Disappearing Wasn’t Always the End of the Story

Ever wanted to fake your own death and start anew, with a completely different identity? Apparently, many people in history have thought of doing the same thing, and actually carried out the plan. And while you might think the public would immediately see through the lie, the stories sometimes don't unfold that way. As you'll see, some chose to disappear under new names, while others staged accidents and even mock funerals that were meant to convince everyone they were gone for good. One person even took on various identities, including being a naval surgeon and performing several operations. It just goes to show that maybe faking your own end isn't so hard...

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1. Joan of Leeds

Joan of Leeds was a 14th-century English nun who wanted out of convent life badly enough to stage her own death. According to records from the Archbishop of York, she made or arranged a dummy body that was treated as if it were hers, then left the house of St. Clement by York. The deception didn’t stay hidden forever, because church authorities later recorded that she had fled to Beverley. Her story is one of the earliest documented examples of someone using a fake death to escape an unwanted life.

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2. Grace Oakeshott

Grace Oakeshott was a British women’s rights activist who disappeared in 1907 while she was in Brittany. Her clothes were found on a beach, which made it appear that she had drowned, but she had actually left for New Zealand with her lover, Walter Reeve. There, she lived under the name Joan Reeve and built an entirely new life far from the marriage and public identity she had left behind. Her case also says a great deal about how difficult it could be for women to leave unhappy marriages in that era.

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3. Violet Charlesworth

Violet Charlesworth became the subject of a dramatic Edwardian scandal after a 1909 car crash near the North Wales coast supposedly sent her into the sea. No body was found, and the story quickly began to fall apart as investigators looked more closely at her finances and movements. Charlesworth had been posing as a wealthy heiress, but she was really buried in debt and deception. Once she was found alive, her staged death became part of a larger fraud case that fascinated the press.

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4. C. J. De Garis

Clement John “Jack” De Garis was an Australian entrepreneur and aviator whose life unraveled under heavy financial pressure. In 1925, he left farewell letters and made it appear that he had drowned himself in Port Phillip Bay. A week later, he was discovered aboard a ship bound for New Zealand, ending the nationwide search that had followed his disappearance. The fake suicide damaged his already troubled reputation, and his real death came by suicide the following year.

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5. Aleister Crowley

Aleister Crowley, the English occultist and writer, staged a fake suicide in Portugal in 1930. The episode involved the Boca do Inferno cliffs and the Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa, who became linked to the media frenzy around Crowley’s supposed death. Crowley later reappeared in Berlin, proving that the dramatic disappearance had been a hoax. For someone who spent much of his life courting attention and controversy, the stunt fit his public persona perfectly.

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6. Alfred Rouse

Alfred Rouse turned a fake-death scheme into a murder case in 1930. He set his own car on fire with another man inside, hoping the burned body would be mistaken for his. Investigators identified the vehicle and eventually connected Rouse to the crime, which became known as the Blazing Car Murder. He was convicted and executed in 1931, while the identity of his victim has remained uncertain.

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7. Aleksandr Uspensky

Aleksandr Uspensky was a senior Soviet security official who tried to escape Stalin’s Great Purge by staging his own suicide in 1938. He vanished after being summoned to Moscow, where he had reason to believe arrest was waiting for him. His plan bought him some time, but Soviet authorities eventually tracked him down and arrested him in 1939. He was executed in 1940, which made his fake death only a brief delay in a dangerous political system.

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8. Ferdinand Waldo Demara

Ferdinand Waldo Demara, later known as “The Great Impostor,” spent much of his life assuming identities that didn’t belong to him. During World War II, he reportedly faked his suicide after problems with falsified papers, then resurfaced under a new name. His later impersonations included monks, teachers, prison officials, and most famously a naval surgeon during the Korean War, performing some 16 successful operations. Demara’s fake death was only one episode in a much longer life built around reinvention.

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9. Timothy Dexter

Timothy Dexter, the eccentric American businessman who died officially in 1806, staged a fake funeral because he wanted to know how people would react to his death. He reportedly watched the mourners (some 3,000 people) from a hidden spot and paid close attention to the behavior of his family and neighbors. Upon realizing his wife wasn't as desolate as he'd expected, he supposedly revealed himself during the event and later punished her after the mock wake.

