The sea search covered sixty-two square miles. Nothing was found that first day.
The next morning, March 22, Darwin’s canoe was found—battered, washed up on a beach at Seaton Carew. The canoe’s condition was consistent with a vessel that had been in the sea and come apart. A paddle was also recovered. The physical evidence suggested what the disappearance had suggested: that a man had gone out in a small boat, the boat had been overwhelmed, and the man had been lost.
The search continued for several days. No body was recovered. Darwin was not found in the sea, on the beach, or anywhere along the coastal stretch the search covered. After four days, with nothing to show for the effort, the active phase of the search was called off.
Anne Darwin gave the media the statements of a bereaved wife. In September 2002, she told the Gazette, the local newspaper serving the Hartlepool and Teesside area: “All I want is to bury his body. It would enable me to move on.” The language was appropriate to the circumstances as she presented them. It was also, the subsequent record would establish, entirely false.
The investigation wound down. Without a body, a formal death certificate required more time—the legal processes around presumed death in English law allow for a period of presumption before official declaration. An inquest was held in April 2003. The coroner, examining the available evidence—the missing man, the damaged canoe, the failed search—returned an open verdict, meaning the cause of death could not be determined conclusively. This is a common outcome in cases where no body is recovered and no witnessed event confirms a death. The open verdict did not prevent subsequent legal processes.