John Doe: mastermind or troubled mind?

Federal agents believe they may be close to cracking the true identity of "John Doe," the enigmatic everyman whose tangle of past names and brushes with the law have left them wondering whether he's a calculating criminal or merely disturbed.

"He's clearly hiding from something, whether it's from crime or something in his head," said Special Agent Joseph Velling, an investigator with the Social Security Administration's Office of Inspector General. "This has been going on for decades."

Doe, who is believed to be in his 40s or early 50s, was arrested last week after a five-month investigation and is being held at the SeaTac Federal Detention Center on multiple charges of Social Security fraud, mail fraud and aggravated identity theft.

He's charged under the name "John Doe" because agents still aren't sure who he really is.

Velling said Doe has a talent for disappearing into someone else's identity, which has made untangling his true identity difficult.

The FBI began looking into the case nearly five months ago and agents only now think they might — and Velling emphasizes "might" — know who he is.

"We believe he may have been in the Air Force and we're awaiting documents from St. Louis," where the national military archives are located.

"He is a little bit of a savant, to tell you the truth," said Velling, who has investigated fraud and identity theft for more than a decade. "It's hard to remember anything quite like this."

So far, Velling said Doe apparently has adopted the identities of at least five dead people and was in the process of gathering at least two other identities from deceased men in British Columbia and Saskatchewan, Canada.

He has lived in Massachusetts, Washington, Oregon, Colorado, Wyoming and Idaho and has criminal convictions, in a variety of names, in several of those states, Velling said.

For each name, he would assume aliases. Velling said he's had to build a flowchart and time line just to keep up with them all. And, for every name, John Doe would gather dozens of pieces of identification, including multiple drivers' licenses and Social Security cards.

One name he used is Blake Matthew Desmond, who has an active warrant in King County for forgery issued in 1998.

And to complicate matters further, Velling said, it appears that Doe would sometimes adopt an identity, obtain Social Security cards and driver's licenses in that name, only to go to court and have that name legally changed. He's done that in Washington and Oregon, Velling said.

Blake Desmond, for example, used to be Bernard O'Daly in Boston. Doe apparently changed the name after moving west.

It's under the Desmond identity that he was caught in 1998 trying to alter his fingerprints while applying for a concealed-handgun permit in Seattle.

According to Velling and evidence presented in court, Doe first attempted to obliterate the prints by painting a substance over his fingertips. When that failed, he used some sort of acid to try to burn them off.

He was caught and charged in King County Superior Court with perjury and giving a false statement, according to Velling and court records.

In 1993, Doe — using another identity — was interviewed by the Secret Service after making threats against then-President Clinton, Velling said. Agents found and confiscated a homemade flamethrower, according to federal prosecutors.

And agents are also looking into his possible involvement in a Web site that Velling described as a "sort of eBay or Craigslist for criminals."

Next week, Velling and the FBI will seek another search warrant for permission to go through a computer and hard drive taken from a windowless, dirty and cluttered 10-by-12 room on Queen Anne Avenue that Doe rented for $75 a month.

On Friday, the room was open and a recumbent bicycle sat amid papers, open food containers, dirty clothes and trash illuminated by a flickering fluorescent light. Work benches piled with junk, papers and a computer monitor sit along three of its walls.

A copy of a March 13 FBI search warrant was on the floor, along with a short list of what agents took: miscellaneous receipts and documents, a "vehicle report," a Dell computer and hard drive and a Kel-Tec .380-caliber handgun.

The case came to the attention of the FBI in November, when the Royal Canadian Mounted Police asked agents to go to the address on Queen Anne Avenue to interview a man who had tried to obtain a copy of a British Columbia birth certificate for a person named Dwayne Spill.

The name "D.A. Spill" was on the mailbox, but the person who answered the door — Doe — identified himself as Robert Allan Lowe.

The agents were suspicious and their investigation eventually turned up licenses issued in other names but listing that address. The FBI released a number of those photographs Friday.

All of the licenses showed Doe, although in some of the photos the balding Doe appears to be wearing a wig.

Linda Seravo, a masseuse who rents an office across the hall, said she knew the man only as "Robert" and said he rarely spoke even though they worked across the hall from one another for at least five years.

"Every time I'd see him in the halls, he'd sort of put his head down and walk faster," she said. "He was always alone."

Even though the room is supposed to be office space only — the toilets are down the hall — Seravo said Doe had been sleeping on the floor of the cluttered and noisome room.

Hedy West, the wife of the building's former landlord, said Doe was quiet and paid his rent on time. She had heard that he might be living in the room about a year ago, she said, and warned Doe about it.

"Sometimes he would sort of just appear behind you and start talking," she said. "It would startle me. Sometimes, I was scared."

She said her husband, Curtis West, said Doe told him he designed aircraft parts.

"I'd find piles of drawings in the hallway. They'd sit there until I'd haul them away," Curtis West said.

Mike Carter: 206-464-3706 or mcarter@seattletimes.com