Wife admits 'dead canoeist' photo genuine

LONDON - The wife of a back-from-the-dead canoeist has admitted to newspapers that a photo of them taken together in Panama last year was genuine.

John Darwin walked into a London police station five years after he was presumed dead in a canoeing accident.

Darwin, 57, vanished in March 2002 from his home Hartlepool. Since reappearing, tanned and in good health, his family have said he has no memory of events since 2000.

The former prison officer has since been arrested on suspicion of fraud.

Attention has now switched to his wife Anne, 55, who sold two homes and left Britain for Panama with 450,000 pounds some six weeks before his shock reappearance.

With the saga dominating the headlines, tabloid reporters have descended on Panama en masse.

The Daily Mirror published a photo which apparently showed her with her "dead" husband pictured in a Panama apartment last year.

When the tabloid confronted her with the picture, she was quoted as saying "Yes, that's him. My sons will never forgive me."

"They knew nothing. They thought John was dead. Now they are going to hate me," she said.

Several other newspapers reported her confirming that the photo was genuine and describing her life as a nightmare.

She said she now planned to return to Britain as "I don't want to live my life as a fugitive ... I'll have to go back because I won't have any life here."

The mystery began in 2002 when she reported him missing, saying it was feared he had suffered an accident while kayaking in the North Sea near their home in Hartlepool.

Detective Superintendent Tony Hutchinson, in charge of the case, said the sea had been calm the day he disappeared but that despite extensive searches involving aircraft, lifeboats and a Royal Navy ship, no trace was found of him.

A few weeks later the shattered remains of his red kayak were discovered. In 2003, a coroner declared him dead.

Hutchinson said officers had received a tip-off three months ago that indicated there might be "something suspicious" about his disappearance.

"There is at one side the potential he's suffered amnesia for five-and-a-half years right to the other end of the scale whereby there has been some criminal offence committed," he said, adding it was not clear why Darwin had handed himself in.

"We will be looking to see if there has been any contact over the last five years between Mr and Mrs Darwin," he said.