S32 E4: The Day of Reckoning | Sea of Lies

Summary

Sea of Lies from Uncover

Episode: S32 E4: The Day of Reckoning

Release Date: February 10, 2025
Host/Author: Sam Mullins (CBC)
Description:
In this gripping episode of Sea of Lies from Uncover, host Sam Mullins delves deep into the harrowing story of Albert Walker, a master manipulator whose deceit spanned continents and decimated lives. From the idyllic beginnings in rural Canada to the dark corridors of financial fraud, Walker's tale is one of betrayal, madness, and ultimate reckoning.

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Introduction

The episode opens with Sam Mullins setting the stage for a complex narrative involving a beloved family and a cunning con man. He recounts driving from Toronto to Orangeville to meet Andy Staley, who becomes the key to unraveling Albert Walker's web of lies.

[01:06] Jamie Poisson: "To figure out how a mere Canadian man named Albert Walker became one of the most wanted men in the world."

Background: The Staleys and Albert Walker

Sam introduces the Staley family—Bob and Betty Staley, respected community members leading a modest middle-class life. Their lives intertwine with Albert Walker, who joins their tight-knit circle through the Knox United Church choir in 1968. Walker, with his charismatic presence, quickly becomes a trusted friend and business partner.

[07:26] Andy Staley: "My father and I knew that what Albert was offering was too good to be true, but he made us believe otherwise."

Rise of Walker Financial Services

Albert Walker leverages his relationship with the Staleys to launch Walker Financial Services in 1978. Promising comprehensive financial management and high returns, Walker successfully convinces the Staleys to invest their inherited funds with him. His reputation as a financial savant attracts more clients, leading to the expansion of his operations across Ontario.

[16:34] Jamie Poisson: "Walker’s Financial now has branches in Brantford, Hagersville, Paris, Woodstock, London, and Guelph."

The Financial Collapse

The market turbulence following Black Monday in 1987 begins to expose cracks in Walker's empire. By 1990, Walker is unable to sustain the promised returns, leading to mounting pressure from the Staleys and other investors. Despite pleas for transparency, Walker remains evasive, siphoning funds into untraceable accounts.

[21:29] Jamie Poisson: "He sold the farm for over $5 million—twice what was expected. But this was just the beginning of the unraveling."

Fleeing and Betrayal

As the financial strain intensifies, Walker orchestrates his escape, fleeing the country with millions of dollars. The final confrontation planned for December 5, 1990, never materializes as Walker never shows up, instead disappearing into thin air with his ill-gotten gains.

[35:16] Bob Staley: "Mr. Walker was to meet with us on December 5, 1990, but he never showed."

Aftermath and Personal Impact

The fallout from Walker's deception leaves the Staley family and other investors devastated. Bob Staley experiences a severe mental breakdown, while Andy grapples with intense anger and a desire for vengeance. The loss of millions not only destroys their financial security but also shatters their trust and emotional well-being.

[39:25] Andy Staley: "I wanted blood and lots of it. I wanted vengeance against the man who took everything from us."

Conclusion

Sam Mullins wraps up the episode by highlighting the extensive damage wrought by Albert Walker's schemes. The Staley family's story serves as a stark reminder of the devastating impact of financial fraud and betrayal. As Walker continues to evade capture, the quest for justice remains unresolved, setting the stage for future revelations.

[44:30] Jamie Poisson: "When Albert Walker touched down in the UK, he was feeling very pleased with himself. But the most valuable thing he took was not something squirreled away in a Swiss bank account. It was the person seated beside him in first class, his 15-year-old daughter, Sheena."

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Notable Quotes

• Andy Staley [06:00]: "I know what it feels like to truly hate somebody. That's the guy."
• Jamie Poisson [16:34]: "Walker’s Financial now has branches in Brantford, Hagersville, Paris, Woodstock, London, and Guelph."
• Bob Staley [23:24]: "Mr. Walker was to meet with us on December 5, 1990, but he never showed."
• Andy Staley [39:25]: "I wanted blood and lots of it. I wanted vengeance against the man who took everything from us."

Key Takeaways

• Trust and Betrayal: The Staley family's unwavering trust in Albert Walker showcases how personal relationships can be exploited for financial gain.
• Financial Manipulation: Walker's ability to present himself as a financial expert allowed him to orchestrate a sophisticated Ponzi scheme, leading to catastrophic losses for his clients.
• Emotional Fallout: The psychological impact on the Staleys, particularly Andy and Bob, underscores the profound personal toll of financial fraud.
• Unresolved Justice: Walker's disappearance leaves a lingering sense of injustice and the ongoing pursuit of accountability.

Final Thoughts

Sea of Lies masterfully weaves a narrative of ambition, deception, and revenge, bringing to light the intricate layers of Albert Walker's deceit. Through meticulous storytelling and emotional depth, Sam Mullins delivers a compelling account that resonates with anyone who has experienced betrayal.

