Brisbane, Australia
Act Daily News
—
Marion Barter gained plaudits for her heat as an elementary college trainer, however in 1997 the 51-year-old mother-of-two grew to become stressed, give up her job, offered her home, and flew from Australia’s beach-lined Gold Coast to start out a brand new life in Europe.
Her household by no means noticed her once more.
If Barter had vanished with no hint, Australian police could have taken her case extra significantly, however when her daughter, Sally Leydon, reported her lacking, she wasn’t added to the lacking individuals listing, and later a police officer instructed her Barter wished no contact along with her household.
For Leydon, there have been too many unanswered questions, and 25 years later she remains to be looking for solutions. Did her mom depart of her personal accord, and did she really wish to vanish?
For greater than three years, journalists working with Leydon and a band of newbie sleuths have chased down clues, charting their progress within the podcast, “The Lady Vanishes,” with 14 million downloads, in response to the podcast’s government producer.
After the podcast aired, New South Wales police launched a proper evaluation of the case which gathered sufficient proof to warrant a deeper investigation and ultimately an inquest that ended final month.
To date, no person has been charged with wrongdoing associated to her mysterious disappearance.
New South Wales State Coroner Teresa O’Sullivan had been resulting from hand down her findings on Wednesday right into a case that had examined proof unearthed by the podcast and its listeners and data gathered by police.
But on Monday, the listening to was postponed “following further investigations,” in response to a court docket spokesperson who declined to elaborate.
During the inquest, a number of witnesses gave proof into Barter’s disappearance, however proceedings had been dominated by the questioning of 1 man, Ric Blum, who for the primary time responded on to the query: “Did you kill Marion?”
Blum, now 83, emphatically denies killing Barter or having any involvement in her disappearance in 1997, although he instructed the court docket he had an affair along with her for 4 months earlier than she disappeared.
During the inquest, Blum was requested a number of instances about a number of “coincidences,” together with that Barter had modified her identify within the days earlier than she left Australia to an alias that Blum had utilized in an advert on the lookout for companionship – that Barter answered.
Other girls instructed the inquest of their encounters with Blum, claiming that he had offered himself as a single, rich coin seller who, in some circumstances, promised a “new life” overseas.
Instead, the court docket heard Blum was a married father-of-two dwelling on a incapacity pension along with his spouse in a small coastal city in New South Wales with prison convictions in France and Belgium for fraud, forgery, and confidence methods. Blum acknowledged he had affairs however denied any wrongdoing.
“It’s not just my mom who has been affected by this now. We’ve exposed a way bigger fish than what I ever expected to find,” Leydon instructed Act Daily News. “I believe there’s more (women) out there. And I really need to encourage people to come forward.”
Barter was final seen in Surfers Paradise, within the coronary heart of the Gold Coast, on June 22, 1997, by her good friend Lesley Loveday, who dropped her at a bus station, from the place she’d journey to the airport to fly to the United Kingdom.
After three marriages and divorces, Barter was craving one thing new, and Leydon, the eldest of her two youngsters, had inspired her to go. “For me, as a 23-year-old at that point, I was like, ‘Well, if you’re not happy, just go on a holiday. It doesn’t matter, it’s not the end of the world. Plenty of people leave their jobs,’” she instructed Act Daily News.
Leydon instructed the podcast and the inquest that her mom phoned her from a payphone in late July and mentioned she was having a wonderful time within the quaint English city of Tunbridge Wells and seemed ahead to seeing extra of the nation.
That was the final time they spoke.
Leydon recounted what occurred subsequent through the inquest, recalling recollections which have performed on her thoughts for 25 years.
After that decision, weeks handed with no contact, and after her mom did not cellphone her brother for his birthday on October 18, Leydon mentioned she referred to as her mom’s financial institution in Australia.
Leydon mentioned a financial institution employee, who acknowledged she shouldn’t reveal particulars to somebody aside from the account holder, instructed Leydon that one thing uncommon appeared to have occurred.
Every day for greater than three weeks, somebody had entered branches in Byron Bay and on the Gold Coast, the place Barter used to stay, and withdrawn 5,000 Australian {dollars} (about $3,370) at a time from her mom’s account, Leydon mentioned, citing the financial institution employee. A separate switch of 80,000 Australian {dollars} ($54,000) was made on October 15, the inquest would later hear.
