Update: Back from the grave

I wrote last Friday about the bizarre events unfolding in England, where a lost kayaker walked into a police station claiming amnesia, more than five years after he was assume dead.

Here's the conclusion. Over the weekend, he was formally arrested for life insurance fraud and making false statements to obtain a passport. His wife was arrested on fraud charges. The 57-year-old man could face up to 10 years in prison. As I alluded to last week, the motive here was a $50,000 life insurance policy and a get-out-of-debt card worth $260,000, when the man disappeared and his wife claimed he was dead.

Turned out they've been living together since Feb 2003. But apparently life on the lam isn't all that glamorous, though they've been to Cyprus, Gibraltar, and Panama. The husband got itchy with his secret life (in other words, pretending to be dead) that he wanted to fly to Kansas to live with a woman he met on the Internet.

The story has a very sad ending indeed. Their two adult children say they want nothing to do with their bum parents and this "huge scam."

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