For those intrigued by true crime and complex human stories, this episode is a must-listen. Stay tuned for more revelations as Sea of Lies continues to uncover the depths of deception and the quest for justice.

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For more episodes and early access, visit apple.co/cbctruecrime.

Transcript

[Jamie Poisson]

Hi, I'm Jamie Poisson and every weekday I host a news podcast called Front Burner. We do one story a day and we try to give you a deep but not overwhelming amount of information and context. Lately, there has been a ton of political news to keep on top of. Canada is facing a pivotal election. There's a power struggle at the heart of the Liberal Party, and the uncertainty of Trump's second term looms over all of this. So if you want to keep up with what's happening, follow Front Burner. This is a CBC podcast. Just drop in my stuff. Here we go. In a story filled with consequential door knocks, here's another. That's the sound of my knuckles on the door, of what's important to know for this chapter of the story. A modest middle class home. Hi, Andy. I'm Sam. So nice to meet you.

[Andy Staley]

I didn't tell you to come through the main door.

[Jamie Poisson]

Oh, sorry.

[Andy Staley]

Come on up.

[Jamie Poisson]

To figure out how a mere Canadian man named Albert Walker became one of the most wanted men in the world. One frosty night, I drove an hour from Toronto to a small town called Orangeville to meet someone.

[Andy Staley]

I tell this story often in various bits and pieces, forms and layers, and, you know, how many rabbit holes do you want to go down? And I was pretty much ground zero for the whole nonsense.

[Jamie Poisson]

That's Andy Staley. Talking with Andy, I learned quickly that whenever he references the intersection of his family's life and Albert Walker's life, he calls it broadly the nonsense. Andy's in his 60s now. He outclasses me by wearing a sharp blazer for our audio only interview as if we're doing it on camera. As I set up, he uncorks a bottle of red. Where we're going, he's gonna need it.

[Andy Staley]

Hey, I mean, how much do you want me to tell you?

[Jamie Poisson]

All of it. I wanted to know all of it. I first read the Staley family name in an old newspaper clipping. When I was learning about Albert's life in Canada and the people left in his wake, I cold emailed Andy Staley, telling him what I was trying to piece together. How did this man I'd been hearing about, called David Davis and Ronald Platt come to be hunted by authorities across the globe? How did a middle aged family man from small town Ontario come to be an international fugitive? And he responded by saying that he had something to show me, something that might help the box. To say I was intrigued is an understatement. When I walked into his place, right away, I see it spread out on the dining room table are piles and piles of papers stacked high. Notepads, duo tangs folders, handwritten notes scrawled on post. Its. As I set up my microphones, I see one of the file folders has written in Sharpie, the Walker file. Let's start. Why don't you tell me what we're looking at?

[Andy Staley]

I guess what we're looking at is. So this came out of a big box. It was, like I say, my mother put a lot of it together.

[Jamie Poisson]

Andy's mother curated the box, but when she passed away, none of her adult children wanted to take it because they knew what was in there. Vaguely, at least. And they knew it wasn't good. As I sit down across from Andy and I see on the wall behind him dusty portraits of his ancestors, men in uniform, family shields. It makes sense to me that he's the one in the family who wound up with this box. This decade of his mother's work.

[Andy Staley]

And I really don't know. I mean, I just. I pulled it out two nights ago for the first time in 30 years.

[Jamie Poisson]

Just last year, a friend of his recommended that he should just burn it all, take the box to the family cottage and throw it in the fire pit in an act of catharsis.

[Andy Staley]

I remember going to a couple times, going to burn it, and I looked, something would catch my eye and I go, no, my mother saved this. I'm not going to burn it now.

[Jamie Poisson]

When he couldn't bring himself to do it, he just left the box by the wood pile for months.

[Andy Staley]

But I never moved it from the burning pile either. But it never got burnt.

[Jamie Poisson]

And there it sat, unprotected from the elements until a journalist from Toronto emailed him out of the blue.

[Andy Staley]

And here you are, the new proud owner of a whole pile of reading material, if you so choose.

[Jamie Poisson]

As we talk, in the kitchen of his home, something suddenly flew between us. A hornet.

[Andy Staley]

A hornet.

[Jamie Poisson]

In February?

[Andy Staley]

Did that come in. In one of your bags, Sam?

[Jamie Poisson]

No, I saw it earlier.

[Andy Staley]

Robert Road. You know where I think it might have come out of? Where? These files.

[Jamie Poisson]

He was hibernating.

[Andy Staley]

Well. And like hornets, love paper.

[Jamie Poisson]

Oh, shit.

[Andy Staley]

How appropriate. The hornet's nest. Yeah, we've stirred one up.

[Jamie Poisson]

In the coming weeks, I would pour through this box, through the spreadsheets, the personal letters, affidavits, brochures, newspaper clippings, photographs, and discover a story, one that begins with friendship, faith and loyalty, and descends into betrayal, madness and rage. To be dramatic, and I do intend to be, the box was the origin story of a villain. The story of a man who brought an entire community to its knees and vanished.

