1 year ago
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Brisbane, Australia CNN —
Marion Barter won plaudits for her warmth arsenic an simple schoolhouse teacher, but successful 1997 the 51-year-old mother-of-two became restless, discontinue her job, sold her house, and flew from Australia’s beach-lined Gold Coast to commencement a caller beingness successful Europe.
Her household ne'er saw her again.
If Barter had vanished without a trace, Australian constabulary whitethorn person taken her lawsuit much seriously, but erstwhile her daughter, Sally Leydon, reported her missing, she wasn’t added to the missing persons list, and aboriginal a constabulary serviceman told her Barter wanted nary interaction with her family.
For Leydon, determination were excessively galore unanswered questions, and 25 years aboriginal she is inactive searching for answers. Did her mother leave of her ain accord, and did she genuinely privation to vanish?
For much than 3 years, journalists moving with Leydon and a band of amateur sleuths person chased down clues, charting their advancement successful the podcast, “The Lady Vanishes,” with 14 cardinal downloads, according to the podcast’s enforcement producer.
After the podcast aired, New South Wales constabulary launched a ceremonial reappraisal of the lawsuit which gathered capable grounds to warrant a deeper investigation and yet an inquest that ended past month.
To date, cipher has been charged with wrongdoing related to her mysterious disappearance.
New South Wales State Coroner Teresa O’Sullivan had been owed to manus down her findings connected Wednesday into a lawsuit that had tested grounds unearthed by the podcast and its listeners and accusation gathered by police.
But connected Monday, the proceeding was postponed “following further investigations,” according to a tribunal spokesperson who declined to elaborate.
During the inquest, aggregate witnesses gave grounds into Barter’s disappearance, but proceedings were dominated by the questioning of 1 man, Ric Blum, who for the archetypal clip responded straight to the question: “Did you termination Marion?”
Blum, present 83, emphatically denies sidesplitting Barter oregon having immoderate engagement successful her disappearance successful 1997, though helium told the tribunal helium had an matter with her for 4 months earlier she disappeared.
During the inquest, Blum was asked respective times astir aggregate “coincidences,” including that Barter had changed her sanction successful the days earlier she near Australia to an alias that Blum had utilized successful an advertisement looking for companionship – that Barter answered.
Other women told the inquest of their encounters with Blum, claiming that helium had presented himself arsenic a single, affluent coin trader who, successful immoderate cases, promised a “new life” abroad.
Instead, the tribunal heard Blum was a joined father-of-two surviving connected a disablement pension with his woman successful a tiny coastal municipality successful New South Wales with transgression convictions successful France and Belgium for fraud, forgery, and assurance tricks. Blum acknowledged helium had affairs but denied immoderate wrongdoing.
“It’s not conscionable my ma who has been affected by this now. We’ve exposed a mode bigger food than what I ever expected to find,” Leydon told CNN. “I judge there’s much (women) retired there. And I truly request to promote radical to travel forward.”
Barter was past seen successful Surfers Paradise, successful the bosom of the Gold Coast, connected June 22, 1997, by her person Lesley Loveday, who dropped her astatine a autobus station, from wherever she’d question to the airdrome to alert to the United Kingdom.
After 3 marriages and divorces, Barter was craving thing new, and Leydon, the eldest of her 2 children, had encouraged her to go. “For me, arsenic a 23-year-old astatine that point, I was like, ‘Well, if you’re not happy, conscionable spell connected a holiday. It doesn’t matter, it’s not the extremity of the world. Plenty of radical permission their jobs,’” she told CNN.
Leydon told the podcast and the inquest that her parent phoned her from a payphone in precocious July and said she was having a fabulous clip successful the quaint English municipality of Tunbridge Wells and looked guardant to seeing much of the country.
That was the past clip they spoke.
Leydon recounted what happened adjacent during the inquest, recalling memories that person played connected her caput for 25 years.
After that call, weeks passed with nary contact, and aft her parent failed to telephone her member for his day connected October 18, Leydon said she called her mother’s slope successful Australia.
Leydon said a bank worker, who acknowledged she should not uncover details to idiosyncratic different than the relationship holder, told Leydon that thing antithetic appeared to person happened.
Every time for much than 3 weeks, idiosyncratic had entered branches successful Byron Bay and connected the Gold Coast, wherever Barter utilized to live, and withdrawn 5,000 Australian dollars (about $3,370) astatine a clip from her mother’s account, Leydon said, citing the slope worker. A abstracted transportation of 80,000 Australian dollars ($54,000) was made connected October 15, the inquest would aboriginal hear.
