THE CASE OF JOHN DARWN, THE CANOE MAN

hey guys it's bella welcome back to my channel i hope you guys are all having a fantastic day today i hope you're ready to get into another mystery monday case that's not a mystery it's a solved case because this is probably the most intense case of narcissism that i have ever heard of so strap in it's about to get wild before we get into it i just quickly want to thank today's sponsor norbi pian for making this video possible if you guys don't have a vpn by now seriously what are you waiting for i've been using mine to watch love island as it comes out because in australia it comes out two days late which is simply unacceptable because of all the spoilers i see online i just will not be having it so i've been using my vpn changing my location to the uk and voila and with nordvpn it's really easy you just open the map click a location and you will be connected in seconds nordvpn is also the fastest vpn out there so it will encrypt your traffic so that your internet service provider cannot slow down your streaming speed also if you don't know what a vpn is it is a virtual private network so basically it encrypts all of your traffic online it hides your ip address it protects your identity protects your privacy and it even protects you if you want to use public or shared wi-fi and nordvpn is also having a bundle deal at the moment so i will have the link for that on the screen and in the description box down below because if you use my link you will get a bonus month so make sure you guys check that out i will leave all of the information down below and let's go ahead and get into today's case so john darwin was born on the 14th of august in 1950 in hartlepool county in durham growing up he attended st xavier's grammar school in hartlepool and then he went on to study biology and chemistry at de la salle college in salford lancashire on the 22nd of december in 1973 when he was 23 years old he married a woman named ann stevenson in black all she was just a couple of years younger than him and they have met when she was a teenager two years later in 1975 they gave birth to their first child a son named mark and then in 1978 they gave birth to their second child a son named anthony after graduating college john went on to work at derwentside college for the next 18 years as a science and mathematics teacher and then after that 18 years he went on to become a prison officer at hm home house and anne worked as a doctor's receptionist john was kind of always the guy who was looking for more money like he always wanted to find a way to strike big and get rich so he would do things like have little car boot sales he was on the stock market he got his sons involved in some of his like money-making schemes as well he got his son anthony who was 15 years old at the time to do door-to-door sales he actually got both of his sons in on his money-making schemes and they would do things from like breeding african snails to sellers escargot to painting gnomes so him and anne decided to start their own business renting out houses in seton carew they bought 12 houses in a pretty short period of time one of which they did live in and it was a seafront property the address was number three the cliff which sounds very fancy and then in 2002 they bought another two properties bringing the total to 14 and unfortunately they were not making enough money back in rent to be able to afford these 14 mortgages so by 2002 they were drowning in debt they had managed to accrue almost 700 000 in debt they were facing the threat of foreclosure and at least one of their properties and they were on the verge of bankruptcy and then to make things even worse john then disappeared on the morning of the 21st of march in 2002 john took his hand-built red canoe which he had named orca out for a morning paddle in the north sea from seton carew john and anne's neighbor a guy named harry ruson had actually seen john take his canoe out and he said it was an extremely calm day out on the water but despite the fact that john was an experienced kayaker i mean experienced enough that he not only had a kayak but he had built it himself from scratch with his own hands and he had named it i mean i feel like you have to be pretty serious about kayaking to even own a kayak let alone building it from scratch and having a name for it despite being a serious kayaker and experienced kayaker however he never returned he had work later that day and he never showed up and so his colleagues called anne and anne immediately called the police to report john missing a search got underway right away and it was a huge such it cost a hundred and fifty thousand pounds they searched 62 square miles or 160 square kilometers of coastline but found no sign of john at around 1 15 a.m the morning after john went missing they actually did find his paddle not far from where he took off from and they also found parts of his wrecked red canoe and so things weren't looking good after four days they scaled back the search because they hadn't found him they found his paddle parts of his wrecked canoe so they were assuming that he was dead police were very confused by this they just couldn't kind of grasp how someone with so much experience could go missing or have any problems on such a calm day because the north sea had been exceptionally calm that day so someone with that much experience really shouldn't have any issues they were assuming that maybe he had accidentally gone into the shipping lane and because he's just you know wee little kayak that he may have been sucked up into the propellers of one of the larger boats which would explain why you know his canoe was kind of found in pieces it was wrecked there was a public appeal by the police and by jon's family for anybody to come forward