The four-part ITV series, broadcast on four consecutive nights from Easter Sunday at 9pm, recalls how the pair conspired to fake John’s death in a 2002 canoeing accident before cashing in life insurance and pension policies so that they could eventually begin a new life in Panama.
Here’s how their plot eventually unravelled.
1. From the beginning
Fifty-one-year-old former teacher John Darwin, played here by Eddie Marsan, was reported missing after apparently canoeing off the coast of Seaton Carew, close to where he lived, in March 2002.
Photo: ITV
2. Devastated family
Surgery receptionist Anne and the couple's two oblivious sons, as portrayed here in the ITV drama, mourned John's apparent death near the spot where he was last seen.
Photo: ITV
3. Declared dead
He was legally declared dead a year later, even though his body had still to be recovered from the North Sea, after Hartlepool's coroner recorded an "open verdict" at an inquest.
Photo: Owen Humphreys
4. An unexpected twist
The Hartlepool Mail was the first paper to learn that Darwin, by now 57, had walked into a London police station in December 2007 to say he was suffering from amnesia. He is pictured here in 2007 with a police officer.
Photo: Owen Humphreys