RedHanded - Episode 41 - How Not to Fake Your Death: John Darwin - Canoe Man

Episode Date: April 12, 2018

Dying is easy, coming back is hard. In 2002 John Darwin took his red, handmade canoe out to sea and disappeared. He was eventually declared dead, but 5 years later in 2007 he walked into a police station claiming to have no memory of the past half decade. How had John Darwin vanished? And why had he come back? Audio mastered by Conrad Hughes   See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. They say Hollywood is where dreams are made. A seductive city where many flock to get rich, be adored, and capture America's heart. But when the spotlight turns off, fame, fortune, and lives can disappear in an instant. Follow Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Hannah. I'm Saruti. And welcome to this week's Red Handed. We're going to talk about a case which was a really big deal in the UK. I certainly remember it being in the news. But for our international friends, it might be new to you. Fair warning, there's going to be a lot of canoe

chat. Be prepared. More than usual. More canoe chat than the average episode. You asked for it on the Facebook group and we listened. So today we are telling you the story of John Darwin, the famous canoe man from Seton Carew, County Durham, who took his canoe out on the North Sea one day and disappeared without a trace. Until five years later, that is, when he turned up in the West End Central Police Station in London, claiming that he had no memory of the past half decade. Pseudocide, faking your death, and going missing

aren't actually illegal in themselves, but the things you have to do to get away with it to set up a new life definitely are. Dying is easy. Coming back is very difficult. I love this one because I really enjoy the headlines. He's described as John Darwin, Canoe Man, the world's shittest superhero. I went off on one a bit in the pub last night talking about what superpowers Canoe Man would have. Have you got any? I didn't get a chance to do that. So I'm going to have to defer to your list. Okay, it's quite long. Number one, can capsize any ship. Number two, paddle hands. His hands are paddles and he slaps the people with them and he says, canoe do you

think you are? Brilliant. He's got puns as well. Also, why would he be able to capsize any ship? A canoe wouldn't be able to capsize any ship. He can do it with the power of his canoe mind. He's also half canoe. He has no legs. Okay, good. Good list. Strong list. I'm glad you spent your Friday night doing that. I've got so many more, but I think it's for the best I'll tweet them And tweet your ideas as well For what superpowers Canoe Man would have Back to the story So John was 47 the day he disappeared

And his wife Anne Darwin Was just a few years his junior They'd been together since Anne was in her teens And they had two grown up sons Mark and Anthony Born in 1975 and 1978, respectively. John Darwin worked as a math teacher for 18 years. And according to Hannah, this is how you know that he's a wrong-un.

But I actually love maths. And I think that more of us should love maths. Oh, well, you would. Well, I think, don't you think it's really, like, sad, though, in our society that people will always be like, oh, maths, it's not really my strong suit but no one would ever say that about reading because we've shamed them out of it so now no one would say oh reading it's not really my strong suit that would be humiliating wouldn't it let's

all just embrace maths let's not make it a thing that it's like okay to say especially when they say oh girls aren't good at maths remember that Helen Mirren advert that came out for shampoo recently she's obviously an older lady she dyes her hair with this hair dye and then she's like when they say, oh, girls aren't good at maths. Do you remember that Helen Mirren advert that came out for shampoo recently? She's obviously an older lady. She dyes her hair with this hair dye and then she's like, to make a point that you can't see the grey hair anymore, she says, I was never really great at numbers.

No, no, no. Oh, Helen, no, no. Helen, no. We can't live in this world, guys, where we perpetuate that it's okay to just say that we're bad at maths. It's a growth mindset. We're good at it. We can do it. Especially women and girls. Anyway, totally off subject. So he was a maths teacher for 18 years but in 2002 when he went missing he was actually then working as a prison guard. I really enjoy this part of John and it really does build the profile for the kind of person he was and all of his behaviour around this case.

He was constantly in the search for the next way to get rich quick. He's a bit of a Del Boy. He is, he is. That's the impression I get. Bit of a geezer, bit of a wide boy, grifter. If you guys in the US and everywhere else that listen don't know what Del Boy is, or who Del Boy is, I should say, Google it, you'll find out.

You're welcome. John just had endless side hustles from the stock market to car boot sales. He was always on the hunt for more cash. And the most prolific of these endeavors was his property empire. Because at the time of his disappearance, Anne and John Darwin owned a total of 12 properties in Seton Carew and across County Durham. But the jewel in his property crown was the house that they lived in together on the seafront. Number three, the cliff. Is that the address? Yeah, that is the address. Wow. Number three, the cliff. Good address. But John and Anne were in trouble because despite owning 12 properties, the rent they were bringing in from these properties was not enough to cover

the 12 mortgages they had. I am having heart palpitations just thinking about the amount of debt that is 12 mortgages. And they bought these houses in really quick succession. I don't think they bought 12 in a year, but they bought a number of them just within 2002. And this is pre-financial crisis, but pre the housing crisis. So 2002, they got 12 mortgages in quick succession no one's getting that today i feel sick at that amount of debt 12 houses and i'm not a property expert are you not well no in my rented house in north london no i'm not a property guru but like isn't ensuring that your tenants pay enough rent in order for you to then pay the mortgage, is that not a pretty basic equation?

