S32 E5: Life on The Lam | Sea of Lies

Summary

Sea of Lies: Life on The Lam – Episode Summary

Introduction

In Season 32, Episode 5 of CBC's award-winning podcast series Uncover, titled "Sea of Lies: Life on The Lam," host Sam Mullins delves deep into the intricate case of Albert Walker, a masterful con man whose web of deceit spanned continents and decades. This episode meticulously unpacks the events leading to the arrest of Walker, his elaborate identity theft, the murder of Ronald Platt, and the relentless pursuit by law enforcement that ultimately unmasked this elusive criminal.

The Arrest and Initial Investigation

The narrative begins on Halloween Night, 1996, when David Davis is apprehended by Essex police for assuming the identity of Ronald Platt. The arrest coincides with the discovery of Platt's body retrieved from the ocean—a critical piece linking Davis to the murder. As Investigator Brian Slade recounts, "I was sent up to Chelmsford not to assist with the arrest, but to assist with the searching of Little London farmhouse, post his arrest" (01:42).

Upon searching Davis's residence, known as the Little London farmhouse, officers encounter Noel Davis and her two young children. The house, outwardly well-maintained with a manicured lawn and vegetable garden, starkly contrasts its sparse interior, raising suspicions about the family's authenticity and possible coercion. Investigator Slade notes his surprise at Noel's youth, "I was surprised how young she was" (02:27), further questioning the legitimacy of their claimed family unit.

Interviews with David Davis and Noel

Detectives Bill McDonald and Ian Clenahan conduct intense interviews with both Davis and Noel. Davis maintains a "no comment" stance throughout, resisting cooperation despite his initially charming demeanor. McDonald reflects on the rapid progression of the case, stating, "You need to move quickly" (06:11), emphasizing the urgency driven by the 36-hour detention rule.

Noel's interview, however, becomes a turning point. As Elaine Boyes describes, she provides a lengthy but inconsistent statement, "a 30-page statement" (07:41). Discrepancies emerge when Noel confuses her own children with Davis's daughters, leading investigators to suspect deeper layers of deception. "She was using my identity," Boyes admits (10:08), highlighting the sophisticated nature of the fraud.

The Emergence of Albert Walker and Interpol Warrant

A significant revelation occurs when a fax arrives at the Devon police station, exposing David Davis as Albert Walker, a man with a criminal history including theft, fraud, and embezzlement. The revelation includes an international arrest warrant from Interpol, placing Walker among Canada's and the world's most wanted criminals. Detectives McDonald and Clenahan are stunned: "And, you know, we've got him" (23:00).

Noel, now revealed as Sheena Walker, faces intense scrutiny as her ties to Albert Walker become undeniable. The detectives confront her with undeniable evidence tying her to the fraudulent identities, leaving her in tears and raising questions about her loyalty and coercion under her father's influence.

Deep Dive into the Past: Walker's Identity Theft

The episode traces Walker's meticulous planning and execution of his identity theft. Six years prior, in December 1990, Albert and his 15-year-old daughter Sheena arrived in London under false identities, integrating seamlessly into the community of Harrogate. Reverend David Hoskins facilitates their acceptance, noting, "He seemed quite, you know, full of savoir faire and bonhomme" (29:00), underscoring Walker's ability to blend and manipulate trust.

Walker leverages his charm and financial expertise to ingratiate himself with locals, including Elaine Boyes and Ronald Platt. His strategic plans involve exploiting their impending move to Canada, allowing Walker and Sheena to permanently assume their identities. This elaborate ruse extends to managing finances and establishing a facade of normalcy, despite underlying criminal activities.

Breakthrough: Discovery of the Anchor

A pivotal moment in the investigation arrives with the discovery of an anchor linked to Ronald Platt. Fisherman John Coppock recalls, "Ron Platt's body wasn't the only out of the ordinary thing in his net that day. And the more he thought about it, he wondered, could the two things be related?" (42:10). The anchor becomes the murder weapon when forensic analysis matches zinc deposits on Ronald Platt's belt with those on the anchor found.

Additionally, the identification of the "Lady Jane" boat—registered to Walker and connected to Platt—strengthens the circumstantial evidence against Davis/Walker. Detective Clenahan emphasizes the significance: "There wasn't one bit that was better or more damning than another. It just... everything just kind of fit into place" (47:22).

Evidence Linking Walker to the Murder

The convergence of multiple evidence strands fortifies the case against Walker:

1. Fingerprint Analysis: Walker's fingerprints match those found on objects linked to Platt, establishing his physical presence.
2. GPS Evidence: The GPS unit from the "Lady Jane" boat, showing when and where it was turned off, places Walker near the murder site at the critical time.
3. Financial Transactions and Seizures: Discovery of substantial cash and gold bars in the farmhouse and storage units indicate illicit financial activities supporting his life on the lam.

These elements collectively create a robust circumstantial case, although defense attorneys still pose challenges in establishing conclusive guilt without direct testimony from Sheena.

Ongoing Investigation and Challenges

As prosecutors prepare their case, the absence of Sheena Walker poses a significant hurdle. Her potential testimony could either solidify the prosecution's argument or introduce reasonable doubt. The investigation faces the dual challenge of securing compelling evidence while grappling with the psychological manipulation exerted by Walker over his daughter.

Detectives reflect on the complexities of building a case against such a cunning adversary. Ian Clenahan remarks, "We knew that this wasn't going to be easy. This was a man who'd hidden in plain sight undetected for six years because he'd been crafty and knew how to cover his tracks" (39:12).

