Man ‘Dead’ 15 Years Resurfaces as Civic Leader

GALVESTON, Texas —  Elizabeth Welsh had lived almost 15 years as a widow. She’d had no reason to doubt that her husband, shamed by an embezzlement conviction, had made good on promises to kill himself.

But there in her hands was a Social Security Administration demand that she repay the survivor benefits awarded her two sons after Patrick Welsh disappeared from Lancaster, Ohio, in 1983.

Especially startling was the reason: Checked off was the box for “Number holder not deceased.”

Fearing someone was using her dead husband’s Social Security number, Welsh checked around on the Internet. What she found was even more inconceivable--Patrick Welsh was living in Galveston as Tim Kingsbury, esteemed community leader.

So she sent “Tim Kingsbury” an e-mail:

“I know. Call me to discuss this matter.”

She signed it “Peachie,” her nickname since childhood.

Then she followed up with a phone call.

“I knew this day would probably come,” Patrick Welsh told her. “I just never knew it would be you who would find me.”

At KGBC-AM, a little radio station on this Gulf Coast island, humanitarian awards cover the wall of General Manager Kingsbury’s office. “In recognition of deeds showing deep concern for others,” reads one.

But the wall of honor was built on a foundation of lies that has crumbled. Patrick Welsh, 50, who as Kingsbury served on the boards of the island’s most prestigious organizations, is jailed in Ohio, charged with failing to provide financial support to the sons he abandoned, now young men.

As he awaits trial, the friends he deceived and the family he abandoned struggle to come to terms with the exposed secret.

“I feel for the Tim Kingsbury I know,” says John Tindel, president of the Galveston Chamber of Commerce, on whose board Kingsbury sat. “I’m praying for him--and for Pat Welsh.”

For Welsh’s former wife, the relief of knowing her ex-husband is alive has been mixed with anger over his deception.

“The biggest burden I lived with for 15 years was that someone said he loved me so much that he killed himself for me,” Elizabeth Welsh says. “I was thrilled he was alive. But exceptions have been made for Pat Welsh all his life. He has some very big debts to pay.”

*

Patrick Welsh disappeared Jan. 21, 1983--”a normal day,” Elizabeth Welsh recalls.

That morning he kissed his wife, said goodbye to 10-year-old Ted and 8-year-old Chris, and headed to work at the public relations department of Lancaster-Fairfield Community Hospital.

He never showed up for dinner.

Days later, a letter arrived. Welsh wrote that he planned to kill himself and hadn’t wanted his wife to find his body at home.

“He said he just couldn’t face life knowing he had ruined so many people’s lives,” she says. “He said he would look down on the boys from heaven.”

Elizabeth Welsh believed he was despondent over his 1980 conviction for embezzling $23,000 from Ohio State University, where he worked as a fund-raiser. He still owed thousands in restitution when he disappeared.

After several weeks, a second letter came. Welsh told his wife he’d finally found the courage “to kill the devil that was living” in him.

Elizabeth Welsh divorced him later that year. In 1988, she had him legally declared dead, entitling her sons to $100,000 in Social Security and life insurance benefits.

As the Welsh family got on with their lives, Patrick Welsh built a new one.

*

Tim Kingsbury arrived in Galveston by bus and stayed when his money ran out, says Vandy Anderson, his friend and employer at KGBC.

He lived off charity until landing a public relations job at the Galveston Historical Foundation. Last year, he was elected foundation president.

Anderson, who hired Kingsbury in 1995 as general manager at KGBC, says his friend built a life in Galveston around volunteerism. He worked with the Rotary Club, United Way, the Boy Scouts and the Chamber of Commerce. “He really developed into a true community leader,” Anderson says.

Kingsbury’s personal life also blossomed. Ten years ago, he moved in with Anderson’s sister, Ann; she declined to be interviewed.

For a decade, life was grand. Then in February 1996, a KGBC worker told authorities Kingsbury was using what appeared to be forged documents. A search revealed a fake Wisconsin birth certificate, blank Social Security cards and press-on lettering sheets.

Kingsbury confessed.

“He told us his life story,” Anderson says. “He said he had left his family and started a new life here.” Welsh told Anderson he’d been embarrassed about the theft and “felt his family would be better off without him.”

After contacting his probation officer in Ohio and paying $10,000 to Ohio State, Welsh pleaded guilty in December 1996 to forgery.

Given probation again, he was ordered to surrender all documents bearing the name Tim Kingsbury and contact Social Security to clear up any earnings discrepancies.

He did all that and even obtained a Texas driver’s license under his real name. But Welsh continued to live in Galveston as Tim Kingsbury, and most people never knew the truth--until Elizabeth Welsh pressed charges.

*

Elizabeth Welsh, 49, president of the Newark-Licking County Chamber of Commerce in Ohio, tracked her husband to the state of Texas late last year with help from her local congressional office.

Using a database of driver license information and searching the Internet for news articles, Welsh found Tim Kingsbury. She says she decided to press charges of nonsupport and abandonment after learning that her ex-husband sat on the board of a women’s crisis center.

“That was my line in the sand,” she says, “because he had abandoned his own children.”

Welsh was arrested Jan. 30 and extradited to Ohio, where he remains jailed in lieu of $300,000 bond on the nonsupport charges and two counts of fraud. He faces 19 years in prison and thousands of dollars in fines and could be forced to reimburse the money paid to his sons.

Tim Welsh, one of Welsh’s 10 brothers and sisters, says the family is ready to welcome him back despite the years of lies and deception.

“We’re just darn glad he’s not dead,” he says.