Maybe there is something that I'm missing, but that does seem pretty simple. As you correctly pointed out, we are not property experts. But if I was going to buy 12 houses, the least I would expect is that the rent coming in would pay off the 12 mortgages that I had taken out. But whatever we think, the fact is that the Darwins had completely lost control of their situation. They were absolutely drowning in debt and under the threat of foreclosure on at least one of their properties. Declaring bankruptcy looked like John and Anne's only viable option, but John was having absolutely none of it. Too proud to even consider filing for

bankruptcy, John came up with a different way to get out of debt. On the morning of the 21st of March 2002, John Darwin took out his hand-built red canoe called Orca out onto the sea. Question. Is it normal for people to be canoeing in the sea? I've canoed in the sea. I thought this was more of a river, an estuary, canal activity. Maybe that's just because we live inland. Maybe if we lived nearer the sea, we'd think it was a bit more normal. Then Bagshley saying that, like, on holiday, I have canoed in the sea.

But he's like in the North Sea. The North Sea. What do you think of when you think of North Sea? I think of big fat oil rigs and dark choppy water yeah me too i think of just being really really cold on a ferry that doesn't seem like the place you go canoeing no he does on his very fancy canoe nosy neighbor howie rousen witnessed john darwin heading out to sea in his red canoe from the shore just outside his house number three, the cliff. Howie noticed that there were breakers near the shore, but past that the sea looked really calm. This guy couldn't possibly be heading for the shipping lanes, Howie thought,

but that's exactly where John Darwin was headed. And can we talk about how serious a canoeist you have to be to not only have your own canoe, but to have a handmade canoe that you've named after a killer whale. That is serious canoe commitment. One would assume that such a committed canoeist would be able to negotiate some breakers near the shore and a calm sea beyond. But one would be wrong, apparently, because John Darwin disappeared on a calm sea. So I've done my canoe research and apparently even the most dedicated canoe enthusiast with years of experience can get into trouble if they lose their paddle. You just have to wait it out and see what the current does with you. And sometimes that's pretty bad news.

The police were called by a frantic Anne Darwin that evening and a massive search was launched costing, get this, over £100,000. Elder son Mark was living in London at the time and he came home immediately once he heard the news from his mum. But younger brother, Anthony, was a bit trickier to contact because he was in fact on holiday in Canada, a trip that he had specifically planned to propose to his girlfriend you've got to be a fucking stone cold psychopath to want to fake your own death hide it from your kids and all of that but how selfish do you have to be

to pull this stunt specifically when your son is on holiday proposing to his girlfriend could it not have waited that's what I think you were still gonna be in debt you're already gonna pretend to be dead could you not put it off a week maybe it was all part of the ruse of like seeming more real they had to like call their son back from canada all the sort of mayhem around it maybe but again you selfish prick but the coast guard search for john darwin covered 200 square miles including the shipping shipping channel. And although John's canoe was handmade and super fancy, it didn't have a tracking system like most other boats do, making it very hard to find. People began to suspect that John had paddled out into the shipping lane and had been sucked into a propeller. That is horrifying. And a bad omen came at 1.15am.

John's paddle was found not far from the shore he set off from after four days the search was scaled back there's the chances of finding john darwin this long after his disappearance were next to none the rescue team did note similarly to howie russon our nosy neighbor that the north sea had been calm that day that john darwin disappeared and as a seasoned canoeist it seemed odd that he would have run into trouble on such a calm day. Six weeks go by and there's still no sign of John but pieces of a red canoe washed ashore in Seton Carew which were identified by the Darwin family as pieces of orca. There was a public appeal from the family and the police to anyone who might have

been at the seafront that morning, but no one came forward with any information that could further the investigation. An inquest was called and John Darwin was declared dead. Anne and her two sons held a memorial for their father in 2004. Except John wasn't actually dead, as we all know. He had paddled out of sight that morning and then come ashore at the first pier south of Seton Carew. He waited there until Anne came to pick him up in her car about 7pm from the North Gare car park. Anne drove John to the nearest station and he took off into the night. A week

later, John called Anne and he told her he was camping on a beach in Cumbria. That must have been fucking cold. Cumbria is very far north. Three weeks after that, Anne picked John up from Cumbria and drove him back to Seton Carew, where he took up residence in the house that adjoined number three, the Cliffs. The couple also owned this house next door and had been keeping it empty so John could live there after he had faked his death. Doesn't it just seem like this is all a bit elaborate? Why didn't they just sell some of these fucking houses that they can't afford? Or put the rent up? Anything to dig themselves out of this debt hole?

