Canadian True Crime - The Murder of Ronald Platt

Episode Date: October 15, 2021

In 1996, a body washed up in a fishing net off the south coast of Devon in the UK. Through intrepid detective work, English police would link it back to a diabolical Canadian criminal who left an unbelievable trail of destruction behind in Southwestern Ontario.This is the story of the crimes of Albert Johnson Walker. If you recognize the name and think you know this case, stay tuned until the end. There has been an update from 2021...Look out for early, ad-free release on CTC premium feeds: available on Amazon Music (included with Prime), Apple Podcasts, Patreon and Supercast. Full list of resources, information sources, credits and music credits:See the page for this episode at www.canadiantruecrime.ca/episodes Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Canadian true crime is a completely independent production, funded mainly through advertising. The podcast often has coarse language and disturbing content, and it's not for everyone. This episode carries an additional content warning for themes of grooming and sexual assault of a minor. Some names have been changed out of respect for survivors. This case spills over into the UK, and that's where we'll start today's episode in the summer. of 1996. On July 28th, a commercial fishing trawler was preparing to pull up in the English Channel, off the south coast of Devon, a county in southwest England. As the net was pulled in, the fishermen noticed that something much bigger than a fish was coming in. Entangled in the net was a

human body. The Coast Guard was contacted immediately and the information was relayed to the Devon and Cornwall Police. There were no matching missing persons reports for the area, so originally the authorities thought the person must have either suffered an accident or had taken their own life. It was a coastal area and these things were not out of the ordinary. At autopsy, the forensic pathologist determined that the body belonged to a man aged between 40 to 50 years old, and from the level of decomposition, the body he had. had likely been in the water for around a week. The man was wearing a blue and white check shirt, a leather belt and green pants with the pockets pulled inside out, but there was no

identification on him. As for his cause of death, there were injuries on the body, including bruises on his left hip and lower leg and a large gash on the back of his head, which indicated he'd been hit with something heavy. But this wasn't what killed him. His lungs were full of water. It was determined that he had been beaten and then thrown in the ocean where he drowned. Despite the man having no identification,

there were several things that were potential clues. On the back of one of his hands was a unique tattoo of what looked like a cluster of stars. and on one of his wrists was a Rolex watch. One of the officers involved in the investigation knew a little bit about the luxury Rolex watch brand. This one was one of their oyster models worth thousands of dollars. They also have individual serial numbers

and Rolex keeps meticulous service records. So if they could track the serial number back, they might learn the identity of the man who was wearing the watch. Rolex in London was contacted and after six weeks looking into their file archives, it was 1996 after all, they tracked the watch back to the last place where it had been serviced and learned that the owner's name was Ronald Platt. His last known address was traced to Chelmsford near Essex, a location around four hours drive northeast from where his body had been discovered. Ronald Platt's next of kin, his brother, was contacted and a positive ID was easy to make. He was 51 years old, and that tattoo on his hand was not a cluster of stars.

It was actually the Canadian maple leaf. See, Ronald Platt was British, but had lived in Canada as a child, loved it, and had been back at least one more time. He was shy, kept only a small number of people. friends, was a bit of a loner by choice, and didn't keep in close contact with his family, which is why no one had reported him missing. Next for investigators was to keep digging into Ronald Platt's life to see what other people he'd been associating with recently. They got a hold of his rental records and found that he listed a man called David Davis as his reference when he applied to rent his house. And David Davis lived in the same general

area of Essex. There was a cell phone number listed with the name. The police called the number. David Davis picked up and was informed that Ronald Platt was now deceased. They wanted to know if David knew anything about what Ronald had been doing recently. He spoke with what sounded like an American accent and confirmed that he was friends with Ronald Platt but hadn't actually seen him for a few months. The last time they saw each other. other, Ronald was about to leave for France where he wanted to start an electronics business. As far as David Davis knew, that's where he still was, but he was cooperative and helpful and happy for them to contact him again if they needed to. And the police did. They wanted to

clarify a few things, so they just drove out to visit David Davis at the address listed. An elderly resident answered the door, and it was quickly established that there'd been some kind of confusion with the address, and the police had knocked on the neighbour's house instead. That neighbour pointed out the correct house, the one listed on the address, but said that there was no one called David Davis at that house anyway. That was the home of the Platt family, Ronald Platt, his young wife and their two young children, and they were all. still alive. Investigators were stunned. It seemed that there were now two Ronald Plats. There seemed to be far more than met the eye to this story, so they decided to look into a few

other things before circling back to this David Davis character. The police soon learned that Ronald Platt, the deceased Ronald Platt, had a former partner called Elaine. They were no longer together when he passed away, but their relationship had spanned more than a decade. Investigators contacted Elaine and gave her the news about Ronald Platt. She didn't know and was devastated to learn about her former partner's death. They discovered some more information about that maple leaf tattoo on his hand. Ronald Platt was obsessed with Canada, and when he and Elaine were together, they had actually moved there to start a new life.

