Hi, I'm Wendy Zuckerman and you're listening to Science Furses from Gimlet.

This is the show that pits facts against fugitives.

Today on the show, the mysterious case of a dead man who lived under a stolen identity for decades and the controversial science

that cracked the case. And by the way, in this episode, we will talk a little bit about suicide.

So take care while you're listening. And there's resources and numbers to call in the show notes

if you just want to talk to someone.

Okay, the mystery of the man who died twice

is coming up just after the break.

Welcome back. Welcome back. We first brought you this episode of a strange man with an even stranger story a few years ago.

But it hasn't lost its touch. Let's jump in. Our story begins in the summer of 2002. A man has been found dead in a quiet, leafy suburb about half an hour outside of Cleveland, Ohio.

It's right next to Lake Erie. It was July, and it was so hot that by the time they found his corpse, it wasn't pretty.

It took a week to find the body, so he was literally covered with maggots.

This is U.S. Marshal Peter Elliott.

He sounds like the kind of guy who's never really out of uniform.

Can you describe yourself for us?

Yeah, probably not. Yeah, I don't feel like doing that, but I'm 56 years old and I've been

law enforcement for 35 years. The man who had been found dead had killed himself in his bathroom.

And from what police could tell, it seemed like he lived a pretty lonely life.

He lived in this tiny bare-bones apartment, didn't have much.

And from the look of the scene, here's how the cops thought it went down.

He counted down to days on the calendar.

He locked all doors in his

...