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Speaker 1: The public has had a long held fascination with detectives.

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Speaker 1: Detective see aside of life the average persons never exposed her.

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Speaker 1: I spent thirty four years as a cop. For twenty

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Speaker 1: five of those years, I was catching killers. That's what

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Speaker 1: I did for a living. I was a homicide detective.

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Speaker 1: I'm no longer just interviewing bad guys. Instead, I'm taking

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Speaker 1: the public into the world in which I operated. The

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Speaker 1: guests I talk to each week have amazing stories from

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Speaker 1: all sides of the law. The interviews are raw and honest,

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Speaker 1: just like the people I talk to. Some of the

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Speaker 1: content and language might be confronting. That's because no one

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Speaker 1: who comes in the contact with crime is left unchanged.

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Speaker 1: Join me now as I take you into this world.

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Speaker 1: Today I spoke to Sally Laden, the daughter of missing

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Speaker 1: woman Marion Barter. Marion disappeared in bizarre circumstances twenty seven

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Speaker 1: years ago. Sally doesn't know what happened to her mum,

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Speaker 1: but she's determined to find out, and today we spoke

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Speaker 1: to her about the enduring pain a loved one's disappearance

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Speaker 1: can cause. We also spoke about the shocking truth about

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Speaker 1: the failings of the police investigation and a mysterious man

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Speaker 1: called Rick Blum, who came into Marion's life around the

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Speaker 1: time she disappeared. Rick Blum has denied any involvement in

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Speaker 1: the disappearance of Marion. Sally is determined to find out

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Speaker 1: what happened to her mother and just maybe today's chat

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Speaker 1: may prompt something. Sally Laden, welcome to I catch killers.

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Speaker 2: Hello, thank you for having me.

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Speaker 1: It's a pleasure. And look, I want to say upfront,

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Speaker 1: condolences for what you've gone through with your mother having

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Speaker 1: disappeared twenty seven years ago. And I've seen enough of

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Speaker 1: people and the uncertainty and not knowing what happened and

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Speaker 1: the pain of having a loved one just disappear.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, well, thank you for that. It's is a hard

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Speaker 2: road to part to walk, I guess, but yeah, thank

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Speaker 2: you for having me and having a chat with me

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Speaker 2: about it.

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Speaker 1: Well. I don't think people fully appreciate what happens when

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Speaker 1: someone just disappears, or you haven't got answers, or someone's

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Speaker 1: died in suspicious circumstances, you haven't got answers. And I'm

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Speaker 1: sure some people say, well, twenty seven years ago, why

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Speaker 1: are you still campaigning? Can you just explain that to them,

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Speaker 1: because I fully understand. I've seen enough of victims families

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Speaker 1: and it's not something that you ever get closure from.

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Speaker 2: No, and you live with it forever. And I feel

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Speaker 2: like I didn't really want to leave that burden of

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Speaker 2: searching for my children. I've got three children and that's

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Speaker 2: their grandmother. They never met her. She already disappeared by

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Speaker 2: the time I had babies, and even by the time

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Speaker 2: I was getting married. I got married a year after

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Speaker 2: she went missing. And it is a rollercoaster, and there

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Speaker 2: are times where I've had to tap out and just

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Speaker 2: focus on being a mum or building houses or working

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Speaker 2: in our business, and then when I have the energy

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Speaker 2: to come back in, I jump back in and go

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Speaker 2: a little bit further until you know, you get knocked

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Speaker 2: down again, and you can kind of get knocked down

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Speaker 2: so much, but I have this personality and ability, I

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Speaker 2: guess to just pull myself out and keep going because

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Speaker 2: for me, my mum matters, and she shouldn't. Quite often

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Speaker 2: A quoted of saying, you know, she's not a lost puppy,

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Speaker 2: and it might be twenty seven years I'm actually fifty

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Speaker 2: two now. She technically at the time the Currenter has

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Speaker 2: deemed that when she passed she was fifty two as well.

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Speaker 2: And my eldest daughter is twenty three about to turn

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Speaker 2: twenty four. And I was twenty three turning twenty four

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Speaker 2: when mum disappeared. So in our world we've actually come

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Speaker 2: full circle in life again to where you know, Ella's

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Speaker 2: the same age as I was. I'm the same age

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Speaker 2: as Mum was, and we still don't know what's happened

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Speaker 2: to her, and so I'll I'll keep going. People joke

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Speaker 2: that I'm a Tourian and I do have this stubbornness

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Speaker 2: in me, so part of it.

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Speaker 1: I think people that listen to the podcast today will

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Speaker 1: find out that you need to need to be stubborn

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Speaker 1: because for all the kicks that you've had, you keep

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Speaker 1: getting up and keep fighting. Why have you campaigned so hard?

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Speaker 2: Well, I guess at the outset it was about my mum.

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Speaker 2: But as time has grown, I've realized that, you know,

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Speaker 2: everybody needs a voice in the missing space, and you know,

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Speaker 2: the ambiguity, ambiguity that we live with, those of us

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Speaker 2: living in with as missing loved one, it's really important

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Speaker 2: that we do remember them and that we keep fighting

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Speaker 2: for the truth. I think, you know, as I've been

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Speaker 2: kicking along, I have found things. So I keep finding things.

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Speaker 2: I keep digging deeper, and you know, the more people

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Speaker 2: that I sort of calls out for people to help

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Speaker 2: me as well, and people have come to that table,

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Speaker 2: and you know, it's with those little bits of information

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Speaker 2: that it just keeps going and this story just keeps

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Speaker 2: growing every day. So I'm here, I am keeping on,

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Speaker 2: keeping on.

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Speaker 1: Well, some things have been uncovered, and I dare say,

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Speaker 1: and we'll get into this more in the in the

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Speaker 1: podcast that Yeah, as a form of police officer now

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Speaker 1: working in the media in this space on true crime

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Speaker 1: understanding the police organization, I can say comfortably that if

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Speaker 1: you weren't campaigning then going so hard, it would have

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Speaker 1: been forgotten.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, or she was forgotten. She's been forgotten multiple times,

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Speaker 2: like even at the very outset, you know. So I

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Speaker 2: walk into Byron Bay police station. I didn't use the

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Speaker 2: words missing. I just said, something's wrong. My mum's supposed

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Speaker 2: to be overseas. I've just found out that money's coming

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Speaker 2: out of her bank account in large sums every day

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Speaker 2: for three and a half weeks in Byron Bay and

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Speaker 2: in Burley something's wrong. She missed my brother's birthday. That

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Speaker 2: was very out of character for her and something that

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Speaker 2: I've always wanted to get out for anybody who finds

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Speaker 2: himself in this position, the language is actually important. But

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Speaker 2: equally the police probably need to start looking at that

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Speaker 2: as well. And because their argument to you know, in

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Speaker 2: court was will Sally didn't walk in and say her

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Speaker 2: mother was missing, And I'm like, well, you know, as

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Speaker 2: a twenty three year old, twenty four year old, I

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Speaker 2: didn't know what was happening. I just knew that my

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Speaker 2: mum was supposed to be overseas and money's coming out

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Speaker 2: of her bank account and Brian Bay. The reaction from

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Speaker 2: the lady on the phone when I rang Telly Banking,

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Speaker 2: she nearly had a heart attack. She's like, what, I

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Speaker 2: can't tell you this, but holy moly, there's money coming

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Speaker 2: out of her bank account and Byron Bay. So you know,

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Speaker 2: it started at that very outset. They only marked my

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Speaker 2: mum's on occurrence only at that stage within twenty four

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Speaker 2: hours of me going to the police station.

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Speaker 1: It's a failing from the start and not beating up

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Speaker 1: on the individuals, but these mistakes made that if people

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Speaker 1: in those circumstances and it doesn't need to be an

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Speaker 1: experienced police office. Anyone with common sense, and one would

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Speaker 1: hope that anyone in the police with common sense would realize, okay,

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Speaker 1: this is something. What the details that you just provided there.

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Speaker 1: As a junior constable, you'd think, okay, this is something

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Speaker 1: that we better have a look at. But tell us

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Speaker 1: about the circumstances of your mum's disappearance. Brief details, because

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Speaker 1: we're going to break it down. So it's complex. But

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Speaker 1: where was she the fact she went overseas and then

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Speaker 1: so she was a school teacher.

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Speaker 2: She'd just won Best Teacher in Queensland award. Ida Butcher's

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Speaker 2: actually gave her that award in November of nineteen ninety six.

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Speaker 2: She came second in Australia overall. So she was achieving

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Speaker 2: well at school. She was doing well. She loved her

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Speaker 2: little boys that she taught. She taught four and five

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Speaker 2: year olds at TSS on the Gold Coast, which is

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Speaker 2: the Southport School. It's a private boys school, probably one

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Speaker 2: of the best in Queensland. She wasn't very happy. There

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Speaker 2: was times in the new year, around the March February

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Speaker 2: time period where she just wasn't getting along with a

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Speaker 2: few people at school, and I always sort of thought

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Speaker 2: to myself, potentially there was a bit of tall poppy

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Speaker 2: syndrome happening. She won this award and people didn't like that.