Unfortunately, it didn't work out, which caused the death of their relationship. They parted ways and made their own way back to England individually. Elaine described Ronald as a quiet and shy man who was also warm and caring. Quote, he was calm, he was a very gentle fellow, he was just lovely. Out of the blue, the police asked her if she knew someone, called David Davis. She said yes. He was a semi-retired wealthy businessman from the United States. Maybe in his late 40s, early 50s, she'd known him for a few years and they had business interests together, and she'd spoken to him recently too. Elaine was very surprised to learn that the last

time she spoke with David Davis was after the police had informed him about Ronald's death, but he hadn't mentioned anything to her about it. This was the death of her former long-term partner after all, not just a business acquaintance. After Elaine hung up from the police, she called David Davis herself to tell him she'd just found out about Ronald. She was suspicious and wanted to see how he reacted. He jumped on a train straight away to see her,

apologetically telling her that he'd been saying prayers and shedding tears, for their friend. But Elaine called the police straight away to let them know there was more digging to be done when it came to David Davis. Something was not right here. The man had told investigators that Ronald had gone to France a few months back, but police found several witnesses who saw the two men together in that area of the south coast of Devon just a week or so before Ronald was estimated to have died. And self-fell found. phone record showed that David Davis' phone made a call from that same area during the same time. Now, the reason this is striking is because neither Ronald Platt nor David Davis lived anywhere

near Devon. They both lived in the area around four hours drive away near Essex. Bank records showed that for the last few years, all of David Davis's bills had been paid for with checks and credit cards, all signed by Ronald Platt, and some had been signed after Ronald's body had been pulled from the sea. It was time for the police to pounce. They waited at the train station to bring him in for questioning, but he didn't appear as they expected. So the next day they got a warrant and arrived back outside his house,

the correct house this time, ready to make an arrest. But as they were preparing to, to walk up to the front door, a taxi turned into the street, all of a sudden the front door of the house opened and a tall man ran out, held the taxi to stop and jumped into it. As the taxi sped off, the police cruiser turned its lights and siren on and before long the cab had pulled over. The 50-year-old man known as David Davis, an American finance executive, was arrested on suspicion of the murder of Ronald Platt. He was taken to the Chelmsford Police Station.

But the man still had a young family at home, a wife who was also American, and two children who were born in England, a six-month-old baby and a three-year-old. With their father at the station, an officer went to the house. The wife, Noel, was very attractive and clearly very young, perhaps 20 or 30 years younger than her husband.

but they seemed to have a fairly ordinary domestic life. But what wasn't so ordinary was when the officer watched Noel pack up a diaper bag that seemed unusually heavy. The officer searched it and found a hidden bounty. In it were 4,000 pounds in cash, worth about 11,000 Canadian dollars in today's currency, and there were also five gold bars which are said to have been worth around 25,000. dollars each at the time, and Noel's purse contained identification documents and credit cards in the name of Ronald Platt, as well as his former partner Elaine Boys. On the children's birth certificates, Ronald and Elaine were listed as their parents, and the family's

neighbors knew them as the Platt family, not the Davis family. But the police had already spoken to Elaine Boys, and the real Ron. Ronald Platt was confirmed dead. So who was this American family? David Davis was an alias and he wasn't Ronald Platt either, nor was he American. His name was actually Albert Johnson Walker and he was Canadian. He was born in the city of Hamilton, Ontario in 1945 and grew up in the small city of Paris in the same area of southwest. Western Ontario. Albert Walker was a high school dropout and ended up working in the library at the University

of Waterloo. In 1968 when he was 23, he met a university student there called Barbara and the couple were married just three months after they met. They settled in the town of air near Waterloo, but Albert struggled to find direction in his life, especially when it came to making a living. During the first 10 years of their marriage, Albert held down many different jobs. He was a management trainee at Zellas, a Canadian retail store that has since closed down. He tried his hand at being a labourer, a cattle herder and a life insurance salesman. He took a range of vocational courses at different universities, including

literary criticism, creative writing, computer training and business admin. but he reportedly never finished any of them. His wife Barbara's brother would later say to McLean's magazine, there was always some excuse why the job wasn't any good. It was getting to the point that there was no money coming in. Six years after Albert and Barbara were married, they started a family and over the next decade they would have four children, three daughters and a son.

They scraped their money together to buy a family home. The Growing Walker family attended Knox United Church, where Albert served as a youth counsellor, church elder, and Sunday school teacher. He was charming, professional and always well-dressed, and the family were known to be good church-going people. Albert's work fortunes turned around when he landed a good job at a bank, and after that he started doing customer tax returns in his own time. Before long, people at church started to learn about the service he was providing

and more and more business started to come his way. He saw an opportunity. He reinvented himself as a financial planner and turned his side hustle into a company, Walker Financial Services. Things were tight at first but Albert never looked back and was always looking to expand his business. In 1980, he purchased another bookkeeping operation to take under his wing. He opened more and more offices, and then he came up with a new idea.

He opened an offshore investment holding company on Grand Cayman, an island in the Caribbean, which he was offering as a potential investment opportunity and tax haven for his growing portfolio of clients. If they invested their money with him, he could guarantee them tax savings. By 1990, Albert's confidence has skyrocketed as high as his business was a success. But the opposite was happening to his family and his marriage, and things took a steep dive after he landed the biggest deal of his career so far.

He was asked to help church friends sell some large pieces of land, and he engineered a bidding war that got them a higher price. The deal was reportedly worth about $9 million. After this success, his church friends promptly turned over the proceeds to him to invest offshore for their retirement. But the problem was, he didn't. Dollar signs flashed in his eyes. This success should have been a milestone in his career, but his ego was now off the charts and he had developed exceptional.

expensive taste. Before long, he started embezzling money from other accounts he controlled and used it to buy flashy designer clothes, lavish business trips and a Jaguar sports car. Everyone assumed the business was that much of a success. He also started having affairs, which reportedly included the wife of a church minister as well as one of his employees. After a trip, he decided to fess up to his wife Barbara. With four children to consider, they decided to try counselling over a period of a few years, but it was no use. Albert was on a different path and the marriage had run its course.

He and Barbara agreed to separate. But Albert didn't want to play nice. After a prolonged custody battle, he secretly rented a home. home in Brantford, another small city in southwestern Ontario, and then he took his three youngest children for a trip to England. When he returned, he secretly moved all four children to the new home while Barbara was at work, essentially abducting them. He left no forwarding address and made sure his telephone number there was unlisted. Albert Walker really wanted to make his wife Barbara pay. For what?