Conclusion: The Turning Point

Despite the formidable case, Walker's prosecution initially faces obstacles due to insufficient direct evidence. The episode culminates with a tense standoff between investigative diligence and the cunning defenses mounted by Walker's legal team. The discovery of the anchor and its forensic links epitomize the blend of luck and persistence that ultimately tip the scales toward justice.

As Sam Mullins narrates, "To understand how Sheena had got to this point... we need to go back in time to when Sheena became Noel" (24:49), emphasizing the human element intertwined with the criminal maneuvers. The episode leaves listeners on the brink of the final resolution, highlighting the relentless pursuit of truth amidst a sea of lies.

Notable Quotes

• Brian Slade (02:27): "I was surprised how young she was."
• Elaine Boyes (08:17): "I couldn't believe it. I still can't believe it now. Yeah. Unbelievable."
• Bill McDonald (07:00): "It's difficult at this point to explain to somebody listening the speed at which things start to happen."
• Molly Mountford (31:17): "Right from the beginning, really. He made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up because I just felt there was something creepy about him."
• Ian Clenahan (16:06): "Because of course the game's nearly up then, isn't it?"

Final Thoughts

"Sea of Lies: Life on The Lam" offers a gripping exploration of deception, identity theft, and the intricate dance between criminal ingenuity and law enforcement tenacity. Through meticulous storytelling and incisive interviews, Sam Mullins brings to light the complex layers of Albert Walker's schemes, highlighting the fine line between perception and reality in the quest for justice.

For more episodes and to delve deeper into true crime narratives, visit CBC Podcasts.

Transcript

[Steve Patterson]

Are peanuts more precious than pretzels? Is glue more glorious than tape? Hi, I'm Steve Patterson, host of CBC's the Debaters, where Canada's top comedic minds make seemingly simple questions into something simply hilarious. Part stand up, part game show, always fun. And our live audience picks the winner. You can find the debaters on cbc, Listen, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is a CBC podcast. It was Halloween 1996. While everyone was putting on their costumes, pretending to be Tickle Me Elmo or Baby Spice or whatever the fine folks of 1996 dressed up as, there was a man in the back of a police cruiser in Essex apprehended for pretending to be someone he was not. David Davis was arrested under suspicion of murdering Ronald Platt. They had proof he'd been stealing Platt's identity and that he'd been in Devon that July, the same month that Ron's body was pulled up from the seabed. But if Davis really was the one who put him there, the police needed evidence. So with Davis taken off in the cruiser, all attention turned to his home, the quaintly named Little London farmhouse on Little London Lane. Out in the world. Davis had been acting in the theatrical role of Ronald Platt for months. So now the police were anxious to peer into the backstage area and see who else was participating in this product.

[Brian Slade]

I was sent up to Chelmsford not to assist with the arrest, but to assist with the searching of Little London farmhouse, post his arrest.

[Steve Patterson]

Joining the investigative team that day was a young officer called Brian Slade. The neighbors had told police that the man they knew as Ronald Platt had been living in the house with his young wife. So they mobilized in the driveway and prepared to take her in for questioning and then bring in scores of officers to search every square inch of Little London farmhouse. Peter Redmond, the man whose original doorknock had started all of this, was the one who knocked on this door, too. The woman who opened the door was shocked to see the officers. The feeling was mutual.

[Brian Slade]

I was surprised how young she was.

[Steve Patterson]

To Redmond, she looked like she was 20 at the oldest. Redmond asked her name. She said, I'm Noel Redmond said, I'm arresting you under suspicion of murdering Ronald Platt. And she said, what about my children? Children, children. She got a young baby with her and a toddler, about three, I think the little one was.

[Brian Slade]

And she was much more, oh, gosh.

[Steve Patterson]

What am I going to do with the babies? The baby was still breastfeeding, but the three year old, the police explained, would need to either stay with a Friend or the police would arrange for social services to take her. They were going to take Noel all the way to Devon for an interview. As the officers began moving through the house, they noted how sparse it was. It hardly looked like the warm home of a young family. Outside, there were flowers and a well manicured lawn and a bountiful vegetable garden. But on the inside, there was hardly any signs of a life being lived within its walls. Upstairs in the toddler's bedroom, there was scant a single toy. It looked like they had been squatting in a foreclosure home. Was this woman and children held against their will? Were they prisoners in their own home? The wife disappeared from sight for a.

[Brian Slade]

Moment, and Noel packed a bag for the children, nappies, et cetera. When she was arrested, a neighbor said that they'd look after the children.

[Steve Patterson]

When the officer chaperoning Noel stepped closer, suspicious at what was taking so long. The young wife sheepishly held the bag and the officer gestured for her to hand it over.

[Brian Slade]

And the police officer searched that bag before it was handed over to the neighbor and found cash and a number of gold bars in that bag.

[Steve Patterson]

Because what child doesn't need their gold bars for an overnight? As the neighbor arrived to pick up the toddler downstairs, Brian Slade was unprepared for what he was about to find.

[Brian Slade]

I just remember it being really hot. We were in in the house, and in order to make sure the video came out, we had lights on me so that I had the heat from the lights.

[Steve Patterson]

As he pressed record on his trusty camcorder to keep a visual record of any evidence they collected, Officer after officer came forwards, their hands full.

[Brian Slade]

And there I was in my shirt and tie, counting thousands of pounds. And then Swiss francs and then gold bars started arriving and it was like, what's going on here?