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Speaker 2: And I've even heard comments since then that people were saying, oh, well,

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Speaker 2: it was the parents who were voting for her, and

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Speaker 2: so even little comments like that, I'm like, what does

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Speaker 2: it really matter who voted for her?

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Speaker 1: She wins, probably want to hope.

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Speaker 2: So but anyway, she decided to sell her house and

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Speaker 2: go on a trip overseas. I did think it was

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Speaker 2: odd that she left halfway through a year, because she

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Speaker 2: was a very dedicated teacher. But she was also quite

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Speaker 2: upset about a few things that were happening at school.

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Speaker 2: Someone had accused her of touching a boy and that

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Speaker 2: just absolutely wiped her for six She was in tears

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Speaker 2: about it. I was just gobsmacked because I know my

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Speaker 2: mum very well and she would never have done anything

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Speaker 2: of the sort. So that was all happening. She decided

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Speaker 2: to sell the house and told my husband and I

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Speaker 2: he was my fiance back then. We just got engaged

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Speaker 2: that she was going to come back in a year,

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Speaker 2: and she was going to buy an apartment or a

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Speaker 2: unit at Maine Beach, which is on the Gold Coast,

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Speaker 2: not far from her house, and by doing so, she'd

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Speaker 2: have to give us a couple of big pieces of

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Speaker 2: her furniture because she wouldn't be able to house them

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Speaker 2: in the unit when she got back. The rest of

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Speaker 2: her treasures were going into a shipping container, and foolishly

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Speaker 2: I never asked her where the shipping container was going.

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Speaker 2: She just said to me, if I decide to stay

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Speaker 2: overseas and teach, I will get you to send it

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Speaker 2: over to me. Okay, And I thought, okay, and like

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Speaker 2: everything made sense to me. She did sell the house

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Speaker 2: really quickly, so she sold it in three weeks for

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Speaker 2: less than fifteen thousand dollars that she paid for it.

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Speaker 2: And if you wind back to nineteen ninety seven, we're

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Speaker 2: talking around one hundred and seventy one hundred and sixty

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Speaker 2: thousand dollars for a house. Just for some perspective, so

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Speaker 2: that was a bit that was a bit odd. I

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Speaker 2: did think that was a bit weird, but you know,

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Speaker 2: I wasn't the kind of child, I guess young adult

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Speaker 2: that asked my mum will probed into my mom's business

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Speaker 2: too much. Anyway, there was a night that she'd asked

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Speaker 2: me if I would come and help her start packing

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Speaker 2: up the house. And I was going to TAFE because

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Speaker 2: ironically I was trying myself to get into the Queensland Police,

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Speaker 2: so I was studying at TAFE while working from I

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Speaker 2: do joke. I do joke about that. I should have

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Speaker 2: I should have persisted. But any who, Chris went around

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Speaker 2: my partner, yeah, and he helped mum pack up. And

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Speaker 2: so he was helping her. He was putting some records

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Speaker 2: from the under the TV cabinet into some boxes, and

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Speaker 2: she walked down and said, what's the time, and he

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Speaker 2: gave her the time, and she said, oh, okay, we'll

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Speaker 2: just drop what you're doing. I need you to go.

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Speaker 2: And he goes, no, no, Marry and it's okay, I'll

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Speaker 2: just keep packing this box and finish and he goes, no, no,

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Speaker 2: you just need to leave it. I need you to go.

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Speaker 2: So he left, quite bewildered as to why she was

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Speaker 2: sort of kicking him out of the house in such

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Speaker 2: a hurry. Came and picked me up from Tafe. We

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Speaker 2: stopped at a service station on the way home that

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Speaker 2: had a McDonald's attached to it because it's late. We

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Speaker 2: don't we didn't have time to cook dinner. McDonald's feel

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Speaker 2: every time I say that now because I don't need McDonald's.

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Speaker 2: But why did you have McDonald's Anyway? Life changes? But yeah, anyway,

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Speaker 2: so we were sitting at McDonald's and my mum's car

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Speaker 2: pulled up in the petrol bowser and Chris actually was

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Speaker 2: the one who saw her. I had my to the

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Speaker 2: bowser and I stood up and I started waving at her.

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Speaker 2: And she's standing at the car with the door open

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Speaker 2: like she's about to put petrol in the car, and

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Speaker 2: just stares at me like a deer in headlights, as

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Speaker 2: if to say, oh my god, what are you doing

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Speaker 2: sort of thing. Anyway, she got back in the car,

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Speaker 2: didn't put petrol in the car, and drove off. But

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Speaker 2: she went around to the left, which got meant that

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Speaker 2: she went through the drive through and instead of driving

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Speaker 2: straight past us. And I think she did that because

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Speaker 2: there was a man in the car, and I clearly

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Speaker 2: could see that there was a guy. He was very tall,

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Speaker 2: his head was nearly touching the roof. But the reflection

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Speaker 2: from the lights, the bright lights at nighttime in the

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Speaker 2: petrol station meant that I didn't get a very clear

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Speaker 2: look at him, but he was big, and I guess

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Speaker 2: always figured that if she'd driven past the window where

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Speaker 2: we were standing, I would have got a full view

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Speaker 2: of who that was. I did ask her the next

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Speaker 2: day and said, who was the man in the car?

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Speaker 2: She said, just a friend I've met at the art center.

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Speaker 2: He was just taking me out to say goodbye before

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Speaker 2: I go over. And I went, okay, no problem, Ibe,

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Speaker 2: you respect her privacy. I kind of joked and went, oh,

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Speaker 2: maybe she's got a boyfriend. She doesn't want to tell

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Speaker 2: me about it, but you know, I just left it

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Speaker 2: at that essentially. So on the she came and had

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Speaker 2: dinner with us. She asked if i'd make her a

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Speaker 2: lamb roast, and she came to our house with her

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Speaker 2: friend Leslie. She'd moved in with Leslie because she'd sort

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Speaker 2: of had to leave the house a couple of weeks

246
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Speaker 2: before she was ready to move to go on the trip.

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Speaker 2: I should say, Leslie lived close to school, so it

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Speaker 2: sort of made sense that whereas we were like thirty

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Speaker 2: minutes away, so it was probably better for her to

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Speaker 2: stay with Leslie and so Leslie and drove Mum out

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Speaker 2: to our house. I made her a lamb roast and yeah,

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Speaker 2: that was the last time I saw her. Gave her

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Speaker 2: a hug and a kiss. She looked a bit sad

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Speaker 2: that she was leaving.

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Speaker 1: How what a period of time was that.

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Speaker 2: Twenty second of June nineteen ninety seven. Is that when

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Speaker 2: she left? Okay, So she was there on the Saturday

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Speaker 2: night and then she left the next day.

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Speaker 1: All right, so she's going overseas. She's fifty one, fifty two,

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Speaker 1: and she wasn't that happy with her life at that

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Speaker 1: particular point in time. And she won the day a

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Speaker 1: career break, I suppose. And you stayed in contact with

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Speaker 1: her when she was overseas.

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Speaker 2: So again whinding back to nineteen ninety seven, not many

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Speaker 2: people had mobile phones, so I was pretty new. There

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Speaker 2: was no Internet apart from the dial up variety, so

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Speaker 2: it wasn't like you could just FaceTime someone jump on Facebook.

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Speaker 2: So I was really reliant on her to contact me,

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Speaker 2: which she did. So she sent me a couple of postcards,

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Speaker 2: and she sent me a letter as well, and she

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Speaker 2: did ring me. So after the threadbat disaster happened, Chris

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Speaker 2: and I had been skiing. We're driven down to go skiing,

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Speaker 2: and we were there and we were driving back when

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Speaker 2: we heard about the Threadbeat disaster. And when we got

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Speaker 2: home there was an answering machine message. The light was

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Speaker 2: flashing and I pressed it and it was Mum and

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Speaker 2: she said, oh, I've just heard word over here about

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Speaker 2: the Threadbat disaster. I was just checking to see if

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Speaker 2: you guys are okay. And I was really sad because

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Speaker 2: I just bought my wedding dress here in Sydney on

281
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Speaker 2: our way home in the car, and I really wanted

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Speaker 2: to tell her because she was here when we got engaged, right,

283
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Speaker 2: so she came to our engagement party on the ninth

284
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Speaker 2: of June. She left on the twenty second of June,

285
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Speaker 2: so she was aware of what we were doing. She

286
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Speaker 2: knew that I was trying to get into the police.

287
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Speaker 2: She's asking all those sorts of questions and being engaging

288
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Speaker 2: with us in those letters and postcards. And then she

289
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Speaker 2: rang and said to me, look, you know I'm going

290
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Speaker 2: to stop sending lots of postcards. I'm sending post ups

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Speaker 2: to everyone, which she did from evidence, and she said,

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Speaker 2: I just need to have a break, and I said, yes,

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Speaker 2: go and have a break. You don't need to send

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Speaker 2: us a hundred postcards. It's hard to get a stamp

295
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Speaker 2: and find a postbox. Go and have a break. That's fine.