[Andy Staley]

I'll tell the story as I choose to tell the story. And I'm not here to protect anybody.

[Jamie Poisson]

Andy took a swig of his wine and shook his head.

[Andy Staley]

I will only say this in terms of a rant. You say you hate your boss, you say you hate whoever, and I say no. Maybe you do, maybe you don't. But I know that I don't hate anybody because I know what it feels like to truly hate somebody, right? And you know, that's. That's the guy.

[Jamie Poisson]

I'm Sam Mullins, and this is Sea of lies from CBC's uncover, episode four, the day of Reckoning. Before the Stales became entwined with Albert Walker, they were just one of those families who moved around a lot. Andy's dad had one of those careers where if he wanted to move up, he had to move. But luckily for Andy and his siblings, moving to new towns and making new friends was never an issue, because their parents weren't just anyone. They were Bob and Betty Staley. Bob was an affable government man, a leader and mensch.

[Andy Staley]

And his mom, she was the belle of the ball. My mother was loved by everybody. I'll show you a picture of her.

[Jamie Poisson]

Incredible. She's posing on the hood of a Plymouth.

[Andy Staley]

Hot stuff, right?

[Jamie Poisson]

Andy says his folks were the best parents imaginable. They gave him the kind of idyllic Canadian childhood that you'd think only existed in the paintings of a dentist's office. Winters with hockey on frozen ponds, days at the beach, county fairs in the summers. Andy's folks were college sweethearts, and with their four children in tow, they made every space and community they inhabited brighter, better. This was Bob and Betty Staley before the nonsense. One of the first documents I find in the box that Andy gave me is. Is an affidavit written by his dad.

[Andy Staley]

My father's affidavit, which he gave to the police.

[Jamie Poisson]

It begins, I, Bob Neal Staley, make.

[Bob Staley]

Oath and say that. My wife and I first met Albert Walker in 1968. We were neighbors in Eyre, Ontario, and we attended the same church.

[Jamie Poisson]

They belonged to Knox United Church in Ayr, Ontario, a special place.

[Andy Staley]

The church was their life. It had that country church feel where all the families would be there. Their very, very best friends were Knox United church people. Everybody knew you and you knew everybody, and it was a beautiful church.

[Jamie Poisson]

If Knox United was the center of the Staley's lives, the center of the center was on stage in the choir loft.

[Andy Staley]

Their whole social group, it was all church choir people and I sang in the junior choir. My parents and Walker sang in the senior choir.

[Jamie Poisson]

Andy first noticed Albert in 1968 when Walker was only 23 years old. He joined the Knox United Choir after having just married into one of the church's more prominent families, the McDonald's. He married their only daughter Barbara after having just known her for three months and took his place on stage beside the Staleys. His voice was a baritone. He was tall, handsome, and to those at Knox United, a complete mystery.

[Andy Staley]

Nobody really knew from where he came. He just kind of showed up, right?

[Jamie Poisson]

Walker's life in the years before 68 still remained shrouded in mystery. Over the years, just a few press clippings and a self published memoir by his wife Barbara shed any light. These tell how he was born in Hamilton, that he grew up in a poor family who rented farmland and he dropped out of school after having failed two grades. That's about it. I've come to believe that the details about his upbringing are hard to find by design. He didn't want people to know that he was from a poor family or was poorly educated. And so when he arrived in Andy's life, he was ready to shed all of that and become someone new. And where better to be reborn than the church? Inside these walls he could walk up to the most well regarded couple in town and be considered their equals. And he never took the opportunity for granted.

[Andy Staley]

He was very engaging and you know, he had that ability to elicit trust. And especially in a farm community where everybody does kind of trust everybody.

[Jamie Poisson]

Walker made quick work of joining the tight knit clique of choir singers to which the Staley's belonged.

[Andy Staley]

There was a group of say about eight, three or four couples that they were part of initially and then out of that became their, I guess a closer friendship that was not inclusive of the group at large.

[Jamie Poisson]

Albert seemed to want to have the Staley's all to himself.

[Andy Staley]

There was a time that my parents were best friends with the Walkers. Yes.

[Jamie Poisson]

In the 70s and 80s the walkers and Staley's built a beautiful friendship. Andy remembers working as the Walker's paperboy. And then when Al and Barb had their first two daughters, Jill and Sheena, they enlisted Andy for some childcare.

[Andy Staley]

I was babysitting. I babysat Sheena and the kids, like when I was, I don't know, 15, 16, something like that. Sheena was my favorite. She was just a sweet child. Like whether it was babysitting or Whether it was family functions, she was just, you know, she, in all honesty, when I think about it, she had her mother's soft personality and her father's good looks. I mean, as crazy as that sounds, yeah, she was good looking, she was quiet, she was sweet. Yeah, that would have been Sheena.

