Beneath the Surface (PODCAST EXCLUSIVE EPISODE)

0:00Both of today's stories are about just how hard it is to really know somebody. Basically everybody beneath their exterior is oftentimes not what you think they are. But before we get into today's stories, if you're a fan of the strange, dark, and mysterious delivered in story format, then you've come to the right place because that's all we do, and we upload two, three, even four times every week. So if that's of interest to you, please sneak into the follow buttons house and steal the glass tray inside of their microwave. Okay, let's get into our first story, which is called Man of Mystery.

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1:59One afternoon in March of 2004, a 53-year-old handyman named Carl Fenwick sat on the floor of a vacant studio apartment in the rundown apartment building where he lived and worked in northern England. The apartment building was called The Cliff, and it was across the street from the ocean in the coastal town of Seton Carew. Carl was in the middle of painting the apartment and getting it ready for a new tenant, but he had stopped to eat some lunch and to read a few chapters of one of his favorite spy novels. Carl loved spy novels, and he had a few that he just read over and over again. But as he turned the page, something out the window caught his eye.

2:34It was his landlady, Anne Darwin, who lived in a big Victorian house right next door. And at this moment, she was standing in front of her house with her two adult sons, Anthony and Mark, and they were all dressed in black and each were holding a wreath made of flowers. And now Carl felt a little bit like a spy himself as he secretly watched the family of three walk across the street together to this grassy knoll that looked out over the water. Anne and her sons bowed their heads, and Carl could tell they were very likely praying, and then all three of them tossed their wreaths into the ocean.

3:08Carl knew that Anne and her sons were honoring Anne's husband, John Darwin, who had actually died in a kayaking accident two years ago, basically in the water right out in front of their house. Carl could also see that Anne was visibly shaking, so he knew she must be crying. And when he saw that, Carl himself started to feel sad. Because Carl cared deeply for Anne. He was not just her handyman and tenant. They had been secretly romantically involved ever since he had moved into the cliff almost two years ago. But Carl had actually known Anne for most of his life and had been in love with her for decades.

3:45So Carl and Anne were both from a town that was near Seton Carew. And Carl had first seen Anne on the school bus in high school, but he hadn't worked up the courage to say hello. Then soon after that, he left to go to college. But he had never stopped thinking about her. After college, Carl had started a family of his own and became a school teacher. But he lost everything after making some really bad real estate investments a few years ago. And his financial troubles had led to legal trouble. And finally, he'd left his family and gone on the run from the police, living in the woods outside of Seton Carew.

4:19That's when he and Anne had found their way back to each other. One night, in a parking lot near his campsite, Carl saw Anne pull in in her car, looking very upset. And this time, he did approach her. It turned out that Anne's husband had only just had his kayaking accident a few weeks earlier, and she was obviously in a very bad place emotionally because of it. She was also desperate for help around the properties that she and her husband had owned together. So that same night, she actually let Carl move into the cliff. And once Carl moved in, he and Anne began a somewhat unconventional romance.

4:53Carl would spend his days working to fix up the apartments inside the cliff, and then he would spend his nights with Anne in her house. It was weird for both of them to keep their relationship secret, but they both had their reasons. For Carl, I mean, he was just afraid of being arrested. if anybody knew where he was. I mean, he was on the run. And for Anne, she felt like her family and friends expected her to be a grieving widow basically forever. So she didn't want to look like she basically immediately moved on from her dead husband. Now, at some point, the two of them hoped that Anne could sell her properties and that they could move far away together and start over.

5:31But they both knew that was easier said than done. Because Carl would first have to figure out a way to leave the country without getting arrested. Now, Carl watched as Anne and her sons made their way back across the street, and he went back to reading his spy novel. And as he read the story, he made mental notes about the plotline and the main character, because Carl was actually working on a plan that maybe would allow him and Anne to start their new life together. He was actually using all of these spy novels basically as inspiration for this plan. He actually smiled to himself as he thought about how brilliant he was being.

6:07And he pictured that someday in the future, an author would likely write a spy novel about him. It would take another two years for Carl to finally work out his plan. But finally, one morning in July of 2006, he was ready to put it all into action. On this morning, he walked through the airport near Seton Carew, trying to act casual as he approached the ticket encounter. He handed his passport to the gate agent and then glanced over his shoulder, looking back to where Anne was. she was standing at the back of the line. She met his eyes, but then quickly sort of looked away because they had agreed to pretend they didn't know each other.