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Speaker 2: We're all for all fine here. And that was the

297
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Speaker 2: last time I spoke to her. She was at a

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Speaker 2: payphone and the money kept dropping out, and she'd ring

299
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Speaker 2: back and she'd talk for a bit, and then the

300
00:14:50,120 --> 00:14:52,680
Speaker 2: money would drop out again, And when we got to

301
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Speaker 2: the last bit, she said, this is all the money

302
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Speaker 2: I've got now, so I'll just let you talk until

303
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Speaker 2: the phone drops out. So I'm literally just talking away

304
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Speaker 2: in the phone cut off. And that was the last

305
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Speaker 2: time I spoke to her.

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Speaker 1: Okay, now, what do you know the date that was?

307
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Speaker 2: So the timeline of that is the thirty first. Well,

308
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Speaker 2: we know that the three beds I used to happened

309
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Speaker 2: around midnight on the thirtieth of June nineteen ninety seven,

310
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Speaker 2: and we were coming back. So she we think that

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Speaker 2: she's called and left the message on the thirty first,

312
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Speaker 2: and then she's wrung me again on the first. Her

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Speaker 2: passport came back into Australia the next day, right.

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Speaker 1: So explain this and this is where and I've got

315
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Speaker 1: to say I've read through the full coroner's report and

316
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Speaker 1: I think it was one hundred and sixty nine pages

317
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Speaker 1: or whatever, the coroner's findings, and there's so many twists

318
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Speaker 1: and turns on this, so I found it fascinating. But

319
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Speaker 1: she came back into the country the next day, So

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Speaker 1: she'd been overseas for six weeks or.

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Speaker 2: So, So six weeks out of the whole year that

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Speaker 2: she said she was going.

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Speaker 1: For and she's come back into the country. How did

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Speaker 1: we'll do it in sequence of events? Because and you

325
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Speaker 1: know so much now that you didn't know back then.

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Speaker 1: So okay, that's the last time you spoke to your

327
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Speaker 1: mum back then? When did you realize that she had

328
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Speaker 1: come back into to Australia.

329
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Speaker 2: So what happened was I was that tafe, as I said,

330
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Speaker 2: when I was trying to get into the police force.

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Speaker 2: I guess for me, she'd given me that out that

332
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Speaker 2: she was having some time out. She wasn't going to

333
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Speaker 2: be sending postcards, she wasn't going to be sending letters.

334
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Speaker 1: So you're not overly at that point.

335
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Speaker 2: I was like, okay, I'll talk to you. When I

336
00:16:25,880 --> 00:16:27,880
Speaker 2: talked to you, but then you know, that's the first

337
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Speaker 2: of August. I guess probably a month went by. Where

338
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Speaker 2: Now in September, I'm like, oh, she hasn't contacted me.

339
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Speaker 2: That's getting long now, like I haven't spoken to her

340
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Speaker 2: for a while. And then October came around. I was like, Okay,

341
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Speaker 2: now I'm starting to get a bit worried, Like she's

342
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Speaker 2: been gone for two months now, I haven't spoken to her.

343
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Speaker 2: Surely she'll contact Owen, my brother for his birthday, which

344
00:16:48,080 --> 00:16:51,080
Speaker 2: was the eighteenth of October, And so I called him

345
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Speaker 2: to see if she had called on the Saturday, which

346
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Speaker 2: was his birthday, and he said no, and I said, okay,

347
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Speaker 2: I sort of gave her a bit of grace to go.

348
00:17:00,200 --> 00:17:03,120
Speaker 2: K's behind us. Maybe she's got her dates mixed up.

349
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Speaker 2: She'll bring him tomorrow. So I rang him again and

350
00:17:06,560 --> 00:17:09,159
Speaker 2: he said, no, she hasn't called me. And it was

351
00:17:09,240 --> 00:17:11,040
Speaker 2: just that a friend came over for dinner that night

352
00:17:11,160 --> 00:17:13,000
Speaker 2: and we were talking about it, and I was saying,

353
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Speaker 2: I'm worried, like now, I don't know, she would never

354
00:17:15,400 --> 00:17:18,040
Speaker 2: miss his birthday, so what are we going to do?

355
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Speaker 2: And she suggested that I ring the bank because I

356
00:17:20,800 --> 00:17:23,159
Speaker 2: had her bank account details and see if she was

357
00:17:23,240 --> 00:17:27,399
Speaker 2: using her bank account and here. I am thinking it

358
00:17:27,400 --> 00:17:29,639
Speaker 2: would be overseas and that she'd say yes or no.

359
00:17:30,000 --> 00:17:31,680
Speaker 2: I rang and she said, I can't tell you anything

360
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Speaker 2: due to privacy. And then she paused and she said, oh,

361
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Speaker 2: my god, did you say your mum's overseas? And I

362
00:17:36,680 --> 00:17:38,600
Speaker 2: said yes, and she said, oh, there's money coming out

363
00:17:38,600 --> 00:17:41,680
Speaker 2: of her bank account and Barron Bay OK. So she goes,

364
00:17:41,680 --> 00:17:43,439
Speaker 2: you can't tell anybody. I'm telling you this because I'll

365
00:17:43,480 --> 00:17:45,080
Speaker 2: lose my job, you know. So there was all that

366
00:17:45,200 --> 00:17:47,800
Speaker 2: rushing through my head as well, and I was just

367
00:17:47,840 --> 00:17:51,080
Speaker 2: grateful that she told me, and so my husband and

368
00:17:51,119 --> 00:17:55,640
Speaker 2: I we actually worked weekends in our jobs and it's

369
00:17:55,640 --> 00:17:58,200
Speaker 2: our We've gone back. I have gone back with a

370
00:17:58,280 --> 00:18:00,879
Speaker 2: fine toothcomb to look at the timeline, and it's my

371
00:18:00,960 --> 00:18:03,520
Speaker 2: opinion that we actually drove to Byron on the twentieth.

372
00:18:03,960 --> 00:18:06,600
Speaker 2: The police report says it was the twenty second, But

373
00:18:06,880 --> 00:18:08,879
Speaker 2: if you look at that really closely, they've done a

374
00:18:08,920 --> 00:18:12,359
Speaker 2: lot of work, I guess, and ringing people and talking

375
00:18:12,400 --> 00:18:15,080
Speaker 2: to people in a forty five minute period by when

376
00:18:15,320 --> 00:18:17,280
Speaker 2: he said that he did it, and he's lodged it,

377
00:18:17,720 --> 00:18:19,680
Speaker 2: so I'm not sure about that. That's all a bit gray,

378
00:18:19,720 --> 00:18:21,479
Speaker 2: and no one can really say, yeah, your name. But

379
00:18:21,600 --> 00:18:24,719
Speaker 2: Chris and I think we went on the Monday and

380
00:18:24,760 --> 00:18:27,119
Speaker 2: we went down there with a school photo of mums

381
00:18:27,160 --> 00:18:29,439
Speaker 2: and we walked around everywhere to see if someone had

382
00:18:29,480 --> 00:18:29,800
Speaker 2: seen her.

383
00:18:30,200 --> 00:18:33,080
Speaker 1: What literally walked literally walked around with a photos or

384
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Speaker 1: going the shops.

385
00:18:33,920 --> 00:18:36,840
Speaker 2: Or we went into Wowors, we went into the chemists,

386
00:18:36,840 --> 00:18:39,200
Speaker 2: we went into a nature path shop, health food shop,

387
00:18:39,920 --> 00:18:42,399
Speaker 2: anywhere I thought mum would go if she was actually

388
00:18:42,400 --> 00:18:44,680
Speaker 2: in Byron. I was just my head was say.

389
00:18:44,520 --> 00:18:46,639
Speaker 1: And that's on the basis, so you think your mum's

390
00:18:46,680 --> 00:18:50,720
Speaker 1: overseas and then you've spoken to the bank because you've

391
00:18:50,720 --> 00:18:54,440
Speaker 1: got concerns because she didn't fine on Owen's birthday, which

392
00:18:54,520 --> 00:18:57,199
Speaker 1: she normally would hadn't heard from it for months. The

393
00:18:57,240 --> 00:19:01,240
Speaker 1: bank tells you that, oh she's drawing money here, and

394
00:19:01,280 --> 00:19:03,240
Speaker 1: then you've gone the bar and buy Yeah, I can

395
00:19:03,320 --> 00:19:04,760
Speaker 1: understand why your head's spinny.

396
00:19:04,920 --> 00:19:07,840
Speaker 2: Yeah, I like. And in the inquest it was sort

397
00:19:07,840 --> 00:19:10,000
Speaker 2: of like throwing against Chris and I because Chris had

398
00:19:10,040 --> 00:19:12,400
Speaker 2: a different opinion. He thought maybe someone had stolen her

399
00:19:12,400 --> 00:19:15,080
Speaker 2: card and was using her carding baron. For me, I

400
00:19:15,240 --> 00:19:17,960
Speaker 2: just was like, as someone seeing her, like is she here,

401
00:19:18,080 --> 00:19:20,439
Speaker 2: Like what's happening. So I didn't have that thought process

402
00:19:20,480 --> 00:19:22,359
Speaker 2: at all, and it wasn't until we went to the

403
00:19:22,400 --> 00:19:25,639
Speaker 2: bank and I walked in and he said, how can

404
00:19:25,680 --> 00:19:27,240
Speaker 2: I help you? We were the only people in there.