[Steve Patterson]

An eerie silence creeped into the house as the officers began their work. Even before the first puzzle pieces were snapped together, they could sense that this was all leading somewhere very dark. I'm Sam Mullins, and this is Sea of lies from CBC's uncover. Episode 5 Life on the Lam. Suddenly, everything was in motion.

[Bill McDonald]

You need to understand that having arrested somebody, you only have a limited amount of time that you can hold that person.

[Steve Patterson]

In police detention, you only have 36 hours to hold someone before you have to either A charge them or B, let them go.

[Bill McDonald]

You need to move quickly.

[Steve Patterson]

One team of police were heading from Devon to Essex to help catalog everything they found in the house. Another team was transporting Davis and Noel back to Devon and back in the police Station, detectives Bill McDonald and Ian Clenahan were preparing for their high stakes interviews with Davis and Noel.

[Bill McDonald]

It's difficult at this point to explain to somebody listening the speed at which things start to happen.

[Steve Patterson]

One more thing they needed to happen was for their star witness to get to Devon in as soon as possible. They called Elaine.

[Elaine Boyes]

We can only hold him for so many hours and we need as much information as we can. So I agreed. I said okay.

[Steve Patterson]

Elaine arrived at the Exeter police station that afternoon, 30 miles from where they found Ron's body in the first place. They had interviewed Elaine before, but this time with the pressure of a charge looming, they needed her to tell them everything about Davis and Noel and Ron and herself. Everything on the record.

[Elaine Boyes]

A 30 page statement. It was the longest statement that this particular detective had ever done. 30 pages.

[Steve Patterson]

Every detail was essential. A well dressed stranger showing up to her work, coffee table books, trips to London, Switzerland, France and bank accounts, rubber stamps, flat buying, flat selling, Harrogate, Calgary back to Harrogate. The full story of Ron and Elaine and Davis. But when the interview turned to noelle, there was a bombshell waiting for Elaine from which she would never fully recover.

[Elaine Boyes]

In the conversation about when they arrested Noel and David Davis, the detectives started talking about David Davis and they were talking about his children.

[Steve Patterson]

Elaine of course knew about Davis's children who still lived in the States.

[Elaine Boyes]

And I said oh yeah? I said there's Jill who lives in New York, there's Noel who's with dad, and there's a younger one called Heather. So I said he's got three daughters.

[Steve Patterson]

All three of them in their teens and 20s. And as she was describing this, the female officer interviewing her furrows her brow.

[Elaine Boyes]

And she said no, I'm talking about her children, Noel's children.

[Steve Patterson]

Noel the teenager.

[Elaine Boyes]

And I'm not kidding you, my, you know when you say that expression, my chin just dropped to the floor. Just, just was like huh, What? How could she have children?

[Steve Patterson]

How in this case is the heaviest question of all.

[Elaine Boyes]

She didn't have a boyfriend in Harroquet when I knew her. So why? How? It didn't make sense. It didn't make sense.

[Steve Patterson]

Elaine had never so much as seen Noel interact with a male other than her father. And now the police told Elaine that Davis and Noel were living and presenting as a couple with kids.

[Elaine Boyes]

I said no, no, no, she's definitely his daughter. I said she looked up to him like her daughter looks up to her father. And she said well I think we believe that they're husband and Wife.

[Steve Patterson]

And there was more. The police told Elaine that since Noel had been living in Essex, raising these children officially on paper, she was going not by Noel Davis, but by a different name, Elaine Boies.

[Elaine Boyes]

She was using my identity. So that was another shock. I thought, what? I couldn't believe it. I still can't believe it now. Yeah. Unbelievable.

[Steve Patterson]

Noel and her father had arrived from Essex and the detectives were ready to finally get some answers.

[Bill McDonald]

They're held in the custody suite at Torquay police station. It's myself and Ian Clenaghan that are conducting the interviews. He's a tall, confident man.

[Ian Clenahan]

He was dressed really smartly. He was like a businessman.

[Bill McDonald]

Very plausible. Immediately seeking to establish rapport.

[Ian Clenahan]

We'd spoken on the phone a few times and he was just really charming. Oh, Ian Clennahan, how lovely to meet you.

[Steve Patterson]

Davis had picked a lawyer from the local directory to sit in with him during their inquiry. Traditionally, when someone in custody meets with their lawyer to discuss strategy, they do so in the designated solicitor's room. But to Davis, that was out of the question.

[Ian Clenahan]

He insisted on doing it in the cell.

[Steve Patterson]

Immediately. He was trying to establish a position of strength.

[Ian Clenahan]

He just had this kind of aura, I suppose, at that stage. Came in and kind of ruled the roost and can you get me this? Can you get me that? And it's never been done before. And I don't know why we entertained it that time, to be honest, but that wasn't my decision. Table, chairs, everything. Food was brought to them. Yeah.

[Bill McDonald]

Seriously, you have a sense that at every point he feels superior.

[Steve Patterson]

With him smugly seated in the interview room, he remained chatty and jovial up until the exact second that they pressed the record button on the tape. And then he changed.

[Bill McDonald]

He did what we would call a no comment interview.

[Steve Patterson]

Regardless, Clenahan still put the questions to him.

[Ian Clenahan]

Explain why he was down in Devon at the time. Was he aware that Ron Platt was down there as well? Was he aware that Ron Platt was staying in a different accommodation?

[Steve Patterson]

No comment, no comment, no comment. When it was Noel's turn to sit in the hot seat, she opted to be a different kind of uncooperative.