Who knows? Barbara filed a custody suit and Albert filed a counterclaim before an upcoming custody and support hearing requesting custody of all four children. He provided supporting documentation for his custody request in the form of handwritten notes from the four children, stating that they would prefer to live with their father over their mother. The second eldest of the children, 15-year-old Sarah Walker, listed three. reasons for preferring her father over her mother. She would enjoy more freedom, fewer disagreements and more affection if she lived with her dad. It was a long and bitter custody battle and it wasn't over yet. And as the end of the year approached, family, church and business associates were becoming

suspicious. Large sums of money were going missing and none of Albert's explanations made any sense. Things came to a head in November of 1990 when Albert tried to push his way into Barbara's home and she called the police. He was charged with domestic trespassing and forcible entry and the custody matter was settled by splitting things right down the middle. The two older children, teenage girls, lived with Albert and the two younger children lived with Barbara.

Soon after this, Albert suddenly announced to Barbara that he had decided to take their second eldest daughter, 15-year-old Sarah, on an impromptu skiing holiday to Europe for two weeks. He dropped the oldest daughter with her mother and siblings and flew first class to London's Heathrow Airport with Sarah on December 5, 1990. But Albert and Sarah did not arrive home in Canada as scheduled,

and Barbara couldn't get hold of them. Frantic, she contacted the police with suspicions that her teenage daughter had been abducted by her father and taken to the UK. Feeling helpless, Barbara decided to take things into her own hands and hired private investigators to help look for Sarah. Albert had left them with next to no money, but her local community in Paris, Ontario, rallied together to hold fundraisers to help her pay for the private investigators. Sarah's disappearance was reenacted on a global TV show called Missing Treasures. But all search efforts were in vain. There was no trace of Albert nor Sarah. While Barbara never stopped hoping and fretting that one day she would see Sarah again,

she had to move on for the sake of her family. She had three other children to look after, to raise by herself. The Trail of Destruction, Albert Lerner, left for her to clean up, made a good case for divorce, which she was granted in his absence in 1993. By that point, several different policing agencies were involved in investigating the missing money from Albert Walker's accounts, including the RCMP Commercial Crimes Unit and the Ontario Provincial Police Anti-Racket Squad. There was a lot of money missing from the business and Barbara was devastated to learn that he had also taken out a second mortgage on the family home.

Albert Johnson Walker was now a wanted fugitive. It was exactly as he'd planned. When he flew out of Canada with his 15-year-old daughter, he knew it was a one-way ticket. He'd seen the writing on the wall. People would soon be asking questions about missing money. So in the months before they left, He ramped things up, stashing money and offshore accounts and converting cash to gold bars. He was preparing to disappear forever. And once the full extent of his fraud was realized, he and Sarah would be long gone and untraceable. Once they arrived in England, he manipulated her into believing they needed to assume new identities. Albert chose to use the name of David Davis, the name of a former client of,

his in Ontario. Sarah would be his daughter and her new name would be Noel. They rented a home in these new names and settled in the North Yorkshire region in the northern half of England. They kept to themselves generally except they always attended church. The reverend there would say that he found Albert to be a pretty helpful, pleasant guy who was supportive to others. Albert Walker was at an auction house not far from where he lived, and he met the receptionist there. He introduced himself as David Davis and said he was a semi-retired businessman from America. Her name was Elaine Boys. She would describe David Davis as very charming, very engaging, and they soon got to chatting

about their shared interest in art and antiques. They had a lot in common, and before. Forlonged the conversation moved on to their professional and personal lives. Elaine told him about her partner Ronald Platt, who was fond of Canada so much so that they were thinking about moving there one day. It was this piece of information that sparked an idea. Albert told Elaine about a new company he was starting, an investment firm called Cavendish Corporation,

and he might have a very well-paying job there for her. And if she saved that extra income, she might be able to make that Canada plan happen much sooner with her partner. Elaine was over the moon, and she introduced the man she knew as David Davis to her partner, Ronald Platt. David Davis proceeded to make them both a flattering but unexpected offer. He wanted them to be directors of the Cavendish Corporation and not him. When they inquired as to why, since they had no experience in that area, he told them that his ex-wife was a successful doctor who lived in New York City, but she was always after him for more alimony, so he just preferred to keep his own name off the paperwork.

David Davis was charming and charismatic and seemed so transparent with an answer to everything. Elaine and Ron would take this and all his other strange stories and explanations. at face value. Elaine's new job with the company was to travel around Europe looking for properties that might be good investments. As she went, Albert would give her money to deposit in his various offshore bank accounts. She likely thought this was money that would be used

to eventually buy the properties. But none was ever purchased. While Elaine Boyce thought she was doing her job, what she was actually doing was laundering money for Albert Walker, money he had stolen from his company and his clients back in Canada, money that they were still looking for. See, back in Canada, the estranged family that he left behind was still dealing with the fallout. Walker's Financial Services Inc. was declared bankrupt with $2.8 million in claims against it.

It would be determined that he had embezzled up to four million. dollars before taking Sarah and disappearing to England. And on his way out of Toronto, he purchased diamond jewelry worth some $12,000, leaving the bill for that behind in Canada too. Ontario police would charge Albert Walker in absentia with multiple counts of theft, fraud and money laundering, but they had to catch him first. He was now a high-profile fugitive, the most want to. man in Canada and number four in Interpol's Global Most Wanted list.

Albert Walker, posing as David Davis, had become friendlier with Elaine and her partner Ron since they were the directors of his new company. The couple were invited over for Christmas Day 1992 and David introduced them to his daughter, Noel. Elaine noted that Noel was shy and looked to her father for approval. The man they knew as David Davis did most of the talking. At that dinner, he handed Elaine and Ron an envelope and waited for them to open it. It was a Christmas card with a proposal inside.