405
00:19:27,240 --> 00:19:28,680
Speaker 2: There was no one else and there was only one

406
00:19:28,720 --> 00:19:32,359
Speaker 2: person serving. And I handed him the photo and I said, look,

407
00:19:32,840 --> 00:19:34,880
Speaker 2: my mom's supposed to be overseas, but I've just been

408
00:19:34,880 --> 00:19:37,280
Speaker 2: told by you're telebanking that money's been coming out of

409
00:19:37,320 --> 00:19:40,479
Speaker 2: her bank account. Here can you help me? And he

410
00:19:40,480 --> 00:19:42,280
Speaker 2: picked up the photo and he shook it and he said,

411
00:19:42,320 --> 00:19:45,000
Speaker 2: m that rings a bell. So his body language to

412
00:19:45,040 --> 00:19:47,520
Speaker 2: me was really off. He took the photo and walked

413
00:19:47,520 --> 00:19:49,600
Speaker 2: around the back of some tables, went into a room,

414
00:19:50,160 --> 00:19:52,320
Speaker 2: closed the door behind him, came out, went over to

415
00:19:52,320 --> 00:19:54,240
Speaker 2: the photocopy. He took a photo of it and came

416
00:19:54,240 --> 00:19:55,359
Speaker 2: back to me and said, what would you like me

417
00:19:55,400 --> 00:19:57,399
Speaker 2: to say to her if I see her? So I

418
00:19:57,480 --> 00:20:00,000
Speaker 2: was like having a meltdown. And we drove straight around

419
00:20:00,119 --> 00:20:03,000
Speaker 2: to Barron Bay Police and I walked in there and said, something's.

420
00:20:02,640 --> 00:20:09,240
Speaker 1: Wrong the background of your mother. You're a daughter, so

421
00:20:09,359 --> 00:20:11,800
Speaker 1: you know as well as anyone this is not the

422
00:20:11,840 --> 00:20:13,200
Speaker 1: type of normal behavior for it.

423
00:20:13,960 --> 00:20:16,119
Speaker 2: No and it was just really off. I just had

424
00:20:16,119 --> 00:20:19,639
Speaker 2: a really bad feeling walked in there. You know, a

425
00:20:19,680 --> 00:20:21,880
Speaker 2: big mistake I made, and I hope other people will

426
00:20:21,960 --> 00:20:24,200
Speaker 2: learn from this as you make sure you take down

427
00:20:24,240 --> 00:20:27,159
Speaker 2: every single detail. Because I didn't remember the name of

428
00:20:27,160 --> 00:20:29,200
Speaker 2: the guy who gave me the report, I didn't get

429
00:20:29,240 --> 00:20:32,720
Speaker 2: a business card, I didn't do a statement. I literally

430
00:20:32,760 --> 00:20:34,719
Speaker 2: just told him everything, thinking that that was how you

431
00:20:34,760 --> 00:20:35,080
Speaker 2: do it.

432
00:20:35,960 --> 00:20:38,760
Speaker 1: Well, let's put it out there, because I don't like

433
00:20:38,920 --> 00:20:41,879
Speaker 1: people not understanding what the practices are in police. But

434
00:20:41,920 --> 00:20:44,199
Speaker 1: if you go into a police station, the report something,

435
00:20:44,440 --> 00:20:46,679
Speaker 1: get the name of the officer that you're speaking to,

436
00:20:46,960 --> 00:20:49,880
Speaker 1: time and date, and make a note of it. And

437
00:20:50,000 --> 00:20:52,639
Speaker 1: if it's a matter that you're reporting, asked for an

438
00:20:52,640 --> 00:20:55,639
Speaker 1: event number, so you've got an event number. I'm not

439
00:20:55,640 --> 00:20:58,560
Speaker 1: telling you now. You know that now, but for other people,

440
00:20:58,600 --> 00:21:03,080
Speaker 1: because I think so many times people and I honestly

441
00:21:03,119 --> 00:21:06,720
Speaker 1: believe it's because we're brought up to trust police, like

442
00:21:06,800 --> 00:21:08,479
Speaker 1: you go and the police will saw that you've got

443
00:21:08,520 --> 00:21:10,439
Speaker 1: the problem. You go to the police and you assume

444
00:21:10,480 --> 00:21:13,040
Speaker 1: that the police are going to solve this problem. But

445
00:21:13,520 --> 00:21:15,959
Speaker 1: I think that safeguard getting the name of the officer,

446
00:21:16,080 --> 00:21:20,480
Speaker 1: you speak to making people accountable, and you know, wherever

447
00:21:20,520 --> 00:21:23,040
Speaker 1: you work, if someone what's your name, you know, okay,

448
00:21:23,040 --> 00:21:25,800
Speaker 1: you're going to be accountable for this. I think that's

449
00:21:25,800 --> 00:21:29,800
Speaker 1: a good practice, So let's put that out there. You've

450
00:21:29,840 --> 00:21:33,879
Speaker 1: gone in and you explained when we first started the podcast.

451
00:21:34,160 --> 00:21:37,640
Speaker 1: You've said you've got concerns about your mother. What were

452
00:21:37,680 --> 00:21:39,840
Speaker 1: you told by the police at the time.

453
00:21:40,400 --> 00:21:43,720
Speaker 2: I wasn't told anything. He just listened and wrote things

454
00:21:43,760 --> 00:21:46,800
Speaker 2: down in his notebook, and then Chris and I left,

455
00:21:47,480 --> 00:21:52,280
Speaker 2: and I really really kicked myself a lot for not

456
00:21:52,400 --> 00:21:54,680
Speaker 2: just taking down more detail. I got a phone call

457
00:21:54,880 --> 00:21:58,120
Speaker 2: about a week to ten days later. Again kick myself

458
00:21:58,119 --> 00:22:01,280
Speaker 2: for not writing it down, taking note of who I

459
00:22:01,280 --> 00:22:04,520
Speaker 2: spoke to on the phone. When people ask me, my

460
00:22:05,040 --> 00:22:07,720
Speaker 2: opinion of my memory is that it was the same

461
00:22:07,760 --> 00:22:09,679
Speaker 2: man that I spoke to at the desk, but I

462
00:22:09,720 --> 00:22:13,760
Speaker 2: can't prove that because I didn't write anything down. But

463
00:22:13,840 --> 00:22:17,120
Speaker 2: that phone call was a gentleman calling me to tell

464
00:22:17,160 --> 00:22:19,520
Speaker 2: me that they'd found my mother and she didn't want

465
00:22:19,520 --> 00:22:22,120
Speaker 2: anything to do with us. Exact words, where we found

466
00:22:22,160 --> 00:22:24,280
Speaker 2: your mother. She doesn't want anyone knowing where she is

467
00:22:24,359 --> 00:22:27,080
Speaker 2: or what she's doing. And that is burnt into my brain.

468
00:22:28,720 --> 00:22:31,479
Speaker 1: So, but that's not true, is it.

469
00:22:32,000 --> 00:22:35,320
Speaker 2: No, well, no it's not. They've told me now that

470
00:22:35,359 --> 00:22:38,560
Speaker 2: they've never spoken to her, they've never sighted her. So

471
00:22:39,080 --> 00:22:41,920
Speaker 2: and the kicker for me, Gary is my brother took

472
00:22:41,920 --> 00:22:46,800
Speaker 2: his own life shortly after my mum went missing, and

473
00:22:47,000 --> 00:22:50,679
Speaker 2: I firmly believe he had problems, like he had his

474
00:22:50,680 --> 00:22:54,399
Speaker 2: own issues and demons he was working through. But you know,

475
00:22:54,440 --> 00:22:56,199
Speaker 2: he was about to he was about to get married.

476
00:22:56,240 --> 00:22:59,040
Speaker 2: He was in a very good headspace in my heart,

477
00:22:59,240 --> 00:23:03,080
Speaker 2: and I think he did not cope very well when

478
00:23:03,640 --> 00:23:04,440
Speaker 2: he was told that.

479
00:23:05,520 --> 00:23:09,680
Speaker 1: I'm sorry to hear that, but I understand what you're saying. There.

480
00:23:09,720 --> 00:23:12,680
Speaker 1: To be told that your mom's back in the country,

481
00:23:12,800 --> 00:23:15,399
Speaker 1: she just doesn't want to speak to you. That's a

482
00:23:15,440 --> 00:23:17,000
Speaker 1: burden for anyone to carry.

