Raymond Manning

**Raymond John Manning** is an impostor, con artist, spree killer and mass murderer.

## Background

Raymond Manning suffered from depression, and displayed mythomaniac tendencies from a young age. He was also homosexual, though, for the majority of his teenage life, he tried to repress this part of himself. A young adult, he spent years in New York City, hanging out at gay bars, while his family believed him to attend law school at Columbia University. In reality, he had dropped out in second year. Manning kept lying even after marrying his wife and fathering two children, falsely claiming to work for a major Rayne City law firm: Halderman & Thompson. He also bragged about knowing and having collaborated with renown attorneys, such as Alan Dershowitz and Griffin Bell. He kept with his imposture for over a decade and, in the meanwhile, in order to support himself and his family, turned to con schemes. He met and dated Linda Mayer, a real estate agent, and offered his help in her divorce case. He also managed to convince her to trust him large sums of money he allegedly invested offshore, thanks to purported contacts with foreign banks. A year before knowing Linda, he had met Anthony Grayson, an homosexual man he also dated.

## Killing Spree and Incarceration

Eventually, Linda requested his money back. Feeling she could expose all of his lies, Manning brought her to Atlantic Shores Park and strangled her with a cord. When RCPD detectives Morina and Trotter came to suspect him of the murder, he denied being involved and minimized his link to Linda Mayer as a simple extramarital affair. In fact, he became more scared than ever. He presented himself to Grayson's apartment and bludgeoned him to death with an hammer. A day later, he brought his family to his mother's house and proceeded killing them all by shooting. He also shot to death Linus Halderman, one of the lawyers he pretended to work with. Eventually, he seemingly attempted to kill himself with Phenobarbital inside a hotel room, just before being arrested (many sustained this was a mock suicide attempt). Having recovered from his intoxication, he was indicted on seven counts of murder. He pleaded guilty, and was condemned to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.

## Modus Operandi

Manning presented himself as a well-respected professional for most of his life, deceiving both his family and friends for over a decade. He, at least on one occasion, exploited his fake reputation in order to con people by pretending to invest their money into attractive offshore investments. He also claimed knowing famous attorneys, like Alan Dershowitz and Griffin Bell.

He killed Linda Mayer with a nylon cord, then tried concealing her corpse. Later, he bludgeoned to death Anthony Grayson with a hammer and shot to death his own mother, wife and children with a .22 semiautomatic pistol. He used the same gun to kill Linus Halderman.

## Known Victims

* 1990s:
	+ First day: Linda Mayer (his lover and the victim of his cons; strangled with a cord)
	+ Second day:
		- Anthony Grayson (his lover; bludgeoned with a hammer)
		- His family: his mother, wife and two children (all shot to death)
		- Linus Halderman (shot to death)