16. The Canoe Man (John Darwin)

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Too many local governments are responsive more to the mob than to the electorate that put them in office.

In fact, there are three members of the New Jersey legislature who are entirely too comfortable with organized crime.

In December of 1968, the Assistant Attorney General of New Jersey, William J.

Brennan III, directed a grand jury to investigate allegations that the mafia had infiltrated governments, unions, and industries all over the state.

Without releasing the names to the public, Brennan alluded to three elected officials who had suspect associations with the mob.

These revelations sent shockwaves throughout the New Jersey legislator, resulting in finger-pointing and fear-mongering among the ranks of the assembly.

The paranoia and panic persisted for weeks before the names of the three officials were finally leaked to the media.

The evening news of Newark revealed that Saido Radoffi, a state senator and lawyer, was under investigation for assisting relatives of Philadelphia's top mafia boss with real estate purchases.

Assemblyman John Selecki was also under investigation because he had testified as a character witness in defense of Salvatore Proface, a member of the mob who had been caught earlier that year digging an unmarked grave on the side of the road.

The third legislator, Assemblyman David Friedland, was involved in a loan sharking deal in which the mafia extorted a local car wash owner.

All three officials were accused of not only profiteering from their dubious relationships, but also using their positions in government to prevent the prosecutions of certain people said to be involved in organized crime.

Substantial evidence never surfaced and no charges were ever filed on any of the three men.

On his way out the door, before he was relieved of his duties of investigating corruption, Assistant Attorney General Brendan warned that where there's smoke, there's fire.

And for the most part, the citizens of New Jersey heeded that warning.

Senator Radolfi was voted out of office during the next election cycle and returned to his private law practice where he continued to represent members of the mafia.

Assemblyman John Selecki lost his seat as well and never worked in government again.

David Friedland, on the other hand, remained in the New Jersey Assembly for another five years before deciding to follow in his father Jacob's footsteps and campaign for state senator.

As is American tradition, the citizens of New Jersey proved to have either a short memory or a great capacity for forgiveness.

The public ignored all of the red flags that came with David Friedland and elected him to the state senate in 1977.

Friedland would resign from his Senate seat less than three years later after it was discovered that he had accepted a $360,000 bribe in exchange for arranging a $4 million loan to a local businessman, which was taken from the pension fund of a New Brunswick labor union.

Friedland was convicted of the kickback scheme, tax evasion, and obstruction of justice, and was sentenced to seven years in prison, but he never spent a night behind bars.

David Friedland struck a deal with federal prosecutors which required him to wear a recording device to capture incriminating conversations with his former associates, and the plan worked like a charm.

Based on the evidence obtained using Friedland as an informant, the FBI launched a major investigation that implicated at least 50 different individuals in a massive ring of organized crime.

And David Friedland, having been identified as the rat, feared for his life and entered the witness protection program where he remained until he disappeared on Labor Day weekend in 1985.

Friedland was part of a scuba group who were diving off the coast of the Bahamas.

A friend of Freeland's told the police that David had been depressed and he saw him take several painkillers before their dive.

Freeland went underwater and never resurfaced.

His body was never found.

Sherry Dulworth, a woman who was part of Freedland's diving group, was skeptical.

We were all so concerned.

We were really well organized, swimming swimming a grid.

I was looking around the rocks and coral to see if he'd gotten stuck.

His buddy said he was depressed and had been drinking a lot of alcohol and taking all these painkillers and muscle relaxants.

Then a few hours later, he went diving.

Medically, it didn't make sense.

Coincidentally, David Friedland wasn't the only thing that turned up missing.

While he was in the witness protection program, $10 million had vanished from the same union pension fund that he had already been convicted of ripping off once before.

Investigators were not convinced that David Friedland was dead.

A warrant was issued for his arrest, and his name was placed near the top of the FBI's most wanted list.

Two years later, in November 1987, an American lawyer named Richard Smith Harley was arrested in the Mau Dives.

Richard ran a chain of scuba diving shops on the islands and made a living by leading rich Europeans on diving missions in the Indian Ocean.

