WEBVTT - The Dunning Canoe-ger Effect 0:00:15.410 --> 0:00:26.690 Pushkin, a clothes store on Oxford Street, one of London's 0:00:26.730 --> 0:00:30.810 busiest shopping districts. In December, the busiest time of the year. 0:00:31.570 --> 0:00:35.450 It's two thousand and seven. A balding man in his 0:00:35.610 --> 0:00:38.610 late fifties approaches a store assistant. 0:00:39.530 --> 0:00:44.690 Excuse me, I can't find my wife or the dogs. 0:00:45.050 --> 0:00:46.130 The rock Violet. 0:00:46.970 --> 0:00:50.890 The man isn't making much sense. He claims to have 0:00:51.010 --> 0:00:53.890 no idea where he is or how he got there. 0:00:55.250 --> 0:00:58.930 Why are there Christmas lights? Isn't it June? 0:00:59.650 --> 0:01:05.050 No, it's December. But the man is sun tanned. Clearly 0:01:05.170 --> 0:01:09.330 he hasn't been in Britain or winter. Equally, clearly, there's 0:01:09.330 --> 0:01:13.130 something not quite right with him, and whatever the problem is, 0:01:13.650 --> 0:01:17.010 the store don't want it to be their problem. A 0:01:17.050 --> 0:01:22.090 security guard escorts him to the nearest police station. The 0:01:22.170 --> 0:01:24.570 man tells the duty sergeant. 0:01:24.410 --> 0:01:26.650 I think I'm a missing person. 0:01:27.930 --> 0:01:30.970 Why do you think you're a missing person? Well? 0:01:31.690 --> 0:01:34.050 If I knew that, I don't think i'd be here, now, 0:01:34.090 --> 0:01:34.490 would I. 0:01:35.570 --> 0:01:39.050 The man has no idea on him, but he says 0:01:39.170 --> 0:01:47.490 he thinks his name might be John John Darwin. Five 0:01:47.770 --> 0:01:51.850 years earlier, in two thousand and two, a middle aged 0:01:51.890 --> 0:01:57.170 man called John Darwin indeed went missing in a canoe. 0:01:57.930 --> 0:02:01.090 He'd paddled out to sea one morning from the beach 0:02:01.210 --> 0:02:03.730 in the town in the northeast of England where he 0:02:03.810 --> 0:02:09.810 lived with his wife Anne, and said Anne, he never 0:02:09.850 --> 0:02:14.890 came back. The battered canoe later washed up on a beach, 0:02:15.770 --> 0:02:21.290 but no body was ever found. At the time, it 0:02:21.570 --> 0:02:25.850 raised some eyebrows. The weather had been calm, the sea 0:02:26.170 --> 0:02:29.290 as smooth as a mill pond, not the kind of 0:02:29.290 --> 0:02:34.010 conditions in which should expect a canoeist to get into difficulties. Also, 0:02:34.810 --> 0:02:39.050 John Darwin, it turned out, was a man with many debts, 0:02:39.810 --> 0:02:44.130 But once the requisite time had passed, an inquest judged 0:02:44.290 --> 0:02:49.010 that the missing man must be presumed dead and claimed 0:02:49.010 --> 0:02:52.770 on John's life insurance and moved abroad to start a 0:02:52.850 --> 0:02:58.050 new life in Panama, a country with a reputation for 0:02:58.170 --> 0:03:02.810 sunshine and not asking too many questions about where your 0:03:02.850 --> 0:03:07.650 money comes from. And now he is a sun tanned 0:03:07.850 --> 0:03:12.450 John Darwin a London police station, saying he's got amnesia. 0:03:13.010 --> 0:03:16.290 He can't remember anything of the last five years, nothing 0:03:16.370 --> 0:03:21.370 at all. It's nonsense, isn't it. It must be nonsense, 0:03:22.330 --> 0:03:27.210 But how to prove it? The police have no grounds 0:03:27.250 --> 0:03:31.130 to detain John Darwin, so they call his adult sons, 0:03:31.810 --> 0:03:36.770 who are stunned. For five years they've assumed their dad 0:03:36.930 --> 0:03:43.650 was dead, and now he's back. Britain's newspapers leap on 0:03:43.770 --> 0:03:44.410 the story. 0:03:44.930 --> 0:03:45.610 And what a. 0:03:45.730 --> 0:03:51.850 Deliciously intriguing story it is. Where was I for five years? 