6:44When Carl turned back around, he saw the ticketing agent was now staring intently at his passport, and he felt his heart rate begin to pick up. So this passport that Carl was using was a fake. He had created a new identity for himself using the birth and death records of a baby that had been born in the same year as him, which was an idea from the spy novel The Day of the Jackal, about an assassin who constantly changes identities. And if it worked, he and Anne would be able to travel to Panama in Central America. Carl's plan was he was going to stay there permanently if he got to Panama, and he hoped that Anne would love it enough that she would eventually move there too.

7:22Carl had read a brochure on Panama that called it a place for schemers, dreamers, and nutcases, which already made him feel right at home. Plus, the country was really cheap compared to the UK and far away from anyone who knew them. So he thought this was like the perfect place for them to move to. But all of that depended on this fake passport being convincing enough that the ticketing agent didn't say anything. And finally, after what felt like a very long time, the agent looked up from the passport and smiled and handed it back to Carl along with his ticket. Carl had to physically stop himself from literally sighing with relief when this happened.

8:00And instead, he just, you know, as casually as he could thanked the agent. And as he walked off, he turned and he sort of winked at Anne, who was still in line. After decades of reading about international spies, Carl kind of felt like one himself. And he liked this feeling a lot. And soon, he would be living permanently as John Jones, an international man of mystery. A few days later, Carl sat beside Anne in the back of a Jeep as a real estate agent drove them through the Panamanian countryside. They sped along the highway into the jungle, and as they did, Carl felt more alive than he had in years.

8:37They came around a bend in the road, and suddenly they were driving along a sandy beach, and the realtor pulled over and said to get out and take a look and see if this plot of land felt like it could be their new home. So Carl figured that once Anne sold the Cliff apartment building that she owned and combine that money with the money Anne had inherited from her husband's life insurance policies, they'd have around£600 ,000 in savings, which was around$800 ,000 American dollars. Now that was more than enough money to get set up. But they were going to need some kind of income in Panama as well.

9:09And Carl wanted to buy this land in particular in the jungle and use it to open up an eco-lodge resort. Eco-lodges were becoming really popular in Central America, and tourists paid a lot of money to stay in beachside cabins for a week and go canoeing and horseback riding and jungle trekking. Carl also wanted to build a villa on the property for just him and Anne right there on the beach. So he led Anne down to the edge of the water and pointed to the tree line on the other side of the bay and he told her to imagine a row of cabins and a dock for a bunch of canoes and a path that led to a horse stable.

9:41And then he pointed to the opposite side of the bay and told her to imagine a beautiful seaside villa where the two of them would live. Anne kicked off her sandals and walked into the water, and Carl could tell that she was picturing what their lives might look like here. To Carl, it was like years of careful planning were finally paying off. I mean, this had been like the best week of his relationship with Anne ever. They had finally been able to act like a normal couple for the first time. They had gone out in public to dinner every night together and walked down the street holding hands. Carl loved living as John Jones.

10:16He felt free. And weirdly enough, despite the fact that his identity was fake, he felt like his old self again, the way he used to feel before he got tangled up with all of his debt. By the time they got back to the realtor's office that afternoon, Anne said that she was completely taken with Panama and that, yes, she did want to move here with Carl and that when she got back to England, she would get her affairs in order and get ready for this big move. Carl beamed, and their realtor grabbed a camera and took a picture of the three of them to commemorate the moment that they had decided to change their lives forever.

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14:41And then finally, on October 22, 2007, Anne moved to Panama permanently. However, when Carl picked her up at the airport that night and drove her to their new home, he had to fake a smile because he had recently discovered some news that was going to throw their new life into jeopardy. And so he gave Anne a quick tour of the penthouse apartment, and then he asked her to take a seat at the kitchen table. And immediately, Anne sensed something was off and looked very worried. Carl took a deep breath, and then he told Anne that he was really excited to build their resort together. but there was one last unexpected obstacle standing in the way of their dreams.

15:21He said he had only learned about this obstacle a few weeks ago and he had been waiting for the right moment for them to talk about it. He had just found out that the Panamanian government had instituted new procedures for anyone moving to Panama from another country and now English citizens needed to present a certificate of good conduct from the British police to prove they had no criminal record. Now, this was no problem for Ann, but it was a huge problem for Carl, because he was living in Panama as John Jones. So if the police looked into his identity, they would quickly learn that John Jones was a fake identity.