[Jamie Poisson]

The two families grew to be fully entwined. It was a life of Sunday dinners with kids running around, Christmas set the farmhouse, church socials.

[Andy Staley]

Al and my dad skied together and.

[Jamie Poisson]

The two couples even traveled to the UK a few times together.

[Andy Staley]

It's funny, now you're bringing back memories of actually many years of really happy times without Walker.

[Jamie Poisson]

It's really weird to think about sitting with Andy. He's almost confused, like he's flipping through a photo album from another dimension. So much happened before the nonsense, as he calls it, came to overshadow everything. There was an age gap between the two couples. Albert and Barb were many years the junior and the gap was most notable. Looking at their careers, Bob was solidly mid career when they met, whereas Albert Walker was still trying to figure out what he wanted to be when he grew up. He'd been a man of many jobs. He worked in a candy factory, a men's store. He was in management training at Zellers, which is sort of like a Canadian Walmart. He sold insurance for a time. Once in Scotland, he worked for a big feed and supply company. He worked as a cattle herdsman, pig farmer, market gardener, and then for several years as a librarian. Walker was really searching. He was limited by his lack of schooling but was always described as ambitious, thirsty to become a somebody. His big break though, came from the most surprising of places. While Albert was bouncing wildly from career to career, Barb, right under his nose, was building their bright future from the dining room table. She was always good with numbers, so she started a side hustle doing taxes for a handful of local farmers and folks that she knew through the church. And this is where everything shifted onto a dark and ruinous track. Everything that would go down with the stales and then later in the UK with Elaine and Ron Platt and Noel. None of that would have happened if it wasn't for Barb's innocent little business picture. Barb doing her taxes at the dining room table, the percussive clack of the calculator when one day Albert, who had never shown much of an interest in his wife's work, looked over her shoulder. Laid bare on the table before him were the numbers and assets and incomes and and most intimate of financial details of her Clients, people he knew. And the numbers surprised him. He couldn't believe how much money in savings and assets these humble rural folk had amassed. This was the moment that Albert had an idea. Walker's Financial Services. It used to be so simple. You went to a bank for a checking account, a trust company for a mortgage, a broker to buy stocks and an insurance agent to buy insurance. Life isn't that straightforward anymore. That's from an old brochure I found in the box. Walker Financial Services was the weapon with which Walker would begin his career as a criminal. It was incorporated in the province of Ontario in 1978. Walker's vision was to turn his wife's tax business into a scalable one stop financial shop. Investments, bookkeeping, all of it and more. This was a whole hog career pivot. He literally went from being a junior level librarian to the frontman of a full service financial institution and did a.

[Andy Staley]

Good job of doing people's taxes.

[Jamie Poisson]

Around the time that Walker Financial was born, both the Walkers and Staley's moved away from the town of Ayr. But the bond between them didn't suffer. Albert saw to that.

[Andy Staley]

I think if anything, that was where the friendship continued to grow.

[Jamie Poisson]

In the ensuing 10 years. The families were as entwined as ever. When the Staley's daughter Kim got married, Sheena was part of the ceremony.

[Andy Staley]

I remember Sheena, the flower girl, going up the aisle. I mean sweet Sheena.

[Jamie Poisson]

When Andy was fresh out of school, Albert wrote a letter of reference for him.

[Andy Staley]

I have no reservations whatsoever recommending him to you. Yours very truly, Albert J. Walker.

[Jamie Poisson]

After the move, Albert and Barb would drive to visit Bob and Betty as often as they could, which always perplexed Barb. While Barb had always enjoyed the Staleys fine, she was baffled by why Albert continued to be so insistent on remaining close to them after they moved. This was a man who maintained no other close friendships, who maintained no other relationships. He didn't even talk to his own siblings. Why the Staleys and no one else? In her book, Barb describes one day asking her husband point blank, why do you keep in touch with them? Why are Bob and Betty Staley so important to you? And he said, because one day they will have money. The 1980s were Albert Walker's salad days. From the Walker Financial promotional materials. Walker's Financial now has branches in Brantford, Hagersville, Paris, Woodstock, London and Guelph. And this relatively small company has announced new plans for expansion using the same unique formula. Andy was out of his parents house by this time, but he remembers his mom, Betty, keeping him updated during Walker Financial's heyday and how enthusiastically she would celebrate her friend.

[Andy Staley]

It was this excitement of, oh, Al's so successful. Like she'd have reports of Al's just set up another office in Paris. Over those intervening years, from, say, mid-70s to late 80s, was this my mother announcing the next great Al Walker accomplishment.

[Jamie Poisson]

And for the Staley's, Walker's success in the financial world could not have been coming at a better time. Because burning a hole in their pocket was a windfall, a lottery ticket of inheritance that they'd been waiting their whole lives to cash in. In the late 80s, Betty Staley and her brother Bill inherited a huge swath of undeveloped land just outside Toronto, passed down all the way from their great, great, Great, great grandfather. 200 acres split between them.

