10 Insane Reasons People Faked Their Own Death

6. To Escape The Mob

Benjamin Holmes really couldn't catch a break. An auto repairman in Cleveland during the seventies, his handyman status lead to the local mob approaching him to make some secret - and totally illegal - silencers for some pistols that we're sure would not be used for anything untoward by this legitimate immigrant businessmen.

Holmes wasn't quite so easily convinced, and went to the police about it...who misunderstood the story as the poor guy bragging about his mad gun-pimping skills, as the officer in question started to pressure Holmes to make him so off-the-books silencers, too. Things went from bad to the absolute worst when somebody set a bomb off in his house, subjecting him to horrible full-body burns.

Then his insurance company accused him of fraud. Then he saw the news that was wanted for several violent crimes he did not commit. Pushed into a corner, Holmes resorted to faking his death before somebody could make it a reality, staging it so he looked like he'd been shot in his car - even going so far as withdrawing some of his own blood with a needle and splashing it across the seats.

For twenty years he managed to stay undetected, growing a beard and getting a load of tattoos to alter his appearance and, seven years later when she cashed in his $100,000 life insurance policy, managed to convince his wife and child to join him a couple of times over. It seemed like he'd beat the mob...until he discovered his wife was having an affair, she shot him, he got rushed to hospital and a nurse recognised him.

Whoops.