0:03:52.090 --> 0:03:58.290 Amazing mystery of missing canoeists? What's his game? He must 0:03:58.330 --> 0:04:03.730 be lying, but how to prove it? The year, remember, 0:04:04.050 --> 0:04:08.490 is two thousand and seven. The Internet is less pervasive 0:04:08.530 --> 0:04:13.250 than today. A young mum, reading the news and feeling curious, 0:04:14.170 --> 0:04:18.770 does something very simple, but something that hadn't occurred to 0:04:18.810 --> 0:04:24.210 the police or to journalists. She visits Google. She clicks 0:04:24.250 --> 0:04:32.450 the images tab. She types three words John and Panama. 0:04:34.250 --> 0:04:40.330 She presses search. I'm Tim Harford and you're listening to 0:04:40.530 --> 0:05:08.810 cautionary tales. John Darwin worked as a teacher, then retrained 0:05:08.810 --> 0:05:12.930 as a prison officer, and looked after their two sons 0:05:13.010 --> 0:05:15.890 until they went to school. Then got a job as 0:05:15.930 --> 0:05:20.570 a receptionist at a doctor's surgery. Ordinary jobs that bought 0:05:20.650 --> 0:05:25.450 an ordinary house in an ordinary village. It wasn't enough 0:05:25.570 --> 0:05:26.090 for John. 0:05:26.890 --> 0:05:30.170 I'll be a millionaire by the time I'm fifty. 0:05:31.090 --> 0:05:34.850 John borrowed money to buy run down houses to rent out, 0:05:35.610 --> 0:05:39.850 but tenants were hard to find that alone tenants who 0:05:39.930 --> 0:05:45.050 paid rent on time. The houses needed constant repairs, which 0:05:45.210 --> 0:05:49.130 John lacked the skills to make. The couples struggled to 0:05:49.170 --> 0:05:53.370 make their loan repayments on the houses or on John's 0:05:53.450 --> 0:05:57.970 luxury range rover with the personalized license plate. They ran 0:05:58.050 --> 0:06:02.530 up debt on credit cards. John decided the solution to 0:06:02.570 --> 0:06:06.610 their problems was to borrow more money to buy more houses, 0:06:07.650 --> 0:06:12.250 two houses, specifically next door to each other, four story 0:06:12.450 --> 0:06:17.570 nineteenth century townhouses overlooking the beach in the faded seaside 0:06:17.610 --> 0:06:24.250 resort of seedn Kreou. The architecture was grand pointed gables 0:06:24.290 --> 0:06:28.290 and ornate balustrades, but one of the houses had been 0:06:28.330 --> 0:06:35.650 converted into thirteen bedsets, tiny dingy studio apartments for renting 0:06:35.690 --> 0:06:40.090 out to low income tenants. John and Anne would live 0:06:40.130 --> 0:06:44.650 in the other house. Oddly, it had a secret passageway 0:06:44.730 --> 0:06:47.770 into one of the bed sits next door, a hole 0:06:47.810 --> 0:06:51.610 in the wall hidden in a wardrobe like the entrance 0:06:51.730 --> 0:06:58.210 to Narnia. John had worked out all the sums on 0:06:58.210 --> 0:07:01.770 a spreadsheet. The rent from the bedsits would surely cover 0:07:01.930 --> 0:07:05.610 all their debts. Anne was not convinced. 0:07:06.730 --> 0:07:10.810 John told her stop worrying, It'll be fine. 0:07:11.410 --> 0:07:15.010 It was not fine. The house was far bigger than 0:07:15.050 --> 0:07:17.970 they needed. Their two sons had now grown up and 0:07:18.210 --> 0:07:23.610 moved south near London. Heating was expensive, the house had 0:07:23.770 --> 0:07:30.210 high ceilings, no insulation, and drafty single glazed windows. They 0:07:30.210 --> 0:07:33.050 couldn't find tenants for all of the bedsits and didn't 0:07:33.050 --> 0:07:37.090 get on with the tenants they did have, mostly unemployed 0:07:37.210 --> 0:07:42.530 single men. They were glad they owned two Rockvilers. By 0:07:42.530 --> 0:07:46.570 the time John Darwin turned fifty, not only was he 0:07:46.690 --> 0:07:52.490 not a millionaire, his financial situation had become desperate. Penalty 0:07:52.650 --> 0:07:58.530 charges for late repayments were piling up. The Darwins faced bankruptcy. 0:07:59.370 --> 0:08:04.330 John dreaded the stigma of being declared a failure. But 0:08:04.410 --> 0:08:09.690 they'd run out of other options, or had they. 0:08:12.570 --> 0:08:14.930 I think I should crush the ranger over on the 0:08:14.930 --> 0:08:19.090 way home from work. We could claim the insurance. 0:08:18.490 --> 0:08:23.170 Money, John thought some more. But I might. 