with any information on anything they might have seen or any information they might have but nobody came forward and what sucked about this whole situation is that their eldest son mark he was just living in london when his dad went missing so he came back right away but their younger son anthony he was on a holiday in canada that he had planned so that he could propose to his girlfriend on it so pretty bad timing like you're off on this exciting trip about to hopefully get engaged and then before you can pop the question your dad goes missing eventually an inquest was held and john darwin was legally declared dead in december of 2003 and his family and mark and anthony held a memorial for him in august of 2003 the life insurance pension and mortgage protection policies were paid out to anne and i believe she got about 250 000 pounds and then five years later on the 1st of december in 2007 none other than john darwin walks in so casually to the west end police station and says i think i'm a missing person but i have amnesia and i can't remember anything from the last five years and so the west end police call anne and ann is thrilled that her husband is back from the dead and then they call the cleveland police because the cleveland police is where jon was first reported missing to so they dealt with like his disappearance and they told the west end police actually about four months ago we got some tip-offs that he might be alive so one of anne's colleagues had called them up to say pretty sure i just heard anne on the phone to john if you remember anne is a receptionist at a doctor's office so i mean for her to be talking to john on the phone like at the reception desk is bizarre but anyway there were also a couple of sightings of john so one of his former colleagues had actually seen him and called police and been like hey i'm pretty sure i saw jon but the police never followed it up because the guy who called them wasn't really sure because i mean if you see someone that has been dead for like five years of course you're gonna be kind of unsure but at the same time do have to be pretty sure to call the police to say you've seen a person that's been dead for five years like if you're not certain about that you're just gonna say oh my god that guy looks so much like john you know what i mean you're not gonna call the police and be like pretty sore i saw this guy who's dead you know i feel like they should have just looked into that a little bit so the police do some digging and the media do as well because this case was huge because i mean a man just like rose from the dead right they were right onto it so let me tell you what happened over those five years as i mentioned back in 2002 john and ann were drowning in debt and they were on the verge of bankruptcy but jon was too proud to file for bankruptcy so he came up with another plan to get out of debt and that plan was to play dead on the 21st of march in 2002 when he took his boat out onto the water in the north sea and apparently died out there what actually happened was he had paddled far enough out that he was out of sight of anyone and then he went and waited at the first pier south of seton carew until 7pm when anne came and picked him up and took him home and they actually owned the house right next to the house that they lived in so they're like number three the cliffs house they owned the house directly next to that it was like adjoining and so john stayed there and played dead there there was like this small cupboard in the master bedroom which was like three and a half feet tall and they had actually built a passageway from this cupboard you go into this cupboard and there's like a little passageway into the other house so john would use that to kind of come and go as he pleases and the police did not discover this passageway when they did their initial searches when john first disappeared so he would go and hang out with anne at the house all day and then whenever there was like a knock on the door or the doorbell rang he would just get in his passage and he would go over to the other house to hide out not even their two sons mark and anthony knew that john was alive which is actually really sad when you think about it and like another added layer is the fact that if you remember i said anthony was on a trip that he had planned specifically so that he could propose to his girlfriend and then before he gets a chance his dad disappears and his dad knew this and his dad didn't actually die he just planned to fake his death when his son was gonna propose to his girlfriend like on one of the most important days of his life that is narcissism if i have ever seen narcissism and to make matters worse the two boys actually unwittingly helped their mum you know they thought she was a grieving widow didn't really know how to deal with her money and so they helped her to set up offshore bank accounts so after faking his own death and getting the life insurance payouts and paying off their debts jon was like well how am i gonna live my life you know i can't hide in this house forever so they were gonna go overseas so that jon could go out in public do things get out of the house without risking being seen by people they know or by police or anyone because you know you do go a little stir crazy being stuck in the house i when i had covered and i was stuck in the house for seven days i was going insane even though i was too tired to do literally anything i still just you just go a little crazy being stuck in the house 24 7. you know not even being able to go for a walk just to get some fresh air like he just was feeling it and he had to stay in that house for a very long period of time so he wanted to go overseas and you know start their new debt-free life together he thought the best plan of