Why is immediately, oh, I know, I'll fake my own death? And that's the thing. Very extreme. It very quickly goes from them having a few houses to them having 12 houses, not being able to pay anything anything and he has to die. It's really quick. But it kind of fits into his whole thing. Like he was too proud to declare bankruptcy because he would have lost the houses.

All of it. He didn't want to sell the houses and have fewer than 12 houses that he could actually manage. He was like, I'll just fake my own death and then we'll get to keep it all. It's such intense like narcissism in this. I suppose maybe they were just so far gone in the debt that they were in that even if they had sold one or two houses, maybe it wouldn't have made a difference. We don't really know. It is also quite a severe reaction. Now this is the best bit of the story for me because in the master bedroom of Anne's house, there was a small cupboard, like one of

those ones you have under the stairs in old houses. About three and a half foot tall-ish. And this cupboard had a false back leading into a very short passageway, which led through to the adjoining house where John was laying low. I mean, what sort of, like, super villain carpenter builder did they get in to build that passage? He must have done it himself. He must have done. If you're the kind of person who could build your own canoe, you could probably do that. Did you ever watch the Michelin web look? Yes, yes. And there was that one where they have the builder talking to the super villain. He's like, I'm going to need a trapdoor that falls into like a lake of crocodiles. And the builder's like, nah, mate, we can't do that. We're gonna have to put

some yellow and black tape around the edge. Health and hazard who did this this is insane it's completely unbelievable but it's true so john would be in anne's house most of the time where they would just carry on with their marital bliss but when he heard the doorbell go he would disappear into his hidey hole a hidey hole that the police didn't discover when they searched the darwin family home john's death certificate was issued in April 2003. The coroner, after some pressure from Anne, had petitioned the Home Secretary to get this pushed through. So why was Anne so keen for a death certificate? Well, because no death certificate means no life insurance money, and that's what this scam was all about. John, rather than admit

defeat and file for bankruptcy, faked his death so he and Anne could use the money from his life insurance, pension and mortgage protection policies to pay off their enormous debts and go off somewhere and start a new life. Insurance companies can take up to seven years to pay out without a death certificate. So they needed it as quickly as possible. And the total payout from John's policies was in the region of £250,000. Is that it? Yeah. Nowadays, that doesn't sound like very much, but they're in the north and it's in 2002. That's true. And managed to use these funds to settle their debts. I did think that when I read it as well.

I was like, how the fuck is a quarter of a million paying off 12 mortgages? But paying off their debts still wasn't enough. In order to come back to life, you need someone else's identity. But don't worry, because John got round this. He actually went to a local archive and searched through their microfiche files. He found the birth certificate of a John Jones who had been born in the same year as him, 1950, and in the same part of the country. They actually, their birthdays were only a couple of months apart. And John Jones had died just five weeks after his birth. That's right.

John Darwin stole the identity of a dead baby. What, he just ordered a copy of this birth certificate and used it? Like, how do you just order birth certificates? I think they're public record. What? Why? Well, like, court documents are public record. It's all, I think, I don't know.

If we've got any archivists, like, tell me. certificate went missing it was stolen from my house so i wonder who's using that oh wow i know we had a break-in a couple of years ago and my dad kept all of our birth certificates and all important documents in like a locked briefcase in his cupboard and they obviously thought there's got to be something valuable in there so they ran off with it and it was like the deeds to our house my birth certificate all gone but then if he could just order one for a baby that died 50 years ago surely i can get mine back maybe there's a certain amount of time after death that it becomes public record i'm not sure maybe john darwin argues that he stole the identity of a dead baby because it was a victimless crime his argument was that this

baby was dead it never really had a lifeless crime. His argument was that this baby was dead. It never really had a life. I couldn't steal the identity of an alive person because that might ruin their life. Fair enough. Which I understand that. But like, there are some interviews with like family members of dead John Baby Jones. They are understandably pretty upset about it. But I don't know. It's in bad taste, but it is. It is a victimless crime. It's kind of like necrophilia. It's a victimless crime. It's sick, but it's a victimless crime. In August 2003, John Darwin is now operating under the name of John Jones,

and he opens a bank account so he can move money around more easily. John and Anne had money all over the place, and their sons had unwittingly helped their mother, who they think is a grieving widow, remember? They helped her set up a multitude of offshore accounts. And by the time 2004 rolled around, John was sick of kicking around the house. Surely he just couldn't live the rest of his life like this. And honestly, if I stay indoors for more than two days, I start talking to myself. I don't do well with it at all.

So I can understand why that was a bit much. So him and Anne started to think they might need to move abroad so John could live a freer lifestyle. I'm surprised they didn't immediately just choose Spain because I feel like that is quite the... What, a better door? Yeah, quite the, you know, established path for the casual criminal. But Cyprus initially took their fancy.