Richard was beloved by the locals.

He was known for his firm handshakes and generous tips and willingness to help anyone that asked.

He offered free legal advice to those in need and operated a medical clinic where he would give away medication and perform minor surgeries, such as removing cysts and stitching cuts.

However, those closest to Richard reported that sometimes it would seem like he was a million miles away.

He would stare off into space as if he had just been reminded of a past life.

You can probably see where this is going.

Richard Smith Harley was the man formerly known as David Friedland, and the FBI had finally caught up to him.

For the past two years, Friedland had been living off of money stashed in offshore bank accounts and using a Costa Rican passport to travel.

He had spent his first six months as a fugitive in Kenya, Venice, Hong Kong, the French Alps, and Singapore, before starting a new life on the Maldives Islands.

Acting on a directive from the FBI, Friedland was taken into custody by the Maldivian police who accused him of being an American spy, and he was kept in prison that was anything but humane.

He was fed rotten fish and worm-infested rice.

He was forced to sit in a chair for almost 24 hours a day.

And when he was finally granted the opportunity to sleep, the guards would kick the thin mattress out from under David's body to keep him awake.

Unsurprisingly, this horrendous treatment took a toll on David Friedland's physical and mental health.

During bouts of debilitating back pain and severe diarrhea, the guards would pump him full of valium and various painkillers.

David Friedland could not wait to get back to the country that he fled, which eventually happened about two months later on December 28, 1987.

While in prison, David claimed to have found peace with the situation.

Friedlaimed he discovered God with the help of his cellmate, a born-again country Western singer from Kansas, a God that Friedland claimed had cured his vision after he pulled an all-nighter of prayer and meditation.

David Friedland spent his time in prison, much like he had spent his time in the Maldives, helping out his community and neighbors.

Friedland became a permanent permanent fixture in the prison library where he would write legal briefs for his fellow inmates.

He organized support groups to counsel repetitive sex offenders.

In return, his fellow inmates gave him a nickname, the senator.

If my life ended today, Friedland was quoted as saying, I would be content.

I have lived a very full life.

I never get bored.

I'm like a whirlwind of energy, even in here.

David Frieland was released from prison in 1997.

He was transferred to a Salvation Army halfway house in West Palm Beach, where he lived for several months before being released back into society.

Although his days as a politician were over, David found a new career that utilized his ability to deceive.

He began working for an advertising firm.

Pseudocide, or faking one's own death, is more common than you might imagine, but but notoriously difficult to pull off, especially for someone of such prominence like David Friedland, a politician who was wanted by the FBI.

But faking your own death in the digital age?

Almost impossible.

But that doesn't stop people from trying, often with the common goal of starting a new life without the financial or legal burdens of their old lives weighing them down.

A former teacher kayaks into the ocean and paddles away from his problems towards towards a new beginning, leaving his wife and kids behind.

On this episode, a swindled.

They bribed government officials to find

clear violations of

pay to play.

Dummy up his books and records and hide that.

They falsifying its coats and records responsible for the collapse of the entire system.

And in the school of some god of swinging.

even if the intruder runs away.

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The agents can actually intervene while the intruder is still outside.

Talk to them through two-way audio, hit them with a loud siren and spotlight, and call 911 if needed.

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John Darwin, a 51-year-old prison security guard, never showed up for work on Thursday, March 21st, 2002.

He was last seen climbing into his kayak and paddling into the ocean.

away from his home that was built on the coast of the North Sea in Seton Kareo, England.

A massive search party was launched the next day that consisted of two Coast Guard rescue teams, multiple police helicopters, at least nine lifeboats, and a Royal Navy ship.

The search team even employed a fixed-wing aircraft that was equipped with heat-seeking technology.

In total, the search lasted over 30 hours and encompassed a 62-square-mile area of coastlines and water.

Yet there was no trace of John Darwin.

Back on land, John's wife Anne was comforted by their two sons, Anthony and Mark, who knew their father as a resourceful and clever man who could get himself out of any buying that he might find for himself.