attack to make that a reality was to steal the identity of a dead baby because that's the logical next step right so he would go out to the library in a very elaborate disguise he would have his collar pop his hat on and he would like pretend to have a limp um which kind of reminds me of like leonardo dicaprio you know the photos of him like going out and trying not to be seen he's got his like puffer jacket up here his hat here that's probably a better disguise than john darwin's disguise a hat a pouch color and a fake limb please no wonder there were sightings of him but yeah he goes to the library and his top secret disguise and he's going through all their death records when he comes across jon jones he had been born in nearby sutherland in the same year as john darwin and he had unfortunately died at five weeks old and so john darwin decided to take his identity and he used his identity to go and get a passport under the name jon jones and in the uk you need a signature of a person in good standing in their community to get your passport application and a librarian counts as a person in good standing and it just so happens that john darwin had befriended a librarian i guess in all of his time you know sneaking out in his little disguise to go and look through these death records he made friends with a librarian and he got that signature and so he got his fake passport under the name of jon jones and the weirdest part about this to me is that on his possible application he still put his address as number three the clips which if you remember is his house that he owns with anne or owned i guess before he disappeared but anne still owns it and still lives in that house and he put it on his passport application after all of the effort he went through to like go out in his disguise look through death records befriend a librarian at the same time so he can get his application and steal the identity of a dead infant and then he still decides to put that address he still risks putting that address on his possible application anyway so he gets the password application and then he and anne go to cypress so that they can look at another house to buy there because that's exactly what they need is a new house after they couldn't pay the mortgages on their other 14 houses and then he had to fake his own death to get out of the debt that was accumulating because of these 14 houses the sound you know move is to then go and buy another house after faking your death of course but alas they were not able to purchase the house there because of the language barrier it's just a little too hard for them so they just came home to the uk and john and anne's relationship was a bit toxic and so when they got back home to the uk jon actually met another woman named kelly steele they met on a video game chat and just kind of hit it off kelly was also married and she lived in kansas and america and john kind of got talking about how cheap the land is in kansas and so kansas kind of became john's new fixation and anne actually knew about the fact that john was talking to kelly as well and she basically said to him go ahead see if i care you know let her deal with having a dead man hanging around and john took this as an invitation to go and visit kelly and he booked a two-week trip to kansas and he stayed with kelly while he was there at her house i don't really know how that worked considering she was married and had a family and children i mean i guess he didn't really stay there though um he got there she showed him to his room and he went to his room a couple of minutes later he started getting undressed and she walked past and she was furious like he had the door open when he was getting undressed and she was like this is unacceptable and she kicked him out of the house i mean i don't know if this was like something where they were talking online and they hit it off and then she saw him in person she was kind of like ill and use this as an excuse to like kick him out of the house because from my understanding it didn't sound that terrible like he had the door partially open and he had a shirt off and was kind of like going to unbuckle his belt so it wasn't like full commando she just saw him with his shirt off going to unbuckle his belt and she was like get out that's disgusting maybe he just to be fair i wasn't there i don't know the situation but the door could have blown open while he was getting dressed he could have accidentally not closed it all the way i mean whatever it was he wasn't fully undressed when it happened so seems like maybe a bit of an overreaction and maybe it was like she saw him in person was just like ill how can i get this man out of my house you've got your shirt off with the door open get so john went and stayed in a hotel and it seems like you know the incident didn't really stop them from investing in property together because john and kelly made a joint purchase of a 50 000 ranch with a dilapidated farm house on the land with the agreement that kelly and her family were going to stay in this farmhouse and they were going to do it up and so they made this purchase john booked his flight and went back to the uk and then while he was in the uk he started to harass kelly because he wasn't really seeing a return on his investment it seems like she really had not done anything to do the farmhouse up like they had agreed i mean the whole situation is kind of weird to me anyway because it seems like kelly just kind of swindled john into buying her and her family a farmhouse and a ranch because what did he even gain from that i mean he could have just gone to america used that money to buy a property all by himself but instead now he's lost the money and the house i mean girl boss moves from kelly he kind of deserved it but i really don't know