But obviously, John needed a new passport using the name of John Jones, the dead baby. John befriended a local librarian who countersigned his passport application as librarians count as public figures slash persons of good standing in their community. And you need one to sign your passport application in the UK. Licensed pub landlords apparently also count, as do dentists. Yep. That's an interesting list of jobs that count. I think it's because if you're a dentist, you have a certificate saying,

I am a dentist. Yeah, you've got a licensed pub landlord. That's true. So John filled in his residence on his passport applications as number three, the cliff, where he had lived as John Darwin. And unbelievably, the passport was granted with zero investigation. Why did he use the same address? He has 12 houses.

And also he went through so much befriending this librarian, stealing this dead baby's birth certificate. And then he just uses his own address. But, you know whatever apparently they weren't as super sleuths as you and i are hannah because the passport office just gave him a passport to john and ann take this fake new passport and fly out to cyprus to look at some properties because that's what they need house number 13 in cyprus they don't learn they're literally like we'll see this throughout the case it's honestly like what got us into this mess property let's get more of that when When they get out to Cyprus,

they were two-faced by the language barrier and completely bottled it and just came home. So if you're going to fake your own death and move permanently to another country, you need to go somewhere where no one knows you, obviously. So for God's sake, just make the effort and learn the language at least try but the image i have of john darwin in my head of like this dell boy he's not gonna learn greek he's not gonna go it's so entitled to be like my life got so bad i had to fake my own death i cannot leave the house in england without a disguise but you know what learning greek that is a step too far i could not possibly learn greek that is too much too far. I could not possibly learn Greek.

That is too much like hard work. He's unbelievable. That does sound quite hard though. But like, if your life is bad enough to fucking get Duolingo, it's not hard. They're not sponsoring us, by the way. Get a non-denominational language learning app. And the disguise I just mentioned is just as high tech as you think it is. He literally pulled his collar up, wore a hat and

limped with a cane when he had to leave the house. And unsurprisingly, in 2004, John was almost rumbled. A sighting of him was reported to the police in Seton Carew, but it was never followed up by a visit to the Darwin's house because the person who reported it, I think they were a colleague of John's and they were just like, I'm not quite sure if it was him, but if you're sure enough to go to the police, you're pretty sure. John, probably feeling like the heat is on a little bit, turns his attention to America, Kansas in particular, due to its low house prices. This man is single-handedly coming across as the reason for the financial crisis. All that subprime mortgage lending that happened. Oh my god, it's because he's running around the world buying fucking property.

It was all John Darwin. Don't give him any money. Stop giving him mortgages. Important note at this point in the story. Not only is John stuck in the house in Seton Carew watching Loose Women all day, he's also playing games on the internet. And through one of these games, he made friends with a lady called Kelly Steele. Kelly Steele lives in Kansas. I found two versions of what happens with Kelly Steele.

So one is that Kelly enticed John over to the States with false investment properties and swindled him out of somewhere between £30,000 and £50,000. Or version two, which is Kelly's side of the story and is a bit more complicated. So Kelly maintains that her and John made friends online. How you get around to talking about property investment from playing an online war game is completely beyond me. But I think for both of us, there are just so many things about video games that just don't understand. It's like embarrassing. I was never allowed them as a child. So now in an adult situation where someone asked me to play a video game, I genuinely can't do it. I don't think that's embarrassing. I think that's just fine. I think that's absolutely fine.

I grew up with a little brother who had every single console, but I still have not. I can do Tetris. I like Tetris. And I played that farm game on my phone for a while. Did you? And then I got bored. I can never imagine you doing something so aimless i do sometimes enjoy quite an aimless activity i just keep it under wraps so too late now the world knows now people don't know but now i'm outing myself outing myself quite spectacularly for playing farm friends is that what it was called something humiliate myself further so john and kelly agreed that john would front the money for Kelly to buy a ranch in Kansas, which she would do up and turn into a business. So an operational ranch with a herd of cows, horses, properly living the whole Wild West fantasy. John was to be a silent partner

in all of this. Once the ranch was chosen, he would just stay well out of it. Or at least that was the plan. John flew out to Kansas. He stayed with Kelly whilst they looked at rundown ranches and decided which one to buy. Seems like a solid investment. I'm in huge amounts of debt. I faked my own death but let's go buy a rundown ranch in Kansas. This man is a fucking moron. But what happens next in the story according to Kelly and I'm not sure how much I believe it. And we don't mean that in a sort of like side eye kind of way. We genuinely don't know what to believe with this story.

And I also don't know whether John planned on moving out to Kansas, but I don't know. I assume so. Also, where is Anne in all this? He's having this fucking like fling, ranch fling with this Kelly woman. He's just so arrogant. And also, I don't know why he's doing all this, because he's not even eligible for the green card lottery on a British passport,

fake or real. One cannot simply just move to the United States. I think this is what people don't understand. Like, as a British person on a British passport, it is so difficult without having a job at the other end to move to the United States. You can't just go. No, absolutely. The only people I know who have moved over is like, they have worked for companies that have an office in the States and they've transferred over. Yeah, you can need a job to sponsor you. But John is a con man. He's already got a fake passport. I'm sure he's not thinking this through. But Kelly claims that John came to her house in 2004, that he was very quiet and awkward. But Kelly said she wasn't put off by this. She met him playing an internet game after all. What was she expecting? Some charismatic prince to walk through the door?