The two boys expected their father to walk through the door at any moment, but Anne seemed to expect the worst, telling those closest to her, quote, I think I've lost him.

He's gone.

Anne's worst fear would become far more real a few weeks later, when the damaged remains of a red canoe was found washed up on the beach in Seton Karoo.

The waters were calm on the day that Mr.

Darwin disappeared.

At least, they certainly weren't harsh enough to inflict the damage that the canoe had evidently suffered.

Most notably, a sizable chunk was missing from one side, which rendered it completely useless.

Authorities agreed that the most likely explanation was that John's kayak had collided with a much larger vessel, and he had either died upon impact or he was left treading water.

Six months passed with no new evidence.

Both the police department and Ann Darwin continued to make public appeals for new information.

Part of Anne's statement read, quote,

When John went missing, I stayed up all night.

I didn't go to bed for days.

It was a nightmare, and it's still going on.

People die, have a funeral.

They have a headstone.

There is something to mark the fact they existed on this earth.

But without a body, I don't know how we can mark John's life.

All I want is to bury his body.

It would enable me to move on.

That closure never came.

John Darwin's body was never found.

and he was declared dead on April 10th, 2003,

a little over a year after he had disappeared.

In the years following, Anne Darwin was often seen by her neighbors staring at the sea from the window of her beachside home, as if she expected to see John on the horizon paddling towards her.

Every year on the anniversary of John's disappearance, she would throw roses into the North Sea in remembrance, but always withheld one for her bedside table.

John's youngest son, Anthony, was said to have spent countless hours contacting missing persons' registries looking for scraps of information and scouring the internet for news of bodies washing up onto shores.

Eventually, the memories became too much for Anne Darwin.

Her sons had left the nest and she was left alone in the empty house.

In October 2007, she sold the family home for £295,000.

She also sold the couple's 13 rental properties for an untold sum, and she received another 250 grand from insurance payouts, pensions, and bereavement grants from the government.

Anne used some of these funds to purchase an apartment in Panama City, Panama.

She told her sons that she wanted to move there because it was, quote, fun, Catholic, and they speak Spanish.

It had been five and a half years since John disappeared, and Anne Darwin was finally ready to start a new life, which she was able to enjoy for a total of two months before a familiar face from her past reappeared.

At half past five on Saturday evening, a man walked into this police station and said he was a missing person.

He looked fit and well, so there was some disbelief when he said he was John Darwin, a man presumed dead, last seen setting out to go canoeing in the sea off Hartlepool five and a half years ago.

On December 1st, 2007, at 5.30 p.m., a man entered the West End Central Police Station in London and announced that he was a missing person.

The only details that he could recall about his life was that his name was John Darwin and that he was 57 years old and lived in Seton Kareo.

He told police that he suffered from amnesia and that his last remaining memory was from a family holiday in Norway in the year 2000.

A day later, Anthony and Mark Darwin arrived at the police station to verify their father's identity.

They could not believe that after all that time that he was still alive, and they were relieved to find that he remembered their faces.

The Darwin voice called the emotional reunion with their father, quote, the best Christmas present any family can wish for.

Meanwhile, in Panama, Anne Darwin had received word that her husband had returned from the dead.

She told reporters that she was thrilled about the news and that she, too, was overcome with emotion.

There must have been an accident when he went out on the canoe, she told reporters.

He must have hit his head or something.

While Anne Darwin arranged for her return to England to be reunited with her long-lost husband, evidence began to surface that suggested that her husband may not have been lost at all.

There was some information that was reported to us about

three months ago to suggest that perhaps

there was something suspicious with regards to his disappearance.

In September 2007, about three months before John Darwin reappeared, law enforcement received a tip from a woman who worked with Ann Darwin.

The woman told authorities that she had overheard a phone call that was financial in nature between Ann and an unknown person on the other end.

Authorities used this tip to reopen the investigation into John's disappearance.

with a special focus on the Darwin family finances.

A few days later, the police had a few questions that they wanted to ask Anne Darwin.

While investigators awaited her arrival from Panama, the Daily Mirror published a photo of John and Anne that was taken in 2006, four years after John had reportedly disappeared, and 18 months before he resurfaced.