0:08:23.210 --> 0:08:26.890 Actually kill myself doing it. I don't want to do that. 0:08:28.090 --> 0:08:32.850 What if he faked his own death instead? 0:08:33.370 --> 0:08:36.730 You could claim the life insurance money? 0:08:38.370 --> 0:08:41.730 And was not immediately sold on this plan. She later 0:08:41.810 --> 0:08:43.490 told the journalist David Lee. 0:08:44.090 --> 0:08:47.770 For God's sake, John, you'll be phoned out and locked up. 0:08:48.370 --> 0:08:49.250 We both will. 0:08:50.050 --> 0:08:55.130 Nonetheless, she agreed to go along with it. One morning 0:08:55.290 --> 0:08:59.690 in two thousand and two, John lugs his bright red 0:08:59.770 --> 0:09:02.490 canoe over the road from his house to the beach. 0:09:03.250 --> 0:09:05.890 He makes sure there are people around to see him. 0:09:06.250 --> 0:09:09.770 He paddles out to sea bend down on the coast 0:09:09.970 --> 0:09:14.610 to another deserted beach, where Anne meets him with her car. 0:09:15.850 --> 0:09:18.850 He fills the canoe with rocks and shoves it into 0:09:18.890 --> 0:09:23.650 the water and drives him to a railway station, where 0:09:23.690 --> 0:09:30.410 he takes a train into the countryside. John planned to 0:09:30.530 --> 0:09:34.050 lie low for a while by camping, but for some reason, 0:09:34.450 --> 0:09:37.850 he'd taken his sleeping bag with him in the canoe 0:09:38.210 --> 0:09:42.650 instead of leaving it in Anne's car. It's now sopping wet. 0:09:43.370 --> 0:09:46.410 He checks into a bed and breakfast under a false name, 0:09:47.250 --> 0:09:50.250 and goes home and calls the emergency services. 0:09:51.090 --> 0:09:55.610 This isn't like John at all. He's a very experienced canoeist, 0:09:55.690 --> 0:09:59.090 but I'm starting to worry something dreadful might have happened. 0:10:00.890 --> 0:10:05.690 The Coast Guard Agency leaps into action. Dozens of volunteers 0:10:05.730 --> 0:10:09.810 from the Royal National Lifeboat institution a charity, drop what 0:10:09.850 --> 0:10:12.490 they're doing and take to the sea to search for 0:10:12.530 --> 0:10:15.770 the missing canoeist. The search goes on all through the 0:10:15.890 --> 0:10:21.250 night and the next day six boats, a plane, a helicopter, 0:10:23.170 --> 0:10:28.850 and watches from the window of her home. John watches 0:10:28.970 --> 0:10:32.330 on the television news in his bed and breakfast. The 0:10:32.370 --> 0:10:37.090 missing man has been named locally as John Darwin, and 0:10:37.450 --> 0:10:40.610 calls her two sons to break the news that their 0:10:40.690 --> 0:10:44.450 father is missing at sea. One son is on holiday 0:10:44.450 --> 0:10:47.450 in Canada, where he had been planning to propose to 0:10:47.530 --> 0:10:51.530 his girlfriend. They cut short their trip and rush to 0:10:51.610 --> 0:10:58.370 Seed in carew where they find Anne surrounded by people family, friends, work, 0:10:58.530 --> 0:11:03.930 colleagues offering support, and the police, who seem to suspect 0:11:04.050 --> 0:11:08.850 that all may not be as it seems. They're methodically 0:11:09.170 --> 0:11:13.770 searching the house and asking Anne question after question. 0:11:14.690 --> 0:11:16.250 I've told you everything I know. 0:11:19.010 --> 0:11:23.210 After a week, Anne's phone rings, what's happening? 0:11:23.690 --> 0:11:25.410 Has everyone gone home yet? 0:11:26.050 --> 0:11:29.930 Are you mad? Of course they haven't gone home yet. 0:11:30.890 --> 0:11:34.770 John has bought a new sleeping bag. Camping is cheaper 0:11:34.810 --> 0:11:38.690 than the bed and breakfast, but every night his air 0:11:38.770 --> 0:11:44.410 mattress slowly defects and he wakes uncomfortably on the ground. 0:11:45.330 --> 0:11:47.290 He doesn't have the cash to buy a new one, 0:11:47.770 --> 0:11:51.490 and he obviously can't use a card. He pesters Anne. 0:11:52.250 --> 0:11:56.210 Have their sons still not left. I've got to come back. 0:11:56.850 --> 0:11:58.290 You don't know what it's like for me. 0:11:59.330 --> 0:12:01.450 It's not exactly easy for me either. 