It's not every day you get somebody coming back from the dead.
It was one of the most audacious frauds anyone's ever heard of.
There was never a funeral because there was never a body.
There has to be more to it.
I thought it would relieve myself of the financial burden.
The coroner declared him missing, presumed dead.
That was when the money started coming in,
you know, checks were dropping through the letterbox.
He knew the only way to actually be able to live his life
as a free man again would be to go overseas.
Newsreader: The Darwins lived a bizarre double life.
Newsreader: His wife, Anne, was in on the deception.
She was smiling next to her husband, who she claimed was dead.
They just smiled for the photograph.
Bingo, the game’s up.
David: They both face multiple charges of fraud.
He was vain, he was full of himself,
and he thought he was cleverer than everybody else.
I worked out the details and then presented them to her.
And of course, she didn’t want to go along with it at first.
The world revolves around John Darwin,
a real narcissist.
David: There’s this crazy story
about this man who’s come back from the dead.
[Dramatic music playing]
My name’s David Leigh. I’m a British journalist.
I covered the case of the infamous canoe man,
John Darwin, who faked his death.
There was a mad scramble to get the truth behind the story,
and I was the one who got to it first.
Newsreader: To those who knew them,
the Darwins were a well-heeled couple
who lived in this imposing property in Seaton Carew.
[Waves lapping]
David: You know, the very blustery northeast of England.
[Wind blowing]
It’s a small town, and people seem to know each other.
It is a very close-knit community.
Newsreader: They owned a dozen other buy-to-let properties,
including the house next door, which they rented out as bedsits.
John Darwin was Anne’s first boyfriend.
He was very persistent.
He kept asking her out, and eventually, they got married,
and they had two sons.
[Atmospheric music playing]
Without doubt, this is an unusual case.
[Dramatic music playing]
However, there will be people out there
who will know exactly where he has been,
where he has been living, and what he has been doing.
My name’s Tony Hutchinson,
and I led the investigation
once John Darwin magically reappeared.
It was a huge case as far as the media was concerned.
It attracted a global media interest.
I was getting telephone calls and emails
from people I knew in Australia and America.
Everybody was talking about it.
David: All everybody was talking about
was the guy who’d gone off in his red canoe
and disappeared at sea.
Newsreader: Despite a huge air and sea search
off the North Yorkshire coast,
his body was never found,
but both family and police were puzzled.
There was a huge air and sea rescue operation
that went on for, like, probably about a day and a half.
Once there was an inquest
and the coroner declared him missing, presumed dead,
that was when the money started coming in.
Checks were dropping through the letterbox.
And then it jumps forward to five years
when he walked into a London police station.
[Atmospheric music playing]
I got a phone call on the Sunday morning
just to say he’d reappeared
and he was suffering from amnesia.
But not for one minute did I believe the amnesia story.
Newsreader: Police are now trying to trace Mr. Darwin’s wife, Anne,
who’s left the seaside flat they once shared
and is thought to be living abroad.
My appeal today would be for anybody who has any information
whereby we can piece together
what has happened over these last five years.
[Atmospheric music playing]
David: The British tabloids have always been massively competitive.
Everybody wanted the story.
You know, in those days, it was just go and get the story.
It doesn’t matter what it costs, and don’t fail.
Journalists went to the house they used to live in at Seaton Carew,
and they spoke to the new owner.
And he said, “I opened a letter by mistake.”
And he said there was an address in Panama City.
[Atmospheric music playing]
[Suspenseful music playing]
I was actually the first British journalist on the ground in Panama.
I got the address. I managed to talk my way into the complex.
[Suspenseful music playing]
I was just hammering on the front door.
I’d been there, I don’t know, about 40 minutes,
and I’m just knocking and knocking and knocking.
And unbelievably, this little voice came back,
“What do you want?”
[Atmospheric music playing]
She was obviously very nervous.
I said, “Why are you still here?”
“Your husband has just come back from the dead.”
“I thought you’d be back in England by now.”
And then I got a message from one of the newspapers.
“You’re not going to believe this, but we’ve just been presented with
a picture of John and Anne in Panama 18 months ago,
so she’s lying through her teeth.”