what he was expecting but yeah he is not happy because he's not getting anything out of the deal and she's not holding up her end so he starts threatening her he sends her emails threatening her her family and even her horses and kelly said that he was an awful excuse for a human being she said it took a really long time for her life to settle and get back to normal and for her to stop thinking every day about the horrible things and threats that he was sending her she actually did contact her local police and they advised her to contact the fbi at which point john actually stopped emailing her and it was time for his next move and he decided that his next move would be to invest in a boat you know if you can't win in houses then go for boats you know the old saying he and ann want to buy a boat that can stay out on the water for long periods of time so john goes to gibraltar to look at a catamaran that had built in 1973 it was looking a little worse for wear so john demanded that the sellers do it up and fix all of these things up and then he would buy it for half price which obviously the owners were like no so john and anne's next decision was to move to panama city in july of 2006. i mean these people are just really all over the place you just have no idea what they're gonna do next seriously at no point when i was researching this did i know what their next moves were going to be so they bought a 50 000 apartment in panama city because yeah again what they need is more property sound idea but they buy this 50 000 apartment and they actually let a relocation agent take a photo of them and post it to their website and move to panama.com you could literally find this photo by typing into google john and anne panama for a man who's meant to be dead like that's really not the smartest decision while they were living in this apartment they decided that what they needed was actually another property and so they decided to start looking into purchasing rural property in panama by march of 2007 they purchased a two hundred thousand pound four acre ranch in escobar which is about two hours outside of panama city and they were planning to build a hotel there where people could take canoeing holidays i mean you really can't make this up he faced his death in a canoeing accident and now he wants to build a hotel that has canoeing holidays i just cannot believe this guy was never caught after all of the mistakes that he made first of all walking around the town that he faked his own death in in that abysmal excuse for a disguise putting his own address on the passport application after all the effort he went through to get a fake identity lets the relocation agent in panama take the photo of him and anne and lets them post it to move to panama.com where anybody can see it on google and then he wants to open a hotel where people can take canoeing holidays after he faked his own death on a canoe i mean i don't necessarily think he's gonna get caught by you know letting people take canoeing holidays but i just can't fathom it so while all of this is going on and they're closing on their 200 000 pound four acre ranch two hours outside of panama and is flying back and forth between panama and the uk so that she can sell the remainder of their properties in the uk so that they can make the full move to panama while she's doing this jon is like micromanaging hard he's made like a spreadsheet for her that's like color-coded and everything and he makes sure she follows it to a t and you know he sends her emails being like lots to do there you're always busy make sure you're always busy and then he would also send her emails like pornographic emails with the subject lines that are like nude and in the mood for love anyway in april 2007 anne finalizes the sale of the house that was adjoining to their number three the cliff house like the house that john had been hiding out in and it had actually been transferred to their son mark's name in 2006 so it was sold under mark's name and then the proceeds from the sale were sent to panama and then in october of 2007 they sold their number three the cliffs house for 295 000 pounds and made the full move to panama mind you i have no idea what anne is telling her children at this point like they think that their dad has died they still think their dad is dead at this point and now their mum is selling all of their properties and moving to panama i don't know if they're just like thinking she's like a grieving widow i really don't know what she would have been telling them at this point it must have been such a weird situation for them maybe they thought it was like her way of grieving and coping i don't know i just feel so bad for them in all of this because imagine finding this out that not only has your dad been faking his death for six years but he and your mum have been hiding it from you for the entire time and they were just gonna move to panama away from you and like live their life all the while letting you think that your dad is dead so two weeks after anne makes what she thinks is the permanent move to panama john tells her that he's actually known for four months now that his jon jones identity is not gonna pass the application for a visa because in order to permanently relocate to panama you actually need a letter from your local police department in the uk basically saying that you're a good citizen and you haven't really been in any criminal trouble which is obviously not going to be able to happen because jon jones died at five weeks old and john darwin they think he died five years ago as well so john darwin does what any man would do in his situation and he goes back to the uk while anne stays in panama and he walks into the police station and he says i think i'm a missing person but i have amnesia and can't