0:12:04.170 --> 0:12:08.930 After three weeks, the sons go home, the coast is 0:12:09.930 --> 0:12:17.370 and John Darwin returns to Seaton carew Cunningly disguised he's 0:12:17.370 --> 0:12:21.370 grown a beard. He makes use of that odd secret 0:12:21.450 --> 0:12:26.450 passageway When visitors call on Ann, John darts through the 0:12:26.450 --> 0:12:32.690 wardrobe and hides out in the bedsit But soon he 0:12:32.850 --> 0:12:36.170 starts to take a chance on going out and about. 0:12:37.250 --> 0:12:40.970 The police have seized his computer, so he visits the 0:12:41.050 --> 0:12:45.210 library to get online. He starts doing repairs on his 0:12:45.250 --> 0:12:50.730 rental properties, introducing himself as Tom the Handyman, though his 0:12:50.850 --> 0:12:54.770 skills are as limited as ever. One tenant later recalls 0:12:54.810 --> 0:12:58.890 how Tom tried to fix her toilet by tying a 0:12:58.970 --> 0:13:07.050 plastic bag to the ballcock. Incredibly, he's recognized only once 0:13:07.930 --> 0:13:11.850 a tenant sees through the beard and says, aren't you 0:13:11.930 --> 0:13:16.090 supposed to be dead? John isn't quick at thinking on 0:13:16.170 --> 0:13:22.250 his feet. Don't tell anyone about this, and he doesn't. 0:13:22.770 --> 0:13:25.290 The man later shrugs that he thought it was none 0:13:25.330 --> 0:13:31.570 of his business. John looks through newspaper archives from the 0:13:31.650 --> 0:13:37.050 year he was born. The death notices a baby called 0:13:37.410 --> 0:13:42.970 John Jones died in infancy. If he'd lived, he'd have 0:13:43.010 --> 0:13:49.890 been about Darwin's age. Another John that's convenient, and Jones 0:13:50.010 --> 0:13:54.170 is a common surname. Darwin goes to the local registry 0:13:54.210 --> 0:13:58.570 office and applies for a copy of John Jones's birth certificate. 0:13:59.250 --> 0:14:01.770 He sends it off to the passport office with a 0:14:01.810 --> 0:14:06.810 photograph of himself. It can't be this easy to get 0:14:06.810 --> 0:14:12.690 a passport in a fake name, can it? Cautionary tales 0:14:12.730 --> 0:14:26.010 will be back after the break. John Darwin was hardly 0:14:26.050 --> 0:14:30.210 a criminal mastermind, So how did he know how to 0:14:30.250 --> 0:14:34.250 get a passport with a fake identity? He learned it 0:14:34.290 --> 0:14:38.450 from a book. A novel, The Day of the Jackal, 0:14:38.770 --> 0:14:43.250 was published in the nineteen seventies. The central character, a 0:14:43.290 --> 0:14:47.450 shadowy assassin, applies for a copy of a dead baby's 0:14:47.490 --> 0:14:51.690 birth certificate and uses it to get a passport. The 0:14:51.770 --> 0:14:56.210 novelist learned of this trick from contacts in the criminal underworld. 0:14:56.930 --> 0:14:58.930 Could it really be that easy? 0:14:59.930 --> 0:15:03.610 He tried it out for himself before writing about it. 0:15:03.610 --> 0:15:04.130 It worked. 0:15:06.210 --> 0:15:10.130 When the Day of the Jackal became a best the 0:15:10.210 --> 0:15:13.490 author assumed that the government would quickly find a way 0:15:13.570 --> 0:15:18.650 to close the loophole, but no. Thirty years later, the 0:15:18.770 --> 0:15:25.090 trick still worked. The government's problem was making links between 0:15:25.210 --> 0:15:29.010 data held in different places. There was a paper based 0:15:29.130 --> 0:15:33.250 register of births and a paper based register of deaths, 0:15:34.130 --> 0:15:38.250 but these records weren't connected. Give the Passport office a 0:15:38.290 --> 0:15:41.930 birth certificate for a John Jones, and they had no 0:15:42.170 --> 0:15:45.770 easy way to verify whether or not he died already. 0:15:46.890 --> 0:15:49.890 The world is very different now, of course, records are 0:15:49.930 --> 0:15:54.610 computerized and searchable. Information from one source can easily link 0:15:54.650 --> 0:15:59.930 to another. Back in the early two thousands, that shift 0:16:00.010 --> 0:16:04.930 to the modern era was taking shape, but slowly and piecemeal. 