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10. Juan Pujol García

Juan Pujol García, the Spanish double agent known as Garbo, helped deceive Nazi Germany during World War II. After the war, he feared retaliation from surviving Nazis, so with British help he faked his death from malaria in Angola in 1949. He then settled in Venezuela and lived there under a different life story for decades. When he was rediscovered in the 1980s, it turned out one of the war’s most important deceivers had pulled off one more successful deception.

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11. Ken Kesey

Ken Kesey, the author of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, faked his suicide in 1966 while facing drug charges. Friends helped create the appearance that he had died by leaving his truck and a suicide note near a cliffside road in California. Kesey had actually fled to Mexico, where he remained until he eventually returned to the United States. The stunt didn’t keep him from punishment forever, since he later served time in jail.

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12. John Allen

John Allen, born Anthony John Angel, faked his own death in the 1960s to avoid prosecution for earlier crimes. He staged the scene near Beachy Head by leaving behind clothes and a suicide note, creating the impression that he had drowned. After taking on a new identity, he continued his criminal life and later became involved in an even darker case. Decades afterward, he was convicted of murdering his wife and two children, whose bodies were never found.

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13. Raymond Grady Stansel

Raymond Grady Stansel Jr. was an American fugitive who disappeared in 1974 while facing serious charges. His lawyer said he had drowned during a diving accident near Honduras, but no body was ever recovered. Stansel had actually fled and later lived in Australia under the name Dennis “Lee” Lafferty, where many people knew him as a tourism operator and conservation-minded figure. His real identity was exposed only after he died in a traffic accident in 2015.

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14. John Stonehouse

John Stonehouse was a British politician who staged his death in 1974 by leaving clothing on a beach in Miami. The scene was meant to suggest that he had drowned, but he had actually flown to Australia under a false identity. His plan unraveled when Australian police arrested him, initially wondering whether he might be the missing Lord Lucan. Stonehouse was returned to Britain, convicted of fraud, and sentenced to prison.

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15. Peter Florjančič

Peter Florjančič was a Slovenian inventor who faked his death during World War II to avoid being drafted into the German Army. In 1943, he arranged the story around perishing in an avalanche during a skiing trip in Austria and escaped across the border into neutral Switzerland. The move allowed him to avoid service on the Eastern Front, which could easily have been a death sentence of its own. After the war, he became known for his inventions and lived for decades beyond the death he had staged; he only recently passed in November of 2020.

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16. Alan Abel

Alan Abel was a professional hoaxer, so it almost made sense that he eventually staged his own death. In 1980, false reports claimed he had died of a heart attack near a Utah ski resort, and The New York Times published an obituary. The next day, Abel held a press conference and revealed that the death notice had been part of another prank. Unlike many people on this list, he wasn’t trying to escape prison or debt but merely exposing how easily the media could be fooled.

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17. David Friedland

David Friedland, a former New Jersey state senator, disappeared in 1985 while awaiting sentencing in a corruption case. The story was that he had vanished during a scuba dive in the Bahamas, but investigators suspected that he had staged the incident. Friedland traveled under false identities and eventually turned up in the Maldives, where he was working in the diving business. He was captured in 1987 and returned to the United States to face the consequences.

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18. Audrey Marie Hilley

Audrey Marie Hilley, an American fugitive, lived under false names after fleeing Alabama. While posing as Robbi Hannon, she staged that identity’s death and then reappeared as Robbi’s supposed twin sister, Teri Martin. The plan was strange enough to raise suspicion, and police eventually discovered that Teri was really Hilley. Her fake death was part of a larger pattern of aliases, manipulation, and flight from justice.

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19. Russell Causley

Russell Causley faked his death in 1993 by disappearing from a ferry near Guernsey as part of an insurance scheme. The fraud case later became connected to the disappearance of his wife, Carole Packman, who had vanished in 1985. Causley was convicted of her murder, although her body has never been found. His staged death didn’t just expose an insurance fraud; it helped draw renewed attention to a much more serious crime.

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20. Friedrich Gulda

Austrian pianist Friedrich Gulda staged his own death in 1999 as part of a publicity stunt. Reports of his death circulated before he reappeared in connection with what was presented as a “resurrection” concert. Some people found the stunt amusing, while others thought it was tasteless, especially because it played with public grief and media trust. Gulda died officially in 2000, which made the fake obituary episode an odd final chapter in his public life.

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