Episode 421: On July 28, 1996, a fisherman hauling nets off the coast of Devon, England pulled up a body. The dead man had no wallet, no identification — nothing but a Rolex watch still ticking on his wrist. When British police traced the watch, it gave them a name: Ronald Joseph Platt, 51, of Essex.

When they went looking for him, they found him — apparently alive.

The trail led back across the Atlantic to Ayr, a small town in southwestern Ontario, where roughly seventy people had spent years trusting the wrong man with everything they had. By the time anyone understood what he'd done, he was already gone, and Ronald Platt was dead in the English Channel.

Sources:
Walker, Re, 1998 CanLII 14906 (ON SC)
A Hand in the Water: The Many Lies of Albert Walker — Bill Schiller (HarperCollins, 1998)
Nothing Sacred: The Many Lives and Betrayals of Albert Walker — Alan Cairns (McClelland-Bantam, 1998)
Walker's Trail of Pain — Maclean's (July 6, 1998)
Walker Money Hunt — Maclean's (July 20, 1998)
Walker Faces Daughter at First Day of Trial — CBC News (June 1998)
Mysterious Mr. Walker Sentenced for Fraud — The Globe and Mail (July 2007)
Fugitive Financier Sentenced to Four Years for Fraud — CBC News (July 2007)
Rolex Killer Denied Day Parole from B.C. Prison — Vancouver Sun (February 2024)
Albert Johnson Walker — Wikipedia
The Rolex Murder — therolexmurder.com (Elaine Boyes's site)
The Rolex Killer - True Crime
Explore topics about albert-johnson-walker | Crime and Investigation UK

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