the right spot.

This is a very, very strange story.... photo at link below


http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/htm...ohndoe21m.html


32 aliases. Doctored fingerprints. Who is this guy?

By Mike Carterhttp://search.nwsource.com/search?sort=date&from=ST&source=ST&byline=Mike%20Carter
Seattle Times staff reporter

FBI hotline
Anyone with information about the man pictured can call the FBI at 206-622-0460.

For now, he's known to federal prosecutors as "John Doe," the man with too many names.

Beyond that, not much is known about the identity of the man the government has charged with seven felony counts, including mail fraud and aggravated identity theft, for allegedly using the Social Security numbers of a teenage boy and a man who died in 1977 to obtain fake identification.

The man in custody has used at least 32 identities since the 1980s, making it difficult for the FBI and prosecutors to determine his real name. In the early 1990s, he apparently once tried to burn his fingerprints off, which could make identifying him even harder. During a court appearance Thursday, he gave no clue to his real name.
 
[SIZE=+2]http://www.king5.com/topstories/stor...12884eea.html#

New photos of FBI's mystery man

SLIDESHOW HERE:
[/SIZE]http://www.king5.com/perl/common/sli...40&nextimage=0


[SIZE=-1]08:26 PM PDT on Friday, March 21, 2008[/SIZE]

SEATTLE - He's a Seattle man who has lived under so many assumed names, even federal investigators are not sure who he is and what he is up to.

For the last couple of years, the man lived in a tiny, unkempt apartment on Lower Queen Anne.

Linda Seravo often wondered about the strange man who lived down the hall from her.

"He just always scrambled around with his head down," she said.

"Or try to get away from you as soon as he could possibly get out of the same room with you."
 
Man with no name has federal agents baffled
SEATTLE - Federal agents have arrested a mystery man who has used so many different identities over so many years they don't know who he really is.

"This is a really unusual situation," said FBI spokesman Robbie Burroughs. "To have a person, and we have no idea who he is."

Sometimes he calls himself William Everett Gee. Other times he's Robert Allan Lowe, or Robert Allan Loew, or any one of many other names.

The FBI says he is actually none of the above.

"I mean we believe now that this has been going on for over 20 years," Burroughs said.

When he was arrested, investigators found several IDs on him. They all had his picture but with dozens of different names.

http://www.komotv.com/news/local/16915016.html
 
Wow, that is interesting. Maybe they should have showed his other ID pics to see if anybody recognizes those.
 
I really like this case!! He has gone to some really great lengths to prevent them from IDing him over the years. While I would certainly suspect he is a wanted man, he could have been in Witness Protection, CIA, KGB, or so many other covert operations. Surely they have run his DNA and have ruled out being wanted in cases where DNA was present. Still, it wouldn't account for the past 20 years and the basic reason he changed his identity then.

You are correct. They should show his various IDs and let us know the states those IDs were made to at least get a timeline of where he was roaming. He appears to be transient and has probably been all over.

What are his habits? Does he have surgical scars? Past broken bones? Dental records?
 
That's interesting.

So, for right now they've arrested him for the whole multi-IDs thing, but they don't know yet if he was changing his ID to commit other crimes? Wouldn't it be wild if it turns out he's otherwise law-abiding, just trying to stay under the radar for personal reasons? I can see something like that being a TV show...
 
I kept trying to figure out who he looks like since he seems so familiar. LOL Luke (Scott Patterson) from the Gilmore Girls!! (The nose is different, but he does resemble him quite a bit, imo.) Look at photo #11 on this page:

http://www.imdb.com/media/rm249075712/nm0666398

It can at least give us an idea of what he would look like with hair and scruffy. He actually isn't a bad looking fella.

This thread should be moved to the Unidentified forum, imo. :)
 
SeriouslySearching said:
I really like this case!! He has gone to some really great lengths to prevent them from IDing him over the years. While I would certainly suspect he is a wanted man, he could have been in Witness Protection, CIA, KGB, or so many other covert operations. Surely they have run his DNA and have ruled out being wanted in cases where DNA was present. Still, it wouldn't account for the past 20 years and the basic reason he changed his identity then.

