Reply With QuoteNot doubting your word, just can't see how it's possible, too many variables.
Just watched 'true crime' thing on You-tube. Filming how UK detectives work. Anyway, fishermen off the south coast dredged-up a body in their nets. No fingerprint match, but the guy was wearing a Datejust. Police contacted Rolex who had a record of it being serviced, that gave the name and address. Because it hadn't leaked they were able to work-back the length of the power reserve to get a pretty precise time it had laid, inert, on the seabed. From that, traced boats in the area at that time.....and eventually convicted a guy.
Without the clue from the Rolex, he might have got away with it. Sounds like fiction, but it happened.
The programme is called 'real crime...almost perfect murder' and the convicted killer was named Albert Walker. Murdered man, Ron Platt....who loved his Rolex and had worn it for ten years.
Last edited by paskinner; 24th March 2018 at 10:51.
Not doubting your word, just can't see how it's possible, too many variables.
"Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. The third time it's enemy action."
'Populism, the last refuge of a Tory scoundrel'.
I fully understand your scepticism, it does sound improbable; but it happened. Watch the video . The killer, Albert Walker, a Canadian, is serving a life sentence here in the UK.Originally Posted by number2
The video is 'real crime..an almost perfect murder.' It contains lengthy interviews with the police about the Rolex and how the evidence was used.
Or, for the basics, 'Albert Johnston Walker, murderer' on Wikipedia. Amazing story, it does sound like fiction, but it's true. Wikipedia gives basic details including the Rolex.
Last edited by paskinner; 24th March 2018 at 11:03.
I'll look it up, many thanks
"Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. The third time it's enemy action."
'Populism, the last refuge of a Tory scoundrel'.
Correct, b@llocks.
How wound was the Rolex? Etc....
When you look long into an abyss, the abyss looks long into you.........
I remember this case being reported in my local paper many years ago when it occurred.
The story is fair dinkum!
Luckily the police didn't think it 'bollocks'. And they caught the guy.
Fascinating story! There's an entire page on Wikipedia about the case and to summarise the Rolex connection:
Two weeks later the body was discovered in the English Channel by fisherman John Copik[1] with a Rolex wristwatch the only identifiable object on the body.[1] Since the Rolex movement had a serial number and was engraved with special markings every time it was serviced, British police traced the service records from Rolex. Ronald Joseph Platt was identified as the owner of the watch and the victim of the murder. In addition British police were able to determine the date of death by examining the date on the watch calendar and since the Rolex movement had a reserve of two to three days of operation when inactive and it was fully waterproof, they were able to determine the time of death within a small margin of error
Full story is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Johnson_Walker
Thanks OP
If you made it up, no one would believe it. Fascinating, thanks. :-)
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Re-reading the story and I just noticed the Harrogate connection
I wonder where that watch is now.
Here's the link to the video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AdB6aYXVO-A
Last edited by Tiny; 24th March 2018 at 12:04.
Only Rolex can solve crimes. No other watch comes close.
Couldn't quite save the guy's life, but saw justice was served.
I remember this being in the papers at the time.
This was mentioned (or certainly, a similar case) in the forensic jewellery article in Thursday’s FT supplement that I posted about.
The murdered guy apparently loved his Rolex and had worn it for ten years; he'd even had it properly serviced. And, in the end, it did him one last service.
Fascinating to watch thanks for posting it up
Well just as the article says, they convicted someone. They didn't necessarily find who did it.
The watch didn't leak but it stopped with some reserve left???
Definitely needing a service!
Is it claimed power reserve was left?
Could say that about any conviction/case. Court said he did it, that's usually enough.
In theory people aren't supposed to be convicted based on a single piece of evidence, especially one as tenuous as this. Even something supposedly foolproof like fingerprints or DNA still has a much higher chance of false positives than most people realise. And this is a common cause of miscarriage of justice, because on the one hand the prosecution is saying "we have a DNA match, so he definitely dunnit!" while for the defence, some boring guy in a white coat is talking about "PCR" and "alleles" and "sample contamination" and causing the jury to nod off.
I suspect that forensics report gave a "time" that is more like a date, in reality. That would narrow things down to a handful of boats in the area, and then its a question of knocking on doors, finding someone with a motive and then the corroborating evidence.
As I understand it, the common TV trope of "estimated time of death" is much the same. They can estimate this from liver temperature and then decomposition states, but it's not so much "between 10 and 11pm last night" as "some time between the 3rd and the 5th".
Did you actually watch the video? There was much more evidence than just the watch. The watch pointed them in the right direction. They found the guys blood in the boat from a head wound which matched the shape of the anchor which was tied around the guys waist. The time and position of the boat was stored in its GPS device and it matched the area where the body was found. The boat was owned by the suspected murderer.
Last edited by Tiny; 26th March 2018 at 22:43.
No. Did you read the thread I was replying to? ;-)
But yes, that was my point exactly. Thanks for the TLDW.
Sorry. My mistake.
What exactly is your point - in some cases (not this one) courts sometimes convict on one piece of evidence?
That all forensics (not just on Rolexes) are considerably less accurate than most people think. The system is at least supposed to account for that, although mistakes have happened.
Last edited by hops; 28th March 2018 at 00:28.
Excellent story, thanks for sharing! It just shows what can be achieved by patient detective work, legwork and the assembly and assessment of a pile of apparently disjointed pieces of information.
Actually I thought they got lucky by knocking on the wrong door.
Last edited by Montello; 15th April 2018 at 13:22. Reason: Typo
I think this was in Devon, Brixham or Dartmouth. The watch would either be with the victims family if he had any or with the Police I suppose.
Catching murderers with Rolex Apple
Apple Watch provides murder case clues (BBC link):
Police in Australia have presented data gathered from an Apple Watch as evidence in a murder trial.
Grandmother Myrna Nilsson was wearing the device when she was killed in 2016.
Her daughter-in-law Caroline Nilsson is accused of staging an ambush, after claiming she was tied up by a group of men who entered the house.
But data from the victim's smartwatch suggests that she was ambushed as she arrived home, and died hours earlier than Ms Nilsson claims.
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