The term pseudocide in fact dates back to the early seventies. Though acknowledged in American English for some time, it only came into the radar of British English in late 2007 when amateur canoeist John Darwin, presumed dead after the remains of his canoe washed up on a North Sea shore in 2002, walked into a police station claiming that he had been suffering from amnesia. He was subsequently discovered to have been living in Panama on the spoils of a life insurance payout. Media coverage of the story meant that pseudocide gained currency in British usage, and in 2009 it was beginning to appear in British dictionaries.