Leydon rushed to Byron Bay with a photograph of her mom, however nobody may affirm that that they had seen her.
On the identical day, October 22, Leydon contacted police.
NSW Police recorded her issues however didn’t add Barter’s identify to the lacking individuals listing, and when Queensland Senior Constable Paula McKenzie made inquiries with the financial institution, she mentioned a financial institution teller instructed her Barter had withdrawn all her cash and didn’t need her whereabouts disclosed.
“The teller was just so insistent that it was definitely her and there was no other way about it,” McKenzie instructed the inquest.
It can be 14 years earlier than Leydon discovered that her mom returned to Australia underneath a brand new id. Privacy issues thwarted Leydon’s earlier makes an attempt to extract details about her mom from a number of official sources, she mentioned.
“The privacy issue is such a big deal,” Leydon mentioned. “All those gates were tightly shut with a massive big padlock, and until such time as I get a death certificate for my mom, that padlock remains absolutely fastened.”
Detective Senior Constable Gary Sheehan instructed the inquest that he seemed into the case and instructed Leydon in 2011 that her mom had modified her identify and returned to Australia on August 2, 1997. He mentioned he didn’t inform Leydon Barter’s new identify or the place the data got here from as a result of that was confidential.
Leydon later discovered that her mom was now generally known as Florabella Natalia Marion Remakel, an uncommon identify she didn’t acknowledge – “I instantly knew at that point that somebody was involved, and somebody was telling her to do this because it’s just not in her personality to do it,” Leydon instructed Act Daily News.
When Leydon obtained a duplicate of Remakel’s Australian immigration entry card, she instantly acknowledged the handwriting as her mom’s, leaving little doubt for Leydon that her mom had returned. Barter, now Remakel, had written on the cardboard that she was a housewife dwelling in Luxembourg who was coming to Australia for a brief journey.
For police, Barter’s identify change and secret return to Australia was additional proof the trainer had staged her personal disappearance – and with out having spoken along with her or bodily sighting her, they declared she was not lacking.
When social employee Joni Condos, an avid listener of true crime podcasts, heard the identify Remakel on “The Lady Vanishes” one night time in 2019, she delved deep into on-line archives to attempt to discover a hyperlink.
“I was sitting on the couch, it was midnight. And then I just thought, I’ll just give the newspapers a bit of a go. Because, you know, why not?” she mentioned.
In an Australian on-line archive, Condos searched a number of variations of “Remakel” and located an commercial in a French-Australian newspaper positioned in 1994 by a 47-year-old man – “single, tall, dark, sober, non-smoker” – on the lookout for a relationship with a view to marriage.
It was signed “F. Remakel,” with a post-box deal with and cellphone quantity in Lennox Head, northern NSW, lower than two hours by automotive from the place Barter lived.
The potential connection was too intriguing to disregard.
Condos and the podcast’s producers searched Australian data and will discover no document of anybody named Remakel, however a web-based search of data in Europe confirmed one man of the identical age and preliminary – Fernand Remakel – who was dwelling in Luxembourg.
In 2019, when the podcast’s producers knocked on his door, Remakel denied any information of Marion Barter.
Undeterred, the journalists and Condos dug a little bit deeper into the Luxembourg Business Register and located his ex-wife, Monique Cornelius. Separately, one other listener linked the cellphone quantity within the advert to a coin business within the NSW city of Ballina run by Frederick De Hedervary.
The identify Frederick De Hedervary would later lead police to his newest alias, Ric Blum.
Now an aged man with a white beard and glasses, Blum shuffled into Ballina Court House with a strolling body, surrounded by tv cameras to provide proof on the inquest.
The court docket heard that Blum had emigrated to Australia in 1976, and since then had modified his identify a minimum of 13 instances, utilizing his new identities to acquire drivers’ licences and passports.
When requested why, Blum mentioned: “I just changed my name as a fantasy because it’s legal. I didn’t have any specific purpose.”
He admitted utilizing Fernand Remakel’s identify to take out a driver’s licence in Australia, and knew of the identify by Remakel’s ex-wife, Cornelius, who he instructed the inquest was a “fantastic person.”
