Have you ever imagined exchanging life with others, or living another life with a brand new identity?
This man named John Darwin lives in Hartlepool, northeast England, and put this ridiculous imagination into action.
How did he do it? Finally, whether it is hidden from the world.
Debt crisis
John Darwin was born in 195. He was once a math teacher. The reason why he said it was because after working in the teaching industry for several years, he found that he could not make much money, and he yearned for a higher quality, more luxurious and enjoyable life.
So the math teacher gave up his stable job as a teacher, resolutely proposed to the school to resign, and then switched to the career and found a job in the local prison.
Although John is over fifty years old, his passion for pursuing his dream of getting rich is not diminished at all. In the eyes of his wife Anne, her husband is never content with the status quo.
John and his wife Anne met when they were young. They had two sons shortly after dating. The couple's life seemed happy to outsiders, but only Anne knew that her husband's deep desire for wealth was always ready to move.
The salary for working in prison is indeed much higher than being a math teacher at school before, and John also had more spare money to save until a few years later, he still had the ability to buy two beach houses in Sidon Karu.
The Johns and his wife originally thought that they could make profits by renting a house in the future to live a better life. However, such a life did not come as expected. On the contrary, the couple lived even more embarrassing.
Because they borrowed a large amount of money from the bank in order to buy a house, and the monthly repayment and expenses are increasing. The couple is very worried about the unhappy financial situation at home.
If the financial crisis cannot be resolved in time, it will not only not meet John's needs for a high-quality life, but may also face the risk of bankruptcy.
Just as his wife Anne was worried, John suddenly got an inspiration from his family’s insurance policy. Perhaps this could change the current economic dilemma and even make a fortune.
John then proposed a bold idea to his wife, which was to cheat him of death to get high insurance premiums.
The idea is really ridiculous. Annie thinks her husband's whimsical imagination is just a crazy fantasy, and it is impossible to really put it into action.
Is this idea of John really possible? How did his plan be implemented to hide it from everyone?
disappeared Kayak
At the family meeting, John's idea of pretending to cheat high insurance money was rejected by his wife. However, when he told his long-planned plan, Annie also began to shake it.
In fact, there is no better way for them to survive this crisis. But how can we deceive everyone, including their two sons?
March 21, 2002 is the date on which the Johns and his wife implemented the plan. That day, 53-year-old John returned home as usual after getting off work from prison.
At 16:30 that afternoon, John took out a kayak from his garage. During the surveillance, he had already changed into a black jacket and jeans. His face was so serious that he didn't seem to be going out for a trip, but he was admitting something that he didn't succeed.
John brought kayak to a beach not far from his home, so he didn't need to drive away with transportation, so as not to leave too much of his figure on the surveillance video.
After dragging the kayak to the beach, John looked around for a while, he slowly pushed the kayak into the sea, and then jumped up himself and rowed the kayak in an unknown direction.
When John was still floating on the sea, his wife Anne on the other side was ready to pick up her husband at the agreed location. This was a pier, and few people would come here at night.
John rowed his kayak and floated on the vast sea for more than an hour, and then rowed to the pier in Hartlepool that he had agreed with his wife as planned. Sure enough, he saw his wife looking anxiously towards the sea.
After the two successfully met, Anne quickly drove her husband away. Before John got ashore, he did not forget to push the kayak back to the sea. Yes, this is the John and his wife's plan to cheat their death. From now on, John is just a person who went to sea to be in danger and died unfortunately.
Anne took her husband to a train station as planned, which John proposed, and he had to hide outside for a while to make the police really believe that he was dead.
Before the couple parted, John reminded his wife over and over again that he must act naturally and never show off his feet in front of the police. It is enough to act like a wife who is worried about her husband.
At 9:30 pm on March 21, 2002, Annie returned home and reorganized her thoughts and what to say to the police when she called the police later.
At this time, she was very glad that her two sons did not live with her, otherwise her "performance" would really reveal flaws in front of them. Only relatives could see how nervous Anne was at this time.
Annie knew that whether this plan could be successful depends on her performance tonight, but can she pass it smoothly?
Acting burst
After trying to calm down her mood, Annie opened the call to the police. On the phone, she told the police worriedly that her husband was missing, and it was very likely that she was in danger when she went to sea to kayaking after get off work.
When the police investigated, they learned from the neighbors that the male owner of this house did go out in the afternoon with a kayak, but went out alone to sea.
The police were seriously in the process of search and rescue. During the search and rescue, the local police used a police helicopter, 6 lifeboats, and other equipment. In addition, more than 40 police officers, volunteers, surrounding residents, etc., all joined the search and rescue activity.
According to later statistics, the police invested more than 100,000 pounds in this search and rescue operation, but for many days, everyone found nothing, but the kayak that John was holding when he went out to sea on the coast. The result of
hit everyone a lot, especially feeling very guilty about Anne who lost her husband. But no one knew that for Anne, this was a huge amount of good news, and no one could see their plan so far.
The excited Anne called her husband John that night and told him the progress of the rescue operation now and the plan was incredibly smooth.
Two weeks after the incident, the police no longer came to learn about the information and report the latest situation, and John also felt that he could go home and take a look at it.
So he changed into a dressed dress, and his beard has not been shaved for so many days, just to prevent others from recognizing it. This effect is indeed very good, and even Anne who came to pick him up home couldn't recognize her husband.
John, who had been hiding outside for many days, did not rest immediately after returning home, but told his wife that he could not continue living in this house in such a grand manner, otherwise others would find that the house still had traces of his life.
John came up with an excellent solution for this, which is to open up the connecting area between these two beachfront villas, and then hide when necessary, and have an extra secret space to hide.
