Rage On The Run

An American Bodybuilder Becomes An International Fugitive

(CBS)  David Bieber found that identity in a Georgia cemetery, on the gravestone of a 6-year-old boy, Nathan Wayne Coleman, who had died in 1975.

Bieber bought a copy of the Coleman’s birth certificate and got a passport in his name. In September 1996, the fake Nathan Wayne Coleman fled the United States.

Days after British policemen Neil Roper and Ian Broadhurst were shot, lead detective Chris Gregg was hot on the trail of Ian’s killer, and finding out more about the man British police knew as Nathan Wayne Coleman.

Bieber, Gregg found out, was doing security work. "And that's where he was earning his legitimate money. He's into bodybuilding. He was certainly working at his fitness. Gambling was a major part of his life. And we calculated that in the three years he'd gambled around £300,000 ($535,000)."

Bieber had lived in England for seven years, and worked as a nightclub bouncer.

"He wanted to be a gangster. He just wanted to be a big shot. He wanted people to fear him, he wanted people to respect him," remembers Pearce Coyle, who worked with him.

On Dec. 28, 2003, police raided Bieber’s apartment. He wasn’t there, but he had left plenty behind.

"We found items in there which we knew were connected to the shooting. Whoever had this flat had got the interest in gambling. A gun cleaning kit was under his bed. There was a bulletproof vest in there," says Gregg.

Meanwhile, Bieber - a.k.a. Coleman - was popping up on security cameras all around Leeds.

The day after Broadhurst’s murder, he had been to several banks, withdrawing thousands in cash.

Then police got another tip.

David Costello, who operates a storage facility in Leeds, recognized the name. "So I instantly got on the computer system here and just made sure that Nathan Coleman was one of the people that stored here, and it just stood out."

In Coleman’s storage unit, police made an ominous discovery.

"There were hundreds and hundreds of rounds of home-made ammunition, nine millimeter bullets," Gregg says. "And there was a bullet reloading machine there. So, there was a bullet press to make all the bullets, there was the gunpowder, the primers, the cartridge cases. The bullet heads. It was all there."

Surveillance tape showed Bieber had just been there, apparently arming himself.

"It (the surveillance tape) showed this character going in with one bag and coming out with another. And we thought that rucksack is probably packed with ammunition. We were very, very concerned that now there's a man on the run, he's dangerous, he's killed one cop, he shot another. He's probably realizing that he's gonna be facing the rest of his life in jail. What has he got to lose?" says Gregg.

Having found no fingerprint match in their own database, police had submitted the prints to the FBI. On day four of the manhunt, they got a hit, and Gregg remembers it did not put their minds at ease. "Those fingerprints were identified in the States as those of David Bieber."

Gregg says the Americans told him a great deal about David Bieber. "The fact that he was wanted in the States for conspiracy to murder. And that they had seen nothing of him since 1996. Learning about David Bieber's background answered the key question for us, which was 'Why had this person reacted so violently in the way that they did?' "

[jabailo]

One thing that bothered me...isn''t it standard procedure for a suspect to be "patted down" to look for weapons (guns, billy clubs) by police even in Britain.