THE fate of a Rolex watch that solved one of Britain’s most notorious murders has been revealed after nearly three decades.
The treasured luxury timepiece was the only initial clue that solved the mystery death of former soldier Ronald Platt, who was found dead in a trawler net off Teignmouth, on July 28 1996.
The 25-year-old Rolex Oyster had spent more than a week under the sea with the stainless steel strap still on the wrist of the victim.
But as police struggled to solve the case, officers gave the watch a shake in a mortuary and the self-winding mechanism came bursting back to life.
Also in the newsMore than 2,000 sex offenders living in Devon and Cornwall Newton Abbot man jailed for voyeurism offences against children Clubs play tribute to Ramblers’ stalwart MikeGuerilla artist prepares to place 50th work in Teignmouth
This enabled detectives to form a ‘timeline’ of events and also establish the identity of Mr Platt through its serial number.
The information from the Rolex also eventually led cops to try track down Mr Platt’s killer – Canadian businessman Albert White.
White was jailed for life at Exeter Crown Court in 1998 and remains in custody in Canada to this day.
But what happened to the Rolex has been shrouded in mystery ever since with no reports of its whereabouts.
A Freedom of Information request to Devon and Cornwall Police has now revealed it was in fact reclaimed by members of Mr Platt’s family back in 2002 .
In response to the FOI, Devon and Cornwall Police said: ‘The watch was returned to a family member in July 2002 and signed for by that individual.’
Its current whereabouts more than 20 years later remain unknown.
Walker had already spoken to officers at a police station after giving his name as David Davies and claiming to be American.
Canadian con-man Albert Walker, who was known as David Davis. Walker murdered Ronald Platt, whose identity he had stolen. (SWNS)
But his double life was revealed when police went to his home in Essex for a written statement and a sergeant accidentally knocked on the home next door.
He was told: ‘Our neighbour is called Walker.’
This set off alarm bells among detectives.
Walker, then 52, was later found guilty of murdering Platt, his friend and business partner, whose identity he had also used in a complex plot to protect his double life.
During sentencing, a judge said he had carried out ‘a callous, premeditated killing designed to eliminate a man you had used for your own selfish ends’.
He added the murder had been ‘planned and cunningly executed with chilling efficiency’.
Walker fled to Yorkshire from his native Canada in 1990 with his 15-year-old daughter after defrauding more than 70 clients out of more than three million Canadian dollars.
To avoid arrest he created the false identity David Davis with a made-up backstory of an English businessman who lived with his wife, who was actually his daughter.
He then went into business with Mr Platt and took personal documents such as passport and driving licence from him for ‘business purposes’.
Platt wanted to return to Canada so was leant money in 1992 by Walker and in return he stole Platt’s identity using the documents.
Three years later Mr Platt run out of money and returned to England.
Walker, who at this point had changed his identity to Platt, knew this put at risk his identity theft so in 1996 took matters into his own hands.
He invited Platt on his 24ft yacht Lady Jane for a fishing trip before knocking him unconscious with a blow to the back of his head.
He then threw his body into the sea with a 10lb anchor tucked into his trouser belt.
Around two weeks later his unidentifiable remains were found, but the Rolex itself was in good condition.
This was traced back to Mr Platt as the original buyer using Rolex records, and the watch was also able to identify how long ago the murder had taken place.
At the time of his arrest, Walker had been Interpol’s fourth most wanted man and Canada’s number one fugitive.
In addition to the Rolex, the anchor would also turn out to be a lucky piece of evidence for detectives.
Speaking previously, Det Supt Phil Sincock, the officer in charge of the murder case, said: ‘There was one bit of luck in terms of the Essex policeman going to the wrong door, but other than that it was down to painstaking police work and some new ground-breaking scientific inquiries.
‘We seized a whole van load of documentation from Walker’s house and among it all was a two-inch square sales receipt which showed that he had purchased, on a Barclaycard, an anchor.
‘We proved that his yacht was at sea at the material time.
‘For the first time in any case, we took the yacht’s GPS navigation system back to its manufacturers and they were able to plot co-ordinates which gave us the time and date it had been switched off and proved it had been very near to where Mr Platt’s body had been found.
‘Tests on the Rolex watch established it would have taken 44 hours to wind down. The watch stopped on June 22, which meant that he had died on June 20.
‘From the GPS we could put Walker’s boat in the area on June 20.’
Walker, now 78, was transferred to a jail back in Canada in 2005 and is yet to be granted parole.