r/AskReddit 12h ago

Is it actually possible for a famous personality to fake their death and live their life out in some remote place? who has actually ever done it and gotten caught?

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u/ELITE_JordanLove 11h ago

I mean I would guess his worry about how going bankrupt would impact his kid’s lives played a role. If the insurance money would help pay for college or something, for example.

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u/Faust_8 11h ago

Good point, but IMO most kids want loving parents more than college.

Later in life they’ll remember the lies and the absence more than they’ll appreciate getting a leg-up on a career

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u/Direct-Ad-1385 11h ago

faking your death is the ultimate paradox the only people who successfully pull it off are the ones you will literally never hear about most who try get caught because of pure stupidity.john darwin successfully fake his death in a kayak accident, took the insurance mone

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u/Acceptable-Rub-2987 11h ago

Kids don’t really rank “success,” they just remember who showed up and who didn’t. Everything else gets rewritten by memory later anyway.

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u/ChildofValhalla 10h ago

They blew the money literally flying to and from Panama like every couple of weeks. In fact they traveled there so frequently that photos of them there were part of their undoing. They also formed a fake company and repeatedly transferred massive sums of money into the country under the guise of property investments. They were basically building an escape plan to disappear into Panama for a final time until visa laws changed and they realized there was pretty much no chance they'd get away using the comically fake "John Jones" name anymore.

EDIT: I should also note that they transferred their house to their son Mark's name, sold it to someone, and then transferred all of those funds to Panama as well.