He wanted to help them move to Canada and would purchase two airline tickets for them, but there was a catch. Elaine and Ron had to use them by the end of February. It was a pretty grand Christmas gift, but Elaine was worried that February was only two months away and she didn't know if they were ready yet. But Albert tuned in to his usual charisma to whip Elaine and Ron into a frenzy, extolling the virtues of the Great White North

and the golden opportunities that could be found there and reminding Ron that moving there was his goal anyway, his life's dream. Elaine would say he really sold the idea of Canada, so much so that they couldn't refuse. They talked about what would happen with Cavendish Corporation and Albert said he wanted them to remain directors of the company. How would that work if they were in Canada though? Albert had an answer for that as per usual.

He told them that it was standard business practice in these kind of situations for him to keep some kind of ID for them on record, like a driver's license or a birth certificate, and also to have rubber stamps made up of their signatures. So if anything needed to be signed by the company directors while they were in Canada, David Davis could just use the stamp in the UK, nothing to be concerned about, he said. Obviously what he was suggesting was forgery and fraud,

but his confidence and charisma were convincing. He was a gifted salesperson. And besides, Ron and Elaine's knowledge, about standard business practices wasn't extensive, so they took him at his word. So while the Canadian stayed in Britain, the Brits jumped on a plane to Canada. Ron Platt and Elaine Boys landed in Calgary in February of 1993. They were promptly greeted by a temperature of minus 40 degrees, a real Canadian experience right off the bat.

Elaine was not impressed, but there was no time for letting the weather get in their way. Immigration is a grind, and there was no time for acclimatization. They had to find jobs and a place to live as soon as possible. So why did Albert Walker suddenly and so desperately want Elaine and Ron shipped off to Canada as soon as possible? As it turns out, his daughter Sarah, who was by that point 18 years old, had just found out that she was pregnant. This threw a spanner in the works, both when it came to optics and when it came to needing proper medical attention.

Because the Noel Davis identity wasn't real, Sarah had no valid ID. They would need to steal someone else's. Albert manipulated Sarah into changing their cover story and posing as husband and wife moving forward. With a baby on the way, there would be less questions if they pretended to be a married couple. As soon as Ronald Platt and Elaine Boys left for Canada, Albert assumed Ronald's identity. He had the man's signature stamp, driver's licence and birth certificate after all. And while Sarah didn't assume Elaine's identity, she did use her ID documents to access medical care. With the real couple in Canada, Albert had free reign with their identities in England.

So, just like that, 47-year-old Albert Walker and his 18-year-old pregnant daughter Sarah had gone from posing as David Davis and his daughter Noel to Ron Platt and his wife Noel. Things were going great for Albert Walker. But in Canada, Elaine and Ron's new immigrant, life was much harder than they ever expected. They found the Calgary winter weather inhospitable. Elaine wasn't able to work in Canada and Ron found it difficult to secure steady employment. Elaine only lasted a few months. She always planned to fly back to England for her sister's wedding, but she decided she was going to stay. She wasn't coming back to Canada. Ron was devastated.

He understood her decision, but this was his big life stream. He loved Canada so much, he wanted to stay and keep trying to make it work there. The couple sadly parted ways. Albert Walker wasn't aware that Elaine had returned to England and was surprised when he ran into her at that sister's wedding. Elaine told him what had happened and that she wasn't going back to Canada. Albert was not happy. His plan for Sarah to use Elaine's identity would be in jeopardy if she was back in England.

And maybe now Ron would end up returning too. He tried to guilt trip Elaine to return to Canada. He told her that Ron was a nice guy. He deserved a second chance. Don't give up on your dreams. But Elaine wasn't having it. She confirmed that she would be staying in England. So Albert decided it was time for the family to,

to move, from North Yorkshire about four to five hours drive southwest to the Devon area, where they knew no one, where they could avoid running into a lane anymore. And a few months later, in September of 1993, 18-year-old Sarah gave birth to a baby. The baby's surname was Platt, and their parents were listed on the birth certificate as being Ronald Platt and Elaine Boys. While the family were living in Devon, Albert had purchased a 24-foot sailboat called the Lady Jane, which he kept moored in a local marina. But after a while, the family decided to up and move again, as is the hallmark of a life on the run. They moved about four hours drive northeast to the Essex area, where they rented a house in Ronald Platt's name.

According to a book by Bill Schiller on the case called A Hand in the Water, The Many Lies of Albert Walker, the sisters who owned the house that the family rented, lived close by and said they thought the pair they knew as Ron and Noel were pretty convincing as a married couple. They did notice that Ron was clearly old enough to be Noel's father. They chuckled at the too tight jeans he always wore and how he noticeably dyed his hair to cover the grays. But they also observed him to be an active father and attentive husband. He changed the diapers, did the cooking and cleaning, and played with the baby often, encouraging the baby to call him dada.

And when it came to the role of husband, the sisters recalled that Ron was quite romantic. He once made a big deal of showing them the ostentatious mahogany bed that he said he and Noel shared. They noted that he seemed to treat her very well, but she also seemed very subservient to him. According to Bill Schiller's book, Albert was highly manipulative and controlling when it came to Sarah. He had succeeded in skillfully removing her from her past life and home in Canada and created a, quote, tightly controlled present, one from which she could not escape and hopefully from which she would not wish to escape, provided he could make it attractive enough and exciting enough,

provided he could make her believe they were partners engaged in a common enterprise, but partners in a plan in which she would always defer to him. He made the plans. He set the rules. He was the mastermind capable of achieving anything, end quote. But just over a year later, Albert Walker's carefully constructed life was about to be threatened.