I think maybe yes, because he's British. There is that. Yeah, all British men are not that, what you're expecting. American ladies. In the same way that not all American men are cowboys. That is also true. But maybe that's what John wanted to be. They say Hollywood is where dreams are made. A seductive city where many flock to get rich, be adored, and capture America's heart. But when the spotlight turns off,

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That's like what you imagine for like a TV American. This is America! I mean, that wasn't even an American accent. I can't do it. I thought that was quite good. Oh, really? Thanks. What does she think that British people do? Just get naked in front of everyone,

running around with our genitalia out. I think she just thinks in the same way that we sort of make jokes about the French just being like, oh, we're free love and we are naked all the time. Like, I think...

Maybe. Maybe she thinks, oh, you Europeans. Yeah. That's not British. That is not... We're not continental. No, we are not continental.

So, after this incident, John was no longer welcome in Kelly Steele's house and she made him stay in a hotel for the remainder of his trip. That is such an overreaction. He just forgot or maybe the door swung open. This is why I don't really trust her because quite a lot of her story comes across as like look how terrible it was. It was all terrible from right from the beginning. Look how awful it was. No this is

rubbish. She met this guy online. I think she thought they were gonna strike something up. He was probably charming over the internet as lots of people can be then she turned up and she was like ew yeah and nah and then she was like how can i get this guy out of my house that i am no longer attracted to in any way shape or form her not being attracted to him in any way does not stop kelly from letting john buy her a ranch so according to kelly john started talking about living in the ranch once it had been refurbished uh-oh which she would not allow she wanted to live there with her family and him being there had never been a part of the deal but i think he needs to leave england he's got the money for a property why is he buying a property for someone else i believe that he was like let's

buy a ranch and we can live there together and And she agreed to it and she changed her mind. That's what I think. That's exactly what I think. He turned up and she was like, and that's why. She kicks him out basically. And John returns to the UK with a much lighter wallet and he begins to sweat. He's got a lot of money tied up in Kansas and he doesn't seem to be getting the results fast enough. So he starts to put some pressure on Kelly, demanding to know why the work on the ranch wasn't getting done as quickly as he expected. And eventually, John demanded his money back. Kelly refused to return his investment and John started to send her, according to her, very aggressive and intimidating emails. He threatened her, her children, and he threatened

to godfather her horse. Kelly didn't send him the money back. And judging by the state of the ranch in the documentary that we watched, it didn't look like she'd done too much work on the ranch either because it's fucking derelict. She nicked his money, I think think whether she had good intentions in the beginning i don't know what actually happened i think is somewhere between her totally swindling him out of his money and him being the unstable threat maker that kelly describes i can believe he probably threatened her after she took back her word either way the kansas plan was out and ann and john needed a new one again and he's just like being totally chill about this. Your husband just ran off to Kansas and lost again a shitload of money

with a terrible investment on some woman that you don't know. Anyway, they need a new plan. So buying houses abroad hadn't worked out for them. Buying ranches abroad hadn't worked out for them. So they decided to buy a boat. Classic. I mean, it's like their mentality around, we'll just spend our way out of debt. Yeah. That's not how debt works. They wanted to buy a boat that could survive long

stretches at sea. So John traveled to Gibraltar to look at a catamaran built in 1973. It had once been at the top of its line, but at this point it had seen better days. But John, always trying to sniff out a bargain, demanded that the couple selling the boat did it up a bit more before he bought it in addition to halving the asking price. They refused, surprisingly. And once again, due to John's pig-headedness, the deal fell through. Stuck again, Anne and John begin to look at starting their new life further afield. He's not even trying to keep his head down. He's not even trying not to cause a fuss. No, he's gone to Kansas to buy a ranch. Then he's gone to Gibraltar to buy a catamaran. Just disappear quietly, John. Like you've got

away with it. Anyway, so now the couple fly to Panama City. Where is the money for all of this international flying coming from? They are so stupid. And here they met with Diana Bishop, who worked as a property agent for a company called Jaguar. They rented an apartment in the city and looked at rural properties. Being so many thousands of miles away meant John and Anne started to make mistakes. They posed for photographs taken by the property agency. These photos were put up on the company's website and could be brought up by people on a Google search by simply typing John and Panama. Now, at the end of 2006, they decided to buy a ranch in Escobar, about two hours outside of Panama City. They fell in love with four acres of land, where they planned to