[Andy Staley]

Nice little chunk of land, eh?

[Jamie Poisson]

It was finally time to cash in. So as Andy's parents start getting ready to go about selling off their hundred acres, what should appear from stage right but the silhouette of an opportunist.

[Andy Staley]

Al's doing well in business. Walker's financial services. He convinces my parents that he can sell real estate.

[Jamie Poisson]

He'd never sold real estate before, but he had proven that he knew what he was doing in general. So they say, sure. And the Stales prepared for their lives to change forever. Economically, their existence had always been a.

[Andy Staley]

Modest one, I would say, certainly the very lower end of lower middle class. I use the term poor as church mice.

[Jamie Poisson]

But always humming in the background of his and his family's existence was a promise, a whisper of future prosperity.

[Andy Staley]

I remember thinking all my life, people have their big blessings, and my big blessing was going to be my inheritance. Like the family farms was my gift. It wasn't like, oh, new boat, new car, right? It wasn't anything like that. It was just. It was just we were going to be a wealthy family. So that's how I always sort of anticipated it. And it was just a thing that never was real. And then it was real.

[Jamie Poisson]

The story goes that Albert Walker, real estate agent extraordinaire, had managed to drum up something of a bidding war on the Staley's property. The wildest expectation presale was that he would fetch something in the ballpark of two and a half or $3 million. And keep in mind we're talking about $1989 here. But Walker didn't get them two and a half or three like they hoped out.

[Andy Staley]

He goes and sells the farm for more than it's worth.

[Jamie Poisson]

He got them over 5 million like wow.

[Andy Staley]

How much? Really?

[Jamie Poisson]

And holy moly. Eddy's uncle Bill was so impressed with the sum Walker managed for the Staley's, he got Walker to sell his hundred acres. So Walker sold that for over five and he became a God in that family. Wow.

[Andy Staley]

Look what Al Walker did for us, right? Just a magic money man. He turns water into wine.

[Jamie Poisson]

This is always how it began. When he offered Elaine the career of her dreams. When he bought Ron his own business, when he gifted them tickets to move to Canada. It was just like this. The magic money man who turns water into wine. In a short period of time, Andy's family turned their 200 acres into over $10 million.

[Andy Staley]

It was a very, very comfortable time. When it happened.

[Jamie Poisson]

That niggling economic anxiety that rode shotgun with them for their whole lives was gone. There was no mistaking it. They were looked after. They could breathe easy. They had arrived. Andy remembers the money changing his dad in a good way. He moved through the world differently now. He was more grounded, confident, taller.

[Andy Staley]

He was like a country squire. He had this demeanor about him. It wasn't cocky but it was just proud of his world and his know just. It was just a really good look.

[Jamie Poisson]

On him in our interview. Andy's expression gets heavy as we get to this part. In 1989, the Stales found themselves in the unfamiliar position of not just having money, but more than they knew what to do with. Luckily for them though, they knew a guy.

[Bob Staley]

My wife and I decided to hire Mr. Walker to invest the proceeds from this sale and manage the funds on our behalf. This decision was made as a result of our close friendship with Mr. Walker and our belief that he had some expertise in financial management.

[Jamie Poisson]

They had every reason to believe that to be the case. He was 15 years deep into a well to do business. He managed the portfolios of many people they knew. And every time he turned around there was another location opening up. His reputation was immaculate. So they handed their best friend their millions.

[Bob Staley]

There was no formal agreement, contract or written instructions with respect to how these funds were to be invested or managed.

[Jamie Poisson]

Albert Walker had spent the entire 1980s portraying himself as a stock savant. He just had a knack for spotting an up and cominging company at the right moment. He'd say he saw opportunities that others missed. So what was his favorite company to convince folks to buy shares in? Well, there was this exciting young company in southwestern Ontario with locations in Brantford, Hagersville, Woodstock and even London and Paris. The Canadian ones, but still impressive. A little one stop financial shop called Walker Financial. When the Staley's millions arrived, Walker invested the money immediately in Walker guaranteed investment certificates. Walker's Capital Corporation, Walker's Financial Services, and the United Canvest Corporation, which is four fancy ways of saying Albert Walker's pocket. The vast majority of the documents Andy gave me meticulously detail exactly how when Walker was scamming people and having gone through it all, I can assure you he wasn't stealing in an exciting or innovative way. Attract new investors by promising bigger returns than you can get anywhere else. If you bought a Walker promissory note, he promised 15% returns annually. These promissory notes were his Ponzi scheme, his crypto coin. Please don't email me about that. As long as investors kept receiving their 15% annual returns without him bouncing a check, Walker was free to do whatever he wanted. Lavish vacations, Michelin meals, buying a Jaguar. All investments went directly toward the Albert Walker Just having the nicest time fund. As long as his businesses continued to grow, as long as he kept attracting enough new investors to keep paying existing investors, and nothing happened to disrupt the market as a whole, Albert Walker could ball out. But then 1987 happened.

