Reader's Digest Australia Dec/Jan 2025

76   December 2025/january 2026 reader ’ s digest brought in and laid out along Platt’s left side. The two bruises – the new one and the one previously noted on his left hip – matched the contours of the anchor. Sincock sent Platt’s belt and the seized anchor for forensic testing. Near the base of the anchor’s shank were fibrous deposits, the kind found in leather. Investigators also noted that roughly 28cm from the belt buckle were several marks on the leather that contained zinc, of the kind used to plate the anchor. This evidence supported the theory that someone inserted the anchor under Platt’s belt to keep his body submerged. The cir- cumstantial evidence against David Davis was mounting. Who Is David Davis? But Sincock was still puzzled about some- thing else. He was certain David Walliss Davis, as Davis insisted he was formally called, was not his real name. The police had run a search and discovered only one David Walliss Davis. He had been born in Britain, and he had left as a child for parts unknown – in 1949. So who was this man – who claimed to have been born in England; who Davis himself to that place on that day – until Noël Davis recalled that on July 20 her father announced he was heading out to sea alone. She and her children stayed behind at a holiday cottage they rented. The only other occasion Davis had gone sailing on his own, Noël said, he had returned by 6pm. But on that particular day, he had not shown up by then. Noël prepared dinner for her- self and the children, then cuddled up in front of the television. By 8.59pm, Davis still wasn’t back. At that precise time, four kilometres from the Devon coast, a hand switched off Lady Jane ’s GPS. It was exactly 15 minutes before sunset. In that light, from that distance, a sailor no longer needed the GPS. He could see his way to shore. It was we l l a f te r dark when Davis came home. He looked, Noël told the police, “scruffy and windswept”. On November 25, as another autopsy of Platt’s body was being prepared, something new appeared on the defrosting corpse: a bruise on the left leg, just above the knee. With the body stretched out on the examining table, a 4.5kg zinc-plated anchor, similar to the one retrieved from Patricia Johnson’s house, was The two bruises – the new one and the one previously noted on Platt’s left hip – matched the contours of the anchor readersdigest.com.au   77 Bonus Read that Elaine Boyes had unwittingly helped launder. In all, police estimated Walker had swindled more than $3 million from his clients. He had transferred close to $1.1 million to his various European accounts, from which he took out as much as $730,000 in gold, in Brit- ish pounds, and in French and Swiss francs. As for the real David W. Davis? Police learned he was living in Canada and had once gone to Walker for help with a bank-loan application. In the process Davis talked him into hand- ing over his birth certificate. On December 9, 1996, the suspect was remanded into custody under his real name – Albert Johnson Walker. Damning Testimony By now the evidence against him was overwhelming. There was an array of witnesses who said they had seen Walker with Platt in bars and hotels in Devon as late as July 10. These reports were in stark contrast to Sheena Walker’s statement to police that her father had told her he had last seen Platt off to France in June. In light of all the other evidence, this was damning. It supported the theory that Walker was plotting some- thing – the murder of Ronald Platt. Walker had needed a new identity. The David Davis cover he was using was limited. He had Davis’s birth certificate and nothing else. Ronald Platt was his key to an entirely new said he was an English-literature grad- uate from the University of Edinburgh; who professed to have been a banker in the United States, Switzerland and England before retiring to become a psychiatrist? None of those stories checked out. Sincock had assigned two detec- tives to review every scrap of paper retrieved from Little London Farm. He also directed his staff to see what coun- tries were in the HOLMES database of evidence. The police then prepared an in- formation circular on Davis with his photo and fingerprints. They passed it to Interpol for distribution to Canada, Switzerland, Italy and France. On Friday, November 22, the Na- tional Criminal Intelligence Service office in London received a message from Interpol in Switzerland. The Swiss said David W. Davis looked very much like someone on Interpol’s most- wanted list, a Canadian-born swindler named Albert Johnson Walker. When the news reached Devon, there was a celebration. It looked like they had caught what might be a really big fish. Meanwhile, the murder investiga- tion pressed on. As the police soon confirmed, Davis was indeed Walker, a Canadian financier from Paris, Ontario, who had fled his home coun- try six years earlier, taking with him his 15-year-old daughter, Sheena – aka Noël Davis – and millions of dollars of his clients’ money. This was the money