[Bill McDonald]

She exercised her right to speak and actually she ended up, as time went on, tying herself in knots because more and more times she was, well, I can't remember.

[Steve Patterson]

Her story was that, yes, she was married to David Davis and yes, she was originally from the States, but everything beyond that was slippery.

[Bill McDonald]

You start asking her about addresses that she lived at, she couldn't remember them. You started asking her about places that she went to family, and she couldn't remember those either. And there were fundamental things like, well, you must remember where you lived. And then it was a question of, well, can you remember what school you went to? And she named an area that she'd gone to school, but she couldn't remember the name of the high school.

[Steve Patterson]

They just needed a single verifiable time that she, Noelle Davis, was being Noelle.

[Bill McDonald]

Davis somewhere, something from her that concretely we could go and say, right, okay, that proves you are who you are purporting to be.

[Steve Patterson]

But there was nothing by design.

[Bill McDonald]

I had a sense that she'd been schooled and rehearsed on what she should say when she got into that situation. The COVID story, although she was comfortable with it, as it turned out, was fairly limited, so she kept repeating it.

[Steve Patterson]

What were you doing in mid July, Noel?

[Ian Clenahan]

She gives a story that they were both down in Devon and they've come down for a holiday. She's unaware that Ronald Platt is in the area. She hasn't got a clue about it. Don't know what you're on about. Yeah, we've got a boat. He's been out on his boat. But Ron Platt, I haven't a clue what you're talking about. He's not down here. So that was her interview.

[Bill McDonald]

We were kind of up against a brick wall, and clearly we weren't going to be going any further.

[Steve Patterson]

The police made the call to release Noelle. She was on the hook to return at a later date if they saw fit. But by virtue of her needing to care for her children and their gut feeling that she wasn't directly involved in Ron Platt's death, they let her walk for now. She wasn't the one they were after.

[Bill McDonald]

Our main interest was with him.

[Steve Patterson]

Back in the David Davis interview, Clenahan continued peppering him with questions.

[Ian Clenahan]

Did he meet Ron Platt during his time down in Devon? Did he go on out on a boat with Ron Platt? Why has he got Ron Platt's identification in his pocket? Why is he living under the name of Ron Platt? Yeah, it was just no comment to everything.

[Bill McDonald]

And then there's breaks in the interview process where you, you know, refreshment breaks, comfort breaks or whatever, where they hit.

[Steve Patterson]

Stop on the recorder.

[Ian Clenahan]

He would talk while the tapes were off. He would talk not about the job, but he would talk about everything. The weather, you know, whatever you wanted to talk about, he would talk.

[Bill McDonald]

And I remember in one comfort break, in front of his solicitor, David Davis kind of joyed me by suggesting that I should Try harder or in some way I was going to have to up my game. And I can remember at the time that really sticking the arrogance of somebody to say that in that situation. But then when the tape is running during the formal interview, you're back to that, you know, no comment. I'm sure psychologists and people would have a field day.

[Ian Clenahan]

He was very, very confident that we had nothing to prove that he was involved.

[Steve Patterson]

There was only one thing that seemed to shake the confidence of the confidence man.

[Ian Clenahan]

He was quiet when he was being fingerprinted. And I think he. Because of course the game's nearly up then, isn't it? And his fingerprints are sent off.

[Steve Patterson]

I imagine Davis running an algorithm in this moment. He knew that the unique ridges from the tips of his fingers held the power to unravel his whole plan. And he knew he'd been fingerprinted exactly one other time, which was not ideal. 3,500km away. His prints were likely sitting on a dusty shelf in an Ontario office labeled Albert Walker. But what are the chances that the small town, nobody, cops from two separate countries, an ocean apartment, were out here sharing fingerprints? No, they had nothing. He was sure of it. For the Devon police, their time was up. They had all they were going to get in the interviews. The team at the house had sent along their initial findings and it was pencils down. It was now up to the Crown Prosecution Service to determine whether or not they had enough to formally charge Davis for murder. It certainly wasn't a given.

[Bill McDonald]

They really agonized over decision.

[Ian Clenahan]

Well, to be fair, we didn't have a lot of evidence then.

[Steve Patterson]

Nothing they yielded from their interviews was helpful to laying a charge. The documents the team found in the house in the first 24 hours seemed promising, but they would require a lot of following up before they could be considered solid. The strongest thing that they did have was a provable lie. Davis originally told police that he last saw Platt in June, but they knew that Davis cell phone was in Devon in July making calls to local businesses and that both he and Ron were there at the same time.

[Ian Clenahan]

So we knew what he told me on the phone was lies.

[Steve Patterson]

And the other thing that they knew was that there was a boat. In the search of Little London Lane, they'd found a photo of Davis proudly posing with his boat, the Lady Jane.

[Bill McDonald]

And we knew that David Davis could be tied to a yacht of that name. And when we researched Coast Guard records and maritime records, there was a boat in the name of the Lady Jane at sea off the coast of South Devon around The time of the what we believe to be the murder and.

[Steve Patterson]

The recovery of the body, very strong, but very circumstantial.

[Bill McDonald]

The general circumstances put forward a fairly strong but not conclusive case that actually David Davis could be responsible for this man's murder.

[Steve Patterson]

It was out of the detective's hands and into the hands of the Crown Prosecution Service, and the deadline to either charge or release him was imminent.

[Bill McDonald]

We were literally running out of time. They were huddled in a room up on the top floor of the police station for literally hours, pouring over documentation, representations from us and from other experts in relation to what we had and what we could actually prove.