You are correct. They should show his various IDs and let us know the states those IDs were made to at least get a timeline of where he was roaming. He appears to be transient and has probably been all over.

What are his habits? Does he have surgical scars? Past broken bones? Dental records?
Click to expand...

I would think if he was witness protection they would have created a real ID for him and some history??
And for CIA probably the hit would come back as classified same with KGB per our gov. records..
As for DNA how does that work? Do they have a database?? Or would they have to check every record?

Whats alarming is this guy is totally off the grid.. Its going to take a lot of time to track down the actions of each identity in order to gain some idea of who he is.
IMO he is either a hired killer, a serial killer or something.
 
OK..If you watch this video, you see a lot of his remarkable characters! It is almost incredible how he can change like a chameleon. Wow! This guy is really too good. It tells me he is running from something huge or is into some organization like I said before. http://www.komotv.com/news/local/16915016.html

Did you ever watch The Saint with Val Kilmer?
 
MsRusty said:
Wow, that is interesting. Maybe they should have showed his other ID pics to see if anybody recognizes those.
Click to expand...

That's what I was thinking when I read the article. Someone might be able to solve it if they did print the photos.
 
SeriouslySearching,

I should have watched the video before I answered MsRusty.

Very interesting, especially the remarks that he has crazy eyes and looks like he could kill someone.
 
This is fascinating. You know this guy is wanted for something.

When I was reading this, I immediately thought of this guy. This picture of him is from before he committed his crime, so it's probably seven years ago or so.


http://www.amw.com/fugitives/brief.cfm?id=25245

Kinda looks the same to me. What does everyone else think?

fran
 
The man's parents recognized his photographs after they were contacted by the FBI. The FBI had posted his photos on the bureau's Web site.

Special Agent Joseph Velling, with the Social Service Administration's Office of Inspector General, today confirmed the identity of the man as Scott Andrew Shain, 52.

~snip~

Velling said the man's parents said that Shain "fell off the face of the Earth" after he washed out of the Air Force flight school in the early 1980s.

Shain apparently has adopted the identities of at least five dead people and was in the process of gathering at least two other identities from dead men in British Columbia and Saskatchewan, Canada.

~snip~

He has lived in Massachusetts, Washington, Oregon, Colorado, Wyoming and Idaho and has criminal convictions — in a variety of names — in several of those states, Velling said.

And to complicate matters further, Velling said, it appears that Shain would sometimes adopt an identity and obtain Social Security cards and driver's licenses in that name, only to go to court and have that name legally changed. He's done that in Washington and Oregon, Velling said.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2004302802_webjohndoe24m.html?syndication=rss (Bolded by me)

Wow! We NEVER would have figured out who this guy was/is~! Amazing!
 
SeriouslySearching said:
Did you ever watch The Saint with Val Kilmer?
Click to expand...
Or, how about "The Great Imposter" starring the incomprable Tony Curtis, SS? Interesting he was working at a Postal Express. Meantime I was thinking he was a straight up outlaw. I'm gonna be one someday that's why I got no tattoos. Really neat case. I wonder if he dated?
 
Very interesting! THanks for the update. I am interested in his family. I wonder if they thought he was dead all these years.
 
I was wondering the same thing. If he hasn't used his real identity in 25 years he may not have any close relatives or they may have given him up for dead. On the other hand, is there a chance he did have contact with the family and they, for what ever reason, are keeping his secrets?
 
Alaska4959 said:
I was wondering the same thing. If he hasn't used his real identity in 25 years he may not have any close relatives or they may have given him up for dead. On the other hand, is there a chance he did have contact with the family and they, for what ever reason, are keeping his secrets?
Click to expand...
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2004302802_webjohndoe24m.html?syndication=rss
snips:
Velling said the man's parents said that Shain "fell off the face of the Earth" after he washed out of the Air Force flight school in the early 1980s...His parents told investigators they only heard about their son after he would get in trouble with
 
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