Leydon rushed to Byron Bay with a photograph of her mother, but nary 1 could corroborate that they had seen her.
On the aforesaid day, October 22, Leydon contacted police.
NSW Police recorded her concerns but didn’t adhd Barter’s sanction to the missing persons list, and erstwhile Queensland Senior Constable Paula McKenzie made inquiries with the bank, she said a slope teller told her Barter had withdrawn each her wealth and did not privation her whereabouts disclosed.
“The teller was conscionable truthful insistent that it was decidedly her and determination was nary different mode astir it,” McKenzie told the inquest.
It would beryllium 14 years earlier Leydon learned that her parent returned to Australia nether a caller identity. Privacy concerns thwarted Leydon’s erstwhile attempts to extract accusation astir her parent from multiple official sources, she said.
“The privateness contented is specified a large deal,” Leydon said. “All those gates were tightly unopen with a monolithic large padlock, and until specified clip arsenic I get a decease certificate for my mom, that padlock remains perfectly fastened.”
Detective Senior Constable Gary Sheehan told the inquest that helium looked into the lawsuit and told Leydon successful 2011 that her parent had changed her sanction and returned to Australia connected August 2, 1997. He said he didn’t archer Leydon Barter’s caller sanction oregon wherever the accusation came from due to the fact that that was confidential.
Leydon later learned that her parent was present known arsenic Florabella Natalia Marion Remakel, an antithetic sanction she didn’t admit – “I instantly knew astatine that constituent that idiosyncratic was involved, and idiosyncratic was telling her to bash this due to the fact that it’s conscionable not successful her property to bash it,” Leydon told CNN.
When Leydon obtained a transcript of Remakel’s Australian migration introduction card, she instantly recognized the handwriting arsenic her mother’s, leaving small uncertainty for Leydon that her parent had returned. Barter, present Remakel, had written on the paper that she was a housewife living in Luxembourg who was coming to Australia for a impermanent trip.
For police, Barter’s sanction alteration and concealed instrumentality to Australia was further grounds the teacher had staged her ain disappearance – and without having spoken with her oregon physically sighting her, they declared she was not missing.
When societal idiosyncratic Joni Condos, an avid listener of existent transgression podcasts, heard the sanction Remakel connected “The Lady Vanishes” 1 nighttime successful 2019, she delved heavy into online archives to effort to find a link.
“I was sitting connected the couch, it was midnight. And past I conscionable thought, I’ll conscionable springiness the newspapers a spot of a go. Because, you know, wherefore not?” she said.
In an Australian online archive, Condos searched aggregate variations of “Remakel” and recovered an advertisement successful a French-Australian paper placed successful 1994 by a 47-year-old antheral – “single, tall, dark, sober, non-smoker” – looking for a narration with a presumption to marriage.
It was signed “F. Remakel,” with a post-box code and telephone fig successful Lennox Head, bluish NSW, little than 2 hours by car from wherever Barter lived.
The imaginable transportation was excessively intriguing to ignore.
Condos and the podcast’s producers searched Australian records and could find nary grounds of anyone named Remakel, but an online hunt of records successful Europe showed 1 antheral of the aforesaid property and archetypal – Fernand Remakel – who was surviving successful Luxembourg.
In 2019, erstwhile the podcast’s producers knocked connected his door, Remakel denied immoderate cognition of Marion Barter.
Undeterred, the journalists and Condos dug a small deeper into the Luxembourg Business Register and recovered his ex-wife, Monique Cornelius. Separately, another listener linked the telephone fig successful the advertisement to a coin concern successful the NSW municipality of Ballina tally by Frederick De Hedervary.
The name Frederick De Hedervary would aboriginal pb constabulary to his latest alias, Ric Blum.
Now an aged antheral with a achromatic beard and glasses, Blum shuffled into Ballina Court House with a walking frame, surrounded by tv cameras to springiness grounds astatine the inquest.
The tribunal heard that Blum had emigrated to Australia successful 1976, and since past had changed his sanction astatine slightest 13 times, using his caller identities to get drivers’ licences and passports.
When asked why, Blum said: “I conscionable changed my name as a phantasy due to the fact that it’s legal. I didn’t person immoderate circumstantial purpose.”
He admitted utilizing Fernand Remakel’s sanction to instrumentality retired a driver’s licence successful Australia, and knew of the sanction done Remakel’s ex-wife, Cornelius, who helium told the inquest was a “fantastic person.”
