With Albert awaiting trial, all eyes are on Sheena. The case against her father is far from a foregone conclusion and she’s the only one who knows the truth. But where do her loyalties lie?
Chapter 1: What is the story of Sheena's disappearance and reappearance?
You can sense that you're at the beginning of having real agency, where you're like, what am I good at? Where do I want to go? What do I want all of this to look like? To be 15 is to still be a child, but a child first grasping the raw, undiluted potential of life. It's the age Sheena Walker was in 1990, when she first disappeared from her mother, her siblings, her friends.
Her mother got the call that they'd found her six years later. When the Devon police figured out Sheena's true identity, immediately, they set about how best to reunite mother and daughter. Taking into consideration, of course, that the daughter in this case now had two young daughters of her own.
The officer tasked with setting up this sensitive reunion was Brian Slade, a member of the original team that conducted the search of Little London Farmhouse.
I joined the police in 1987, and in 1996, I was an aide on a CID office at Tall Bay.
Slade had been assigned to be the point of contact between Sheena and the police ever since they still thought Sheena was Noelle.
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Chapter 2: How did Sheena Walker's identity affect the investigation?
She maintained that she was the wife of David Davis.
During the month between the Halloween arrest and the police figuring out that the Davises were in fact the Walkers, Sheena was laying low at Little London Farmhouse with her children and almost nothing else. The police had seized everything, and Sheena didn't have a penny to her name, to any of her names. So she was being looked after by social services and Officer Slade.
But then the facts from Interpol, the police learning her true identity, and all of a sudden, her mother, who she'd spurned six years earlier, was on a plane to reunite with her. Barb Walker was the only person who never stopped looking for Sheena. When Sheena first disappeared, of course, there was outrage, media coverage, police investigations.
Chapter 3: What role did Barb Walker play in searching for Sheena?
But as the months folded into years, the crowd thinned out. Until it was just Barb, trying to get Sheena's story on TV in any way she could. America's Most Wanted passed on her pitch. Unsolved Mysteries didn't call her back. So she settled for an episode of the shortly-lived program called Missing Treasures.
I'm Al Waxman, and this is Missing Treasures, a search for our lost children. Children change people's lives. They allow us to see the world anew. Their loss can be devastating.
For Barb, Sheena's birthdays came and went on the calendar, marking not her arrival in this world, but her absence from it. After a few years, a Canadian police officer suggested to Barb that she should just move on and forget about her, because she wouldn't be the same kid anyway. But then the call finally came, and she got on a plane to meet her now 21-year-old daughter.
Detective Bill McDonald sent Slade to meet her.
Bill instructed me to go to Heathrow Airport and collect Barbara, and we went through the process of bringing Barbara and Sheena together. She was a nice lady. She's really pleased to meet us. Clearly, Barbara was really keen on meeting Sheena. Sheena obviously didn't know the game was up at that time, and we didn't know what reaction we would get. Hence, we used social services to
because obviously the children have got to be a big priority, and we need to make sure that we dealt with that situation as delicately as possible.
They set up the meeting in a social services building, in a room with a children's play area. They brought Barb through the door, and there was Sheena, the daughter she never gave up on, in the flesh, a mother herself now, The moment that Barb thought might never happen was here.
And that in itself was a, I know, a very emotional and hugely significant moment for Barbara Walker, Sheena's mother.
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Chapter 4: What were the challenges in Sheena's reunion with her mother?
As mother and daughter embraced, everything around them was an unconscionable mess. But this moment was not. There was a flurry of loose ends to be tied up before Sheena was allowed to fly back to Canada with her mother and children.
She needed to give statements to both the British and Canadian authorities, get her bail cancelled, and to alert the Canadians about the avalanche of paperwork heading their way to process not just Sheena, but her two children. And the biggest meatball of all was that not tomorrow or next month, but at some time in the future, the Devon police would need her to testify in court against her father.
But there was a caveat.
Once she returned to Canada, we've got no hold over her. We can't force her to give evidence. She's a Canadian citizen in Canada. We can't compel her to come back to the UK to give evidence in a murder trial and evidence against her father.