In the photo, the couple are standing next to a Panamanian real estate agent with big smiles draped across their faces.

The photograph had been featured on a website called movetopanama.com.

It was discovered by a member of the public who performed a Google image search using the terms John, Anne, and Panama.

There was no doubt that Anne Darwin knew her husband was alive long before he walked into that London police station.

When confronted with evidence, Mrs.

Darwin came clean.

She claimed that John returned home about a year after he disappeared.

She said he lived in secret for the past three, almost four years in one of the couple's rental properties next door to their main house.

Anne described how John used a secret passageway hidden behind a fake cupboard in her bedroom to move freely between his hideout and his former home.

While Anne was throwing roses into the sea to commemorate John's death, John was sitting at home on the couch eating fish and chips.

Two months after John had moved back into the house, Anne said he came up with the idea to have himself proclaimed illegally dead so that they could collect the proceeds from his life insurance benefits.

Anne was hesitant at first, but she did it anyway.

She said John was adamant.

However, the insurance company only paid Anne £50,000,

about half of what the policy was worth, because John's body had never been found.

Investigators believed Anne Darwin's story.

but they were not convinced of her claim that she was nothing more than an innocent pawn in her husband's insurance fraud scheme.

Thousands and thousands of text messages and emails between the two throughout the years had been uncovered in the investigation, proving that the couple had remained in constant contact almost immediately following John's vanishing act,

and even emailed John just hours before he turned himself in.

When this additional evidence was presented to her, Anne Darwin's story changed again.

This time she started from the beginning.

I knew

the day that John had gone missing, that he had

gone missing

and that he'd planned it.

I got a telephone call from him at work on that afternoon

to say that he was going to go out in the canoe

and he wanted me to get home by seven o'clock that evening to pick him up and to help him make his getaway.

John, who was being questioned separately by detectives, experienced a miraculous recovery from amnesia and confirmed that he had asked Anne to pick him up.

And what did you do?

I took the canoe load

and

paddled out to sea and.

So you did actually physically paddle out to sea?

Yes.

And where did you paddle to?

South.

North.

I can't remember what you call it.

North Gear or something like that.

Okay, then, so you pulled in at the pier

and

did what?

Did you have a car waiting?

Or

Well, basically, I

had pers made my wife,

or basically told her that, you know, if we were doing things, then she had to agree.

And she

picked me up.

Did she?

From the pier.

And what did you do with the canoe?

Just let it push it back out to sea or

just pushed it out to sea.

On the morning of March 21st, 2002, John Darwin boarded his canoe and paddled along the coast until he found an isolated spot to land.

He looked around to make sure nobody was watching and smashed a hole into the side of the canoe with a rock that he had found nearby.

He pushed the canoe back into the water and found a suitable place to hide until the sunset.

He'd asked me to pick him up

in the car park at North Gare.

He wanted me to pick him up about seven.

I think I got there by seven, I'm not sure.

He wasn't actually there, I had to sit and wait a while.

Eventually,

he came towards the car

and he said he had everything with him that he needed.

Anne drove John to the rail station in Durham and dropped him off.

According to John, he spent the next month camping out in a tent near the sand dunes on the beach.

But as the nighttime temperatures dropped and the pounds fell off of his body, John decided that he missed the modern comforts of living indoors.

He held his wife to come pick him up, and he moved into the rental property next door, where he lived for the next several years.

During this time, John Darwin's life was relatively normal.

He argued with the contractors who were doing work on his house.

He took long walks around his neighborhood, using a wool cap and a fake limp and a scraggly beard as a disguise.

John even claims that on one of those walks, he passed by his father and brother, but they didn't even give him a second glance.

But for the most part, John Darwin spent his time indoors, mulling over his options and wasting time while Anne continued to work.

He read books and newspapers, browsed the internet, watched daytime TV, afternoon naps, you know, if unemployed.

He even got addicted to an online video game called EverQuest, where he met a 42-year-old woman from the United States named Kelly Steele,

a married mother of two, who John interacted with frequently through the game.

