The photograph showed that in July 2006, John Darwin had been in Panama with his wife. He had been there in person, posing for photographs with real estate agents. He had been there recently enough—less than eighteen months before his return to the police station—that no one was going to accept that he had no memory of it.
Anne Darwin admitted that the photograph showed them. She told the Mirror: “My sons will never forgive me.” She confirmed that they were in the photograph. She confirmed that her sons “knew nothing. They thought John was dead.”
The admission demolished the amnesia story. A man who cannot remember the previous five years of his life cannot also have been photographed with his wife in Panama a year and a half before he walked into a police station. The photograph did not, by itself, establish every element of the fraud—investigators still had to establish the financial mechanics, the insurance claims, the pension payments, the money transfers. But it proved that John Darwin had been alive and with his wife, and that Anne had known.
Cleveland Police, who had been conducting their preliminary inquiry since September, now had something to work with. The Metropolitan Police joined the investigation. Officers were dispatched to Basingstoke, where Anthony Darwin lived.
John Darwin was arrested at his son Anthony’s house on December 5, the day the photograph appeared. He was taken to Redcar police station for questioning.
Anne Darwin was in the United States at this point—apparently in transit or on a stopover on her way from Panama. Police issued an appeal for her to contact them. She didn’t need to be asked twice; she boarded a flight. On December 9, she landed at Manchester Airport. Armed officers boarded the plane and arrested her as she stepped off.