[Steve Patterson]

Nearby, Elaine was anxiously awaiting word of what they'd decide.

[Elaine Boyes]

If they didn't have enough evidence, they would have released him on the Monday. And I actually got across to them very clearly because I was really worried about it. I said, if you let him go, you'll lose him, he'll escape. I said, he's got loads of money. I said, he'll just disappear.

[Bill McDonald]

And you're looking at the clock and thinking, we need a decision. And it was a question, you know, they're still considering it.

[Steve Patterson]

Finally, late that night, MacDonald gets the call from upstairs and he says, authorise.

[Bill McDonald]

The charge, charge him. And we charged him with murder.

[Steve Patterson]

With Davis behind bars for now, the real work was about to begin.

[Ian Clenahan]

When you look back on it, in hindsight, we hadn't even started on the evidence gathering at that point.

[Steve Patterson]

Yes, he was in custody and yes, they were confident they had the right man, but they also knew for certain that they didn't have anywhere near enough to convict him. Not yet. They had no idea what was coming. David Davis was formally charged in early November. But in late November, who could have guessed that a revelation was coming? So gargantuan, so what the hell is going on? That all charges would be dropped against David Davis. One night at the police station, MacDonald was at his desk working on the case, when through the door burst the most common measured detective in the office. Looking not at all calm and measured.

[Bill McDonald]

He came rushing into the inquiry room and ushered me outside.

[Steve Patterson]

And he said, sir, you need to come with me right now.

[Bill McDonald]

And it was unusual to see him quite so agitated. And he dragged me down the corridor into an office next to the fax machine. And I'm kind of perplexed looking at him. He said, we're just about to get a fax.

[Steve Patterson]

For our Gen Z listeners. A fax machine was a tool used to send important documents or photocopies of your butt cheeks in the year 1996.

[Bill McDonald]

The fax machine sort of fires up, and then lights are flashing and stuff, and the pages are starting to come off the fax machine. And the first page that comes off is a mug shot of David Davis. And then the next thing that's coming off is an international arrest warrant in the name of Albert Walker. It turns out that our man David Davis was actually wanted in Canada for theft, fraud, and the embezzlement of money. We're not talking small change. We're talking big money. And then off the fax machine next is this picture of Noel. And the next thing that emerges is that actually it's Sheena Walker. And. And the allegation is that she's been abducted from Canada and taken overseas by her father, who is, in fact, Albert Walker. So we're looking at father and daughter.

[Steve Patterson]

The pages kept coming.

[Ian Clenahan]

They faxed us a poster of Interpol's top 20, and he was, like, fourth on the list.

[Steve Patterson]

Not only is he the most wanted man in Canada, he's one of the most wanted men in the world.

[Ian Clenahan]

Well, I got in Sleepy Devon. There he is, surfaced. And, you know, we've got him.

[Bill McDonald]

And then we both stand there and we're looking at each other, and it's like, oh, my God. That's that moment, you know.

[Steve Patterson]

When Noelle Davis was called back into the police station. Detectives Clenahan and McDonald told her that they knew she was she Walker, that she was Canadian, and that her father was Albert Walker. The jig was up. But the lingering question in the air. Her relationship to Albert and how on earth they came to pose as husband and wife with two children. That was something nearly everyone we spoke to felt hard to address with us directly. Even some police only agreed to speak with us on the condition that we didn't ask them about this aspect of the case. What I can tell you, though, is that when the detectives asked her this stolen child, who had spent a quarter of her life on the lam, who the father of her two small children was, she said nothing and began to cry. To understand how Sheena had got to this point, sitting in this police station, being asked such sensitive questions, we need to go back in time to when Sheena became Noel. There's no playbook for this type of fraud. Many couples dream of adopting a child, but what if that dream became a nightmare? She kept telling us, forget about Sabrina's baby.

[Tara]

Now Tara has a problem because there's no baby.

[Steve Patterson]

And we all became investigators from Sony Music Entertainment and Perfect Cadence. This is Baby Broker, available now on the binge search for baby broker wherever you get your podcasts to start listening today. Six years earlier, on December 5, 1990, Albert and Sheena Walker touched down at Heathrow and checked into the Ritz London. It was a risky choice to bring his 15 year old daughter into this dark unknown with him. But there was no turning back now. Albert had successfully squirreled away millions of stolen dollars in the months leading up to this. And even more valuable than that, he had a head start and every intention of using it to throw those who'd be looking for him off his scent. Using a driver's license he swiped accidentally on purpose from a former client named David Davis, Walker goes to Geneva. As Davis visits a safety deposit box, buys two London Geneva first class tickets, return with his Amex that he knows they'll be able to trace as a decoy. Then he flies to Paris and takes a boat back. After tying a thorough naval knot with his movements, he needed a place where they could lay low. He found a place in London that served as a temporary cocoon. While Sheena's mother back in Canada was reporting her missing and the Canadian police were sending Interpol Switzerland photos of father and daughter, Albert and Sheena were getting ready to make their debut as as different people 200 miles north of London in Yorkshire.

[Tara]

I mean when he was here, 200 on a Sunday morning has not changed one bit since Albert was here. Not at all.

[Steve Patterson]

Reverend David Hoskins was the flock leader of the Baptist church in Harrogate in 1991 when David and Noel Davis, a lovely American father daughter duo first appeared.

[Tara]

Show you exactly where they sat every Sunday morning, the two of them on their own there.