[Andy Staley]

Good evening. Today is Black Monday, the day the Dow dropped more than 22% on almost double the rate of the Black Monday. That signaled the beginning of the crash of 1929. Around the world, stock markets fell faster than a skydiver without a parachute.

[Jamie Poisson]

The panic starting in after the 87 crash. Walker was cooked until he miraculously convinced his best friends to not only use him as their realtor, but to hand over their whole fortune to him. But even the Staley millions wouldn't be enough to save him. It just gave him a bit more time to make a plan. So Albert crunched the new numbers and looked at the calendar in the box. I found a list of all the promissory notes he'd signed that year. Harold Ziegler, 50% matures at 50%. 66,000 matures at 14%. June Kaufman, 60,000 matures 13%. June 10th. He'd issued millions of dollars worth of promissory notes that would all mature in early 1991. That was it. That was when he wouldn't have the money. He could carry on the way he was without being found out until the end of the year, December. And then after that, well, he'd have to figure something out. That was a problem for 1991. Albert. But it was still summer 1990, and he had a much bigger mess to deal with in his own family. Albert Walker had been unfaithful to his wife for years to those in the community, that was old gossip. What was new, however, was how shameless and out in the open it all was. He had an open affair with a woman from church, the reverend's wife, to be specific. He was conspicuously courting at least two of the women who worked for for him. And I found out in one of the case files in the Staley box that he had a Swiss girlfriend who he paid to fly to Canada and was putting up in a nearby hotel in Woodstock. But that summer was when it all blew up. When Albert and Barb's relationship went nuclear, they were getting divorced and Albert, of course, was feeling greedy. He wanted the house, the kids, the businesses, and he'd do anything to win. The main war was waged through the children. Albert had them all write letters to the court saying that they preferred him to their mother. 15 year old Sheena wrote, if I did live with my mother, I wouldn't be allowed the freedom that I would get if I lived with my dad. My mother and I often disagree on a lot of matters and often end up in a real fight. I don't feel that the relationship between my mother and I contains enough love and affection for us to be together on a daily basis. However, my father shows me a lot of affection on a regular basis and we are very close. I feel that it would be better for everyone if I stayed with my father and Sheena got what she asked for. When they finally had their day in court, the judge said that Sheena and Jill could stay with Albert while Barb was awarded temporary possession of the house and custody of the two younger children. Under no circumstances was Albert allowed in the house. This was the arrangement when the most consequential thing in a summer filled with consequential things happened. One day, Albert crossed the threshold of the house and got into a shoving match with Barb at the door. She called the police and despite their best efforts to talk her out of it, she said she wanted to press charges. So for the first time in his life, Albert Walker was arrested. He was processed, they took his mug shots and crucially, very, very crucially, dear listener, they took his fingerprint. More often than not, when someone is attacked in their home, they know the perpetrator. So in the 2002 murder of a woman named Marlene Johnson, police believed just that and charged Marlene's daughter in law, Sophia, with the crime. Not only was Sophia charged with killing her mother in law, but the main witness against her was her own brother. I'M Kathleen Goldhar. And this week on crime, a family dispute with deadly consequences. Find Crime STORY wherever you get your podcasts. As it turned to fall 1990, his companies were overextended. He'd lost his house, custody of two kids, and his reputation in the community. The board of his company was firmly demanding more transparency. And Barb's divorce attorneys were lighting up his phone lines, demanding a full disclosure of his entire financial picture so that they could divvy up their estate. But as the pressure was building, Albert was not available. He was out of office. If you called his business number during this time, a secretary would tell you he was in Switzerland or the UK or France or Cayman Islands. Every week, it seemed he had a first class ticket somewhere new. Barb knew all along that he would almost certainly try to hide money from her. But seeing all the travel he was doing and noticing the weird blips of large sums of money cruising through their shared bank accounts, she began to suspect that he was up to something much bigger. After a game of tennis with Betty Staley in the late summer, Barb took Betty aside for a candid conversation.

[Bob Staley]

Barbara Walker advised us to keep a close watch over our investments with Mr. Walker.

[Jamie Poisson]

And Barb wasn't the only one who warned them.

[Bob Staley]

Around the same time, we were advised by Al Boggs, an employee at Walker's Financial, that Mr. Walker was investing large sums of money in second and third.