Blum said the narration had lone ever been platonic, and that Cornelius regularly visited the mill wherever helium worked.
However, his code changed erstwhile the elder counsel acting for the coroner, Adam Casselden SC, work aloud from a missive Blum had written to Cornelius successful 1980, when helium was surviving successful Luxembourg with his young family.
In the letter, Blum said: “My enchantress I person ne'er successful my beingness made emotion similar that with anyone earlier … Monday I permission for the UK and Ireland, a fewer days to bargain our vessel … I simply privation to get to cognize this state which is arsenic saccharine arsenic your smile, beauteous arsenic your eyes and lukewarm similar that emotion that I person for you. I americium intimately persuaded that you volition not regret your determination to permission with maine and to commencement a caller life.”
In a NSW Police connection work to the court, Cornelius said she’d had a intersexual narration with Blum that ended erstwhile she discovered helium was joined with children.
She called Blum a liar and “very large and unsafe manipulator.”
“For example, astatine the opening of our narration helium told maine that helium worked for the British Embassy successful Luxembourg arsenic a peculiar agent,” she said.
Blum admitted penning the missive but helium said astatine the clip helium was infatuated with Cornelius, insisting that they’d ne'er had a intersexual relationship, arsenic she claimed.
“She’s lying all along. She’s a liar. She’s lying, lying, lying,” helium said.
Questions turned to Barter, and Blum made an admittance that had remained concealed for astir 25 years.
He revealed that he’d had a four-month matter with the schoolteacher from February to June, 1997 – the aforesaid period she left Australia.
He had placed the advertisement nether the sanction “Fernand Remakel” that Barter had answered, and they’d met 3 oregon 4 times astatine her location without his wife’s knowledge.
To writer Alison Sandy, enforcement shaper of “The Lady Vanishes,” the admittance was a daze – until past determination was nary steadfast denotation that Blum was successful adjacent interaction with Barter successful the months earlier she disappeared.
“It each fell into place. It each made sense. That was the missing portion of the puzzle we’d been looking for the full time,” she said.
Blum told the tribunal helium ended the narration with Barter earlier she near Australia due to the fact that helium was joined with children and didn’t privation “drama.”
The tribunal heard Blum traveled to Europe connected June 17, 1997, 5 days earlier Barter near for the UK, and helium returned to Australia on July 31 – 2 days earlier Barter returned nether the sanction Remakel.
When it was enactment to Blum that their overlapping question dates seemed to beryllium “quite a coincidence,” Blum said helium and Barter didn’t speech astir their respective question plans.
“I didn’t question with her,” Blum said. “After she near Australia, I ne'er saw her again.”
Blum said helium didn’t adjacent cognize Barter was missing until constabulary knocked connected his doorway past year.
A video was played to tribunal of Blum’s ceremonial interrogation with police, showing the aged antheral sitting with his arms propped connected walking sticks.
“Did you execution Marion Barter,” a constabulary serviceman asks.
“Are you kidding … no, no,” Blum replies.
“Did you successful immoderate mode harm Marion Barter?”
“No, I ne'er harm anyone,” helium says.
“Did you person immoderate enactment with Marion Barter erstwhile she returned to Australia aft the 2nd of August, 1997?
“No”
“Do you cognize wherever she is?”
“No.”
Other women told the inquest astir their encounters with Blum.
Two years aft Barter near Australia for Europe, Janet Oldenburg took a akin travel with Blum, who she knew arsenic Ric West.
Oldenburg told the tribunal she met Blum successful 1996 done her husband’s coin collecting circles, and they reconnected successful 1999 conscionable arsenic she had finalized her divorce. Money was tight, and helium had offered her a job, but earlier she’d started, helium proclaimed his feelings for her and urged her to determination with him to the French Riviera “to commencement a caller life.”
She told the tribunal Blum mentioned different imaginable destinations, Algeria and Spain, “because the upwind would beryllium bully and warm, and I could person immoderate servants, things similar that to look aft the house, truthful I wouldn’t person to bash anything.” He told her his coin concern was worthy 12 cardinal Australian dollars ($8 million) and helium owned a 20,000 acre-property planted with reddish cedar.
At the time, Oldenburg told the tribunal she was 51 and “very vulnerable” aft splitting from her husband, who “took attraction of everything” during their marriage.
“I felt uplifted to commencement a caller life, a caller beginning,” she told the court.