build a hotel offering, get this, canoe tours. I am so interested in what the fuck their sons thought their mum was doing if your husband such a good point died in a bungee jumping accident would you start a bungee jumping company no you wouldn't so they're not even trying to be clever or subtle like john's just like i like canoes let's make a canoe company there's no logic to it there's no logic and there's no finesse it's just pig-headed it's pig-headed anne tells her sons that she's moving to panama permanently and sold some of her uk properties to fund the move in march 2007 and bought a flat in panama city and in october of the same year she finalized the sale of number three the cliff. Then Anne and John hit a bit of a snag because under Panamanian law at the time in order to move there permanently they needed to provide a

reference letter from their local UK police department to prove that they were of good character and had no criminal records to speak of and seeing as John's local police station were under the impression that he was dead this was going to be a slight issue. But Anne and John go on a quick holiday to Costa Rica to think this all over. They decide that John needs to go back to the UK. And this is speculation on our part, but I really think he thought he could just reappear in the UK. The police would be like, oh, hi, John. Welcome back. Not place any further investigation right off the last five years. Give him his reference letter and he would be allowed to skip off back to Panama and start his canoe hotel business.

I genuinely think that is what he thought. Why didn't they just pick another country? Why Panama? The banking system is super anonymous in Panama. As we know, it's not going to be that simple for John. Because on the 1st of December 2007, John wandered into the West End Central Police Station in London, claiming he had amnesia and he had no recollection of the past five years. He does, however, conveniently happen to know that he is a missing person. The police were immediately suspicious. There is a lovely moment at the

initial press conference where one of the investigators is asked by a journalist whether John Darwin's reappearance was a Christmas miracle. And he just says, I don't know, I deal in facts. And his face is just perfect when he's saying this. A fucking Christmas miracle. What is this? He knows. Of course he knows. This investigator, you can just see it on his face.

He's not stupid. And Anne plays along with John's story claiming to be thrilled by her husband's return from beyond the grave. The police had long suspected John was still alive however. They knew large amounts of money were being moved around. They had tip-offs from people who had heard John speaking to him on the phone and a couple of sightings as well. How suspicious, like the person who tipped off the police about Anne speaking to John on the phone. Seton Crew is quite a small town. Everyone would have known Anne.

How suspicious of her do you have to be to report it to the police? And I think that especially when you think it's related to her husband faking his own death. I think in order to go down the police station and give a statement on something like that, you've got to be pretty suspicious. Exactly. Because if you're wrong wrong you are falsely accusing a grieving widow who you know yeah absolutely but it doesn't take the press too long to get to panama splash news journalist david lee yes the very same who admitted to tapping arms dealers phones in 2012 flew out to panama and knocked on anne's front door she eventually let

him in and gave him an exclusive interview. She initially told him how delighted she was about John's return. Not delighted enough to come back to the UK apparently, but delighted all the same. But when Lee presented Anne with a photo of her and John that the estate agents had taken at least 18 months before, she knew it was all over. John was arrested on the 8th of December 2007 in Basingstoke where he was staying with his son. He was charged with obtaining life insurance money through deception and making a false statement whilst applying for a passport. Their sons Mark and Anthony, in our opinion, are absolutely the biggest victims here. Not only did their dad think it was okay to fake his death because of money, their mum kept up the lie too, actively encouraging it

and let them believe that their dad was dead for five years. The brothers released a statement saying that they were victims of a scam and wanted no further contact with their parents. Anne arrives in Manchester airport the following day on December 9th and was arrested for fraud. Anne quickly admits when questioned that she knew all along and that John had bullied her into it. She keeps up the defence of marital concern all the way through the trial. John takes a little bit longer to crack

but he does admit to insurance and passport fraud. He does, however, claim that he had every intention of paying back the insurance company. He actually says in the police interviews, why would I come back if it weren't to pay back the money? To get your Panama letter, John, that's why. He really thinks that the police were born yesterday. He's so arrogant. On the 23rd of July 2008 at Teesside Crown Court, both John and Anne were convicted of fraud.

John was sentenced to six years and three months. He had an additional passport fraud charge on top of the insurance claims. But Anne pled not guilty to all of her fraud charges and this made her sentence longer than John's. Anne was sentenced to six years and six months. Both Anne and John served about half of their sentences in prison and the remainder on probation. You can see this clip on YouTube. Anne went on This Morning in 2016, which is a morning talk show that we have here in the UK. I would recommend watching it because she just talks about how she has to live with this guilt for the rest of her life. And I flip between feeling really sorry for her, feeling like she

had no choice. But then I also think for the long periods of time that he was out of the country, having ranch flirting with Kelly and doing all of this other stuff where he was, I kind of feel like she could have said something. Yeah. The fraud is one thing. It's the emotional turmoil she was okay to put her sons through. That's it. That's the bit. Because the actual crime itself is fraud. No one gets particularly hot under the collar about fraud. Yeah. But making your sons believe that their father is dead, that's the bit that upsets me about it. Exactly. But the Anne and John love story doesn't last. And in 2012, they divorce after being released

from prison in 2011. Anne claims that she had had enough of his controlling ways and wanted to be free. She told The Guardian that after she initially told him she wanted to separate, he sent her a picture of herself with a copyright symbol stamped on it to show that she was still his property. Well, John, you're not very good at dealing with property, are you? So how about you just leave it? So John has since remarried and is now living in the Philippines with his new wife, who is reportedly half his age. What a surprise. And what a surprise.