0:16:05.810 --> 0:16:09.090 The Day of the Jackal trick wouldn't work for much longer. 0:16:10.730 --> 0:16:19.170 John Jones got his passport just in time. In two 0:16:19.210 --> 0:16:24.330 thousand and three, on the first anniversary of John Darwin's disappearance, 0:16:24.850 --> 0:16:28.610 his two sons visited their mother for a somber act 0:16:28.690 --> 0:16:33.170 of remembrance from the end of seatan Karoop. Here they 0:16:33.210 --> 0:16:42.410 threw commemorative wreaths into the sea. John watched from the window. 0:16:44.170 --> 0:16:48.130 When the coroner held an inquest into John's disappearance, the 0:16:48.250 --> 0:16:53.210 sons visited again, much to John's annoyance. Whenever they came 0:16:53.290 --> 0:16:58.770 to support their mother, he had to vanish through the wardrobe. 0:16:58.890 --> 0:17:03.170 The inquest heard the police had found no evidence that 0:17:03.330 --> 0:17:08.890 Darwin staged his disappearance. A death certificate was issued, which 0:17:08.890 --> 0:17:14.410 gave the cause of death as probably encountered difficulties as 0:17:14.450 --> 0:17:18.810 a result of which he died. The sons went home, 0:17:19.770 --> 0:17:26.730 finally allowing John to emerge through the secret doorway Congratulations, 0:17:27.210 --> 0:17:32.410 you're dead. Armed with the death certificate, and set about 0:17:32.490 --> 0:17:38.610 claiming John's various life insurance policies and pensions. John celebrated 0:17:38.650 --> 0:17:41.930 by playing Abba Money. 0:17:41.250 --> 0:17:51.210 Money Kits of money in. 0:17:48.050 --> 0:17:50.970 The payouts came to maybe three quarters of a million 0:17:51.090 --> 0:17:54.730 dollars in today's terms. Later, their net about the same 0:17:54.810 --> 0:17:59.530 again from selling properties that would otherwise have been foreclosed. 0:17:58.930 --> 0:18:01.170 On I'm a Genius. 0:18:01.890 --> 0:18:05.970 The police had given back John's computer. He spent hours 0:18:06.010 --> 0:18:11.490 playing online games such as Asheron's Call, a fantasy role 0:18:11.490 --> 0:18:15.170 playing adventure, which his two sons also enjoyed. 0:18:15.850 --> 0:18:19.690 You'll never guess so I've been playing with today the boys, 0:18:20.850 --> 0:18:23.330 but don't worry. They have no idea. 0:18:23.450 --> 0:18:23.810 It's me. 0:18:26.250 --> 0:18:30.330 In another online game, John befriended a woman who told 0:18:30.370 --> 0:18:34.770 him she was lonely and bored. He told her his 0:18:34.890 --> 0:18:39.130 wife was dead and he had no children. She sent 0:18:39.210 --> 0:18:45.090 him topless photos. He sent her fifty thousand dollars to 0:18:45.210 --> 0:18:50.290 invest in a business opportunity. He sheepishly confessed to Anne 0:18:50.570 --> 0:18:56.650 when he realized that the investment was gone, and brushed 0:18:56.650 --> 0:19:00.930 it off. There was plenty more money, after all. They 0:19:01.090 --> 0:19:05.810 traveled to Cyprus with the John Jones passport. Perhaps that 0:19:05.850 --> 0:19:08.290 would be a good place to start a new life 0:19:08.330 --> 0:19:13.810 in the sun, but the bureaucracy seemed stifling. They agreed 0:19:13.850 --> 0:19:18.330 to buy a catamaran, thinking they could sail around the world, 0:19:18.730 --> 0:19:22.010 not that either of them knew how to sail. That 0:19:22.170 --> 0:19:26.490 fell through when John argued with the cellar. One thing 0:19:26.690 --> 0:19:30.290 was clear. They couldn't stay in seat and carew and 0:19:30.450 --> 0:19:39.450 risk someone else. Recognizing bearded Tom the handyman, what about Panama? 0:19:40.050 --> 0:19:44.450 John began to post in forums for expats. He liked 0:19:44.450 --> 0:19:45.650 what he was told. 0:19:46.050 --> 0:19:50.250 It's going to be perfect for us. A wonderful climate, 0:19:50.610 --> 0:19:55.490 beautiful countryside, absolutely perfect in every respect. 