WHAT HEELS!: The Devolution Of A Scam
Anne Darwin, wife of not-quite-dead British canoeist John Darwin who mysteriously reappeared at a London police station five years after he was presumed to have been lost in the North Sea, fessed up that she not only knew he was alive but that he lived in a secret room in an apartment building they owned next door that was connected to her bedroom by a passageway that hidden behind a large armoire.
The shocking admission came after she a reporter showed her a photo of herself smiling alongside her husband last year in Panama, where the couple had moved to start a new life together. In newspaper interviews, Anne admitted that John began to plan his demise in 2002 to escape an increasingly crushing debt load from the couple’s failing apartment rental business. She admits John was hiding in his secret room when she and their sons retuned from the coroner's inquest at which John was officially declared dead in April 2003 – after which she cashed in insurance policies that yielded $50,000 in cash and $260,000 to retire the mortgage on their house.
John has now been charged with making false statements to obtain a passport and using deception to make money transfers; Anne has been arrested on suspicion of fraud.
The couple’s sons, Mark, 32, and Anthony, 29, issued a joint statement saying they were in "an angry and confused state of mind" and "have not spoken to either of our parents since our Dad's arrest and at this present time we want no further contact with them."
For her part, Anne says her sons “knew nothing” and she frets that “they're going to hate me." Ya think?
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