If Sheena was going to testify in the eventual murder trial, it would need to be her choice and her choice alone to do so. By putting her on the plane to her home nation, her actual home nation, the Devon police knew that she was under no obligation to ever come back. Up to that point, she'd been aloof and uncooperative at every step.
And now they had every indication that even though the jig was up, she was not about to turn on her father.
My impression was that she still looked up to her father and still loved him.
No one knew where her head was at. No one knew what her father had indoctrinated her with. No one knew what she thought or felt or was still trying to hide. And she certainly didn't seem in a hurry to talk to anyone about any of it. I'm Sam Mullins, and this is Sea of Lies, from CBC's Uncover. Episode 6, Sheena.
As soon as we started to uncover what was happening on the ground here in July, the picture really started to... really crystallize in our minds.
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Chapter 5: How did the police uncover Albert Walker's crimes?
When the inquiry began, guided by the calls and the cell tower pings of Walker's cell phone, the Devon police began a rigorous door-knocking campaign, all up and down the dart, to see if anyone remembered seeing Ron Platt or Albert Walker that July. Or, better yet, if they'd seen them together.
The details of Ron Platt and Albert Walker's movements in the final month of Platt's life are complicated, but to those building the murder case, essential to understand. The verified timeline of the final month of Ron Platt's life goes like this. In June 1996, Albert and Sheena Walker are living in Woodham-Walter, Essex, and Ron Platt is living nearby in Chelmsford.
Sometime that June, Albert tells Sheena that Ron has moved to France, and Ron Platt's actions that month seemed to support that he did indeed plan to move. Ron gives his notice at the Chelmsford place. On June 21st, Albert helps him move out. They put all this stuff into a storage unit, and then Albert checks Ron into a nearby hotel, where he'll remain for a couple of weeks.
Then, in the first week of July, Albert picks up Ron, and they drive four and a half hours west to Totnes on the River Dart in Devon, where they check into a place called the Steam Packet Inn. Two days later, Albert walks into a nearby yachting shop where he purchased seven items. A jacket, varnish, grease, a length of rope, a roll of green duct tape, a roll of black duct tape, and an anchor.
What was Ron thinking during this time? That he and his good friend Albert were simply having a mini-vacation, a sort of send-off before he moved to France? We don't know for sure. But the police found two women who remember chatting with Albert and Ron in the pub at the Steam Packet the night of July 8th.
The talkative one of the two men told them that they were both divorcees and that they had a plan to sail to France to start a new life. Which brings us to July 9th, 11 days before Ron Platt died. July 9th remains a big question mark, a day that fascinates those familiar with the case to this day.
That morning, Albert and Ron checked out of the Steam Packet Inn after breakfast, got on the Lady Jane, Albert's 24-foot sailboat, and headed out to sea. No one sees them until late that night. At around 11 p.m., Albert calls a hotel in Totnes, one called the Royal Seven Stars, and says, We're on a boat waiting for the tide to come in. Do you have two rooms? They did.
So, a very tired-looking Ron and Albert arrive at the Royal Seven Stars Hotel shortly after that. And Albert says to the concierge, memorably, My God, we were stuck out at sea, and then on the drive here, I just ran over a cat. Why did they check out of the steam packet inn that morning if they knew they were coming back? What were they doing for all of those hours on the Lady Jane that day?
Bill MacDonald still wonders.
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Chapter 6: What was Albert Walker's connection to Ron Platt?
All we know is that the next morning, Ron Platt checked back into the steam packet inn for 10 more nights, which is significant because he only had 10 nights left in his life. So with Ron checked in, Albert Walker drives four and a half hours to Woodham Walter.
Then, on July 12th, Albert Walker loads Sheena and the kids into the car for a pre-planned, pre-booked holiday halfway up the dart in Dittisham. Albert, Sheena, and the kids had reserved a cute little cottage called Potter's Loft. They were booked at the cottage for a full week, July 12th to 19th. But the week was dreadful. The weather was bad, and both the children caught a nasty cold.
So, feeling robbed of their holiday, or perhaps for some other much darker reason, Albert called the booker.
They wanted to extend the stay. Father was insistent they extended the stay. That property, Potter's Loft, they were unable to secure that. There was obviously other people coming in.
