On May 15, 1957, 30-year-old Lawrence Bader decided to go fishing. The Akron Ohio-based salesman had been having a rough go of it in his business recently, and Lawrence needed an afternoon to relax. He rented a boat and set off on the calm waters of Lake Erie. Three hours later, a brutal storm hit. The next morning, Lawrence’s battered boat was found, but there was no Lawrence.

The Coast Guard said that the lake had been so rough that no man could have survived after going overboard. Lawrence was presumed dead, with everyone assuming that his body would eventually wash ashore. But it never did. Then, nearly eight years later, a man who looked suspiciously like Lawrence Bader turned up in Chicago, throwing everything everyone thought they knew about Lawrence and what happened on Lake Erie into question.

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