0:19:56.410 --> 0:19:59.250 John arranged for them to meet a real estate agent 0:19:59.730 --> 0:20:05.210 and booked flights, and still worried every time John presented 0:20:05.250 --> 0:20:06.050 his passport. 0:20:07.570 --> 0:20:11.730 Stay calm, everything will be fine. 0:20:11.970 --> 0:20:14.490 I'm trying my best. 0:20:15.690 --> 0:20:19.530 Panama was beautiful. Indeed, they got on well with the 0:20:19.570 --> 0:20:23.170 real estate agent and his wife. At one point, the 0:20:23.250 --> 0:20:27.530 wife produced a digital camera a photo of the happy clients. 0:20:28.450 --> 0:20:32.330 John and Anne stood next to the agent and beamed. 0:20:33.570 --> 0:20:36.090 The agent's wife gave the photo a file name that 0:20:36.170 --> 0:20:44.290 included John and Anne and uploaded it to the agency website. 0:20:45.530 --> 0:20:50.530 The Darwins bought an apartment in Panama City. Anne returned 0:20:50.570 --> 0:20:53.650 to Seden carew to sell the last of their property, 0:20:54.290 --> 0:20:58.210 their two big old houses. They bought a plot of 0:20:58.290 --> 0:21:03.810 land in Panama, nearly five hundred acres of unspoiled jungle 0:21:04.410 --> 0:21:09.290 next to Lake Gartoon, a huge artificial reservoir created as 0:21:09.370 --> 0:21:13.810 part of the Panama Canal. The plot had no electricity 0:21:13.970 --> 0:21:17.530 or running water, but they planned to build a luxury 0:21:17.610 --> 0:21:23.370 villa and open an eco tourism resort. They didn't speak Spanish. 0:21:24.050 --> 0:21:27.650 They'd ruined themselves trying to run a much simpler property 0:21:27.650 --> 0:21:31.250 rental business back home. John couldn't even fix a toilet, 0:21:32.050 --> 0:21:35.970 but sure build a villa and run an eco tourism resort. 0:21:36.250 --> 0:21:40.890 Why not, As Anne later reflected. 0:21:40.930 --> 0:21:45.090 The idea was, I have to admit in seeing. 0:21:47.210 --> 0:21:49.370 They bought a machete. 0:21:49.490 --> 0:21:51.930 But before they could get to work on their jungle, 0:21:52.290 --> 0:21:56.090 they had a problem to solve. They'd come to Panama 0:21:56.250 --> 0:22:00.690 on tourist visas to live their long term they'd need 0:22:00.730 --> 0:22:03.650 a different kind of visa, and to get it, they 0:22:03.650 --> 0:22:06.450 had to present a letter from their local police force 0:22:06.570 --> 0:22:12.290 back home attesting to their god character. Easy for Anne, 0:22:12.530 --> 0:22:16.530 who led an apparently blameless life as a doctor's receptionist. 0:22:17.370 --> 0:22:21.930 Tricky for John Jones, who didn't exist. 0:22:23.810 --> 0:22:24.410 What to do? 0:22:25.730 --> 0:22:28.330 It might have been wise to grapple with this problem 0:22:28.530 --> 0:22:31.490 before they bought an apartment in Panama City and five 0:22:31.610 --> 0:22:34.570 hundred acres of jungle. But they were where they were. 0:22:35.770 --> 0:22:39.650 John came up with a plan. He'd fly back to Britain, 0:22:40.610 --> 0:22:46.450 abandoned the John Jones identity, reestablish himself as John Darwin, 0:22:47.130 --> 0:22:50.810 and claim he had amnesia. If no one could prove 0:22:50.890 --> 0:22:53.290 where he had been for the last five years, there'd 0:22:53.330 --> 0:22:55.290 be no reason for the police not to give him 0:22:55.290 --> 0:22:56.290 the letter he needed. 0:22:58.610 --> 0:23:01.370 It's perfectly feasible that I could have banged my head 0:23:01.410 --> 0:23:05.730 and lost my memory. It does happen sometimes, I'd say, 0:23:05.850 --> 0:23:08.650 I can't remember how I got to wherever I am, or. 0:23:10.450 --> 0:23:12.490 How do you account for the suntan? 0:23:13.130 --> 0:23:14.450 I could have been on holiday? 0:23:15.370 --> 0:23:18.530 This is crazy. No one will believe you. 0:23:18.010 --> 0:23:20.410 You think of something better then. 0:23:20.890 --> 0:23:26.850 And could not think of anything better. John reassured her 0:23:26.930 --> 0:23:30.010 that thousands of people go missing every year and then 0:23:30.130 --> 0:23:30.850 turn up again. 