remember anything from the last five years because that's a likely story very convenient that he doesn't remember anything from the last five years but that brings us back to the start of this crazy story obviously as soon as john walked into the police station they were immediately suss on him because like i mentioned there had been sightings and for the past four months they had actually been doing an investigation into anne because of the sightings and the tip-offs and the fact that she was supposed to be a grieving widow and had been taking all of these foreign holidays she had been selling their houses and she was then moving overseas and she was transferring money overseas after there were sightings called in of her husband still being alive two and two had already been adding up for the uk police before john even turned himself in not to mention even if they weren't suss on her like a guy dies his wife gets all the insurance money pays off their debts and then all of a sudden he's like i'm actually alive obviously police were like okay something is weird here media were obviously right on this case because it was a huge case a guy comes back from the dead after five years and one journalist actually flew over to panama showed up at ann's place like found out her address and showed up at her place and she gave him an exclusive interview basically saying she was thrilled that john was still alive and had been found and then the journalist pulls out the photo of anne and john in panama taken 18 months earlier and ann knew the gig was up john was arrested on the 8th of december in 2007 in bassing stoke where he'd been staying with his son anthony and he was charged with obtaining life insurance money by deception and making untrue statements to obtain a passport and was arrested the next day at the manchester airport in connection with those fraud allegations john ended up pleading guilty to seven charges of fraud and he was sentenced to six years and three months in prison and anne pled not guilty to six charges of deception and nine charges of using criminal property and so she had to go to trial and in the end she was convicted and sentenced to six years and six months in prison so three more months than john and her sons actually had to give evidence at her trial because she said that she was coerced into going along with the scam and so her sons made it known publicly that they had no interest in maintaining a relationship with either of their parents mark actually said to the press that anne was a hideous lying [ __ ] who had gone to outrageous lengths to con them anthony said and i quote they're as bad as each other dad told me one nasty line disappeared and said he was dead but she lied for six years she was the face of the lies she kept on lying even when the evidence was so overwhelmingly against her she dragged us through hell by forcing a court case in 2011 both ann and john were released from prison john was released in january and am was released in march and in 2012 they got a divorce and said she wanted to be free of his controlling ways she said he was not a good guy he had always had a controlling influence on her life so much so that even when he wasn't around she had his voice in her head she claimed he isolated her from one of her close friends from school and he treated her more like a student than a partner um she does act like she was conned into the whole thing by jon but she had long periods of time where he was overseas and you know he was over staying with kelly for two weeks she could have told the police in that time or at least told her sons you know that's the worst part of it she purposely defaulted everyone including her sons but she did actually manage to rekindle her relationship with both anthony and mark in february 2012 the crown prosecution service announced they were able to recover the entire 501 thousand dollars in life insurance and pension payouts received by anne partly from the sale of the two properties that they had purchased in panama in april 2014 they announced that john had only paid 121 pounds out of the 680 000 pounds that he owed because he had no assets like all of the assets were in anne's name because obviously they couldn't be in his name because he was supposed to be dead but by july 2015 the pair had no assets and had repaid almost all of this money john now lives in the philippines with his new wife a woman named mercy who is 23 years younger than him and she did an interview and said i know what he did he knows and he paid the penalty he doesn't need to be reminded but that's everything that's it for the case that's it for me today i mean what a wild rat i'm really really excited to discuss this one in the comments with you because insane i actually have no words i really had no idea like what their next move was going to be at any point i could not have guessed 90 of the stuff that they were going to do in this case and john just does not seem like the brightest guy his disguise putting his address on the passport application letting them get a photo of him and putting it on the internet in panama while he was meant to be dead and then going back into the police station and acting like he had been missing for five years and had amnesia couldn't remember anything i mean what did he think was gonna happen that they weren't gonna look into all of anne's activities over the last five years truly not the sharpest tool in the shed so i can't wait to see what you guys think but that's it for me i hope you guys have a wonderful recipe today and hopefully i'll see you in my next video bye guys

Channel: Bella Fiori

Views: 544,473

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Id: XSISObvwgOg

Length: 27min 9sec (1629 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 28 2022