The murder of Ronald Platt was carried out on July 20, 1996, by Albert Johnson Walker, a Canadian fraudster who had spent years living under Platt’s name in England. Walker lured the quiet Englishman onto his sailboat off the Devon coast, struck him with an anchor, and threw him into the English Channel. The killing was solved because a Rolex watch on Platt’s recovered body was still ticking, and its serial number led police straight to the dead man’s identity and, from there, to the impostor who had taken it.
Who Ronald Platt Was
Platt was an introverted man who lived in Harrogate, in northern England, with his long-term partner, Elaine Boyes. His brother, Brian Platt, described him as someone who struggled with his mental health and moved through life largely unnoticed. He had spent part of his childhood in Canada and dreamed of returning there one day. Boyes, 31, worked as a receptionist at a fine art auctioneer in Harrogate, and it was through that job that the couple met the man who would eventually kill him.
How Albert Walker Took Over Platt’s Life
Albert Walker ran Walker Financial Services out of Paris, Ontario, selling “Walker Guaranteed Investment Certificates” that promised 15 percent annual returns. The scheme was a fraud. By the time the 1987 crash exposed him, Walker had embezzled roughly $3.2 million from about 70 clients, many of them friends, neighbors, and fellow church members in southwestern Ontario. In December 1990, with promissory notes about to come due, he fled Canada with his 15-year-old daughter, Sheena, using a stolen driver’s license belonging to a former client named David Davis. Canadian authorities charged him with fraud, theft, and money laundering, and he climbed to number four on Interpol’s most-wanted list.
Walker introduced himself to Platt and Boyes in England as “David Davis,” a wealthy American businessman. He hired Boyes, set Platt up with a TV repair business Platt had never asked for, and made both of them directors of a company he created called Cavendish Corporations. Their signatures on corporate paperwork gave him the raw material for a permanent new identity.
In December 1992, Walker handed Platt and Boyes one-way tickets to Calgary and persuaded Platt to leave behind his signature stamp, driver’s license, birth certificate, and a credit card. With Platt out of the country, Walker became Ronald Platt on paper. He and Sheena moved to Devon and later Essex, dyeing their hair and posing as husband and wife under the names Ronald and Noelle Platt. The deception lasted about five years.
Platt’s time in Canada went poorly. He and Boyes could not find work in the recession, their relationship fell apart, and Boyes returned to England alone after about six months. Platt eventually followed, settling near Walker without grasping the full extent to which his name had been hijacked. His return made him a direct threat to the life Walker had built.
The Killing on the Lady Jane
On the night of July 20, 1996, Walker lured Platt onto his sailboat, the Lady Jane, off the coast of Devon. According to the prosecution’s case at trial, Walker struck Platt on the back of the head with a 4.5-kilogram anchor, looped it through his belt, and threw him into the English Channel. Platt could not swim and drowned.
Two days later, on July 22, 1996, fisherman John Copik and his son Craig pulled the body up in their trawler nets at a stretch of water known as “the Roughs,” near the seaside town of Brixham. Coast guard officer Paul Aggatt noted that the victim’s pockets were turned inside out and that there was an open wound on the back of his head. The autopsy gave the cause of death as drowning. The body was described as “perfectly preserved.”
The Rolex That Cracked the Case
The victim was initially unidentified, and the death might have been written off as an accident or suicide. One detail changed that. A Rolex watch on the dead man’s wrist was still ticking when an officer moved his arm. Investigators traced the serial number through Rolex’s service records and found it belonged to a Ronald Platt, who had sent the watch in for repair in 1986.
Devon and Cornwall Police began contacting Platt’s known circle. They interviewed a man calling himself “David Davis,” who said he was Platt’s close friend and claimed Platt had moved to France. The story might have held. It fell apart when Essex Police officer Peter Redman, trying to return Platt’s possessions, knocked on the wrong door. Neighbors told him that “Ron Platt” lived next door with a younger wife. The real Ronald Platt was dead, so whoever was living under that name was an impostor.
Arrest and Conviction
On October 31, 1996, police arrested “David Davis” outside his home in Woodham Walter, Essex, for the murder of Ronald Platt. He was carrying identification for both David Davis and Ronald Platt. Routine fingerprint checks matched him to an Interpol most-wanted poster, exposing him as Albert Johnson Walker.
Walker was tried at Exeter Crown Court. He admitted stealing from his Canadian clients but denied the murder, claiming Platt had died in a struggle after attacking him. The prosecution rested its case on several strands of evidence:
- GPS records from the Lady Jane placed Walker’s boat at the location of the killing on the night it occurred.
- Ronald Platt’s fingerprint was found on a plastic bag aboard the yacht.
- The Rolex’s traceable service history tied the body to Platt and exposed the identity theft.
- Sheena Walker, flown secretly from Canada on an RAF Nimrod aircraft, testified against her father after he called her from prison and tried to pressure her into lying in court. She refused to look at him during her testimony; he kept his eyes fixed on her.
Elaine Boyes also testified. She later described Platt as a “kind, honest and gentle man” whose life ended at the hands of a “so-called friend,” and prosecutors characterized her as “the nail in his coffin.” The jury deliberated for two hours. On July 6, 1998, Walker was convicted of murder and sentenced to life imprisonment. Judge Neil Butterfield called it a “carefully planned and cunningly executed” killing “with chilling efficiency,” and described Walker as a “plausible, intelligent, ruthless man and a considerable threat to anyone who stands in your way.”
What Happened to Walker After the Conviction
In June 2004, Britain and Canada signed an agreement to transfer Walker, and he was returned to Canadian custody in February 2005. In 2007, he was convicted of 20 counts of fraud and theft involving 23 victims, many of them elderly, and received an additional four-year sentence plus one year for violating the Bankruptcy Act, both served concurrently with his life sentence. He was ordered to pay $1.5 million in restitution and, according to recent reports, has paid only $1,500.
The Parole Board of Canada later described Walker as having “successfully had his daughter pose as his wife” in England and called him a “charismatic and very manipulative individual” who had indoctrinated her. A 2015 psychological evaluation identified him as a sociopath and concluded he was “highly likely to reoffend.” Sheena Walker returned to Paris, Ontario, in December 1996 with two young daughters and has rarely spoken publicly about her father.
Walker was granted day parole in mid-2023 but had it revoked after the Board found he continued to misrepresent his criminal behavior and showed no genuine remorse. In February 2024, the Board denied a subsequent day parole application, citing his “continuing misrepresentation of and denial of culpability for his crimes.” He had told counselors in a 2023 program that he “had no risk factors” and continued to call Platt’s death accidental and his investment business “legitimate business ventures that didn’t work out.” The Appeal Division upheld the denial in August 2024. In October 2025, Walker, then 80, was denied day parole again, with the Board pointing to his “manipulative tendencies,” “all-or-nothing thinking,” and persistent failure to accept responsibility for what it called his “fraudulent, thieving and violent acts.” He remains incarcerated at a minimum-security federal institution in British Columbia.
The case, widely known in the British press as the “Rolex Killer” murder, was the subject of a 2023 Channel 5 documentary, Devil In Disguise: The Murder of Ronald Platt, and of the book A Hand in the Water: The Many Lies of Albert Walker.