SEATON CAREW, England — Was he a victim of amnesia or a con artist who tried to fake his death to collect life insurance? Whatever the answer, Britain is captivated by the tale of how John Darwin vanished after paddling into the North Sea in a canoe, was declared dead when its wreckage washed ashore, then turned up five years later at a police station claiming to have lost his memory.
Investigators suspect fraud: They arrested the 57-year-old former prison officer Wednesday on suspicion he faked his death so his wife could cash in on his insurance policy and move to Panama.
The story has become front-page news. The Daily Mirror claimed Darwin and his wife, Anne, were seen together after his disappearance and printed a photograph it said shows the couple standing in a Panama City apartment they rented last year.
Darwin resurfaced Saturday when he walked into a London police station looking tanned and in good health and claiming to have lost his memory. His sons said in a statement he couldn’t remember anything since June 2000 — two years before he vanished.
Darwin was arrested Wednesday at the home of a son.
Police Detective Superintendent Tony Hutchinson, who is leading the investigation in the city of Cleveland, issued a public appeal for information on Darwin’s whereabouts over the past five years.
“There will be people out there who will know exactly where he has been, what he has been doing and where he has been living,” Hutchinson said.
A police official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said acquaintances of Darwin’s wife had been in contact with detectives for the past few months after claiming to have overheard her speaking on the phone to her husband.
That, along with a sudden transfer of funds by Anne Darwin to Panama and to her son, as well as suspicious credit-card activity, led authorities to reopen the case. Police believe that Darwin turned himself in after being tipped off that the net was closing in on him.
The Sun quoted Anne Darwin, 55, as saying she claimed the insurance benefits “in good faith when I believed I had lost my husband.”
“Of course there is a possibility they may now have to be repaid,” it quoted her as saying. “It is one of the many things I am struggling to come to terms with.”
Authorities are considering extraditing Anne Darwin from Panama to be questioned in Britain. Police said officers were likely to question John Darwin today.
Anne Darwin insisted to reporters that she had not seen her husband since he went missing and that his reappearance was “the moment I’ve always prayed for.”