483
00:23:17,280 --> 00:23:19,199
Speaker 2: And even just the way it was said to me,

484
00:23:19,480 --> 00:23:22,880
Speaker 2: like no one sat down and said, listen, I understand

485
00:23:22,880 --> 00:23:24,320
Speaker 2: this was going to be hard for you to hear

486
00:23:25,600 --> 00:23:27,840
Speaker 2: your mother doesn't want to have anything to do with

487
00:23:27,920 --> 00:23:30,280
Speaker 2: you anymore. Like just to be told on the phone

488
00:23:30,359 --> 00:23:34,520
Speaker 2: so brash, and even you know, since then, I know

489
00:23:34,560 --> 00:23:36,240
Speaker 2: you're going to tell me not to jump forward. But

490
00:23:37,280 --> 00:23:41,359
Speaker 2: you know, we've got records now from Queensland Police Missing

491
00:23:41,359 --> 00:23:43,959
Speaker 2: Person's Unit, because they actually were involved as well with

492
00:23:44,000 --> 00:23:48,840
Speaker 2: my grandfather's involvement. He lived up on the Sunshine Coast

493
00:23:49,320 --> 00:23:52,880
Speaker 2: and he had contacted missing persons through the Salvation Army

494
00:23:52,880 --> 00:23:55,399
Speaker 2: and they were working with Queensland Missing person and they

495
00:23:55,440 --> 00:23:58,719
Speaker 2: actually wrote like I've got a letter from the Salvation

496
00:23:58,840 --> 00:24:02,359
Speaker 2: Army just saying, oh, you know, bank security confirm that

497
00:24:02,400 --> 00:24:05,280
Speaker 2: it was definitely your daughter Marion who went in and

498
00:24:05,359 --> 00:24:08,120
Speaker 2: spoke of starting a new life and withdrew the balance

499
00:24:08,119 --> 00:24:11,639
Speaker 2: of of her bank account and bank security are like

500
00:24:11,720 --> 00:24:17,240
Speaker 2: the police, so must be true. And that in her

501
00:24:17,280 --> 00:24:20,280
Speaker 2: notebook she hasn't taken down the name of the bank

502
00:24:20,359 --> 00:24:23,399
Speaker 2: teller who served mum who claims that it was definitely

503
00:24:23,440 --> 00:24:25,960
Speaker 2: my mum who went in and telling my grandfather was

504
00:24:25,960 --> 00:24:29,960
Speaker 2: definitely your daughter Marion is the word choice. And the

505
00:24:30,280 --> 00:24:32,840
Speaker 2: kicker there too is that she didn't withdraw all the

506
00:24:32,880 --> 00:24:34,640
Speaker 2: money out of heran account. There was still money sitting

507
00:24:34,640 --> 00:24:36,159
Speaker 2: in her bank account up until.

508
00:24:35,920 --> 00:24:40,080
Speaker 1: Last year, and it had sat dormant since with for

509
00:24:40,200 --> 00:24:41,119
Speaker 1: all of that large amount.

510
00:24:41,280 --> 00:24:43,520
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, they sat dormant. And then they were still

511
00:24:43,560 --> 00:24:46,840
Speaker 2: taking bank fees out of my mum's bank account right

512
00:24:46,880 --> 00:24:49,920
Speaker 2: up until the end of the inquest to.

513
00:24:49,960 --> 00:24:53,760
Speaker 1: Me with the comments like that, you can a piece

514
00:24:53,800 --> 00:24:58,159
Speaker 1: of information, you can interpret it many ways, but interpreted

515
00:24:58,240 --> 00:25:00,680
Speaker 1: that your mother just doesn't want I see you, Well,

516
00:25:00,680 --> 00:25:02,920
Speaker 1: I don't know how anyone could say that unless they've

517
00:25:02,920 --> 00:25:06,280
Speaker 1: spoken to your mother. But that's just an assumption and

518
00:25:06,359 --> 00:25:09,200
Speaker 1: that sort of information shouldn't be passed on to members

519
00:25:09,200 --> 00:25:11,119
Speaker 1: of the public if police have passed it on the

520
00:25:11,119 --> 00:25:14,960
Speaker 1: information the way that you said, but in the circumstances

521
00:25:15,560 --> 00:25:19,840
Speaker 1: to contact you and tell you that they've spoken to

522
00:25:19,840 --> 00:25:23,119
Speaker 1: your mother, And it doesn't appear that that's correct that

523
00:25:23,320 --> 00:25:25,360
Speaker 1: to me, And I could be wrong here. I'm only

524
00:25:25,400 --> 00:25:30,399
Speaker 1: surmising understanding the workings and the organization of the police.

525
00:25:30,440 --> 00:25:32,679
Speaker 1: It's like someone that, oh, well, we can close that

526
00:25:33,240 --> 00:25:34,119
Speaker 1: line of inquiry.

527
00:25:34,359 --> 00:25:37,520
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I've seen the line of inquiry from when

528
00:25:37,560 --> 00:25:40,320
Speaker 2: I initially went into byron Ba Police and they actually

529
00:25:40,359 --> 00:25:43,239
Speaker 2: marked her as an occurrence only and the wording is

530
00:25:43,920 --> 00:25:47,399
Speaker 2: no action until the person is actually listed as missing

531
00:25:48,040 --> 00:25:52,680
Speaker 2: and new action due to other work priorities. And I'm

532
00:25:52,720 --> 00:25:54,639
Speaker 2: reading that going okay, so does that mean she's not

533
00:25:54,680 --> 00:25:58,840
Speaker 2: a priority? And you know, the word choices in the

534
00:25:58,960 --> 00:26:01,480
Speaker 2: language on the police report is, oh, well, she was

535
00:26:01,480 --> 00:26:03,960
Speaker 2: fifty one, she's been married and divorced three times. She's

536
00:26:04,000 --> 00:26:07,240
Speaker 2: capable of this behavior without talking to my mum, never

537
00:26:07,280 --> 00:26:10,480
Speaker 2: ever speaking to her. And I think for me when

538
00:26:10,480 --> 00:26:12,760
Speaker 2: people ask me, why do I keep pushing and keep going.

539
00:26:12,800 --> 00:26:14,439
Speaker 2: That's one of the main things I want people to

540
00:26:14,520 --> 00:26:17,119
Speaker 2: learn that language is actually and what you spay and

541
00:26:17,160 --> 00:26:20,520
Speaker 2: what your words woulds do actually can cause a lot

542
00:26:20,520 --> 00:26:22,879
Speaker 2: of problems for somebody, especially if you're living in this

543
00:26:22,960 --> 00:26:26,640
Speaker 2: ambiguous bubble over here where you don't know what's happened

544
00:26:26,760 --> 00:26:28,919
Speaker 2: and you're always guessing and you and your mind just

545
00:26:28,960 --> 00:26:30,080
Speaker 2: goes million miles an hour.

546
00:26:30,680 --> 00:26:34,600
Speaker 1: But I hear what you're saying, and I just want

547
00:26:34,640 --> 00:26:37,359
Speaker 1: to say to you, don't blame yourself. You've done the

548
00:26:37,440 --> 00:26:40,240
Speaker 1: right thing. You've gone to the police with genuine, legitimate

549
00:26:40,280 --> 00:26:42,960
Speaker 1: concerns and there's been a failing in the system, not

550
00:26:43,000 --> 00:26:47,040
Speaker 1: a failing from your point of view, like at you

551
00:26:47,119 --> 00:26:50,040
Speaker 1: accept what police tell you on face value, and I

552
00:26:50,160 --> 00:26:52,040
Speaker 1: told you not the jump ahead on the jump ahead

553
00:26:52,040 --> 00:26:55,359
Speaker 1: a little bit in that during the coronial inquest that

554
00:26:56,600 --> 00:26:59,360
Speaker 1: wasn't held for years and years after the Detective Chief

555
00:26:59,400 --> 00:27:03,080
Speaker 1: Inspector Brea, who I know and I rate him as

556
00:27:03,560 --> 00:27:06,560
Speaker 1: a good detective, and he was heading up the missing

557
00:27:06,560 --> 00:27:09,560
Speaker 1: person's unit at the time that he gave this evidence.

558
00:27:09,960 --> 00:27:11,840
Speaker 1: He said in a statement that forms part of the

559
00:27:11,840 --> 00:27:15,280
Speaker 1: evidence of the Crannial brief, and this is from Detective

560
00:27:15,320 --> 00:27:18,320
Speaker 1: Chief Inspector Brown, it is my view that Marion Barter

561
00:27:19,000 --> 00:27:22,520
Speaker 1: should not have been classified as located, as her whereabouts

562
00:27:22,560 --> 00:27:25,520
Speaker 1: were still unknown and there was still justification to hold

563
00:27:25,520 --> 00:27:28,920
Speaker 1: concerns for her safety or well being. So that's someone

564
00:27:28,960 --> 00:27:32,640
Speaker 1: that's reviewed it years later. So it's not just give

565
00:27:32,720 --> 00:27:35,359
Speaker 1: you some credit here. It's not just you saying things

566
00:27:35,400 --> 00:27:38,800
Speaker 1: could be done better or me trying to beat up

567
00:27:39,080 --> 00:27:41,040
Speaker 1: on the police on the matter. That's someone that's still

568
00:27:41,160 --> 00:27:44,919
Speaker 1: serving police officer that reviewed the situation and came up

569
00:27:45,000 --> 00:27:48,520
Speaker 1: with that opinion and gave that evidence the cranial inquest

570
00:27:48,600 --> 00:27:53,399
Speaker 1: in his statement. So that must add to the frustration.