She was stood there smiling next to her husband,
who she claimed was dead.
[Atmospheric music playing[
The picture obviously spoke volumes.
It showed that she had been in on her husband’s disappearance,
and she’d lied to her sons
that their own father was dead for five years.
And the adrenaline really starts to pump then
because you know you’ve got a massive story,
you know, there’s a big crime involved.
I said, “I’ve got something to show you,
and you’re not going to like this.”
She looked at it, and she went white,
white as a ghost.
She said to me, “The boys are never going to forgive me.”
Tony: He was arrested before that photograph went in the newspaper.
And by the time the newspapers were on the streets,
he was in a cell.
And we didn't show him that until the third interview.
So we allowed him to tell all his lies …
and then they hit him with the photograph.
[Atmospheric music playing]
The realization dawned on him
that the game was up as far as he was concerned.
“I’ve had amnesia, blah de blah, blah de blah,”
they all went out the window when he was shown that photograph.
[Atmospheric music playing]
[Suspenseful music playing]
David: He paddled off in his red canoe,
making sure several people had seen him.
He rode down the coast a little bit,
came ashore, and hid in the sand dunes,
waiting for his wife.
[Suspenseful music playing]
Newsreader: Their home in Seaton Carew near Hartlepool
was the base for their deception.
But it was the sea they looked out on every day
which provided a cover story.
The whole of the UK was watching the daily developments
and thinking, “This can’t get any crazier.”
And every day, it got a little bit more crazy.
Their father, who had just been formally declared dead,
was, in fact, hiding upstairs.
Mr. Darwin had actually been living at home.
He was living there right under everyone’s noses.
Newsreader: According to Anne Darwin,
the fact that they owned both properties gave them freedom.
When visitors, including their two sons, came to stay,
John would move into the bedsit in number four,
leaving just a thin partition separating a supposedly dead man
from those who grieved him.
He lived a pretty miserable existence
between a grubby one-bedroom place next door
and then hopping the passages late at night
and, you know, spending time with his wife.
But he couldn’t really do anything or go anywhere.
He knew the only way
to actually be able to live his life as a free man again
would be to go overseas.
Newsreader: John and Anne Darwin
intended to start a new life together
here in Panama.
They bought an apartment here and some land,
but the plan somehow went wrong.
Newsreader: He obtained a false identity and new passport.
Newsreader: He assumed the identity of a dead baby.
John claimed he wanted to come back from the dead
because he wanted to be reunited with his sons,
and he’d missed them.
The truth is, I don’t think he cared.
[Dramatic music]
About a month before John Darwin disappeared,
the banks had been in touch,
saying their mortgage and credit card repayments
were set to double.
But instead of selling off their assets
and paying off their debts,
John and Anne Darwin opted for
the most extraordinary course of action.
It wasn’t actually the biggest financial crime in history,
far from it.
The payouts, I think, were about 250,000 [pounds].
John Darwin was never going to declare himself bankrupt
because that would be an admission of failure.
And there’s not a narcissist born who’ll admit failure.
David: They both face multiple charges of fraud.
John did the most sensible thing he's ever done in his life
and pleaded guilty.
She pleaded not guilty
using the very rarely used defense of marital coercion.
I sat through the trial in Middlesbrough Crown Court,
and it was obvious from day one she was lying.
Newsreader: For five years, she played the grieving widow
with such aplomb
that even her children believed their father was dead.
The boys were called as prosecution witnesses.
Newsreader: In court, they didn’t look at their mother at all
as they gave evidence.
Because of the fact that she tried to get off,
she got a longer sentence, six years and six months.
They both served half the time,
so John got out a few months before her.
This was a woman who’d never even had
a parking ticket before in her life.
Newsreader: It was a mystery that seemed destined never to be solved.
One battered red canoe washed ashore.
It would probably be true to say it was a crime of its time.
But you possibly could still do it. I would never say never.
Newsreader: John Darwin returned today
to the beach where he disappeared nearly 10 years ago.
John: I thought I was worth more dead than alive,
and that was the truth.
It was the most astonishing story of my career.
You keep thinking that’s surely got to be the end of it,
but you never know.
It just never seems to die.
[Atmospheric music playing]