0:23:31.850 --> 0:23:36.650 Nobody will be that bothered about me. Don't worry, It'll 0:23:36.690 --> 0:23:38.370 be fine. 0:23:39.090 --> 0:23:42.890 Three days after John flew back to London, the buzzer 0:23:43.050 --> 0:23:48.050 rang at the apartment in Panama City and ignored it. 0:23:49.010 --> 0:23:52.970 Then came a knocking on the door. She ignored that too. 0:23:53.690 --> 0:23:56.170 A voice with an English accent. 0:23:55.930 --> 0:23:59.290 Said, missus, I see you. 0:24:01.530 --> 0:24:02.250 What do you want? 0:24:03.010 --> 0:24:07.650 The man explained he was a journalist, David Lee. What 0:24:07.890 --> 0:24:11.370 was her reaction to the news that her husband wasn't 0:24:11.490 --> 0:24:12.730 dead after all? 0:24:13.850 --> 0:24:16.330 I'm finding it pretty hard to take in. 0:24:17.610 --> 0:24:21.810 Anne agreed to give David Lee an interview. She had 0:24:21.850 --> 0:24:25.210 no idea where John had been for the last five years. 0:24:26.210 --> 0:24:30.410 I'm as amazed as anyone. There are so many unanswered questions. 0:24:31.490 --> 0:24:34.770 David Lee wrote up his story and emailed it to 0:24:34.810 --> 0:24:38.210 his editors with a covering note. She's obviously lying through 0:24:38.250 --> 0:24:45.330 her teeth, but how to prove it. Later that evening, David, 0:24:45.450 --> 0:24:49.090 Lee and Anne are having dinner when Lee's phone rings. 0:24:50.130 --> 0:24:54.450 It's an editor at his paper. It's nearly midnight in 0:24:54.490 --> 0:24:58.970 the UK, but they're hurriedly rewriting the front page after 0:24:59.010 --> 0:25:02.650 a tip off from a reader. A young woman up 0:25:02.730 --> 0:25:05.290 late with her baby, who says she's a bit of 0:25:05.330 --> 0:25:12.530 a geek, go to Google, click on images and typing 0:25:13.570 --> 0:25:22.850 John and Panama. Lee is astonished by what pops up. 0:25:23.730 --> 0:25:26.410 He says to Anne, I've got something to show you, 0:25:27.290 --> 0:25:29.450 and I'm afraid it's not going to be very easy 0:25:29.530 --> 0:25:35.810 for you. Cautionary tales will be back in a moment. 0:25:42.050 --> 0:25:45.330 In the mid to late two thousands, with the rise 0:25:45.450 --> 0:25:50.850 of social media technology, researchers such as Dana Boyd began 0:25:50.930 --> 0:25:55.530 to observe an interesting new phenomenon. It became known as 0:25:56.010 --> 0:26:01.210 context collapse. A classic example from the time your friend 0:26:01.490 --> 0:26:05.170 posts on Facebook a photo of you drunk at a party, 0:26:06.170 --> 0:26:12.250 your employers on Facebook, your gran Just a few years earlier, 0:26:12.690 --> 0:26:15.170 you wouldn't have been able to imagine how a photo 0:26:15.370 --> 0:26:18.930 taken at a drunken party might plausibly be seen by 0:26:18.970 --> 0:26:22.890 your employer or your gran It was easy to keep 0:26:22.890 --> 0:26:27.890 a separation between these different contexts in your life. There's 0:26:27.930 --> 0:26:31.090 now a body of research on how we've adapted to 0:26:31.250 --> 0:26:37.250 context collapse. We self censor, posting only bland content in 0:26:37.410 --> 0:26:41.770 feeds that are relatively public. We share sensitive content in 0:26:41.930 --> 0:26:45.890 spaces such as group chats, which are easier to curate. 0:26:47.210 --> 0:26:52.410 John and Anne Darwin couldn't imagine how a photo taken 0:26:52.450 --> 0:26:56.170 in Panama might plausibly be seen by the police in 0:26:56.250 --> 0:27:00.810 Northeast England. Today, it's hard to imagine how such a 0:27:00.850 --> 0:27:05.650 photo could ever stay hidden. Two thousand and seven was 0:27:05.850 --> 0:27:10.410 right on the cusp of that change in ears. The 0:27:10.570 --> 0:27:14.450 image was findable on Google, but it hadn't occurred to 0:27:14.490 --> 0:27:18.770 the police to search, or to the nation's top journalists. 