Runaway Joe

An investigation into one of the oldest unsolved cases on the FBI's books, spanning six decades and the Atlantic Ocean.

1967. Rochester, New York.

At his son's fifth birthday party, Joseph Maloney was alleged to have poisoned his wife. While awaiting trial in the psychiatric wing of a Rochester hospital, he escaped and vanished.

Years later, a charming stranger calling himself Michael O'Shea surfaced in Dublin.

Claiming roots in the west of Ireland, he married a local woman and sold his garage business to buy a grand country estate.

For years he lived as a country gentleman and worked at the pinnacle of Ireland's film industry—until a US extradition treaty exposed his true identity.

Arrested in 1985, Maloney escaped justice again when his trial collapsed on a technicality. He fled Ireland, leaving US and Irish investigators clueless as to his whereabouts—until an RTÉ Documentary on One podcast picked up his trail decades later.

Runaway Joe is the story of a man who reinvented himself with chilling ease—a portrait of a remorseless manipulator whose acts left devastation across continents.