Ronald Platt, the real Ronald Platt, had run out of money. He had tried so hard to make it work in Canada. After a lane left, he'd stayed in Calgary for a while longer before bravely moving away, looking for work in other areas, including in British Columbia. But it just wasn't working. He couldn't sustain himself anymore and arrived back in England with no money to his name and nowhere to live.

The first thing he did was tracked down his sometime business partner and friend, David Davis. After all, the American businessman had always shown himself to be helpful and generous. What Ronald didn't know was that David Davis was a fake name and the guy had stolen his identity while he was in Canada. But Ronald Platt trusted him implicitly, and as expected, David Davis generously. agreed to help Ronald set himself up in England again, in Reading, a town about 90 minutes drive away from where he lived. But while Albert was good at pretending to be someone else, he was not happy about this situation. He had been using Elaine and Ronald's identities for medical care to put on birth certificates and other records to launder money. He'd even

reinvented himself as a personal counsellor or therapist. and had opened an office in the nearby village under Ronald Platt's name. But now the real Ronald was back, and while he didn't live in the same area, he was close enough that Albert would need to tread carefully for a while and see how things shook out. But the problem worsened when Ronald started experiencing problems at work. He quit his job and moved to Chelmsford only about 20 minutes drive away

from where Albert Walker lived with his family. David Davis signed on to be guarantor at the new home too. According to later media reporting, it seemed that Albert kept up the pretences, continuing to help Ronald Platt get his life back together while also continuing to assume his identity. But behind the scenes, he was plotting. That December, 1995,

Albert planned a celebration to mark five years living in England. That's five years since he became an international fugitive, abducted his teenage daughter, and manipulated her into posing as his wife. He gave 20-year-old Sarah five gold bars to mark the anniversary. He showered her with attention and praised her for her loyalty and commitment. Sarah was also heavily pregnant with her second child. child at the time. A few weeks later, Albert invited Ronald Platt to spend Christmas Day with

their family, the Davis family. Ronald had been in Canada when they switched from posing as father and daughter to husband and wife, and it's not known what they told Ronald about the fact that they now had a child and Sarah was pregnant with another, but given Albert's history, it was likely a convincing story. Sarah would say that Ron had been depressed since he returned to England. It was clear to everyone how utterly devastated he was that his lifetime dream of permanently moving to Canada had not worked out. That Christmas day of 1995 was the last time Sarah would see the real Ronald Platt in person. A month later, she gave birth to another baby who was again given the surname Platt. The neighbours commented that

the baby looked just like the man they knew as her husband, Ron. By that point, Albert had realized that Ronald needed to be eliminated. There was only room for one Ronald Platt in their lives, and he was starting to formulate a plan involving his sailboat. The Lady Jane was conveniently stoole-mored at a marina on the South Devon coast, hours away from the area where they all currently lived. At the police station, after David Davis's arrest, investigators had separated him and his young wife, Noel. They wanted to know why she had thousands of dollars of cash and gold bars in a diaper bag,

as well as several pieces of identification that didn't belong to her. And the age difference was glaringly obvious. It was clear from how they presented that they were trying to make it look less obvious, but there was no mistaking that Noelle was a young-looking 21, and her husband couldn't pass for much younger than 50. There was much more to this story here, clearly. So police continued to ask Noel pointed questions about her husband and their relationship, historical questions that she didn't have the answers to. Having to invent new lies on the fly flustered her. As the questions got more and more nitpicky, she finally broke down and admitted that

David Davis, the man they had arrested, was not her husband, but her father. Investigators asked her who the father of the children was and she would not tell them. She also wouldn't give a proper explanation for why she had Elaine's identification, only to say that she used it to get medical treatment when she was pregnant. By this point, investigators were starting to think that David Davis was not a real person, but an assumed identity, but they needed more information. They continued on what would be a massive investigation, starting with a search of the family home where this Davis family lived.

There they found thousands of pounds in Swiss francs. There was also around 17 gold bars, valuable artwork, various keys to lockers and prepaid credit cards. They went through piles of papers and receipts, spending hours and hours pouring over the minute details for anything that might be a lead or a clue. Their hard work paid off. They found a receipt for a marine fishing store called Sport Nortique, located along the same south. Devon Coastline where Ronald Platt's body had been recovered. The receipt was paid for by Ronald Platt's credit card, but it was what was printed on that receipt that gave them their next lead. There were seven items purchased, including an anchor. Quick-thinking investigators went back to

the fishermen who found the body to ask if they also found an anchor. And they did, but they didn't notice it until the following day and didn't connect it with the body. Investigators took the anchor and sent it for forensic testing and then paid a visit to the Marine store to ask about the purchase. The shop owner remembered it in vivid detail because the customer was a tall, charming American man and his request was a bit strange. He just wanted the anchor, not the chain, and the anchor he wanted was only about. half the size needed to more his 24-foot sailboat. And besides, why would anyone want an anchor without a chain to connect it to a boat? They soon had an answer. The forensic pathologist placed the anchor

next to Ronald Platt's leg and compared the anchor's shape with the patterns of bruises and gashes. It was a clear match. Ronald's leather belt was tested and it was found to have had trace of the same zinc coating on the anchor. And there were traces of the leather belt on the anchor too. What this evidence suggested was that after being hit in the back of the head with the anchor, it had been attached to Ronald's waistband before he was thrown into the English Channel, with the intention of it sending the body straight to the ocean floor. And it might not have ever been discovered unless the body and anchor were swept up

in fishing nets just a week later. So with this, police knew that Ronald Platt's death was a murder, not a suicide and not an accident. Next was to find out who was responsible. Investigators hired an expert who concluded the currents in the English Channel were not strong enough to have carried a body weighed down with an anchor. The conclusion was that the body had been found right where it had been dumped. in a specific area along the South Devon coastline.