571
00:27:54,480 --> 00:27:58,919
Speaker 2: Yeah, look, frustration. And I was really glad I was

572
00:27:58,920 --> 00:28:01,960
Speaker 2: there when Glenn gave his statement on that, and I

573
00:28:02,640 --> 00:28:07,720
Speaker 2: sort of felt like something like finally someone could actually say, yes,

574
00:28:07,840 --> 00:28:10,400
Speaker 2: what Sally did is correct, because if I can add

575
00:28:10,400 --> 00:28:15,159
Speaker 2: to my mum's family, her sisters in particular, and in

576
00:28:15,200 --> 00:28:17,800
Speaker 2: particular one of those sisters how to go with me

577
00:28:18,359 --> 00:28:20,879
Speaker 2: when I listed moms missing, and she had my grandfather

578
00:28:20,960 --> 00:28:22,879
Speaker 2: as well, and she said, you know, I don't know

579
00:28:22,880 --> 00:28:24,840
Speaker 2: why you guys are doing this. She's just having a holiday,

580
00:28:24,920 --> 00:28:26,399
Speaker 2: she's just having a break. Why would you go on

581
00:28:26,440 --> 00:28:29,159
Speaker 2: list her as missing. And so they sort of had

582
00:28:29,200 --> 00:28:32,320
Speaker 2: a crack at me, and they don't talk to me anymore,

583
00:28:32,480 --> 00:28:34,680
Speaker 2: like ever since I've done the podcast. The lady vanishes

584
00:28:35,280 --> 00:28:38,959
Speaker 2: and I understand it's traumatic, and I understand it's upsetting,

585
00:28:38,960 --> 00:28:41,000
Speaker 2: and I understand that not everybody is like me who

586
00:28:41,040 --> 00:28:43,600
Speaker 2: can just keep plugging along and going with it, and

587
00:28:43,960 --> 00:28:46,200
Speaker 2: it is upsetting for them. It's their sister. She was

588
00:28:46,240 --> 00:28:50,400
Speaker 2: the eldest. But you know, at the same time, it's

589
00:28:50,440 --> 00:28:53,320
Speaker 2: important that you know, we do look for her and

590
00:28:53,360 --> 00:28:55,320
Speaker 2: we make out that what's happened to her, make sure

591
00:28:55,320 --> 00:28:56,880
Speaker 2: she's safe and well. And so for years and years

592
00:28:56,920 --> 00:28:59,280
Speaker 2: and years, I just wanted to find her to make

593
00:28:59,280 --> 00:29:01,360
Speaker 2: sure she was like, Hey, I'd even say, you know,

594
00:29:01,480 --> 00:29:03,120
Speaker 2: I don't need to see you. I don't need to

595
00:29:03,720 --> 00:29:05,200
Speaker 2: talk to you if you don't want to talk to me.

596
00:29:05,640 --> 00:29:08,280
Speaker 2: As sad as that is, just let me know you're okay,

597
00:29:08,320 --> 00:29:11,080
Speaker 2: and I can rest my heart because I can't. I

598
00:29:11,120 --> 00:29:14,160
Speaker 2: can't rest until I know, and you know, I'm on

599
00:29:14,200 --> 00:29:16,840
Speaker 2: heart medication now. Like it's been really hard for me

600
00:29:16,920 --> 00:29:19,200
Speaker 2: to do what I'm doing. This is not easy, but

601
00:29:19,360 --> 00:29:21,320
Speaker 2: I just feel I have to do it for her.

602
00:29:21,480 --> 00:29:22,800
Speaker 2: I have to. I have to do it for her,

603
00:29:22,800 --> 00:29:24,160
Speaker 2: and I have to do it for every other missing

604
00:29:24,160 --> 00:29:26,720
Speaker 2: person as well, because they need a voice. My mum's

605
00:29:26,760 --> 00:29:27,840
Speaker 2: not here to tell her story.

606
00:29:28,360 --> 00:29:30,720
Speaker 1: Well, I think you're entitled to her. I mean, you're

607
00:29:30,880 --> 00:29:35,360
Speaker 1: her daughter, like it's some clot closest relative, and you've

608
00:29:35,360 --> 00:29:40,480
Speaker 1: got concerns for your mum's well being. So there's a

609
00:29:40,480 --> 00:29:42,840
Speaker 1: whole range of things that came out, and we'll talk

610
00:29:43,080 --> 00:29:46,720
Speaker 1: more about the police investigation, but there was when did

611
00:29:46,720 --> 00:29:49,160
Speaker 1: you find out that your mum and just before she

612
00:29:49,200 --> 00:29:51,920
Speaker 1: went overseas change change the name, and do you want

613
00:29:51,960 --> 00:29:54,400
Speaker 1: to explain when you when you became aware of that.

614
00:29:54,640 --> 00:29:58,880
Speaker 2: Yeah, So in that timeline of she's wrung us on

615
00:29:58,920 --> 00:30:01,720
Speaker 2: the phone in the August and Owen's birthday in October

616
00:30:03,280 --> 00:30:04,800
Speaker 2: as soon as I as soon as I knew that,

617
00:30:04,840 --> 00:30:08,680
Speaker 2: and I went to the police in Byron Bay. I

618
00:30:08,840 --> 00:30:11,120
Speaker 2: was that tafe and we had a whole heap of

619
00:30:11,120 --> 00:30:14,840
Speaker 2: different people in my class, because we had some customs

620
00:30:14,920 --> 00:30:16,600
Speaker 2: agents who were trying to become a cop, and we

621
00:30:16,640 --> 00:30:18,400
Speaker 2: had other people working in the prisons who were trying

622
00:30:18,400 --> 00:30:21,240
Speaker 2: to be So I was among a lot of people

623
00:30:21,280 --> 00:30:23,160
Speaker 2: in that field. And we had a guy and I

624
00:30:23,200 --> 00:30:25,080
Speaker 2: wasn't really friends with him, but I just knew he

625
00:30:25,240 --> 00:30:26,960
Speaker 2: worked in customs and I said to him, can you

626
00:30:27,000 --> 00:30:29,840
Speaker 2: do a passport check for me? This is after I've

627
00:30:29,840 --> 00:30:33,400
Speaker 2: been told that she's they found her, okay. So that

628
00:30:33,960 --> 00:30:37,360
Speaker 2: phone call came in, as I said, about a week

629
00:30:37,400 --> 00:30:39,920
Speaker 2: to ten days after I'd been to the police. And

630
00:30:40,720 --> 00:30:44,200
Speaker 2: he then came back to me and he said, your

631
00:30:44,240 --> 00:30:46,240
Speaker 2: mum's passport came back into the country on the second

632
00:30:46,240 --> 00:30:49,320
Speaker 2: of August. So that's when I found out about it. Now.

633
00:30:49,320 --> 00:30:53,240
Speaker 2: The interesting thing there, and I didn't know this at

634
00:30:53,240 --> 00:30:55,640
Speaker 2: that time, but my mum had changed her name, and

635
00:30:55,680 --> 00:30:58,360
Speaker 2: so when I told him, I gave him Marion Barta

636
00:30:58,680 --> 00:31:00,640
Speaker 2: and her date of birth is the third of the

637
00:31:00,680 --> 00:31:02,760
Speaker 2: tenth forty five, So that's all I gave him to

638
00:31:02,760 --> 00:31:04,720
Speaker 2: go on, and he's come back and told me that

639
00:31:04,800 --> 00:31:07,240
Speaker 2: he didn't tell me anything else. And it wasn't until

640
00:31:07,280 --> 00:31:10,640
Speaker 2: twenty eleven that we found out that she'd actually changed her.

641
00:31:10,600 --> 00:31:12,800
Speaker 1: Name, okay, and what did she change her name to.

642
00:31:13,000 --> 00:31:17,480
Speaker 2: Well, Flora Bella Natalia Marion Ramchel.

643
00:31:17,280 --> 00:31:20,560
Speaker 1: Okay, and that has some significance.

644
00:31:20,200 --> 00:31:21,080
Speaker 2: Huge significant.

645
00:31:21,160 --> 00:31:25,480
Speaker 1: What we're going to find out find out later okay,

646
00:31:26,120 --> 00:31:30,360
Speaker 1: dealings with the police. So you've reported in initial report

647
00:31:30,440 --> 00:31:35,280
Speaker 1: in October ninety seven, and then after no further investigation

648
00:31:35,480 --> 00:31:40,720
Speaker 1: was undertaken until July two thousand and seven, correct, So

649
00:31:40,880 --> 00:31:45,000
Speaker 1: when we say no investigation, we're talking zero zero investigation.

650
00:31:45,920 --> 00:31:49,040
Speaker 2: And it was just that I so that in that

651
00:31:49,120 --> 00:31:52,480
Speaker 2: time period, if I can give everyone the idea, we

652
00:31:53,000 --> 00:31:55,680
Speaker 2: built a house, we got married, and we had three

653
00:31:55,760 --> 00:31:59,360
Speaker 2: children in that ten years. So I was quite busy

654
00:31:59,560 --> 00:32:01,720
Speaker 2: with life and trying to be the best person I

655
00:32:01,760 --> 00:32:05,680
Speaker 2: could as well. Ohen died, my grandfather died, so we

656
00:32:05,720 --> 00:32:09,120
Speaker 2: had a lot going on. And it just got to

657
00:32:09,120 --> 00:32:12,640
Speaker 2: the point where I was pregnant with my third baby

658
00:32:13,280 --> 00:32:16,280
Speaker 2: and he was due in June. So I was in

659
00:32:16,640 --> 00:32:20,680
Speaker 2: my first trimester essentially, and my girlfriend was over and

660
00:32:20,760 --> 00:32:22,640
Speaker 2: I said to her, I need to do something. It's

661
00:32:22,720 --> 00:32:25,320
Speaker 2: month tenth anniversary this year and no one's doing anything.