[Jamie Poisson]

Mortgages, a classic move among men who have just lost all of your money. So the Staleys were like, it's probably nothing, but we'll run this past him. Albert, would you be a deer and tell us exactly where and what you invested our millions in? And he wouldn't get back to them. And then he finally sent them this letter. I Dear Bob and Betty, I have enclosed a spreadsheet list of all your investments placed on your behalf through this office. Please accept my apologies for the delay in getting this to you. A combination of corporate affairs and the tax season has put me behind in all areas, and he always signs off the same Yours Very truly, A.J. walker. Just about every spreadsheet I find in the box that Walker sent the Staleys. The Stales have marked up the pages with pen. Numbers are circled. There are question marks beside some of the columns. They do their own math in the margins. At times you get the sense that to the Staleys, things weren't quite adding up.

[Bob Staley]

When we subsequently attempted to meet with Mr. Walker to discuss our financial portfolio, he was evasive.

[Jamie Poisson]

Where was he under all of this pressure with all of the mess of Walker Financial and his personal life mounting. What was he up to? One of the most surprising things I find in the box is from November 1990. A letter addressed to Albert from a bank in Sarasota, Florida. Dear Mr. Walker, during our discussions in Tampa on Monday, October 29th, last we reviewed the international expansion of Walker Financial into the United States, Japan, South America and Europe. While everything was aflame, Albert was trying to get an investor to bail out the company. But he'd run out of time. In a last ditch effort to stop him from fleeing, Barb tipped off the police, saying plainly he's flying on all these business trips with a briefcase filled with stolen funds. But they didn't act. And what Barb didn't realize was that Albert was planning on taking something much more valuable and precious than just her money. As the holidays neared, the Staleys finally secured a meeting with Albert Walker. They had a prepared list of questions and copies of all the spreadsheets and correspondence that they were going to confront him with when he arrived at their home.

[Bob Staley]

Mr. Walker was to meet with us on December 5, 1990, this time at our residence. My sister in law and her husband, William and Sheila Richardson were also to be at this meeting. On that date, however, Mr. Walker did not show.

[Jamie Poisson]

At the scheduled start time of the meeting. Albert Walker was sitting in a first class seat in a plane over the Atlantic. Every credit card he held was maxed out on jewelry and as many things of value he could carry on his person. His trusty briefcase, which he used to mule millions of his clients dollars, sat beside him. His months of hard work were done. He'd emptied every account he had access to. He remortgaged the family farmhouse and transferred every penny he could into untraceable Swiss accounts in the years to come left in his wake, there was heartbreak and carnage he would never fully.

[Andy Staley]

I remember right around Christmas my parents were a bit nervous. Not so nervous as to make us nervous. They were really keeping it from us. But I remember there was conversation right around Christmas of 90.

[Jamie Poisson]

Bob and Betty Staley had opted to keep most of their Walker financial concerns a secret from their children. But after being stood up by Walker and the initial rumblings they were hearing around the community, they feared the worst.

[Andy Staley]

My father said Walker's left the country.

[Jamie Poisson]

They've left the country. What does that even mean for the holidays? Is he coming back? No one could say for sure. The true meaning of his departure would arrive a few weeks later, January 15th. A day that Andy would never forget.

[Andy Staley]

January 15th. It was a Thursday. I was at a conference at the old Skyline Hotel in Toronto, and I knew something was up. And I phoned my dad at a break. And it was like a man who had changed. It was like I was talking to someone made of eggshells, right? It was as much the tone as the content. That's what I remember. Just this shattered man.

[Jamie Poisson]

And he was like, dad, what's going on?

[Andy Staley]

I remember the tone being, walker's gone. We don't know where he is. We have no way of tracking him. And he had the realization that everything was gone.

[Jamie Poisson]

All of Andy's family's and his uncle's money, the generational security was gone.

[Andy Staley]

And just this complete darkness. I still remember it like somebody punched me in the gut, even though no one punched me in the gut, right? I felt like the whole world had gone dark.

[Jamie Poisson]

In the coming days, Andy was barely able to keep it together. Losing his family's great blessing at the hands of their best friend was too bitter of a pill for Andy to swallow. He kept running it over in his head.

[Andy Staley]

I was just full of questions, full of questions.

[Jamie Poisson]

The more he thought about it, nothing made sense.

[Andy Staley]

And it was the start of Desert Storm 1, and they were showing the Scud missiles dropping on Iraq. And I'm going, the whole world's gone fucking mad here. Like, it's just nuts.

[Jamie Poisson]

People around Andy coped with the loss in different ways. Andy's sister seemed less phased than him and were able to move past it with relative ease. And his grandmother, the optimist, said it would all balance out in the end.

[Andy Staley]

My uncle was crushed. My uncle was crushed.

[Jamie Poisson]

But for Andy, it was complete consumption.

[Andy Staley]

I was the most dramatically affected. Like, I was angry, and I would talk about it at every occasion. And I wanted a lot of vengeance. I want. Yeah, I wanted. I wanted blood and lots of it.

[Jamie Poisson]

Andy started being haunted by a vision. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw an evil cartoon face, delighting in his misery, sneering at me all the.