During one of their conversations, John asked about investment opportunities where she lived.

He told Kelly that his wife had died of cancer and that he had made a fortune in the stock market and that he was looking to buy some secluded real estate like a ranch because he quote always wanted to be a cowboy.

While John and his rodeo dreams were in luck, Kelly knew just the place.

It was down the street from her in small-town Kansas.

20 acres of undeveloped land.

It was cheap.

It was perfect.

John wired £25,000 to Kelly with the agreement that she would arrange the purchase and renovation of the property.

John planned to fly to Kansas a few weeks later to see it for himself.

But first, he needed a passport.

John searched the death column of the local newspaper until he found the perfect target.

John Jones, an infant who died in 1950, one year before John Darwin was born.

The date of birth, presumably that was because it was pretty similar to your date of birth.

Yes, I don't think I would be able to pass off as a 21-year-old.

Absolutely not.

Me and you both.

I wanted a birth certificate of someone who wasn't alive because I didn't want to ruin somebody else's life.

After a trip to the register's office produced a copy of John Jones' birth certificate, John Darwin headed to the library for some assistance in obtaining a passport.

A week later, he was on a flight to Kansas.

According to Kelly Steele, within minutes of John arriving to her house, He was stripping off of his clothes in front of her and her children.

He also reportedly asked her if she knew any, quote, single girls in Kansas who want a rich husband.

She thought it might be a better idea if John stayed somewhere else, so she dropped him off at a local hotel.

He flew back to England two weeks later, unimpressed with the property and Kelly's renovation efforts.

Soon after, Kelly began receiving threatening emails from John Darwin.

He was dissatisfied with the progress that had been made on the Kansas farm and demanded his money back.

And he warned warned Kelly that if he did not get his money back, she would be visited by his gangster friend from New York named Giovanni.

Part of the email read, quote,

Some questions you may think about to pass the time.

Why did my horse get sick?

Was it Godfather 1 where that man's favorite horse got its head cut off?

Do the brakes in my car need checking?

Is the grass too dry around the house and barn?

What's that noise outside?

Be assured the debt collectors will visit you.

Lock up your wives and daughters when they are in town.

Let the nightmare begin.

Of course, John Darwin was bluffing.

He had no mob connections.

Kelly still was in no danger, but even to this day, she still sleeps with the loaded shotgun next to her bed and knives under her pillow.

She told a reporter that John Darwin was, quote, the creepiest, oddest, and most frightening man that she had ever met.

Kelly never repaid that money, and she still owns the 20-acre plot of land near Kansas City.

In 2006, John Darwin found himself back in Seton Caroo with no farm and no cattle, but he did have a few remaining ideas.

He toyed with the idea of living on a houseboat for a while.

He even contacted someone selling a boat.

but that plan fell through when the owners of the boat refused to meet John's demand to cut the price in half from £60,000 to £30,000.

So John moved on to his next plan.

He calculated that from the sale of the house and the rental properties, combined with the income Anne received for his untimely passing, the two of them could move to Panama with £500,000 in the bank.

Panama would be ideal because of its extremely low mortgage rates and the fact that there's no tax levied on income generated outside of the country.

Was it his idea?

Yes.

Yes.

What did you think of it?

I didn't like the idea at all, and I told him that on several occasions

that it was a ridiculous idea.

Far better to

go down the route of bankruptcy rather than

trying to fake a death.

But he just wouldn't hear of it.

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John Darwin was not a rich man.

He had been a school teacher for 18 years before taking a banking job and working at the prison, and was a receptionist at a doctor's office.

John Darwin was not a rich man, but he desperately wanted to be.

Poor stock market trades and risky property investments left the Darwins with a suffocating amount of debt.

John alone owed £64,000 on credit cards.

He could no longer afford to pay the mortgages of his 13 rental properties that weren't generating any revenue.

And he was about to lose his £48,000 Range Rover that he loved more than anything.

In a final attempt at relieving some pressure and to buy himself some more time, John Darwin applied for a bank loan of £20,000.

He was denied, so he disappeared into the ocean six days later.