662
00:32:25,880 --> 00:32:31,280
Speaker 2: So I contacted I had done just for clarity I

663
00:32:31,320 --> 00:32:35,480
Speaker 2: had in two thousand and four, I actually reached back

664
00:32:35,520 --> 00:32:39,120
Speaker 2: out to the Salvation Army after my grandfather was passed,

665
00:32:39,160 --> 00:32:40,840
Speaker 2: like well, he was very sick with cancer, so it

666
00:32:40,880 --> 00:32:43,080
Speaker 2: was either just before he passed or after he passed,

667
00:32:43,840 --> 00:32:47,160
Speaker 2: and I reached out to them asking for the information

668
00:32:47,200 --> 00:32:50,120
Speaker 2: about what they told my grandfather, and they came back

669
00:32:50,160 --> 00:32:54,080
Speaker 2: and said, we've got no records of anything, and we've

670
00:32:54,120 --> 00:32:56,920
Speaker 2: tried to find your mother and there's nothing we can find.

671
00:32:57,080 --> 00:33:00,920
Speaker 2: So we're really sorry. God Bless was probably it. And

672
00:33:00,960 --> 00:33:03,880
Speaker 2: then a short time after that, the lady I was

673
00:33:03,960 --> 00:33:07,960
Speaker 2: working with in that circumstance, she contacted me and said, look,

674
00:33:08,040 --> 00:33:10,520
Speaker 2: Woman's Day magazine would like to do an article about

675
00:33:10,560 --> 00:33:14,080
Speaker 2: missing mums on Mother's Day. Would you like to be involved?

676
00:33:14,520 --> 00:33:17,120
Speaker 2: So I did do that article. I was pregnant with

677
00:33:17,160 --> 00:33:20,280
Speaker 2: my second daughter, Darcy, and I remember I had Ella

678
00:33:20,480 --> 00:33:22,600
Speaker 2: on my lap in the photo and I remember saying

679
00:33:22,640 --> 00:33:25,720
Speaker 2: to my husband, well, he had sort of indicated he

680
00:33:25,720 --> 00:33:28,280
Speaker 2: didn't want her in the magazine, and I said, I

681
00:33:28,320 --> 00:33:30,760
Speaker 2: really want her in the magazine because if Mum reads

682
00:33:30,800 --> 00:33:34,080
Speaker 2: it and she sees that she's a grandmother, I just

683
00:33:34,120 --> 00:33:37,440
Speaker 2: wanted her to see And so that was quite stressful.

684
00:33:38,200 --> 00:33:40,240
Speaker 2: So I had done that little bit of media, that

685
00:33:40,320 --> 00:33:42,640
Speaker 2: was it, and nothing came of it. I didn't hear anything.

686
00:33:43,000 --> 00:33:44,880
Speaker 2: Salvation Amy came back to me about a month later

687
00:33:44,880 --> 00:33:47,800
Speaker 2: and said, look, we haven't heard anything. We're really sorry.

688
00:33:48,800 --> 00:33:52,760
Speaker 2: And then it was two thousand and seven, as I said,

689
00:33:53,480 --> 00:33:56,080
Speaker 2: I've got my girlfriend Nina looking after the kids while

690
00:33:56,080 --> 00:33:58,480
Speaker 2: I jump on the phone to the AFP Missing Person's

691
00:33:58,560 --> 00:34:00,360
Speaker 2: Unit because I thought, I'm going to go to them.

692
00:34:00,400 --> 00:34:02,040
Speaker 2: They're the top dogs. Let me go to them and

693
00:34:02,080 --> 00:34:03,880
Speaker 2: see what they can do to help me, because I

694
00:34:03,960 --> 00:34:07,800
Speaker 2: really just had nothing. And anyway, I spoke to a

695
00:34:07,800 --> 00:34:12,440
Speaker 2: really beautiful lady named Rebecca cotts Beck since passed, but

696
00:34:12,520 --> 00:34:16,120
Speaker 2: we became really good friends and she we spoke for

697
00:34:16,120 --> 00:34:19,279
Speaker 2: probably two hours in that initial conversation, and then she

698
00:34:19,440 --> 00:34:21,799
Speaker 2: rang me back and asked me if I would be

699
00:34:21,840 --> 00:34:24,240
Speaker 2: the face of Missing Persons Week.

700
00:34:24,440 --> 00:34:26,320
Speaker 1: They I remember when they were doing.

701
00:34:26,120 --> 00:34:29,520
Speaker 2: That, and so that's like middle like first week of August,

702
00:34:30,040 --> 00:34:31,839
Speaker 2: and I said, well, I would love to. She said, look,

703
00:34:31,840 --> 00:34:33,360
Speaker 2: I think it'd be really great opportunity for you to

704
00:34:33,400 --> 00:34:35,800
Speaker 2: get your story out there. You've kept such great records

705
00:34:35,800 --> 00:34:38,759
Speaker 2: of everything. I think it'd be really really good. So

706
00:34:39,160 --> 00:34:41,560
Speaker 2: I started prepping myself. I was doing lots of writing

707
00:34:41,640 --> 00:34:45,239
Speaker 2: and lots of conversations and dragging myself back through it,

708
00:34:45,280 --> 00:34:46,680
Speaker 2: which is probably not the best thing to do when

709
00:34:46,680 --> 00:34:50,640
Speaker 2: you're pregnant. But we got to the end. I had

710
00:34:50,640 --> 00:34:54,560
Speaker 2: my third cesarean, and she told me that I need

711
00:34:54,600 --> 00:34:56,560
Speaker 2: to prepare myself because they're going to bounce me around

712
00:34:56,600 --> 00:34:58,840
Speaker 2: from state to state to do all these interviews in

713
00:34:58,920 --> 00:35:01,479
Speaker 2: that week. And so I there storing my breast milk.

714
00:35:01,520 --> 00:35:03,279
Speaker 2: Sorry Gary with.

715
00:35:03,800 --> 00:35:05,640
Speaker 1: Her worse on I catch kill us, but go on.

716
00:35:05,960 --> 00:35:07,680
Speaker 2: And we're just so I can my husband can come,

717
00:35:07,760 --> 00:35:09,479
Speaker 2: he can take time off work to feed the baby

718
00:35:09,520 --> 00:35:11,040
Speaker 2: because I'm going to have a brand new baby. I've

719
00:35:11,080 --> 00:35:13,920
Speaker 2: got two toddlers. Blah blah blah. Anyway, she calls me

720
00:35:14,920 --> 00:35:16,799
Speaker 2: a couple of days before and says they've pulled you.

721
00:35:17,520 --> 00:35:20,000
Speaker 2: I'm really sorry. I said, what do you mean they've

722
00:35:20,040 --> 00:35:24,240
Speaker 2: pulled me? She said, oh, it's apparently about missing persons

723
00:35:24,239 --> 00:35:26,759
Speaker 2: with mental health this year, and your mum didn't have

724
00:35:26,800 --> 00:35:29,799
Speaker 2: mental health, so they said they can't use you. He said, look,

725
00:35:29,800 --> 00:35:31,760
Speaker 2: we've already got your tickets for the plane and everything's

726
00:35:31,760 --> 00:35:35,560
Speaker 2: still come down. I remember it really well, actually, because

727
00:35:35,600 --> 00:35:37,919
Speaker 2: Kevin Rudd was sitting in front of us on the plane,

728
00:35:38,000 --> 00:35:40,240
Speaker 2: and we got to Camber on a little buzzy plane

729
00:35:40,280 --> 00:35:44,080
Speaker 2: and sat in the audience, and you know, I walked

730
00:35:44,120 --> 00:35:47,040
Speaker 2: out of there and the police commissioner was outside, and

731
00:35:47,080 --> 00:35:49,239
Speaker 2: Rebecca actually introduced me to him, and he came up

732
00:35:49,280 --> 00:35:52,600
Speaker 2: to me and he said, oh, well, Sally, my brother's missing.

733
00:35:52,760 --> 00:35:54,799
Speaker 2: I don't know where he is. And sometimes that's just

734
00:35:54,840 --> 00:35:56,839
Speaker 2: how people are, you know, people will have the right

735
00:35:56,920 --> 00:35:59,520
Speaker 2: to be missing. And then he I don't know. The

736
00:35:59,560 --> 00:36:01,640
Speaker 2: conversation she kept going. He goes, well, my mum knows

737
00:36:01,640 --> 00:36:03,279
Speaker 2: where he is, but we don't know where he is.