[Steve Patterson]

Reverend Hoskins was one of the first people to meet this new version of Albert Walker.

[Tara]

And he was telling me he was, he was from America and that he'd come here because he'd made his pile and loved the town and thought he would settle here with his daughter Noel.

[Steve Patterson]

Harrogate was a perfect town for them to start a new life, far from the glare of London, but still a place where you can throw some money around without people raising an eyebrow.

[Tara]

While he presented himself as a great international banker, he would tell you that he wouldn't tell you much else. He was, he was keen on telling people that he'd done extremely well.

[Steve Patterson]

He got a nice place, became a regular at the higher end spots and one day he went into an art auctioneer where he met a woman named Elaine Boys who had a boyfriend named Ronald Platt who had a medium term plan to Move to Canada. And immediately, of course, Albert Walker devised a medium term plan himself. Their current identities had limits. He had the Davis driver's license, but Noel had no ID to speak of. So if he could find a way to earn the trust of Elaine Boyes and Ronald Platt and find a way to entangle himself with them, by the time they made their big move to Canada, he and Sheena would be able to smoothly and permanently step into the shoes and identities of Elaine and Ron. And all through this, just as it was in Canada, home base for Albert and his daughter was the church.

[Tara]

He could talk theology. I mean, he knew what he was talking about. He was generally liked. He seemed quite, you know, full of savoir faire and bonhomme, all of that. You know, he looked the part, he talked and he was good. I mean, honestly, he just was.

[Molly Mountford]

And he was charming. He could be very charming.

[Steve Patterson]

Molly Mountford was a well traveled and discerning woman who belonged to the church. She remembers David Davis not only showing up, but showing up in a big way.

[Molly Mountford]

David Davis became very involved in the Harrogate community. I know that he got to know a lot of people here and certainly a lot of members of the church were friendly with him and Noel, his daughter did babysitting for them and things like that.

[Steve Patterson]

He'd show up at all the extracurricular church meetings and gatherings and seemed to be interested in becoming a leader in the community. And one day, this community took a big blow. One of the biggest employers in town was a huge chemical company. And around this time, they closed their plant in Harrogate. So suddenly, several of the congregants found themselves out of work.

[Tara]

And I called a meeting at the manse at our house one evening and just said, if anybody who's been made redundant, you know, would just like to turn up, just have a chat for general support and see where that takes us, then please do.

[Steve Patterson]

Among the depressed figures gathered around the Reverend's dining room table that night was Molly, whose husband's job was in jeopardy with the big layoff.

[Tara]

And there's a crowd around our dining room table and David Davis came 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, you know, about investing your money, what's best to do with your money, I'm your man.

[Steve Patterson]

But as Molly watched Davis that night, essentially taking over the meeting, she saw clearly a quality in him that she'd been wary of from the Time she set eyes on him.

[Molly Mountford]

Right from the beginning, really. He made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up because I just felt there was something creepy about him.

[Steve Patterson]

Molly Mountford, a real one.

[Molly Mountford]

I thought he was over the top with charm. And I think people who have a lot of charm use it, often use it to their own ends.

[Steve Patterson]

As Davis was giving a spiel that felt like he'd given many times before to this room of vulnerable people, Molly couldn't bite her tongue anymore.

[Molly Mountford]

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

[Steve Patterson]

Davis's whole demeanor changed and he glared at her.

[Molly Mountford]

And he virtually told me that really I should be seeing a psychologist or psychiatrist or something and that he knew something about that. And I was so incensed, I stood up and said, fine and walked out.

[Steve Patterson]

Molly left the others with a warning.

[Molly Mountford]

Don't get too near, don't get too close to this.

[Steve Patterson]

And she left. No one took Davis up on his offer that night, apart from the one woman at church giving Albert side eye. Generally speaking, everything was going swimmingly for Albert Walker in Harrogate. Alayne and Ron were wrapped around his finger and had helped him turn his millions in Swiss banks into physical assets in the name of his corporation. They were saving up money for their move to Canada, and he had seen not a single flag to indicate that the authorities had the faintest idea where he and Sheena were. He was like a hero from one of his thriller novels that he so loved reading. He had outsmarted everyone. But then, just before Christmas 1992, something happened that would change everything. Sheena got pregnant. Suddenly, everything was in fast forward. He bought Elaine and Ron the tickets to Canada and all but shoved them out the door before she started to show. Merry Christmas. Goodbye. No time to sell your flat, no time to sell your business. I'll do it. You just need to leave right now. He needed to sell everything as fast as he could and they needed to leave town before people started asking questions. He had a pregnant teenager and he needed to find a new place to start over. Like a snake, he needed to shed his skin. And they were gone. Good afternoon, Hair at the Hair.

[Paula Windsor Williams]

My name's Paula Windsor Williams and I think it was around 1994, I started doing a gentleman's hair called Ron Platt as I knew him.

[Steve Patterson]

With the real Elaine and Ron happily away, enjoying the good times in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, Albert and Sheena Walker made their debut as husband and wife. Albert was Ronald Platt, and in person, Sheena was no longer Noelle Davis, but Noelle Platt, although on paper she was Elaine Boyes. God, this is confusing. Anyway, they were the Platts now.

[Paula Windsor Williams]

So 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. His whole, you know, disguise, really, of what he wanted.

[Steve Patterson]

The age gap between the fictional married couple of Elaine and Ron was conspicuous. So they were going to need to bridge the gap with the best tool at their disposal. Tacky dye jobs.