And it wasn't long before investigators discovered that the Davis family sailboat, the Lady Jane, was kept moored at that same general location. What a coincidence. They seized the boat for forensic investigation looking for evidence that Ronald Platt had been on it. With their effective use of intelligent investigation tactics, It wasn't long before they did.

There was a plastic bag from Sport Nortique there, tying it with that receipt. Investigators located all of the other six items purchased from the store that day on the boat. Everything was there except the anchor. The plastic bag itself was sent for forensic testing, along with samples of hair and blood that had been found on a cushion on the boat. The fingerprint belonged to the same. to Ronald Platt, as did the blood and the hair. So Ronald Platt had been on David Davis's boat,

but now they needed to connect it with the time of his murder. Location and timing was everything. Investigators checked the boat's GPS system to see where it had been and discovered that the last time the boat had been turned off, it was July 20th. And the location the boat was at was less than. than four nautical miles away from the spot where Ronald Platt's body was pulled up a week later. And that Rolex watch that he'd been wearing came in very handy yet again.

It was a wind-up watch that was designed to run for an average of 40 hours, before it stopped and needed to be wound up again. According to the book Forensic Human Identification and Introduction by Tim Thompson, when investigators looked at the watch, the time read 1130 with the date reading July 22nd. That's when the watch stopped. So the last time it was wound up was 40 hours before then, which put the date at July 20th.

So Ronald Platt's body went in the water at around the same time and location that David Davis's boat was there too. Investigators now needed to place David Davis himself on that boat too. They spoke with Noel about what she remembered about that summer of 1996. She told them that they had actually been on vacation there at the time, along the South Devon Coast, and her father had been with her the whole time except for one day, and that day he told her he was going solo sailing on the Lady Jane. She said he was gone all day and arrived home.

home late. He seemed nervous and discombobulated. Investigators knew they were getting close to something. If Noel could just remember what the date was or even the day, but she couldn't. She did remember something, though. As she waited for her father to return home that night, she remembered watching the opening ceremony of the Atlanta Olympic Games. Investigators checked the TV schedule, and what do you know, it was July 20, 1996, the same day. In the meantime, the police had taken the fingerprints of the man they had in custody, the man who told them his name was David Davis. While Noel had fessed up and told them that they were father and daughter, she hadn't given them any more information than that.

To their surprise, the fingerprints matched those of the most wanted men. man in Canada, the fourth most wanted man on Interpol's global list. His name was Albert Johnson Walker. The man had defrauded his family, his business, his clients and his church, and fled with his teenage daughter six years beforehand. Albert had been so successful that he'd managed to evade several police agencies in Canada and no one in England was able to figure out who they were. It was only only because of Albert's careless mistakes with Ronald Platt that he'd been found out. Investigators called Albert Walker's ex-wife Barbara in Canada to give her the good news. They had finally found her daughter in the UK.

Barbara got straight on a plane to England for a reunion with her daughter and to meet her two new grandkids. The question of who their father was was being asked by everyone. Barbara was quoted in McLean's magazine saying that she and Sarah didn't discuss it at all. Quote, at this point, I'm not in a position to say, we just don't know. She did say that her only priority was to bring Sarah and the kids home to Canada, which she did. After the news came out about this twisted Canadian story, there was widespread shock and disbelief in both England and Canada. In Canada, those in southwestern Ontario who had known Albert as a church-going family man before he vanished,

couldn't believe that the man they knew was responsible for all of this. And back in England, the neighbours and locals in the village where Albert and Sarah lived couldn't believe the story that was unfolding. Once they discovered the couple they thought were husband and wife, were actually father and daughter, and they had two young children. Police wanted to see if there were any additional charges that needed to be laid on Albert Walker. The investigation was massive, with a large team of investigators taking hundreds of statements and seizing more than a thousand potential exhibits,

and they believed there was a lot more hidden that needed to be accounted for. But Canada was eyeing things too. Albert Walker was sought by both the RCMP, the OPP and Interpol on charges of frauding 30 Canadians out of millions of dollars. His bankruptcy trustees were keen to have him back too, as were all the people that he ripped off, who included a large group of unsuspecting seniors from church. But he needed to be tried in British court for the murder of Ronald Platt before he could return to Canada and face the consequences. consequences of his fraudulent acts there. In 1998, the trial was held in Exeter, a city in the county of Devon. Albert Johnson Walker pleaded not guilty to the murder of Ronald Platt.

The defense's case was that Ronald Platt had taken his own life that day, because he was depressed after he'd failed to make it work in Canada. Albert Walker would testify in his own defense. But first, the Crown presented expert testimony of 55 witnesses and hundreds of exhibits to prove their case, which was this. Albert Johnson Walker had been defrauding people in Canada to fund his increasingly lavish lifestyle. As his world started crumbling and people started asking questions, he stole more than $3 million from his company, abducted his 15-year-old daughter, and flew to England. Their Davis family alias was good at first, but they had no actual pieces of identification to back it up. So Albert was thrilled when an opportunity dropped on his lap in the

form of Elaine Boys and Ron Platt, a couple who clearly wanted to move to Canada. He thought if he helped them do that, he could manipulate them into giving over their identification, and then when they were gone, he would be able to assume their identities. When things didn't work out and they each returned, Albert Walker tried to make things work for a while, but the threat of there being to Ronald Platt's in England, the threat to his house of lies was too great. The court heard that Ronald had returned to haunt Albert and needed to be eliminated. The evidence showed that what likely happened was during that family holiday to the South Devon coast, on the day that Albert told Sarah he was going sailing by himself, he actually asked Ronald to come out on the boat.