Instead of admitting defeat in his attempt at keeping up with the Joneses, John Darwin decided to become one.

He used the John Jones passport to fly to Panama, where he met up with Anne.

They met with the real estate agent about purchasing a fully furnished flat in Panama City, as well as a 500-acre plot in Escobar, a small town about two hours outside of Panama City.

After a deal was made, the properties were paid for in cash that the Darwins had stashed in an offshore bank account, presumably from the sale of their home and rental properties.

John and Anne signed on the dotted line and had their photograph taken with their helpful agent.

The couple had big plans for their new property.

They envisioned a tourist resort with a bed and breakfast and guided hikes and tours and naturally canoe trips.

The land, as it was purchased, had no infrastructure, no running water, and no electricity.

The Darwins had a lot of work ahead of themselves.

But before they could even get started, the country of Panama made a change to its visa regulations that required people living in the country on tourist visas to obtain investor visas instead.

Investors' visas are subject to far more scrutiny than a tourist visa, and John Darwin knew that.

He also knew that he could never get through that process clean.

So he hatched the brilliant plan to return to the UK in fake amnesia.

in an attempt to resurrect his legal person from the dead, which he could then use to obtain the documentation that he needed to reside in Panama.

Anne Darwin went along with the plan.

She was in too deep at this point to put a stop to all of it now.

It was stupid, but once I'd set out along the road, it was difficult to turn back.

I assume then the most difficult deception, apart from the official

deceptions, must have been the boys.

Yes.

That is extremely painful.

Always has been.

In the five and a half years that John Darwin was missing, Anne Darwin never told her sons the truth.

Anthony and Mark, like everybody else in Seton Carew, were led to believe that their father was dead.

In fact, Anne would often speak to her sons on speakerphone so that John could hear their voices without them knowing.

John also claimed that one of the reasons he returned to England is because he missed his kids.

He said the other reason was to repay the insurance money that Anne had collected on his life.

John never told the detectives about the visa issue, which was the real reason for his return.

They learned about that through his emails to Anne.

When the Darwin boys learned of their parents' betrayal a few days after their father had returned, they issued a statement saying that they were, quote, very much in an angry and confused state of mind.

Anthony and Mark ceased all all contact with their parents and haven't spoken to them since.

John Darwin was arrested on December 8th, 2007 on a total of 16 charges, including obtaining money transfers by deception and making an untrue statement to procure a passport.

Ann Darwin was arrested the following day on similar charges.

The couple remained in custody throughout Christmas and the new year.

First tonight, back from the dead canoeist John Darwin has admitted seven charges of obtaining money by deception after faking his own death.

The 57-year-old appeared in front of a High Court judge in Leeds this morning alongside his wife Anne.

But she gave a very different response to the same charges.

On March 13th, 2008, John Darwin pleaded guilty to seven charges of deception and one charge of making false statements to procure a passport.

He pleaded not guilty to nine counts of converting criminal property.

Ann Darwin pleaded not guilty to the 15 charges she was facing.

She claimed it was all a matter of marital coercion and that she was forced to go along with her husband's plans.

She decided to let a jury decide her fate.

Ann Darwin was convicted on all counts.

She was sentenced to six and a half years in prison.

This is Detective Inspector Andy Greenwood.

I'm obviously really pleased with the verdict that

we've just received.

From my mind, Anne Darwin has been a compulsive liar throughout this particular inquiry.

Every time she came forward with an account,

she reacted to the evidence that was put towards her,

and another account was brought out.

That continued through the court process, and she was found to be the liar that she clearly is.

To put somebody's sons

through that turmoil, together with the friends and the family, their associates, is absolutely appalling.

And I'm just pleased that the truth,

as it's been unfolding, has come out.

I'm sure it will continue to unfold through the next months and years to come because this really is just half-time.

We do have asset recovery teams that are going to make sure that all the financial benefit that Mr.

and Mrs.

Darwin have realised as a result of this deception is brought back to this country and given back to the people who

quite rightly deserve to get the money back.

It was portrayed as being a somewhat victimless crime, you know, one where nobody was really hurt.