0:27:19.610 --> 0:27:26.450 It crossed the mind only of a geeky young mum 0:27:26.530 --> 0:27:30.730 back in Panama, and Darwin looks at the image on 0:27:30.930 --> 0:27:37.290 David Lee's laptop, herself and John beaming at the camera 0:27:37.810 --> 0:27:41.650 in the office of their real estate agent in Panama City. 0:27:42.690 --> 0:27:46.810 She's just been telling the journalist how she's as amazed 0:27:46.850 --> 0:27:50.010 as anyone to learn that John Darwin is still alive. 0:27:51.210 --> 0:27:56.090 She pauses to consider the implications of that photo. 0:27:56.770 --> 0:27:59.210 My sons are never going to forgive me. 0:28:01.930 --> 0:28:06.610 The police in Northeast England had always suspected that John 0:28:06.690 --> 0:28:10.890 Darwin might have staged his disappear pearance, but they hadn't 0:28:10.930 --> 0:28:15.570 found any evidence at the time. When Darwin reappears in 0:28:15.650 --> 0:28:21.090 London and claims amnesia, they dust off the file. He 0:28:21.330 --> 0:28:26.170 must be lying, but how to prove it. They appealed 0:28:26.250 --> 0:28:30.010 to the public for any information about where the missing 0:28:30.090 --> 0:28:34.890 canoeist had been. A woman calls in a young mum, 0:28:35.970 --> 0:28:41.850 if you go to Google images. The chief investigating officer 0:28:42.410 --> 0:28:48.690 looks at the search results and bursts out laughing, stupid bastards. 0:28:51.330 --> 0:28:54.970 It's late in the evening. That photo's bound to be 0:28:55.050 --> 0:28:58.930 on the front page of tomorrow's papers. They'd better arrest 0:28:59.130 --> 0:29:05.210 John Darwin before he can do another runner. John has 0:29:05.250 --> 0:29:08.850 been staying at his son's house, feeling alarmed at the 0:29:08.890 --> 0:29:13.410 le of media interest. He'd assured Anne that nobody would 0:29:13.410 --> 0:29:18.690 be bothered. People go missing all the time. Instead, he's 0:29:18.690 --> 0:29:24.290 gone viral. The canoe Man. Journalists have tracked down his 0:29:24.610 --> 0:29:29.010 ninety year old father, who helpfully explained how John was 0:29:29.210 --> 0:29:34.210 always obsessed with money. An eighty year old aunt chimes in, 0:29:34.970 --> 0:29:37.370 I'm a cynic. I don't believe he ever got his 0:29:37.410 --> 0:29:43.130 feet wet. But at his son's house, John has been 0:29:43.290 --> 0:29:49.330 determinedly keeping up the pretense of amnesia, or what he 0:29:49.410 --> 0:29:53.330 guesses amnesia might look like. When his daughter in law 0:29:53.410 --> 0:29:56.610 serves dinner, he pretends not to know what it is. 0:29:57.730 --> 0:30:01.570 I've never had fish. 0:30:01.850 --> 0:30:05.170 At ten to midnight, the police knock on the door 0:30:05.810 --> 0:30:13.490 and arrest John Darwin for suspected fraud lord. The next morning, 0:30:13.570 --> 0:30:18.730 a newspaper front page splashes the photo of John, Anne, 0:30:19.290 --> 0:30:23.850 and the real estate agent under the headline canoes this 0:30:24.090 --> 0:30:30.770 in Panama? The two Darwin's sons put out a statement 0:30:30.890 --> 0:30:35.690 to the press. We are angry and confused. We will 0:30:35.730 --> 0:30:41.210 be helping the police in any way we can. Back 0:30:41.250 --> 0:30:46.810 in Panama, the journalist David Lee reads their statement to Anne. 0:30:47.650 --> 0:30:49.170 She bursts into tears. 0:30:49.730 --> 0:30:51.210 What have I done? 0:30:52.490 --> 0:30:54.010 What sort of mother am I? 0:30:55.690 --> 0:30:59.210 David Lee thinks to himself, not a very good one. 0:31:01.770 --> 0:31:05.650 As the details of the case come out, the jokes 0:31:05.770 --> 0:31:10.690 keep coming. A photo of the Narnia Life secret passageway 0:31:10.810 --> 0:31:14.250 in John and Anne's old house is published with the 0:31:14.290 --> 0:31:19.890 headline the Liar the Witch and the Wardrobe. When John's 0:31:19.930 --> 0:31:23.650 lawyer appeals for him to be allowed some time with Anne, 0:31:24.170 --> 0:31:29.770 it's reported with how about a canoodle? A local prankster 0:31:29.930 --> 0:31:32.570 puts up an official looking sign on the road into 0:31:32.610 --> 0:31:38.890 Seedon carew welcome to Seton Canoe twinned with Panama. The 0:31:39.010 --> 0:31:43.850