Through expert testimony, the jury heard that once the boat was about four to six nautical miles off the coast, Albert grabbed the anchor, hit Ronald from behind with it, tied it to his unconscious body and threw him in the English Channel to drown. Ronald's hair and blood were found on the boat, and the bruises on his legs matched exactly where the anchor would have banged up against him. It would have been a perfect plan had his body not been dredged up by fishing nets a week later. And because Albert made the mistake of not removing Ronald's Rolex watch, investigators had a head start on finding out who it belonged to, since Ronald was a man who kept to himself and hadn't

been reported missing. His distinctive maple leaf tattoo would have also provided a unique identifier had the Rolex not been present. For the Crown's case, the only potential barrier to a guilty verdict was that there were no witnesses to the crime. No one saw Ronald Platt on the Lady Jane, let alone on the day he died. But they had other evidence. Those witnesses who saw Ronald and Albert together in Devon the week before Ronald was determined to have died. There were also cell phone records that showed Albert made calls

from the same area that Ronald Platt's body was found during the same time period that he would have entered the water. And police discovered that Albert had been paying his bills using Ronald Platt's checks and credit cards and continued to do so after Ronald's body had been recovered. And there was something else. Sarah had been flown back to England to testify against her father. The 22-year-old told the court about the day during their vacation

that Albert went out sailing by himself and returned home late. It was put to her that she must have known that Albert was going sailing with Ronald, but she insisted that she didn't. What she did know was that Ron couldn't swim, didn't like water and didn't like boats. The question was asked a number of different ways and she did not falter. She maintained that she had no idea that Ronald was there that day. When asked if she thought Ronald Platt may have taken his own life, Sarah said no, although she did acknowledge that he seemed depressed six months earlier when she last saw him at the Christmas dinner. She shocked everyone when she told the court that her father had phoned her from prison and

begged her not to testify. He wanted her to change her story and lie to the court, but she refused. She had now realized that she was one of his victims. She told the court that he used hypnosis techniques to get her to do what he wanted. She was angry. She was angry. Certainly she was under coercive control, which wasn't a criminal offence in England then unless accompanied by a crime, but coercive control is a criminal offence now. It's a strategic pattern of acts of assault, threats, humiliation and intimidation or other abuse that's used to harm, punish or frighten someone. The goal is to make them dependent by isolating them from support, exploiting them, depriving them of independence and regulating their everyday behaviour.

This is exactly what happened to Sarah. When Albert Walker took to the stand, the 52-year-old admitted that he was a thief, a liar and a fugitive, but he denied murdering Ronald Platt. He said, quote, Ron Platt was a very nice person, I have no reason in the world to ever kill him or ever harm him. Albert Walker expected the jury to believe whatever he insisted was true.

After all, most other people had. As you'll remember, when investigators first tracked Albert down as he was posing as David Davis, he told them the last time he'd seen Ronald Platt was several months earlier just before his friend moved to France to start a business. Now on the stand, Albert Walker told a different story. about that summer of 1996 when he was on vacation with Sarah and the kids on the South Devon coast, where their sailboat was moored. Albert admitted that Ronald Platt happened to be staying in a nearby village, and he asked him to help sail the Lady Jane up the coast, closer to the

Essex area where they all lived. But it didn't happen, Albert told the court, because when they set out, Ronald banged his head and got sick. They didn't go out again together, and two days after that, which Albert said was July the 11th, Ronald upped and left for France to start that business. Now, the evidence showed that Ronald likely died on July 20th, the day that Sarah testified Albert told her he was going sailing himself.

Albert was asked about that testimony and insisted he had told, Sarah the truth. He had gone sailing that day and he was alone. Ronald's body was recovered by fishermen eight days after that. Now, as the evidence had rolled out and the court heard how Albert Walker and Sarah Walker had started posing as husband and wife, and then Sarah gave birth to two children who called him dad, brows around the courtroom started to furrow. Could Albert Walker have fathered his daughter's two children? It was a giant elephant in the room, but it wasn't addressed in either Albert's testimony or Sarah's. This was by design. At different points in the lead-up to the trial, the Crown had discussed potentially charging

Albert Walker with incest, under legislation now called the Sexual Offences Act, which makes it illegal to have sexual relations with an immediate family member. But it was decided that charges like that would overcomplicate things and muddy the water in Albert's murder trial. When Albert testified, he was only asked the very carefully worded question of why he and Sarah had started posing as husband and wife initially. His answer was that Sarah had become pregnant and she was somewhat embarrassed to be a pregnant unmarried girl, so they posed as husband and wife. That was about as far as questioning around the issue went.

And it was probably for the best. When it comes to a charge like this where there are children who are innocent victims and their mother was also a victim under coercive control, pursuing an incest charge is probably going to do more net harm than net good. especially since the one under investigation had already been charged with murdering someone else. Albert Johnson Walker was found guilty by a British jury of murdering Ronald Joseph Platt. The judge described the murder as carefully planned and cunningly executed with chilling efficiency.

He spoke directly to Albert Walker. You are a plausible, intelligent and ruthless man who poses a serious threat, to anyone who stands in your way. He was sentenced to 25 years in prison. Ronald Platt's former partner Elaine Boys attended the trial every day. Even though the whole moving to Canada fiasco had caused them to separate,

she still obviously had a lot of affection for him. She was quoted in McLean's magazine saying that Ronald was a kind, honest and gentle man and she couldn't find the words to express her horror that his life was taken by a so-called friend that they both trusted. Back in Canada, Albert Walker's estranged family were relieved that he'd been found guilty in England and would be staying there. If he'd been found not guilty,

he would have been extradited back to Canada to face his million-dollar fraud charges there, and they didn't want him back. But seven years later, the former fugitive made headlines again in 2005. It was announced that he was being transferred back to Canada to serve out the remainder of his sentence. The family were beside themselves. Sarah, who was by that time 29 years old,

spoke out for the first time outside court to a local TV station in Kitchener, Ontario. She said she was shocked that her father, was allowed to return home and believed it posed a threat to her family that she needed to protect them from. No one consulted her about the transfer and she was left feeling powerless. Appearing as a silhouette to protect her visual identity, Sarah said that she'd tried to put the whole ordeal behind her, but it just keeps resurfacing. The media took the opportunity again to ask her about her children, but she refused to disdise.

