Ex-Cop Gone Bad Wanted For Murder

John Patrick Addis was an intriguing individual. In the 1980s, Addis was a state trooper in Alaska. He rose quickly from patrolling the highways of the Alaskan interior to homicide detective.

His former colleagues remember him as highly intelligent, but somewhat eccentric. During his stint as a trooper, Addis lived on the outskirts of Fairbanks with his wife and two young children. He played the French horn, flew his own small airplane, hunted, fished, studied UFOs and worshipped the deity RAH. Police say he abused his wife, both physically and emotionally. According to investigators, she became a prisoner in the log cabin they shared. The marriage finally ended in a bitter divorce.

After the divorce, his wife received custody of the children, but Addis kidnapped them and flew his plane to Montana. When police caught up with Addis, he was convicted of custodial interference. He did a few months in jail, effectively ending his career in law enforcement.

A New Life -- And A Crime Scene That's Just Too Clean

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Addis and Joann Albanese in happier times.

By 1995, Addis had relocated to Las Vegas, and reinvented himself as a body-builder and personal trainer. While working at a local gym, Addis met an attractive divorcee named Joann Albanese. 

At first, Addis seemed like the perfect boyfriend. He was attentive, wrote love letters, and moved into her lovely home. However, as time passed, the abusive, controlling John Addis reemerged. Before long, Joann realized she couldn't tolerate being treated like a slave and tried to break the relationship off. 

On August 19, 1995, Joann Albanese disappeared. So did John Addis. Initially, the case was classified as missing persons because there was no crime scene, no witnesses, and most importantly, no dead body. But when Detective Larry Hanna of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department Homicide Unit learned of Addis's background as a former cop and homicide investigator, Joann's vanishing without a trace and the absence of a crime scene made him very suspicious. 

Addis became the prime suspect in Joann's disappearance. The night before she vanished, police say Joann told a girlfriend she was breaking up with John, and was going to tell him.

The only clue police had was Joann's car. It had been found in Little Hell's Canyon near Prescott, Ariz. An extensive search of the desert area near the car turned up nothing.

But in mid-1998, a hunter stumbled across human skeletal remains in the Arizona desert. DNA tests proved it was Joann Albanese.

On July 31, 1998, a grand jury in Clark County, Nev., charged John Addis with the murder and kidnapping of Joann -- but there was still no sign of him. 

Accused Killer Moves South of Border

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Addis started dating this woman in Guadalajara, Mexico. The two have since disappeared.

Investigators have since learned that in 1997, Addis was living in Guadalajara, Mexico under the aliases John Charles Elwars and John Charles Stone. There, he began dating a Mexican woman named Laura Liliana Padilla Squares, who was 26 at the time. 

But Addis and Laura vanished from Guadalajara and have not been seen since. Her family believes Addis kidnapped Laura. Detective Hanna and Laura's family fear the worst, but are holding out hope that she could still be alive and traveling with Addis.

Fugitive Ex-Cop Found Dead In Guatemala

The long, twisted fugitive run of John Patrick Addis ended in a hotel room in Guatemala City, Guatemala on October 16th, 2006. Las Vegas homicide detective Larry Hanna has been on the hunt for Addis since August of 1995, when Addis's then-girlfriend Joanne Albanese went missing. Addis, a former Alaska State trooper and homicide investigator, was the prime suspect in Joanne's disappearance because she had been trying to break up with him around the time she disappeared. Addis slipped out of Las Vegas before cops could talk to him, and became the subject of an 11-year-long manhunt. Addis was formally charged with the murder of Joanne Albanese on July 31, 1998 and was subsequently profiled on America's Most wanted twelve times over an eight year period.

Life On the Run Ends In Tragedy

In 1997, investigators learned that Addis had been living in Guadalajara, Mexico and had taken up with a 26-year-old woman named Laura Liliana Padilla. Laura's family told detectives that she had fallen in love with the handsome American and ran off with him.

For the past nine years, her family and authorities in the United States had feared that she might one day meet the same horrible fate as Joanne Albanese. Sadly, on October 18th, 2006, those fears came true. Laura, along with her two children, who are believed to have been fathered by Addis, were found murdered in their home in Chiapas, Mexico. The children were ages four and seven. Mexican authorities found fake identification cards and documents belonging to John Addis in the home. The family had apparently been living there for some time.

The family had been dead for several days when the bodies were discovered. The FBI has learned that John Addis, using the alias J. Charles Peterson had most recently passed himself off as a Canadian patriate while living in Chiapas. Addis had been making a living there teaching English and tennis.  Addis is believed to have checked into a hotel in Guatemala City, Guatemala on October 14th. That city is south of the Mexican-Guatemalan border, a couple of hours drive from Chiapas, Mexico.

Addis's body was found in the hotel room on the 16th. His death is a suspected suicide pending further post-mortem reports and is being investigated by police in Guatemala City. The murder of Addis's family in Chiapas is being investigated by Mexican authorities. John Addis is believed to the prime suspect in the murder of Laura and the two children. Officials from the U.S. State Department are assisting the Mexican and Guatemalan authorities. Addis's true identity in death was proven through a post-mortem fingerprint comparison.