March 21st 2001: Canoe Man

John and Anne Darwin were living happily married in the Durham County area of England. They owned a number of homes that they rented out. Anne worked as a receptionist at a doctor's office and John was a former teacher who was now working as a prison officer. The couple owned 12 homes in Durham and were looking to expand their property portfolio when they purchased another two houses in Seaton Carew in 2000. Seaton Carew was along the coastline of The North Sea in the North East of Durham. The couple then moved into one of the homes. However, the rent they were receiving from tenants was unfortunately not enough to cover the mortgages on the houses and the couple were slowly drowning in debt. 

On a cold March 21st 2002, John Darwin went out canoeing in the calm waters on The North Sea and when he failed to show up for work that day, he was reported as missing. A large search and rescue operation began in the seaside town, no sign of John was found. The following day a paddle, similar to John's was found and later on that day the wreckage of John's canoe was recovered. The search which cost £100,000, was called off. John Darwin was later declared deceased as of March 22nd 2002 even though his body was never recovered. 

Five years later on December 1st 2007, John Darwin arrived into a police station in London's West End. He had no recollection of the past five years. His wife Anne was shocked and it was labelled "A Christmas Miracle". Just three months prior Anne Darwin had actually sold up all the couple's property and moved out to Panama and transferred a large sum of money for her to live on. Their sons had wished their mother well as she shipped all her belongings to her new apartment in Panama, stopping in Costa Rica for a holiday. Police in Panama were contacted to inform Anne Darwin that her husband had been found alive after more than five years. 

Police were beginning to question the story of John Darwin, during his absence Anne Darwin had rarely taken the time to act like a grieving widow and seemed to embrace her new life. Over the five years, she has cashed in on a life insurance policy and also a mortgage protection policy, she had claimed John Darwin's pension money to a total value of roughly £500,000. 

It wasn't until a photo of John and Anne Darwin was published in The Daily Mirror from 2006 the couple finally had their story come crumbling around them. The couple had visited Panama together in 2006 to view some properties and land that they were considering buying, 4 years after John was supposedly killed in his canoeing accident. 

John Darwin had quite clearly never drowned and he had clearly been on holidays with his wife in 2006, but where had be been the remainder of the time? 

John Darwin had gone out canoeing on March 21st 2002 as spotted by a neighbour, once he had been spotted and safely out of sight, he had returned to shore. He called Anne to come and collect him and dumped the paddle and pushed the canoe out into the sea, assuming that if he stayed out of sight, police would eventually presume he had died that morning. Anne collected him and dropped him off at the train station 40 minutes away. John called on a regular basis, checking to see if the coast was clear for him to sneak back home. He returned home after a few weeks, using his beard growth as a disguise and he moved back into his home with Anne. The couple owned two houses side-by-side and while he and Anne lived in one, the other remained boarded up and empty. John used his skills to build a secret passageway between the two houses and when somebody called over to visit Anne, he would tuck himself away into a cupboard like passageway and sneak back to the house next door where he lived in the attic. 

John Darwin had always wanted to be rich and had spent his life trying to obtain just that. He had changed careers in attempt to earn more money and had bought his properties in England to rent with the hopes of making some extra income. He spent his days searching for hidden gems in car boot sales and hoping to finally get his lucky break. Unfortunately, John Darwin's dreams did not die either. Darwin went to a registry office and obtained the birth certificate of a boy who had died as an infant in the 1950s, John Jones. He used the birth certificate to obtain a new passport but used his real address and suddenly he was once again dreaming big. 

John and Anne had two sons and if the couple were ever to live some form of a normal life, they would need to escape their sons as they, with the rest of the world believed in the death of John during a canoeing accident. The couple began to explore their options and considered Cyprus as a place they might call home. In 2004 the couple took a holiday to the island but decided against the idea. 

Back in England, John Darwin travelled around, occasionally he would be spotted and people would question his identity but nothing ever came of the sightings as they were never reported to officials. John spent a great deal of time online playing games and it was in this manner that he met a woman from Kansas, Kelly Steele. John began to question Kelly on properties in Kansas and realised that cattle ranches were rather inexpensive compared to land in The UK. He convinced the woman that he would buy a cattle ranch and she would be left with the day to day running of the farm. While Kelly entertained the idea that this could be true she never fully believed that a stranger was about to buy a cattle ranch for her to run, that is until, the money landed in her bank account. 

Suddenly it was all systems go and John was flying out to meet her in person. Shortly after arriving to inspect the property John Darwin and Kelly had a falling out. While in Kansas John was staying with her and according to Kelly a disagreement arose when John Darwin went to go and change his clothes and freshen up and he stripped without closing the door. There are others who believe that Kelly and John may have been having an affair and it was Anne who wanted to pull away from the deal in Kansas. John flew back to The UK once again while he waited on the return of his money from Kelly.  

In July of 2006, the couple flew out to Panama to look at some properties. It was the first time since John had apparently died that the couple felt far enough removed from reality to relax and be a couple. The took photos together which were published online by the property agent. In 2007 the couple once again returned to Panama to set up a real estate company called Jaguar Properties, the company was set up to facilitate the buying of a two bedroom apartment in El Dorado for £50,000. Anne returned to The UK to finish up selling property and transferring her funds to a bank in Panama. 

In May of 2007 the couple purchased a huge tropical estate in Escobal with predominantly untouched land with no running water or electricity. The couple were planning on turning the land into a holiday resort with a hotel on site where people could go on canoeing holidays. 

In September 2007 a colleague of Anne's became suspicious after overhearing a phone call Anne had been on, it sounded rather like she had been on the phone to her husband but Anne left the county shortly after. 

In November 2007, Anne booked her husband a ticket back to The UK because after five years, he was suddenly missing his sons and yearned to see them.

It was on this trip home that John Darwin walked into a police station in London's West End, stating that he thought he might be a missing person. 

During the couple's trial Anne Darwin was described a compulsive liar and she was convicted of fraud and received 6 years and 6 months for her crimes. 

John Darwin faced and extra charge due to the fake passport he obtained and was also convicted of fraud and sentenced to 6 years and 3 months. 

After his release from prison in January of 2011, John Darwin was arrested in 2013 for an unauthorised trip he took to the Ukraine to visit a woman he met on the internet after he and Anne had separated while the pair were in prison.