Before they left, Blum encouraged her to hide her jewelry successful the plot and to bring idiosyncratic documents and the rubric deeds to the location she owned to the UK, she said.
Once in the UK, helium suggested they abstracted truthful she could walk clip with her relative successful Manchester portion helium did concern successful France.
But days later, helium phoned her, claiming he’d been robbed and beaten by six men with shot bats, had 2 breached ribs and was successful infirmary successful Lille, bluish France.
He told her helium could publication her connected a formation backmost to Australia connected December 29, 1999, she told the court.
Instead, her relative booked her an earlier flight, and she arrived home on December 20.
A fewer hours aft she had returned home, Blum turned up, seemingly uninjured, and appeared “shocked” erstwhile she answered the door, she said.
He told the inquest helium had taken the bandages disconnected and rushed location erstwhile 1 of her antheral relatives had informed him that she was catching an earlier flight. At that stage, Oldenburg said she inactive trusted him.
But successful January 2000, Oldenburg told constabulary she realized documents were missing, and the jewelry buried successful the backyard was gone. When she confronted Blum, helium said helium would nonstop it back, but lone immoderate jewelry was returned. She filed a constabulary study and the inquest heard Blum told constabulary helium sent each the jewelry back. She ne'er saw him again.
In court, Blum said didn’t instrumentality Oldenburg’s documents and had ne'er told her they would determination to Europe.
He said helium near her successful the UK due to the fact that helium didn’t privation thing to bash with her anymore.
“My beingness was with my woman and kids successful Australia,” helium said.
Ginette Gaffney-Bowan told the tribunal that astir the aforesaid clip – the precocious 1990s – she was lonely and “extremely vulnerable” aft divorcing her husband. She placed an advertisement successful the paper seeking relationship that was answered by Blum, who she knew as Frederick De Hedervary.
Gaffney-Bowan told the tribunal they initially spoke astir starting a coin business, but precise rapidly the speech turned to his connection that she merchantability her location and bargain an flat successful Paris.
When she refused, she said helium tried to blackmail her with bare photos taken without her consent. She told the inquest that, to her knowledge, helium ne'er circulated the images.
Gaffney-Bowan told the inquest that she became “scared,” and successful 1998 took retired a restraining bid against him with police.
When asked what helium was seeking from her, Gaffney-Bowan said: “Money. That’s each he’s been aft each along.”
She said the lone wealth she gave him was astir 30,000 Australian dollars ($20,000) arsenic start-up backing for the coin business.
In court, Blum denied her claims and accused her of lying.
In his last submissions, Casselden told the tribunal the grounds showed Blum displayed a “pattern of behaviour successful narration to the exploitation of susceptible azygous middle-aged women.”
“He has led an bonzer beingness of deceit and duplicity, including successful narration to his agelong matrimony to his contiguous wife,” Casselden said.
Blum denied helium sought to instrumentality vantage of Oldenburg and Gaffney-Bowan, but Casselden said his grounds should beryllium “wholly rejected” successful favour of their testimony.
“There is simply nary motivation, your honor, for either of them to person lied,” Casselden said.
Turning to Barter, Casselden said the lone “rational, plausible explanation” for her sanction alteration was that she was successful a narration with Blum and that she changed her sanction “either connected her ain insistence, oregon connected his, oregon a operation of both.”
He said it was apt they traveled unneurotic arsenic a mates to Europe, and that Blum suggested they commencement a “new life.” What happened adjacent is unclear.
Casselden said contempt an extended and ongoing investigation, constabulary person been incapable to find Barter – dormant oregon alive. This twelvemonth NSW Police accrued the reward for accusation starring to the apprehension and condemnation of anyone progressive successful her disappearance to 500,000 Australian dollars ($338,000).
The inquest whitethorn beryllium concluding, but Leydon says her hunt for answers volition not extremity there.
“I person a feeling that radical deliberation I’m conscionable going to beryllium backmost and hide astir it. And the world of that is, I’m not,” Leydon said.
She wants her mother’s disappearance to pb to changes successful the laws successful Australia to marque it easier for household members to entree a missing person’s records aft a play of no-contact, to springiness them a amended accidental than she had to uncover leads and perceive the recollections of witnesses earlier their memories fade.
Leydon accepts that her parent is apt dead, but she inactive wants to cognize how, and why.
“I conscionable privation to cognize wherever she is and what happened,” she said. “I beg radical to assistance maine find that answer.”
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