[Paula Windsor Williams]

I mean, probably he should have been a couple shades lighter for him to be able to get away with it, but it looked very artificial. Whereas with Noel, you know, she just had some highlights, which was obviously just a few pieces of color just to brighten her up and make her hair color look lighter.

[Steve Patterson]

They changed their whole deals. Sheena went blonde. Albert did away with the fancy clothes. They traded in for an older car, and they mostly kept to themselves.

[Paula Windsor Williams]

He wanted to probably go under the radar very much, you know, with everything with him. They just blended, I think, and that's what they wanted.

[Steve Patterson]

In the year in Devon, a lot happened in their lives. Sheena gave birth to her first child. Albert got a sailboat. And in early 1994, Albert enrolled in a course for, get this, psychology and counseling. And every month he'd be back in Paula's chair, not mentioning any of it.

[Paula Windsor Williams]

I always got the impression that I shouldn't be asking things. Well, I suppose I knew that Noel was his wife. I didn't sort of say, you know, why is she so much younger than you? Wouldn't have been a question I'd have asked. It's just quite scary to think that you can spend time with somebody and actually know nothing about them and what they're capable of.

[Steve Patterson]

At the end of the Devon year, Albert had a new plan. He finished his course in counseling and decided to invest in a company called Solutions in Therapy, which was based in Essex. What he liked about Solutions in Therapy was that much like Walker Financial, it would be easy to run and easy to scale. So the fake Platts moved to Essex, Woodham Walter, to be specific. Little London farmhouse on Little London Lane to make a meal of. Was there that Sheena gave birth to her second child. Albert started his work in solutions and therapy and began pitching people on expanding the operation further. Maybe he could run a new office in Chelmsford, he thought, have his own shop. So he did. And here is where he'd done it. He found a perfect pastoral setting just a short drive from the office with a wife and two children. A twisted mirror image of his Canadian life six years earlier. This time the wife was his daughter. This time the One Stop Financial shop was a One Stop therapy shop. This time he had millions of dollars. Who knows how long it would have lasted? Who knows if anyone ever would have found them. Who knows how long this sordid tale would have played out if it wasn't for the day that Albert Walker received a letter from Ronald Platt saying that he was done with Canada and was moving back to England for good. There are so many questions about what happened in the final year of Ronald Platt's life. Did he know that Walker had stolen his identity? What did Platt make of Sheena having children? But the only people who know what happened were Ron and Albert and Sheena. To me there are a million questions. But to the Devon police by necessity, there was only ever one. How did Ronald Platt end up at the bottom of the ocean? When they arrested Albert Walker, they had all of their resources on trying to answer this question.

[Ian Clenahan]

The body came ashore on the 28th of July, and then he was arrested on October 31st, Halloween 1996. And it went to trial mid 98. We worked on it solidly to the trial date in 98, so two, a good just under two years. Solidly we worked on that inquiry for. We were just. That was our only job. We were on it full time.

[Steve Patterson]

Even with their undivided attention, they knew enough about Albert Walker to know that this wasn't going to be easy. This was a man who'd hidden in plain sight undetected for six years because he'd been crafty and knew how to cover his tracks. So if he really was the one who killed Ron, undoubtedly he would have done a clean job of it. If the police were going to find justice for Ronald Platt, they were going to need to do their very best detective work. They were going to need timelines, paper trails and the latest technology all pointing in the same direction. They were going to need witnesses just to have a chance. And even with all that, they knew they'd need something else. The guiding force that had been with them all along and had brought them to this point. Luck. Their next miraculous stroke of good fortune begins with the name Lady Jane written on a whiteboard.

[Ian Clenahan]

We had to find that boat because that is the mechanism about how the whole murder was committed, wasn't it? And without a boat, you know, he could say, well, okay, I haven't even got a boat, you know, where's my boat? It beggars belief how we came across the boat.

[Steve Patterson]

Early on in the inquiry, the Essex police in charge of searching the farmhouse had a briefing where they were laying out possible leads based on their discoveries at the house and things that needed following up on.

[Ian Clenahan]

And a lad was just walking past. A copper was just walking past the room and walked in. What's this? You know? And written on the board was the boat, the Lady Jane. We knew the boat's name, but we didn't. We didn't have a clue where it was. And he'd been in some dry dock earlier on the week before and had just seen this boat and remembered the name. And he said, I know where that boat is. And everyone looks at him as if to say, what? And he says, yeah, I know where that boat is. I saw it in an Essex boatyard last week. So everyone packs up and runs down to this boat yard and there it was, you know, it was, yeah, we found the boat. Incredible. We actually found the boat.

[Steve Patterson]

And the lucky breaks didn't stop there. When the police charged David Davis with murder, it was all over the media, which jogged the memory of a local fisherman named John Coppock, the man who first discovered Ron Platt in his fishing net that summer. As he read that police continued to investigate the death of Ronald Platt and put out calls for tips, Coppock remembered something from that day that seemed inconsequential at the time. Ron Platt's body wasn't the only out of the ordinary thing in his net that day. And the more he thought about it, he wondered, could the two things be related? Coppock called the police and asked, what about the anchor? To which the detective replied, come on, John, what.

[Bill McDonald]

What anchor's this? And he said, well, there was the anchor in the net. And he said, what anchor you talking about?

[Steve Patterson]

Coppock explained that the day they caught Ron Platt's body back at shore, they discovered that caught in a different part of the netting was an anchor.

[Bill McDonald]

But interestingly, the anchor wasn't in the net in with the fish, down at what we called the cod end.

