Detectives are to try to piece together the last five and a half years of a canoeist's life after he came back from the dead.
Relatives had thought John Darwin drowned in heavy seas after his canoe was found smashed close to his home in Seaton Carew, near Hartlepool, in March 2002.
But he walked into a London police station on Saturday evening and declared: "I think I'm a missing person".
The 57-year-old ex-teacher and former prison officer has been reunited with his sons Anthony and Mark.
But his wife Anne, a former doctor's receptionist, sold their imposing seafront home for about £300,000 six weeks ago and was believed to have emigrated to Panama.
The Times newspaper reported that she had also opened a new bank account just weeks before.
It quoted former neighbour Bill Rodriguez who said that when he last saw Mrs Darwin in August, she told him she had just returned from a six-week holiday in Panama: "She said she loved it there and was going to move out full-time."
The newspaper said it understood she had "hundreds of thousands of pounds" in a Panamanian bank account and has sent some of her furniture out there.
Cleveland Police have never closed their missing person inquiry into Mr Darwin's disappearance despite a major sea search failing to find any trace of him.
Detectives plan to travel from the North East to the London area to interview Mr Darwin, who has been staying with relatives since his reappearance.