Blum mentioned the connection had solely ever been platonic, and that Cornelius often visited the manufacturing unit the place he labored.
However, his tone modified when the senior counsel appearing for the coroner, Adam Casselden SC, learn aloud from a letter Blum had written to Cornelius in 1980, when he was dwelling in Luxembourg along with his younger household.
In the letter, Blum mentioned: “My enchantress I have never in my life made love like that with anyone before … Monday I leave for the UK and Ireland, a few days to buy our boat … I simply want to get to know this country which is as sweet as your smile, pretty as your eyes and warm like that love that I have for you. I am intimately persuaded that you will not regret your decision to leave with me and to start a new life.”
In a NSW Police assertion learn to the court docket, Cornelius mentioned she’d had a sexual relationship with Blum that ended when she found he was married with youngsters.
She referred to as Blum a liar and “very big and dangerous manipulator.”
“For example, at the beginning of our relationship he told me that he worked for the British Embassy in Luxembourg as a special agent,” she mentioned.
Blum admitted writing the letter however he mentioned on the time he was infatuated with Cornelius, insisting that they’d by no means had a sexual relationship, as she claimed.
“She’s lying all along. She’s a liar. She’s lying, lying, lying,” he mentioned.
Questions turned to Barter, and Blum made an admission that had remained secret for nearly 25 years.
He revealed that he’d had a four-month affair with the schoolteacher from February to June, 1997 – the identical month she left Australia.
He had positioned the advert underneath the identify “Fernand Remakel” that Barter had answered, and so they’d met three or 4 instances at her residence with out his spouse’s information.
To journalist Alison Sandy, government producer of “The Lady Vanishes,” the admission was a shock – till then there was no agency indication that Blum was in shut contact with Barter within the months earlier than she disappeared.
“It all fell into place. It all made sense. That was the missing piece of the puzzle we’d been looking for the whole time,” she mentioned.
Blum instructed the court docket he ended the connection with Barter earlier than she left Australia as a result of he was married with youngsters and didn’t need “drama.”
The court docket heard Blum traveled to Europe on June 17, 1997, 5 days earlier than Barter left for the UK, and he returned to Australia on July 31 – two days earlier than Barter returned underneath the identify Remakel.
When it was put to Blum that their overlapping journey dates gave the impression to be “quite a coincidence,” Blum mentioned he and Barter didn’t speak about their respective journey plans.
“I didn’t travel with her,” Blum mentioned. “After she left Australia, I never saw her again.”
Blum mentioned he didn’t even know Barter was lacking till police knocked on his door final 12 months.
A video was performed to court docket of Blum’s formal interview with police, displaying the previous man sitting along with his arms propped on strolling sticks.
“Did you murder Marion Barter,” a police officer asks.
“Are you kidding … no, no,” Blum replies.
“Did you in any way harm Marion Barter?”
“No, I never harm anyone,” he says.
“Did you’ve got any interplay with Marion Barter when she returned to Australia after the second of August, 1997?
“No”
“Do you know where she is?”
“No.”
Other girls instructed the inquest about their encounters with Blum.
Two years after Barter left Australia for Europe, Janet Oldenburg took the same journey with Blum, who she knew as Ric West.
Oldenburg instructed the court docket she met Blum in 1996 by her husband’s coin gathering circles, and so they reconnected in 1999 simply as she had finalized her divorce. Money was tight, and he had supplied her a job, however earlier than she’d began, he proclaimed his emotions for her and urged her to maneuver with him to the French Riviera “to start a new life.”
She instructed the court docket Blum talked about different potential locations, Algeria and Spain, “because the weather would be nice and warm, and I could have some servants, things like that to look after the house, so I wouldn’t have to do anything.” He instructed her his coin business was value 12 million Australian {dollars} ($8 million) and he owned a 20,000 acre-property planted with crimson cedar.
At the time, Oldenburg instructed the court docket she was 51 and “very vulnerable” after splitting from her husband, who “took care of everything” throughout their marriage.
“I felt uplifted to start a new life, a new beginning,” she instructed the court docket.
Before they left, Blum inspired her to bury her jewellery within the backyard and to deliver private paperwork and the title deeds to the home she owned to the UK, she mentioned.
