| Albert Johnson Walker | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1946 Paris, Ontario, Canada |
| Alias(es) | David W. Davis, Ronald Platt |
| Charge(s) | Murder, Theft, Fraud |
| Penalty | Life imprisonment, 4 Years |
| Status | in prison |
| Occupation | Financial planner, Mortgage broker |
| Spouse | Barbara Walker |
| Children | Sheena Walker |
Albert Johnson Walker is a Canadian criminal currently serving a prison term for embezzlement and murder. He is noted for murdering and assuming the identity of an Englishman and posing for years as though his daughter were his wife.
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Originally from Paris, Ontario, Walker was a high school drop-out. After numerous odd jobs, he eventually was hired as a bank teller for a trust company. He also started filing other people's income tax returns. Walker quit his job at the trust company, some two years later, to establish his own freelance bookkeeping business.
Over a decade, Walker Financial grew into a six-branch operation with about thirty employees. In 1986, a stock deal that Walker had invested collapsed. As a mortgage broker and financier, Walker defrauded about 70 Canadian clients of $3.2 million. In 1990 he fled to Europe with the second of his three daughters, Sheena. In 1993, Walker was charged in Canada with 18 counts of fraud, theft and money laundering. In time Walker became Canada's most wanted criminal and the second most wanted by Interpol.
Walker eventually made his way to Harrogate in North Yorkshire where he lived with his daughter, Sheena, who was posing as his wife. During this time, Sheena had two children, the paternity of whom has not been revealed. He changed his name to David Davis and began a business career with television repairman Ronald Joseph Platt. Platt, raised in Canada, wished to return to his home country. Walker bankrolled this trip, but claimed he needed Platt's driver's license, signature stamp and birth certificate for the business. When Platt left for Canada in 1992, initially with the intent of permanently settling there, Walker assumed his identity.
Platt was out of money and returned to England in 1995. Walker took Platt out on a fishing trip 20 July 1996 where he murdered him, weighed him down with an anchor, and dumped his body in the sea. Two weeks later the body was discovered in the English Channel by fisherman John Copik[1] with a Rolex wristwatch the only identifiable object on the body.[1] Since the Rolex movement had a serial number and was engraved with special markings every time it was serviced, British police traced the service records from Rolex. Ronald Joseph Platt was identified as the owner of the watch and the victim of the murder. In addition British police were able to determine the date of death by examining the date on the watch calendar and since the Rolex movement had a reserve of two to three days of operation when inactive and it was fully waterproof, they were able to determine the time of death within a small margin of error.[1][2] Walker was apprehended shortly thereafter.
In the spring of 1998, Walker's preliminary hearing was held in the village courtroom in Teignmouth England. On 27 April 1998, Walker pleaded not guilty in his murder trial in the English city of Exeter. He was found guilty in 1998 and received an automatic life sentence for murder. Had Walker not been convicted, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office would have transferred him back to Canada to face his fraud charges.
On 22 February 2005, The Globe and Mail reported that Walker would be transferred to a Canadian prison, where he faced additional charges of fraud, theft and money laundering.[3]
On 23 July 2007, Walker was sentenced in Kingston, Ontario to four years for fraud and one year concurrent for violations of the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act (Canada). He is currently serving his life sentence at Kingston Penitentiary [4]
In 1998 a book detailing the story of Albert Walker, A hand in the water: The many lies of Albert Walker, by award-winning Toronto Star journalist Bill Schiller, was published by HarperCollins.
Also in 1998, a second book detailing Walker's story, Nothing Sacred: The many lives and betrayals of Albert Walker, by award-winning Toronto Sun journalist Alan Cairns, was published by McClelland-Bantam, Inc.
A made-for-TV movie AKA Albert Walker documenting Walker's crimes and eventual arrest was released in 2002.
In 2002, Walker's wife, Barb (née MacDonald), authored a book entitled "Dancing Devil - My twenty years with Albert Walker", detailing her life with Walker leading up to his departure from Canada.
A documentary detailing the crime called "Interpol Investigates - Body Double" was made by National Geographic.
A Forensic Files episode titled, Time Will Tell details Walker's murder investigation.