Anne has managed to rekindle her relationship with her sons. And the sentences John and Anne received, they do seem a little bit light. But at the end of the day, all they really did was commit fraud. I think because there is so much press around this case, it's very easy to get it carried away. But when you really think about it, it was just fraud. It's the emotions that get connected with it that make it seem so much bigger. But we have very much loved delving into the pseudocide industry, if we can call it that. Oh, we can. And you can't delve into the world of fake deaths without coming across Elizabeth Greenwood.

The professor of writing at Columbia died on paper in Manila on July 2nd, 2003. Despite being alive, well, and living in Brooklyn today, inspired by a half-joking conversation about her $120,000 student loan debt, Greenwood went on a mission to find out how far she could go towards faking her death without actually committing fraud. And you could read all about it in her

book, Playing Dead, A Journey Through the World of Death Fraud. Greenwood went off to the Philippines, where it apparently appears to be pretty easy to fake your death. So maybe John should have just started there. That's exactly what I read during my research, that if you want to fake your death, the Philippines is the place to go do it. Apparently, you can even buy death kits that contain your death certificate, your statements from witnesses who saw your accident, and a fake autopsy report. Faking your own death is a temporary escape in the search of a new beginning. Obviously, if you just wanted to end it all, you would just die.

Coming back to life causes some problems here are some tips that we picked up along the way if you're into faking your own death apparently drowning not a good way to go because the body always shows up eventually don't be like that mp john stonehouse who just left a pile of clothes on a beach in miami in the 70s just in case our international friends thought British politicians being an absolute joke was a new thing, they've been at it for years. He was also a Czech spy. He was getting paid by the Czech Republic the whole time he was a Member of Parliament.

Oh, well, during that time, the rest of them were all running secret child sex rings. So, you know, swings and roundabouts. The other thing you can't do once you've disappeared is Google yourself. Aww. Once you've disappeared is Google yourself. Aww. Once you've died. Because that's how Olivia Newton-John's ex-boyfriend, Patrick McDermott, got caught after faking his death on a fishing trip after filing for bankruptcy. Because investigators, they notice clusters of IP addresses and they can find you.

Also, this is what Greenwood recommends, is go to a morgue in almost any developing country and ask to see the unclaimed bodies. Then have a body declared as you by pretending to be a distraught relative. So your options here are no body or no recognisable body. And if it's the unrecognisable body you're going for, fires and explosions are suggested but then i was thinking about this and surely dental records are going to be an issue even if your body's super fucked up they're going to be able to tell from your teeth i think unless you're in one of those really big fires where your teeth explode go for that that would be the best bet i would suggest but money

is an issue too because you can't move too much of it around without attracting attention that's exactly what caught the police's attention in this case, why they suspected that John was still alive. So either you bury it on a beach and live out your Shawshank Redemption fantasy, or you go into your new life penniless, which doesn't seem very practical. The bank accounts are also very, very tricky because everything can be traced, because no money can transfer from the dead you to new alive you in secret. And then another interesting point is that although the police may have limited resources to find you, insurance companies don't. And they don't have to prove that you're alive.

They don't even have to find you. They just have to create a reasonable doubt that you could possibly be alive somewhere in the world. And there are loads of ways they can do that if i had to fake my death here is how i would do it and please bear in mind that this plan involves me learning things without anyone's help and they are things that i have absolutely no idea how to do i'm sure you will please feel free to point out the very obvious flaws in my plan first step learn how the deep web works second step learn how the dark web works. Second step, learn how the dark web works because I understand that the dark web is part of the deep web, but they're not the same thing, I think. Yep. Then I need to learn how Bitcoin works. Then I need to get some Bitcoin.

Then I need to get a fake passport off the dark web using my new Bitcoin. Then I need to take out a personal development loan. Obviously, I don't intend to tell the bank that I'm going to personally develop myself into thin air. I take out this loan in cash. I'm not sure how you do that, but I'm sure it's doable. And I'm going to ask for unmarked notes like they do in films. Then I need to get on a cruise ship to the Caribbean and I'm going to disappear from this Caribbean cruise. When the ship is moored near to land somewhere in the Gulf of Mexico, I need to figure out where the blind spots on the ship's CCTV are, jump off the boat in the middle of the night,

leave my shoes in my room so everyone's like, oh, she can't have meant to have gone out for that long because her shoes are still here. But more fool them because I've got spare shoes. I swim to shore with my new cash, my personal development loan, strapped to my body in Ziploc bags. I've also got a plastic bag full of dry clothes and my spare shoes and my new passport once i get to shore i change my clothes take my old wet ones with me because you don't want to leave them lying around very basic error and then

