LONDON — The wife of the British canoeist who reappeared last weekend, five years after vanishing at sea, confessed in interviews published Thursday that she had known he was alive for some time and had rented a villa with him in Panama, but was now living a “nightmare.”
As the alibis of the couple at the center of British tabloids’ favorite mystery of the moment appeared to unravel, their two grown sons added public condemnation. “We very much feel that we have been the victims in a large scam,” the men said in a statement.
The back-from-the-dead canoeist is John Darwin, 57, a former school official and prison official. He walked into a London police station Saturday, claiming to have no memory of where he had been since he disappeared during a solo canoe trip in the North Sea in 2002.
His wife, Anne, a former doctor’s receptionist who had collected on a life insurance policy and recently moved to Panama, was soon quoted as saying she was shocked to learn that her husband was alive.
But when confronted by a reporter with a photo of herself smiling alongside her husband last year in Panama, she broke down and said she had recently learned that he did not die, according to reports in two British newspapers Thursday.
Anne Darwin said that she initially believed that her husband, who is in police custody, had drowned in 2002 and that it was only “years later” that he contacted her.
“Do I still love John? Yes I do, and it’s probably what’s got me in this situation. When you love someone, all you want to do is protect them,” the Daily Mirror and Daily Mail quoted her as saying in Panama. “Maybe I just chose the wrong husband. I did nothing wrong in the beginning.”
She said she feared for her relationship with their two sons. “They knew nothing,” she said. “They thought John was dead. Now they’re going to hate me.”
On Thursday, the sons, Mark, 32, and Anthony, 29, issued a joint statement saying they were cooperating with detectives and were in “an angry and confused state of mind.”
“We have not spoken to either of our parents since our Dad’s arrest and at this present time we want no further contact with them,” they said.
“If the papers’ allegations of a confession from our mam are true then we very much feel that we have been the victims in a large scam. How could our mam continue to let us believe our Dad had died when he was very much alive?”
John Darwin was being questioned by police at length Thursday. Investigators are looking at any financial gain he and his wife may have received after he was declared dead, including his life insurance payout, pensions from his jobs at a school, bank and prison, and debts that were not repaid.
The photo that created questions about their story was taken by a real estate agent in Panama and posted on his company’s Web site, where it was spotted by an unidentified person researching John Darwin.
It is still unclear where Darwin spent the past five years.
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