But you just had to stand in court and listen to Mark and Anthony Darwin give their evidence.

You just had to listen to Irene Blakemore when she was giving her evidence.

You know, the fact that Anne Darwin could at least tell her friends that she could go and float roses off into the sea six months after John's disappearance and then keep one on a bedside cabinet that just summed the woman up with me.

She was out and out, despicable.

I mean, I just do not have the time of day for her, and I think it was picked up on before, you know, that animosity was somewhat tangible when I was speaking about Anne Darwin.

And to put people through this particular scenario, I think it's disgraceful.

John Darwin was sentenced to six years and three months in prison, three months less than his wife since he took the plea deal.

Together, they were ordered to repay almost £700,000 in life insurance and pension payouts.

Whether it came across in court or not,

what the prosecution have alleged is that everything that they've got now is tainted property.

It's all criminal property.

If they'd dealt with the scenario as any other person would in 2002, they'd have been bankrupt and they wouldn't have had the assets which have ultimately realised the money that they have now.

So, our efforts over the next few months and possibly years is to recover, well, first of all, identify where the money is and to recover it and repatriate it to the people who genuinely have lost it.

During the sentencing hearing, the judge pointed to the Darwin sons as the real victims.

He said, quote, Although the sums involved are not as high as some reported cases, the duration of the offending, its multifaceted nature, and in particular the grief inflicted over the years to those who, in truth, were the real victims, your own sons, whose lives you crushed, make this a case which merits a particularly severe sentence.

Anne Darwin agreed.

She told the court she was heartbroken about lying to her sons and that at times she even considered suicide.

She hoped that they could find it in their hearts to forgive her someday.

John Darwin was released from prison on probation in January 2011.

He returned to Seton Karoo, where he was mercilessly ridiculed by his neighbors.

When Anne was released from prison a few months later, the couple divorced and went their separate ways.

Anne said the decision stemmed from conversations she had with a psychologist while she was in prison.

John did not waste any time looking for love.

He was arrested again in late 2013 for violating his probation by traveling abroad.

He had visited Ukraine on three separate occasions to meet a 25-year-old woman he met on a website called dreammarriage.com.

John had reportedly paid the woman at least 500 pounds for live chats and dates, which was curious since he was living on a pension of £138 a week.

John's quest for love continued when he was released from prison the second time.

On October 2, 2016, a video titled John and Mercy surfaced on YouTube, which shows John Darwin and a Filipino woman staring into the camera, making funny faces and laughing.

The 15-second clip is the only video uploaded to the account.

UK reporters later confirmed that John Darwin, at 66 years old, had married a 43-year-old woman from the Philippines named Mercy May.

According to a post on Mercy's Google Plus account, perhaps the only post ever made on a Google Plus account, Mercy could not wait to move to England.

The post read, quote, Yes, got it.

Who said I was banned?

UK, land of the free, free benefits, housing, school, and doctors.

Can't wait to move with all the family, LOL.

Anne Darwin has found her own version of happiness as well.

She lives in a one-bedroom flat in York and spends her time volunteering at an animal shelter.

In 2016, she told the BBC, quote, I am happy.

I'm comfortable in my own skin.

When the interviewer asked about her ex-husband, she said, I have no feelings towards John whatsoever.

Completely zero.

No emotion whatsoever.

By 2015, John and Anne had repaid over 540,000 pounds of the almost 700,000 they owed, most of it coming from the sale of the properties in Panama.

After paying back what they owed, neither John nor Anne had any remaining assets, which, in a sense, is the fresh start that they've always wanted.

Swindled is written, researched, produced, and hosted by me, a concerned citizen, with music by Ethan Helfrich, aka Rest You Sleeping Giant.

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Thanks for listening.

They Walk Among Us is an award-winning true crime podcast.

From the sinister and surreal to the brutal and bizarre, join us to hear more on the UK's most notorious and obscure crimes.

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I'd like to invite you to listen to my new podcast, The Murder in My Family, which is out right now.

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Some of the cases I cover are well known, and others you probably haven't heard of.

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