[Steve Patterson]

It was caught more near the net's mouth in the same trawl that produced the body. So the police asked, where's this anchor now, John? And Coppock said, well, we gave it.

[Ian Clenahan]

To so and so who gave it to his mother to sell in a car boot sale.

[Steve Patterson]

That first day, right after the police took the body off Coppock's boat, Coppock steered his vessel to its usual parking spot in the fishing boat pens. As Coppock was finishing up one of his Buddies walked by spotting the anchor in the net and was like, is that anchor up for grabs? Coppock gave the anchor to his friend, who ended up not needing it. So a month later, he gave it to his wife to sell at a car boot sale. She tried to sell it for £15, but there were no takers. So Coppock's friend's wife just takes the anchor to her mother's house.

[Ian Clenahan]

So then you go and speak to mother and she said, oh, no, we didn't sell it. It never sold. So it was still in me garage, you know.

[Steve Patterson]

So the police go to her house, she leads them to her backyard where they find the biggest piece of evidence in the biggest case any of them will ever work. They send it to forensics.

[Bill McDonald]

We had a local scene to crime sergeant, and he'd been involved in investigation all the way through. And he takes the anchor and I can remember coming back in a day or two later, and he's very excited and he's clutching the anchor and he's got photographs that have come from the post mortem and he has a photograph of, of the anchor laying on the bench next to the body. And the anchor shaft perfectly fits the bruising on the thigh.

[Steve Patterson]

The first post mortem had noted there was a serious wound on the back of the head and along the right side of the body, there was bruising at the hip and bruising at the thigh. And now like a jigsaw piece, the points of contact aligned exactly.

[Ian Clenahan]

So then if you put in the anchor like that. Well, how did they secure the anchor? Well, they must have tucked it into his belt. So then we sent the belt off.

[Steve Patterson]

They put the belt under the literal microscope and discovered on the right hip portion of it, there were tiny silvery deposits of zinc that matched the zinc of the anchor.

[Bill McDonald]

And it didn't just match. It was a really, really strong evidential match. It wasn't a question. Well, it could be the anchor. It was almost. Yes, that's the anch.

[Steve Patterson]

This was the murder weapon. Now, they needed evidence to put Ron Platt on the Lady Jane and to put him there in mid late July. To do that, police needed to rely on two relatively new technologies at the time. DNA and gps. On the Lady Jane, they found Ronald Platt's fingerprints on a plastic bag, which, if you can believe it, also contained the sales receipt for. For the anchor. In the cabin. They found Ronald Platt's hair on a pillow and specks of Ronald Platt's blood both inside the cabin and on one of Lady Jane's sails. They also found a GPS unit that was 1 turned off and 2 appeared to be missing a component. The second component of this GPS they found on the other side of the country.

[Ian Clenahan]

We, we found the documentation in this house for a storage container.

[Steve Patterson]

Walker had rented a storage unit in the same week that police first contacted him. Inside, police found several more gold bars, three suitcases containing Ronald Platt's clothes, and.

[Ian Clenahan]

We found the GPS that fitted to the boat.

[Bill McDonald]

I said, don't touch it, don't switch it on, don't do anything of it. Just box it up, bring it back here.

[Steve Patterson]

With a camera rolling, someone from the GPS manufacturer turns on the devices and they discovered that the devices had been switched off. On the evening of July 20th, the last day that Ron Platt was seen.

[Bill McDonald]

Alive, not only could they say that that was the date and time that had been switched off, they could also say the location at which it had.

[Steve Patterson]

Been switched off when the switch was flipped. At 9pm on July 20, the Lady Jane was on the water five miles.

[Bill McDonald]

Off the coast of Teignmouth, out to sea, virtually contemporaneous on spot where John Kopeck recovers the body.

[Steve Patterson]

It was an extremely solid circumstantial case.

[Ian Clenahan]

There wasn't one bit that was better or more damning than another. It just. Everything just kind of fitted into place.

[Steve Patterson]

But one thing we all know from listening to Prestige True Crime podcasts is that strong circumstantial cases are not always a slam dunk. Reasonable doubt is a huge hurdle. And know who loves cases built entirely on circumstantial evidence? Defense attorneys. What the prosecutors really needed to shore up this case was testimony from the one person who was there with Walker in Devon. They needed Sheena and they needed her to testify. Shortly after the Interpol revelation, Sheena flew home to Canada with her two children and her mother, Barbara. While the detectives and prosecutors were building their case in England, Sheena disappeared completely from the public eye and was sheltered from the media circus by her mother and community. But during that year and a half, those working the case wondered, would she take the stand against her father? Or even now, would she remain loyal to him? No one knew how deeply Albert's hooks were sunk. In one day, back in Canada, Sheena got a call from a UK prison. It was her father. He said, listen to me closely. I need you to change your story. Coming up on Sea of Lies.

[Bill McDonald]

She was delicate. She was vulnerable. She was nervous, she was anxious.

[Brian Slade]

She clearly knew that this new statement provided some quite damning evidence against her father. And she was reluctant to put her signature to that piece of paper. He tried to get an assurance from me that Sheena would come back and give that evidence, and I wasn't able to give him that assurance because I didn't know myself.

[Steve Patterson]

Sea of Lies is produced by what's the Story Sounds for cbc. It's hosted and written by me, Sam Mullins, and produced 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 Freeman Reason and Damon Fairless. Eunice Kim is our story editor, Emily Kannel is our digital coordinating producer. Executive producers 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.