16:01Ann put her head in her hands and just said, what are we going to do? And Carl said he didn't have an answer yet, but he promised he would figure something out. The next morning, Carl walked with Ann as they window shopped on a busy street in Panama City, and Carl thought about ways that he could get around this awful new procedure. He didn't want to live in this country illegally, because he was done hiding. I mean, the whole point of coming here to Panama was so that he and Anne could live together out in the open. He followed Anne into an old vintage shop so that she could look at furniture, and as he wandered around the shop, he came across a bookshelf full of old books, including a few spy novels.

16:37Now, all the books were in Spanish, so he couldn't understand any of them, but he still picked one up and began flipping through it, you know, hoping that maybe it would inspire him. And as he did this, he did feel inspired, but it was not by this book. He remembered the plotline of a different spy novel that he had read over a decade earlier. Even when he had been reading the novel at the time, he had thought that that plotline was too crazy to work in real life. But as they walked around that afternoon, Carl kept coming back to that idea, that plot line, and started to see how he might be able to make that work.

17:11Finally, at dinner that night, Carl told Anne that he was pretty sure he knew how to solve their visa problem once and for all. He warned her that the idea was risky, but he was confident that he could pull it off. Six weeks later, on the afternoon of Sunday, December 2nd, 2007, Carl was back in the United Kingdom, wandering around the west end of London. He did his best to look very confused as he walked through Christmas displays and waited until a store clerk came over to ask if he was okay. And Carl gave her a sort of shy smile and then asked, why are all the Christmas decorations up? And when she said it was December, you know, it's Christmas, that's why, he pretended to be confused about what day it was and where he was.

17:56And then he asked the clerk for some help. And just like he had hoped, the store clerk frowned with concern and then escorted him into the nearest police station. And she told the officer at the front desk that something was really wrong with this guy. The officer smiled at Carl and asked what the problem was. And now Carl knew that for his plan to work, he was going to have to give an award-winning acting performance here. So he kind of scratched at his head and then told the officer that he had lost his whole family. The officer sat up and asked for his name. And for the first time in two years, Carl didn't say John Jones.

18:33Instead, he gave the officer his real name. Because Carl had realized that the only way to truly feel like his old self in Panama was to actually become his old self and reclaim the old identity that he had left behind. But to reclaim this identity without also reclaiming all his old dead and legal problems was going to require one more huge lie. So Carl explained to the police officer that he knew his name, but nothing else about himself, because he said he had amnesia. The officer just stared at Carl, obviously dumbfounded. Then he turned and called for his supervisor. From this moment onward, things moved fast, but not in the direction that Carl or anyone else had expected.

19:22Carl had believed that if he just claimed he had amnesia, it'd be like wiping the slate clean in England. He could just resume his old name and his old life and make a plan to pay back his creditors now that he was in a better financial situation with the Ecolodge. And he'd be able to get a real passport with his real name and live happily and truly openly in Panama. But this was not what happened. Because almost immediately, newspapers caught wind of Carl's story. And it made the front page. because to the rest of the world, Carl had this incredible story. He had supposedly spent years wandering around as a homeless person, never knowing his true identity.

20:03And so almost overnight, Carl became big-time international news. The entire world wanted to know where had he been the past few years. Now, Carl had not expected any of this publicity. So he and Anne were both horrified when two days later, a British newspaper published a photograph from an obscure real estate website. And in this picture, Carl can be seen standing with Anne and their realtor and beaming with happiness after a day of viewing properties in Panama. And this photograph was very, very bad for Carl because it proved that he had not been wandering around homeless with amnesia in the UK like he had said to police.

20:50But this photo was really bad, really the worst for Anne, because it proved something more shocking and more terrible than regular old financial fraud. This photo revealed a story so outlandish that it sounds like it must have come directly out of a fictional spy novel. Because it would turn out Anne was not the grieving widow she pretended to be. And her handyman boyfriend, Carl Fenwick, was not Carl Fenwick. Carl's real name, the one he had given that police officer in the UK when he pretended to have amnesia, was John Darwin. He was Anne Darwin's dead husband. He and Anne had faked his death in that kayaking accident to escape his debt and so that he and Anne could claim life insurance money.

21:40Not even their own kids knew that their father was still alive. Only Anne, and obviously John did. John and Anne were both soon arrested for fraud and wound up serving more than three years in prison. John's very unhappy ending does, in some ways, mirror the ending of the very book, The Day of the Jackal, which he used for inspiration. In that book, the assassin does lots of impressive things to change his identity, but in the end, he still gets caught.

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