As the police piece together a case against Albert, the pressure on him and Sheena builds. In uncovering the truth about their five years on the run, an uncomfortable revelation comes to light.
Chapter 1: What shocking discovery did Tabitha Pope make in 2021?
In the summer of 2021, Tabitha Pope was living out of a cheap motel. So when she stumbled onto an affordable apartment, she thought her luck was finally turning around. She was wrong.
And as she's cleaning, she comes across a few Rubbermaid buckets. And they look to be filled with blood.
I'm Kathleen Goltar, and this week on Crime Story, the most horrific rental story you've ever heard. Find Crime Story wherever you get your podcasts.
This is a CBC Podcast.
Chapter 2: Who was David Davis and why was he arrested in 1996?
It was Halloween, 1996. While everyone was putting on their costumes, pretending to be Tickle Me Elmo or Baby Spice, or whatever the fine folks of 1996 dressed up as, there was a man in the back of a police cruiser in Essex, apprehended for pretending to be someone he was not. David Davis was arrested under suspicion of murdering Ronald Platt.
They had proof he'd been stealing Platt's identity, and that he'd been in Devon that July, the same month that Ron's body was pulled up from the seabed. But if Davis really was the one who put him there, the police needed evidence. So with Davis taken off in the cruiser, all attention turned to his home. the quaintly named Little London Farmhouse on Little London Lane.
Out in the world, Davis had been acting in the theatrical role of Ronald Platt for months. So now the police were anxious to peer into the backstage area and see who else was participating in this production.
was sent up to Chelmsford, not to assist with the arrest, but to assist with the searching of Little London Farmhouse post his arrest.
Joining the investigative team that day was a young officer called Brian Slade. The neighbors had told police that the man they knew as Ronald Platt had been living in the house with his young wife. So they mobilized in the driveway and prepared to take her in for questioning, and then bring in scores of officers to search every square inch of Little London Farmhouse.
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Chapter 3: What did police find at Little London Farmhouse?
Peter Redman, the man whose original door knock had started all of this, was the one who knocked on this door too. The woman who opened the door was shocked to see the officers. The feeling was mutual. I was surprised how young she was. To Redmond, she looked like she was 20 at the oldest. Redmond asked her name. She said, I'm Noelle.
Redmond said, I'm arresting you under suspicion of murdering Ronald Platt. And she said, what about my children? Children? Children?
She got a young baby with her and a toddler. About three, I think the little one was. And she was much more, oh gosh, what am I going to do with the babies?
The baby was still breastfeeding, but the three-year-old, the police explained, would need to either stay with a friend or the police would arrange for social services to take her. They were going to take Noelle all the way to Devon for an interview. As the officers began moving through the house, they noted how sparse it was. It hardly looked like the warm home of a young family.
Outside, there were flowers and a well-manicured lawn and a bountiful vegetable garden. But on the inside, there was hardly any signs of a life being lived within its walls. Upstairs in the toddler's bedroom, there was scant a single toy. It looked like they had been squatting in a foreclosure home. Was this woman and children held against their will? Were they prisoners in their own home?
The wife disappeared from sight for a moment.
And Noel packed a bag for the children, nappies, etc. When she was arrested, a neighbor said that they'd look after the children.
When the officer chaperoning Noel stepped closer, suspicious at what was taking so long, the young wife sheepishly held the bag and the officer gestured for her to hand it over.
And the police officer searched that bag before it was handed over to the neighbor and found cash and a number of gold bars in that bag.
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Chapter 4: How did the police handle the interrogation of David Davis?
Elaine, of course, knew about Davis's children, who still lived in the States.
And I said, oh, yeah, I said, there's Jill, who lives in New York. There's Noelle, who's with dad. And there's a younger one called Heather.
So I said, he's got three daughters. All three of them in their teens and twenties. And as she was describing this, the female officer interviewing her furrows her brow.
And she said, no, I'm talking about her children, Noelle's children.
Noelle, the teenager?
And I'm not kidding you. You know when you say that expression, my chin just dropped to the floor. I just was like, huh? What? How could she have children?
How, in this case, is the heaviest question of all.
She didn't have a boyfriend in Harrogate when I knew her. So why? How? It didn't make sense. It didn't make sense.
Elaine had never so much as seen Noel interact with a male other than her father. And now the police told Elaine that Davis and Noel were living and presenting as a couple with kids?
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Chapter 5: What revelation led to the release of David Davis?
But there was nothing, by design.
I had a sense that she'd been schooled and rehearsed on what she should say when she got into that situation. The cover story, although she was comfortable with it, as it turned out, was fairly limited. So she kept repeating it.
What were you doing in mid-July, Noel?
She gives a story that they were both down in Devon and they've come down for a holiday. She's unaware that Ronald Platt is in the area. She hasn't got a clue about it. Don't know what you're on about. Yeah, we've got a boat. He's been out on his boat. But Ron Platt, I'm not clear what you're talking about. He's not down here. So that was her interview.
We were kind of up against a brick wall and clearly we weren't going to be going any further.
The police made the call to release Noelle. She was on the hook to return at a later date if they saw fit, but by virtue of her needing to care for her children and their gut feeling that she wasn't directly involved in Ron Platt's death, they let her walk for now. She wasn't the one they were after.
Our main interest was with him.
Back in the David Davis interview, Clenahan continued peppering him with questions.
Did he meet Ron Platt during his time down in Devon? Did he go on out on a boat with Ron Platt? Why has he got Ron Platt's identification in his pocket? Why is he living under the name of Ron Platt? Yeah, it was just no comment to everything.
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Chapter 6: How did a fax machine change the case against David Davis?
Very strong, but very circumstantial.
The general circumstances put forward a fairly strong but not conclusive case that actually David Davis could be responsible for this man's murder.
It was out of the detective's hands and into the hands of the Crown Prosecution Service. And the deadline to either charge or release him was imminent.
We were literally running out of time. They were huddled in a room up on the top floor of the police station for literally hours, poring over documentation, representations from us and from other experts in relation to what we had and what we could actually prove.
Nearby, Elaine was anxiously awaiting word of what they'd decide.
If they didn't have enough evidence, they would have released him on the Monday. And I actually got across to them very clearly because I was really worried about it. I said, if you let him go, you'll lose him. He'll escape. I said, he's got loads of money. I said, he'll just disappear.
And you're looking at the clock and thinking, we need a decision. And it was a question, you know, they're still considering it.
Finally, late that night, MacDonald gets the call from upstairs.
And he says, authorize a charge, charge him. And we charged him with murder.
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