discuss them and asked for privacy. There were some disturbing details included in Bill Schiller's book, A Hand in the Water. The author, who was a Toronto star correspondent based in the UK, spent a year researching and writing the book. He interviewed Albert Walker in prison four times, as well as many other people who knew the family, in Canada and in the UK. The question of paternity was carefully danced around in this book too. But it did say that after Albert was first arrested and police thought

he was David Davis, they found erotic lingerie and photographs in the house that he shared with Sarah that were, quote, of a kind one would not normally expect between father and daughter. The author tracked down a person who knew the pair when they first arrived in the UK, when they were still posing as father and daughter duo David and Noel Davis. The person said that Albert shared a bedroom with his 15-year-old daughter and she appeared to be under his spell. The book also mentions some other disturbing incidents with the Walker family before Albert abducted Sarah and fled to England.

Just a year before that, her mother Barbara caught Albert and Sarah, then 14, in bed together, but she wasn't clear if what she saw was just horsing around, or if it was something more concerning. She approached it with her daughter carefully, warning her about older men in general, and the tricks they might try on a teenager. She then opened the floor in case Sarah had anything to talk about. Barbara noted that Sarah didn't say anything else or mention anything about her father. The next year was the custody battle, where Sarah wrote a note listing why she preferred her father over her mother.

At that point, Sarah was 15 years old, and part of the note read, quote, My father shows me a lot of affection on a regular basis, and we are very close. The book also mentions and confirms two disturbing details that Barbara did not find out until years later. One is that Albert had helped Sarah to access birth control when she was just 15. And before that, he had helped their eldest daughter, Sarah's older sister,

to get breast implants when she was just 16 years old. When Albert Walker was transferred back to Canada, it meant the authorities there could push ahead with his fraud charges, finally. While Albert had tried to minimize and dismiss the damage he'd caused to the people he defrauded, making out that it wasn't that bad, several had come forward to refute that. Others were too scared, too shame to come forward. Many of the people he stole money from were from church, where he was able to hide in plain sight by posing as an affable and trustworthy father

of an ordinary church-going family. McLean's magazine spoke with several of the victims. A 74-year-old farmer lost $70,000 thanks to Albert's investment scams. He said that he was heartbroken at the time. Quote, He knew how to play you, the dirty jerk. Another man came forward with the story of his mother

who owned a successful tax and bookkeeping company that she was trying to sell. She had received a really good offer, but Albert Walker swooped in and offered her more, which she accepted. But he took the business under his wing and never paid up. She ended up losing everything, declaring bankruptcy and was devastated. Other victims had breakdowns and ongoing mental health issues. Albert was described as self-serving, deceptive and callous.

In 2007, Albert Johnson Walker was convicted in Canadian, in court of 20 fraud and theft charges. He was sentenced to an additional four years in prison to run concurrent to his life sentence for murder. Not much happened for the next 12 or so years as Albert continued to serve his sentence in Canada. The case was high profile with books written including by his ex-wife Barbara. Many of the books are now out of print, but there was also a TV movie documentaries and even a theatrical play. In 2015, he applied for parole but dropped it in advance of the hearing. The family must have been relieved. But six years later, in July of this year, 2021, he applied again. The London Free Press reported on what happened at the parole hearing, where the board

assessed his understanding of the crimes he'd committed and whether he understood his risk factors for re-offending. When it came to the crimes of fraud and theft, the board asked Albert to describe what led to these crimes and he said his biggest risk factor at the time was insecurity and the need for love and affection from others. When the board asked about his crime cycle, he told them he didn't have one. And when he spoke about the many victims of his fraud, he minimised their pain and suffering still, claiming that none of them actually went bankrupt, which was categorically not true.

This and other comments led the board to conclude that he lacked remorse and didn't have a sound understanding of how his actions affected those he stole from. He was also asked to go over the murder of Ronald Platt. As you'll remember, he had always denied killing him, or even having Ronald on the boat that day. But at the parole hearing just a few months ago, he told a different story. Albert Walker told the parole board that he had considered a plan to kill Ronald Platt on his boat and dump the body, but he couldn't follow through with it.

So instead, he decided to take Ronald on his boat and offer him a lump sum of money. He was going to tell Ronald that there would be no more money after that and then cut off contact. But Albert said once he got Ronald on the boat and gave him the cash, he decided to tell him about the cancelled plan to murder him. But Albert told the parole board that Ronald instead got angry and retaliated and Albert was knocked unconscious. Albert said that when he came to, Ronald Platt was in the water for some reason trying to to get back into the boat. Albert said he prevented him from getting back on board until he realized that Ronald had actually drowned. So he went into the water, retrieved the wad of cash out of

Ronald's pocket, and then weighed the body down with an anchor so it would sink. When questioned about why there was a new version of the story now instead of at trial, he told the board that it was because of his failing memory. The board didn't buy it. Albert Johnson Walker was denied both day and full parole, and today remains in prison in British Columbia. Thanks for listening, and special thanks to Deirdre Bradley for research and writing assistance. As well as court documents and news archives,

this episode relied on the journalism of Darcy Jenish for McLean's magazine and excerpts of the book Hand in the Water by Bill Shilling. For the full list of resources for each episode and anything else you need to know about the podcast, visit canadian truecrime.ca.com. Well, that's it for this week. Thank you so much for your kind ratings, reviews, messages and support. Thanks also to the host of True for voicing the disclaimer and we talk of dreams who compose the theme song.

I'll be back soon with a new Canadian True Crime story. you then.