obviously air travel is out of the question because i've got all of this cash so i just get buses i get five or six 15 hour buses down to like columbia if that doesn't work keep going down to uruguay and then I spend the rest of my life teaching English as a foreign language. And that is my plan of how I would fake my death. That is outstanding. That is an outstanding amount of research you've put into that, Hannah. I think I've learned nothing from this because the way I was planning on saying that I would do it involved all the things that we said you probably shouldn't do. My idea for how I would fake my own death came from a very real lifetime where i thought i was going to die i thought oh this will be interesting like i'm dead i'm now dead and the

only thing i actually thought was how sad for like my family that i'm just dead but i also did think how glamorous of me because what happened was i was on holiday in belize with our mutual friend who can't swim by the way i forgot about this so he had on a life jacket and we went out with these two rogue guys who were running the hostel that we were staying in. They took us out on their boat, got me loaded up on rum and then we all went swimming. I got a bit tired and I was a bit drunk so I was like I'm gonna go get back on the boat. So I left them all to it, started to swim back. No life jacket, nothing, just got some flippers on. Swim back to the boat. Can't see the boat. Can't see the boat. Turn around. I can't see them anymore. 360 degrees of flat blue water. No land, no rocks,

no nothing to landmark. And now I've spun around. So now I can't remember the way I came and the way I was swimming towards the boat. And I thought, huh, I saw lots of sharks earlier today. No. I wonder how this is going to end. Yes. I was like, that's it. I'm dead. There's no way.

We'd come on a speedboat about three hours away from the island. How will I survive this? It's very like open water. That's what you do. Go out, get separated from the group like I accidentally did to myself. Don't worry, I was eventually found and all as well. But that could have been great. Absolutely spit. I know the body would wash up. That was very far out at sea. Would my body come back? But then how, if you were faking your death, how would you get

out of the situation? I'd need someone in on it. I'd need them in on it. Yeah, this is the thing. But that's dangerous. People give you away. Or run off to the Philippines. I went to the Philippines and it's a great country. I really enjoyed it. Good food. Adobo anything, I'll eat it. I could live in the Philippines. That's a solid plan, I think. Yeah, you want to head somewhere where people don't go,

go to Manila and then just get on. I got a 17-hour bus and I went as far as Sagada, which is like up north. Keep going, keep going. There's places up there that are like literally horse and carriage towns. No one's finding you there. And it's beautiful. live my life open in an adobo shack where I'll just adobo everything and make my money. That's what I would do. Not quite as well thought out as yours, granted. I had more time. Also, I think it depends why you're faking your death. If you're

faking your death, like to claim insurance money, then that is harder because like we said, the insurance companies will come looking for you or they'll try prove you wrong. If you're faking your death if you're faking your death like to claim insurance money then that is harder because like we said the insurance companies will come looking for you or they'll try prove you wrong if you're just doing it to like get away from your life it's probably not that hard right so that is canoe man please tweet us with your superpowers for canoe man and also how you would fake your death and hopefully it'll be less cobbled together than my idea was please if you haven't already leave us a five-star review on apple podcasts and follow us on social media at red handed the pod let's crack on with our patreon people this week we have had so many new patreons this week which is very very exciting and if you guys would

like to get in on it for just as little like as a dollar a month you can help support the show and get lots of extra like little bonus bits from us. We're going to do a live episode soon because we hit $500 and merchandise, etc. We're also starting a merch shop very, very soon. So watch this space. So here are this week's patrons. We've got Christina Hayden Bapat, Veronica Bennett, Lucy Yoma Taylor, Anne-Marie B, Gemma Morris, Lindsay and Bob Wilt. Thank you, guys.

Thanks for your support, guys. And we'll see you next week. Thank you for listening. Bye. Goodbye. Harvard is the oldest and richest university in America. But when a social media-fueled fight over Harvard and its new president broke out last fall, that was no protection. Claudine Gay is now gone. We've exposed the DEI regime, and there's much more to come.

This is The Harvard Plan, a special series from the Boston Globe and WNYC's On the Media. To listen, subscribe to On the Media wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Jake Warren, and in our first season of Finding, I set out on a very personal quest to find the woman who saved my mum's life. You can listen to Finding Natasha right now exclusively on Wondery+. In season two, I found myself caught up in a new journey to help someone I've never even met. But a couple of years ago, I came across a social media post by a person named Loti. It read in part, three years ago today that I attempted to jump off this bridge, but this wasn't my time to go. A gentleman named Andy saved my life. I still haven't found him. This is a story that I came across purely by chance,

but it instantly moved me, and it's taken me to a place where I've had to consider some deeper issues around mental health. This is season two of Finding, and this time, if all goes to plan, we'll be finding Andy. You can listen to Finding Andy and Finding Natasha exclusively and ad-free on Wondery Plus.

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