The couple did it as soon as they said that they could do it. After seeing the floor plan, they found that their bedroom was connected to the loft of another villa next to them, so they opened a passage on the wall and disguised it as a fake wardrobe outside. After the secret passage of
was completed, John could always live at home with peace of mind, but this kind of hiding life was not what John wanted.
Moreover, death certificate has not yet been released, and the insurance and other funds cannot be in place. What should John do at this time?
Exchange identity
Although the fake death plan is very successful, the goal John wants to achieve has not been achieved yet, especially now that he can only be held at home and cannot go out, which makes him feel very bored.
Finally, John, who could not bear the confinement for a day, decided to put on makeup and go out with a crutch. The long-lost outing made him relax physically and mentally. However, at this time, John's activity location was only at the nearby beach.
Because other leisure and entertainment places such as libraries need to provide their own identity information before they can enter and exit. This expedition made John realize that if he did not have a normal identity, he would not be able to live like a normal person in the future.
John then began to look for someone who could "exchange life" with him. Soon after, he learned in the local cemetery and in the newspaper that a man named John Jones was born only 5 months earlier than John and died of illness five weeks after his birth.
This made John overjoyed. If he could use the identity of this premature baby, it would not affect that person, and it would also make his life more convenient after pretending to die.
So John stole a copy of the birth certificate named John Jones and took a black and white photo with a thick beard. At this point, John finally completed the identity conversion. What is even more overjoyed is that shortly after John obtained his formal identity, he was wandering by the beach and found a male corpse who had lost his vital signs lying on the beach.
John suddenly thought that the opportunity came. His "corpse" had not been found before, and his death certificate would have to wait several years before he could get it. If his "corpse" could be found now, then he and his wife would be able to get the security deposit immediately.
So John ran home and told Anne that there was a male corpse lying on the beach, and asked his wife to call the police and said that this was her husband who had been missing for many days.
Ani was very sad throughout the whole process, as if a wife who had really lost her husband and cried at the funeral. It is also because of this that the judicial and insurance agencies have no doubts at all, but they feel deeply sympathetic to Anne's experience.
Finally got the death certificate, the Johns and his wife immediately started to demand insurance claims. This time they really made a fortune, and the total amount of life insurance claims and other payments reached almost 250,000 pounds.
Anne used this money to pay off her debts, and then began to plan her future life with her husband...
What will the Johns and his wife who got rich overnight do?
Realize your dream
Sudden revenge made John very excited. He first planned to elope with a woman he met online without telling it, and was preparing to buy a ranch in Kansas, USA to run it with his lover. And he deceived his wife Anne with the interface of going out to hide from the limelight.
However, because his lover was puzzled and dangerous by his strange behavior, he took the initiative to break up. John had to leave in shame and return to England.
At this time, John's news that he was killed in a shipwreck was long forgotten by everyone. Even if John did not wear makeup, he dared to enter and exit the house freely, let alone he already had a legal identity.
But such days were not happy for long, because John, who had been lying in the attic, could neither realize his wish to run a ranch, and his dream of buying a boat to travel the world was broken.
So he and his wife discussed not having to sell a piece of land in Panama and spend the rest of their lives. Anne agreed with her husband's suggestions.
So in July 2006, the couple flew straight to Panama as friends and successfully contacted a real estate agent.
Under the introduction of the chairman of the real estate economy company, John and Anne finally bought a very vast land with lush vegetation at a low price. Although it has not been fully developed, isn’t this exactly what John, who needs to hide his identity, wants?
After the two parties signed the transaction contract, John and Anne were immersed in a very long and happy fantasy, and they would build a house on that land or build a hotel to earn income.
The two even bought an apartment in Panama shortly after buying the land, and transferred all their money in the UK to the Panama bank.
The couple is waiting for the beginning of a happy life.
The flaw of a photo
But they would not believe it, and the police have turned their suspicious eyes to Annie. Since Anne seemed to have made a lot of money suddenly since her husband passed away, this inevitably made her colleagues think more.
It has been six years since John's fake death, and Panama Customs has become more strict and even harsh in verifying the identity of foreign personnel. John realizes that his tricks can't deceive these high-tech products.
John gradually realized that once he was discovered by the customs that he was using a fake identity, then everything would be done. But his wife was already waiting in her apartment in Panama, and John had to return to Panama.
John, who was in a dilemma, suddenly thought of an excellent method, which is to pretend that he has lost his memory, and perhaps this way he can get back his true identity and enter and exit Panama freely.
On December 1, 2007, John came to the West End Police Department and told the police officers at the scene that he had conceived all night.
The police actually suspected Anne's finances and the truth behind John's death, so when John suggested that he had lost his memory, the police officers present felt ridiculous and funny.
John didn't know that not long ago, just when he and his wife were buying land in Panama, the chairman of the real estate economy company proposed to take a photo to commemorate it, and actually uploaded the photo to the social network platform.
is this photo that makes John and Anne’s lies self-defeating. Police officers immediately arrested John, who was delivered to the door, and Ginny was arrested at an airport two days after her husband was arrested.
John initially planned to insist that he had lost his memory, but after a large amount of evidence such as physical evidence and secret passages in the attic appeared, the couple finally admitted their fraud crime reality.
Couples cheated on death to get insurance money, teacher pensions and other high compensation subsidies, and also planned to live happily for several years. This explosive news caused a sensation throughout the UK as soon as it was reported.
On July 23, 2008, the court sentenced John to six years and three months in prison and Anne to six years and six months in prison. In addition, they must repay all the money they defrauded.
