Where is Roland “Jack” Auslander?

Roland “Jack” Auslander, 69, buried his 100-year-old mother, Herta Auslander, not in a cemetery, nor did he have her cremated; Roland buried his dead mother in a freezer chest at her home in Cooks Fall, N.Y. There she remained for more than a year before being discovered by the New York State police. An autopsy revealed that the woman died of natural causes - cardiac disease - so foul play is not suspected in her death.

However in the meantime, for more than a year Roland was happily cashing her social security checks. The police, naturally, would like to have a chat with Roland - but he has disappeared. He hasn't been seen since his mother's body was discovered months ago.

Roland is also no stranger to trouble, he has been locked up several times in Sullivan County Jail and in the Woodbourne Correctional Facility on drug charges. Court records show he was convicted of buying more than 3 ounces of cocaine in Livingston Manor in 1987. He was imprisoned on drug charges again in 1999 and was released in 2003.

“He will eventually appear and we’ll ask him what Mom was doing in the freezer,” said Les Hyman, a senior investigator with the state police in Binghamton.

When Roland surfaces he will likely be facing criminal charges of fraud and forgery related to cashing his dead mother's social security checks. He will probably not face any charges for stuffing his mother in the freezer, which would at best be a violation of the public health law.

According to his attorney, Gerald Orseck, Roland has already paid back the roughly $20,000 that he accumulated from his mom’s Social Security checks. Orseck said he has no clue where Roland is hiding.

“I know he paid back the Social Security Administration because I delivered the check personally,” Orseck said.

This is not the first time Roland has disappeared. When he was out on bail, about 10 years ago, on a cocaine charge, he skipped the court date for his sentencing. He wasn't found until more than a year later, on a farm in Essex County, in Northeastern New York, where he was dressed like an Amish person.

“He was pretending that he was Amish, laying low, working on a farm,” Sullivan County District Attorney Steve Lungen recalls.

Has Roland gone Amish again? The police would certainly like to know: Where is Roland Jack Auslander now??

John and Anne Darwin Sentenced

John Darwin, 57, and his wife Anne Darwin, 55, will be spending the next 6 years of their lives in the same place, but they won't be together. Judge Alan Wilkie imposed a sentence of six years and three months on John Darwin after he plead guilty to seven charges of obtaining money by deception and a passport offense. His wife Anne took her case to trial.....and lost. She was sentenced to six-and-a-half years after being convicted of all 15 counts of fraud against her.

They were both sentenced for their separate roles in faking the death of John Darwin in a canoeing accident in March 2002. The couple swindled £250,000 from pensions and insurance companies after Mr Darwin went missing. They succeeded in fooling everyone: The police, their friends and neighbors, the pension and insurance companies and even their own two sons Anthony, 29, and Mark, 32. In fact the two sons gave testimony at the trial against their own mother.

John Darwin apparently hatched the scheme to fake his own death because of his financial problems. He got his wife to play along. After his "death" John lived for sometime at the couple's home hiding from everyone. He eventually obtained a passport under a false name and went to live in Panama, where his wife joined him. For unknown reasons the couple decided to return to Britain where John reported to his local police station, claiming that he had amnesia and did not know where he had been for the past 5 years. Under police questioning the truth came out and they were both arrested. Here is John Darwin's statement to the police and here is what his wife told the police.


Judge Alan Wilkie ruled that even though Mr Darwin had admitted his guilt he should serve a similar sentence to his wife because he had been the orchestrator of the plot. He said the severe sentences were handed down because of the "cruelty and grief" inflicted on the Darwin children in a "virtually unique" fraud.

“I accept you, John, were the driving force behind this deceit,” he said. “You, Anne Darwin, perhaps initially unconvinced, played an instrumental rather than organising role. Nevertheless, you contributed to its success and played your part efficiently. In my judgment, you operated as a team, each contributing to the joint venture.

“You would in all likelihood have got away with it if you, John Darwin, had not decided to return to the UK and try to brazen it out with a further false story of amnesia.”

The "betrayed" sons of back-from-the-dead canoeist John Darwin described how their shock turned to rage when they learned their parents faked the entire ordeal. Mark and Anthony Darwin told a British court they could not believe they had been deceived for five years and only realized they had been fooled when they saw an internet photo of their smiling father posing next to their mother Anne in Panama.

Mark, 32, told the Teeside Local Court jury he was stunned by his mother's lies. "I couldn't believe the fact she knew he was alive all this time and I had been lied to for god knows how long," he said.

Anthony, 29, said he thought the image was faked and had been doctored by an internet prankster. It was only when he read a newspaper confession by his mother in which she apparently confirmed it was genuine that he realized he had been so badly duped. The court heard how he cut short a trip to Canada in March 2002 during which he intended to propose to his girlfriend when he was told that his father was missing.

"She flung her arms around me, she said 'He's gone I think. I have lost him'," he said at hearing the news from his mother five years ago. "She wouldn't stop crying for ages. We just stood in the drawing room doorway."

The following document shows the significant events this case from the time the Darwins hatched their scheme to their final sentencing of six years in jail.