Albert was told that another similar place just around the corner was available, a cottage called the Old Brew House. So with 48 hours left in Ron Platt's life, they moved a few houses down the hill.
They had to vacate. So Sheena had to move everything, all their, all their clothing and the kids and everything they brought with them down the hill into the old brew house.
If the river dart is a snake, we have Ron in the steam packet inn at the very tip of the tail in the north. And we have Albert in Didisham, the fat middle of the serpent, with the Lady Jane moored just across the river.
But then suddenly on July 18th, Albert tells Ron to leave the steam packet inn and move to an accommodation down river of him in Dartmouth, where the mouth of the snake spits the dart into the channel.
As we're stood here now, it's an idyllic setting. It's a beautiful stretch of river. And it's difficult to conceive that this is the backdrop to what eventually would be the day of the murder.
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Chapter 7: What was the significance of the timeline during the investigation?
So as the timeline came into focus, it was clear. By placing Ron and Albert and Sheena all on the river dart on those key dates, the inquiry had unearthed a clear story of circumstance. But the fact remained. If you're going to tell a story of circumstance in a jury trial, you need something more. They needed Sheena. And they needed her to testify.
What is the upside of an asteroid? What is the downside of recycling? How might aluminum tariffs affect the price of beer? You never know what questions we will explore on The Current, a daily podcast that expands your worldview. My name is Matt Galloway. I'm the host. I'm generally a curious guy. And our award-winning team brings you stories and conversations that go beyond the news cycle.
You can find The Current wherever you get your podcasts, including YouTube. I'll talk to you soon.
The police knew that they had some time. A trial date for something like this was at least a year out. They needed to use that time to earn Sheena's trust and build a relationship with her. And how were they going to do that? They didn't know. That was Officer Brian Slade's problem to figure out. I was asked to keep contact with her.
When Slade put Sheena on the plane back to Canada, he vowed to keep in touch with her over the phone in the coming weeks and months, to check in, to not be a stranger. But as he watched her go, he certainly didn't like his chances.
The first time I met Sheena, she was extremely cold to me. I'm the enemy, I'm the police.
While everyone who had met her in the UK described her as quiet, deferential, soft-spoken, this didn't jive with the version of her that Slade met.
She certainly was not a meek and mild lady, and she didn't mind being cutting, certainly. Actually, I wouldn't call her shy at all, but she's an intelligent lady who knew her own mind.
Every time Slade made contact in the early going, he was met with silence.
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Chapter 8: How did the events on July 20th, 1996 unfold?
And now Walker is phoning her from prison and asking her to change that part of her statement and asking her to lie, to say actually she did know that Ronald Platt was in the area. I think it's quite a damning thing, really. Why would he lie about Ronald Platt to his own daughter? Not an accomplice to murder, but the accomplice to the double life they're leading.
Why would he not share that fact with her? Because he was going to murder her, him. And I realized it was very significant straight away.
Slade rushed down the hallway to tell his chief, Phil Sincock.
And his first words were, we need a statement from her, don't we? It would have been unheard of for an aide to travel, international travel, to take statements as such, but Bill Sincop put his trust in me, and I arranged to travel to Canada.
After so many conversations, things between Slade and Sheena felt much different than the last time they were in the same room, in a good way. The relationship was getting better at that stage. But even though Sheena knew that Slade was coming to collect this specific statement, in which she would merely be restating what she told him over the phone, seeing it on paper seemed to give her pause.
She clearly knew that this new statement provided some kind of evidence against her father. Again, I'm not persuading her in any way, but just talking around the issues, really. And she was reluctant to put her signature to that piece of paper.
So they sat in it. And just like he had every step thus far, Slade gave her space and made it clear that he wasn't here to convince her to do anything she didn't want to do. He explained that all this is really about is the truth. A statement of the truth.
Yeah, it took a while of discussion, but eventually she did sign it. She signed her name. I took a statement which took a number of hours. The statement was quite lengthy. And yeah, it was okay.
The fact that Sheena was comfortable sharing this with Slade was very meaningful. Not just because she would have known that this would hurt her father, who she obviously still cared about. But just by virtue of the act of him calling her to change her testimony, that alone would be one of the most damning facts that the prosecution could put to a jury.
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