Once within the UK, he advised they separate so she may spend time along with her cousin in Manchester whereas he did business in France.
But days later, he phoned her, claiming he’d been robbed and overwhelmed by six males with baseball bats, had two damaged ribs and was in hospital in Lille, northern France.
He instructed her he may e book her on a flight again to Australia on December 29, 1999, she instructed the court docket.
Instead, her cousin booked her an earlier flight, and she or he arrived residence on December 20.
Just a few hours after she had returned residence, Blum turned up, apparently unhurt, and appeared “shocked” when she answered the door, she mentioned.
He instructed the inquest he had taken the bandages off and rushed residence when one in all her male kin had knowledgeable him that she was catching an earlier flight. At that stage, Oldenburg mentioned she nonetheless trusted him.
But in January 2000, Oldenburg instructed police she realized paperwork had been lacking, and the jewellery buried within the yard was gone. When she confronted Blum, he mentioned he would ship it again, however just some jewellery was returned. She filed a police report and the inquest heard Blum instructed police he despatched all the jewellery again. She by no means noticed him once more.
In court docket, Blum mentioned didn’t take Oldenburg’s paperwork and had by no means instructed her they might transfer to Europe.
He mentioned he left her within the UK as a result of he didn’t need something to do along with her anymore.
“My life was with my wife and kids in Australia,” he mentioned.
Ginette Gaffney-Bowan instructed the court docket that across the similar time – the late Nineties – she was lonely and “extremely vulnerable” after divorcing her husband. She positioned an commercial within the newspaper searching for friendship that was answered by Blum, who she knew as Frederick De Hedervary.
Gaffney-Bowan instructed the court docket they initially spoke about beginning a coin business, however in a short time the dialog turned to his proposal that she promote her home and purchase an residence in Paris.
When she refused, she mentioned he tried to blackmail her with bare pictures taken with out her consent. She instructed the inquest that, to her information, he by no means circulated the photographs.
Gaffney-Bowan instructed the inquest that she grew to become “scared,” and in 1998 took out a restraining order towards him with police.
When requested what he was searching for from her, Gaffney-Bowan mentioned: “Money. That’s all he’s been after all along.”
She mentioned the one cash she gave him was round 30,000 Australian {dollars} ($20,000) as start-up funding for the coin business.
In court docket, Blum denied her claims and accused her of mendacity.
In his closing submissions, Casselden instructed the court docket the proof confirmed Blum displayed a “pattern of behavior in relation to the exploitation of vulnerable single middle-aged women.”
“He has led an extraordinary life of deceit and duplicity, including in relation to his long marriage to his present wife,” Casselden mentioned.
Blum denied he sought to benefit from Oldenburg and Gaffney-Bowan, however Casselden mentioned his proof needs to be “wholly rejected” in favor of their testimony.
“There is simply no motivation, your honor, for either of them to have lied,” Casselden mentioned.
Turning to Barter, Casselden mentioned the one “rational, plausible explanation” for her identify change was that she was in a relationship with Blum and that she modified her identify “either on her own insistence, or on his, or a combination of both.”
He mentioned it was probably they traveled collectively as a pair to Europe, and that Blum advised they begin a “new life.” What occurred subsequent is unclear.
Casselden mentioned regardless of an in depth and ongoing investigation, police have been unable to find Barter – useless or alive. This 12 months NSW Police elevated the reward for data resulting in the arrest and conviction of anybody concerned in her disappearance to 500,000 Australian {dollars} ($338,000).
The inquest could also be concluding, however Leydon says her seek for solutions won’t finish there.
“I have a feeling that people think I’m just going to sit back and forget about it. And the reality of that is, I’m not,” Leydon mentioned.
She desires her mom’s disappearance to result in adjustments within the legal guidelines in Australia to make it simpler for members of the family to entry a lacking particular person’s data after a interval of no-contact, to provide them a greater probability than she needed to uncover leads and listen to the recollections of witnesses earlier than their recollections fade.
Leydon accepts that her mom is probably going useless, however she nonetheless desires to understand how, and why.
“I just want to know where she is and what happened,” she mentioned. “I beg people to help me find that answer.”