[Andy Staley]

Time, laughing at me. How. Like, just how this dark, evil had won in my life. And it was like. It was a real image, Sam. And I know that sounds goofy, but. But it was, like, there for, like, night and day, for years. There was a period of time where I thought I was gonna. I was gonna track this guy down and get my money or get the family money back. And, you know, I really believed that I could do that. Just fueled by anger and hatred, right?

[Jamie Poisson]

Andy was brimming with anger about the money, about the betrayal, but the thing that kept the fire of his rage burning white hot for years was what this ordeal had done to his father.

[Andy Staley]

Yeah, it ruined him. It ruined him. He was never completely the same.

[Jamie Poisson]

At first, Bob Staley, a lifelong problem solver, tried to be a leader in the investigation investigation at Walker Financial. He volunteered to be the point of contact for the dozens and dozens of devastated people frantically trying to recover their money. But some folks started directing their anger at him, started holding him at least partly responsible for what happened. Hey, wasn't this guy your best friend? Why are you so interested in cleaning this up for him?

[Andy Staley]

Somewhere in and around there, my father had his first trip to the hospital. I can remember the first time I went to visit him when he had a psychic break. They had my dad strapped down on a table, and he was growling and snarling and clawing like this. I remember looking at my. My uncle going, that looks like my dad, but that ain't my dad. I got a call the end of that week, and it was Dr. Veraswamy. And he said, you need to come up here now. Your dad needs electric shock therapy, and he needs it in the next 24 hours, or we may not be able to get him back. I said, whoa, whoa, wait a minute here. Like, you're asking me to, like, electrocute my father? And he said, well, he said, your father's either going to be like that or we're gonna save him. And I went, holy fuck.

[Jamie Poisson]

During those years, while her husband was fighting for his sanity, Betty Staley tried to keep hers in a different way. She started the box of documents she needed to feel like she was doing something, so she compiled everything. She cut out news clippings written about Al Walker fleeing. She collected every family photo in which Albert Walker appeared, every bit of correspondence, spreadsheet, and letter that she could find between her and their former best friend, all in the hopes that if someone, somewhere, eventually did catch the man, she would be ready. She would have all of the information organized for him to be brought to justice.

[Andy Staley]

I think there's very little sympathy for financial victims. You know, they just don't. You know, they didn't lose an arm, a leg, a child. You know, there's no blood. I mean, there's some sympathy, but it's not. It's not. It's not the same, right? Like, if it didn't happen to you, you just don't feel it.

[Jamie Poisson]

Andy told me that the same year his family's fortune was lost, one of his best friends lost his fiance suddenly under tragic circumstances. So the two friends were grieving together, grieving these very different losses. And they were driving one day when his friend turned to him.

[Andy Staley]

He said, for me, my issue is final. I'll never have her back for you, theoretically, you could get your money back. But the interesting thing, as he said, the loss of money versus the loss of a spouse is what men jump out of windows over, right?

[Jamie Poisson]

In the end, Walker made off with between 3 and $12 million of his client's money. One man hanged himself. Another, the Walker financial employee who had worn the stales, died suddenly of heart failure.

[Andy Staley]

There was little old ladies that had $100,000, their life savings. They remortgaged their houses and they were done. They were done. And that to me is like, it just shows the depravity of the fella.

[Jamie Poisson]

In the moment that Albert Walker touched down in the uk, I imagined he was feeling, feeling very pleased with himself. He had dreamed since he was a young man of starting a European life, a life as a man of culture, an important man, a wealthy man. And now he was. But best of all, he had someone to share it with because it turned out the most valuable thing he took was not something squirreled away in a Swiss bank account. It was the person seated beside him in first class, his 15 year old daughter, Sheena. In the next six years of Albert's life, no one would believe what he would become. No one would believe what they would become. Coming up on Sea of Lies.

[Andy Staley]

Well, he presented himself as a great international banker and just said things like, I've got a lot of expertise in finance and all the rest of it and if I can help any of you, I'd be delighted.

[Jamie Poisson]

When Ron came in initially, I think from memory, he was quite white. So he wanted me to put obviously a dark color on his hair for his whole, you know, disguise really of what he wanted.

[Andy Staley]

In the middle of it, in the middle of this, I questioned something he said. He wasn't used to being challenged.

[Jamie Poisson]

Sea of Lies is produced by what's the Story Sounds for cbc. It's hosted and written by me, Sam Mullins and produced in and reported by Alex Gatenby. Mixing and sound design is by Ivan Eastleigh. From what's the Story Sounds, our executive producers are David Waters and Darrell Brown at CBC Podcasts. The senior producers are Andrew Friesen and Damon Fairless. Eunice Kim is our story editor. Emily Kanell is our digital coordinating producer. Executive producer are Cecil Fernandez and Chris Oak. Senior manager is Tanya Springer and the director of CBC Podcasts is Arif Noorani. For more CBC podcasts, go to CBC CA Podcasts.