738
00:36:03,320 --> 00:36:06,560
Speaker 2: He's missing to us. So anyway, that was a really

739
00:36:06,600 --> 00:36:08,879
Speaker 2: rough time of life, right, that was not fun. And

740
00:36:09,400 --> 00:36:12,280
Speaker 2: I guess for me, every time I go through those things,

741
00:36:12,320 --> 00:36:15,239
Speaker 2: it takes so much energy and so much effort, and

742
00:36:15,280 --> 00:36:17,880
Speaker 2: then I just come flat splat on the ground and

743
00:36:17,920 --> 00:36:20,279
Speaker 2: I have to really suck myself back up and to

744
00:36:20,360 --> 00:36:23,040
Speaker 2: keep going again and go, Okay, what avenue can I

745
00:36:23,080 --> 00:36:27,439
Speaker 2: do next? So at that point it's interesting actually because

746
00:36:27,440 --> 00:36:31,240
Speaker 2: in the inquest, when you do actually get information from

747
00:36:31,280 --> 00:36:33,959
Speaker 2: the brief of evidence, we can actually see that after

748
00:36:34,040 --> 00:36:38,080
Speaker 2: Rebecca Cott's rings Missing Persons New South Wales and asks

749
00:36:38,080 --> 00:36:41,160
Speaker 2: for Mom's file so that they can put her on

750
00:36:41,680 --> 00:36:44,319
Speaker 2: as the head of the face of missing persons. That year,

751
00:36:45,520 --> 00:36:48,600
Speaker 2: there's a very quick change on the cops event from

752
00:36:48,600 --> 00:36:50,400
Speaker 2: occurrence only to missing.

753
00:36:51,640 --> 00:36:56,920
Speaker 1: What I okay, just pure coincidence, you think.

754
00:36:57,160 --> 00:36:59,400
Speaker 2: Apparently, So they were asked about it at the inquest

755
00:36:59,440 --> 00:37:01,879
Speaker 2: and it was like, I know that there's nothing in that.

756
00:37:01,920 --> 00:37:04,040
Speaker 2: It was just happened to be exactly the same time.

757
00:37:04,120 --> 00:37:06,440
Speaker 1: Ten years later they've decided to change it. Yeah, and

758
00:37:06,480 --> 00:37:07,840
Speaker 1: that current's only to missing.

759
00:37:08,000 --> 00:37:10,320
Speaker 2: And that was the first time because I.

760
00:37:10,200 --> 00:37:13,839
Speaker 1: Was really I couldn't quite work out what the thing

761
00:37:14,120 --> 00:37:17,640
Speaker 1: was that changed it from occurrence to missing. But you've

762
00:37:17,680 --> 00:37:20,320
Speaker 1: just explained it very well. And I call me snical,

763
00:37:20,400 --> 00:37:23,839
Speaker 1: but a coincidence, no, I think an inquiry has been

764
00:37:23,920 --> 00:37:27,719
Speaker 1: made by AFP police have looked at that. New South

765
00:37:27,719 --> 00:37:29,520
Speaker 1: Wales police have looked at it and gone, oh, we

766
00:37:29,640 --> 00:37:31,080
Speaker 1: better tidy this one.

767
00:37:31,120 --> 00:37:34,080
Speaker 2: She's not actually a missing person to us. And so

768
00:37:34,160 --> 00:37:36,440
Speaker 2: that was the first time she'd been put onto missing

769
00:37:36,440 --> 00:37:40,360
Speaker 2: persons list, but it was only New South Wales. Then

770
00:37:40,880 --> 00:37:43,839
Speaker 2: this is two thousand and seven. So then in two

771
00:37:43,840 --> 00:37:46,799
Speaker 2: thousand and nine I get an oyc, so I offer

772
00:37:46,840 --> 00:37:49,480
Speaker 2: us in charge, which is the first time I had

773
00:37:49,480 --> 00:37:52,080
Speaker 2: actually had that. There'd been a couple of come in

774
00:37:52,120 --> 00:37:53,960
Speaker 2: and float in and out, and I remember a few

775
00:37:53,960 --> 00:37:56,560
Speaker 2: of their names, but I don't really have any real

776
00:37:56,640 --> 00:38:00,360
Speaker 2: depth of conversation with any of them. Gary Sheen became

777
00:38:00,440 --> 00:38:01,919
Speaker 2: the oh I see on the case, and I did

778
00:38:01,960 --> 00:38:03,239
Speaker 2: have a lot to do with him. We spoke a

779
00:38:03,280 --> 00:38:05,799
Speaker 2: lot on the phone. He was interested, He sat down.

780
00:38:05,840 --> 00:38:08,080
Speaker 2: He wanted to know everything about the case, everything we

781
00:38:08,080 --> 00:38:11,239
Speaker 2: were up to. He did some digging. He found that

782
00:38:11,280 --> 00:38:15,120
Speaker 2: there'd been an Armadale crime stoppers call come into Armidale

783
00:38:15,160 --> 00:38:18,040
Speaker 2: saying that my mum's body was buried in Armidale. So

784
00:38:18,160 --> 00:38:21,200
Speaker 2: he organized and got approval to go out with some

785
00:38:21,239 --> 00:38:24,520
Speaker 2: Cadava dogs. But it was like so many years before,

786
00:38:24,960 --> 00:38:28,719
Speaker 2: so those sorts of things started to come in about.

787
00:38:29,120 --> 00:38:34,399
Speaker 2: He then told me that he'd found a I don't

788
00:38:34,440 --> 00:38:36,560
Speaker 2: know what you call it now, my brain's not working,

789
00:38:36,600 --> 00:38:40,799
Speaker 2: but there'd been a ping on her Medicare card to

790
00:38:40,800 --> 00:38:45,919
Speaker 2: get used in Grafton. So but the problem there, which

791
00:38:45,960 --> 00:38:47,840
Speaker 2: was a pretty big problem, they were looking for a

792
00:38:47,880 --> 00:38:51,000
Speaker 2: doctor and so all this flurry about trying to find

793
00:38:51,000 --> 00:38:53,160
Speaker 2: the doctor surgery and trying to find doctors who were

794
00:38:53,200 --> 00:38:55,960
Speaker 2: working back in nineteen ointy seven to see who it was.

795
00:38:56,440 --> 00:38:58,120
Speaker 2: And in actual fact we had the name.

796
00:38:58,480 --> 00:39:00,239
Speaker 1: So when was the ping on the Medicare card.

797
00:39:00,320 --> 00:39:04,160
Speaker 2: So the thirteenth of August in ninety seven, ninety seven, Okay, right,

798
00:39:04,640 --> 00:39:08,360
Speaker 2: so the ping happens they're looking for a doctor. Turns

799
00:39:08,400 --> 00:39:13,480
Speaker 2: out fast forward to twenty twenty was actually an optometrist,

800
00:39:14,200 --> 00:39:17,880
Speaker 2: not a doctor, and he actually came as a witness, understand,

801
00:39:17,960 --> 00:39:20,120
Speaker 2: and he did say that she would have had to

802
00:39:20,160 --> 00:39:22,520
Speaker 2: fill in a new customer card which would have had

803
00:39:22,520 --> 00:39:24,200
Speaker 2: an address on it and a phone number on it.

804
00:39:24,440 --> 00:39:27,760
Speaker 2: And if you think about the facts, that's eleven days

805
00:39:27,800 --> 00:39:31,560
Speaker 2: after her pass what's come back into Australia. So we

806
00:39:31,640 --> 00:39:34,799
Speaker 2: really desperately wanted to find that card crucial because it

807
00:39:34,840 --> 00:39:36,560
Speaker 2: could have told us where she was or who she

808
00:39:36,640 --> 00:39:40,319
Speaker 2: was with at least. And yeah, they didn't find it

809
00:39:40,320 --> 00:39:41,800
Speaker 2: because they were looking for a doctor instead.

810
00:39:41,960 --> 00:39:45,200
Speaker 1: So the fact between ninety seven and two thousand and

811
00:39:45,239 --> 00:39:48,440
Speaker 1: seven there was no inquiries done, so there was no

812
00:39:48,960 --> 00:39:53,400
Speaker 1: looking whether she's accessed a bank account, any records in

813
00:39:53,440 --> 00:39:57,839
Speaker 1: regards to her a residential address, Medicare card that type

814
00:39:57,840 --> 00:40:01,239
Speaker 1: of thing, all the things that you would make inquiries

815
00:40:01,280 --> 00:40:04,319
Speaker 1: back then. And yeah, it's a lot easier now, or

816
00:40:04,320 --> 00:40:07,600
Speaker 1: it's harder now to disappear, but there was still a

817
00:40:07,640 --> 00:40:09,960
Speaker 1: lot of lines of inquiry that could have been covered

818
00:40:10,000 --> 00:40:13,760
Speaker 1: to find out where she was and if someone's writing

819
00:40:13,760 --> 00:40:16,800
Speaker 1: the report off that they've found her, if the report's

820
00:40:16,840 --> 00:40:20,920
Speaker 1: done properly, it should be where she's living, what her

821
00:40:20,920 --> 00:40:24,120
Speaker 1: circumstances are to write the report off. But there was

822
00:40:24,160 --> 00:40:25,000
Speaker 1: none of that, was it.

823
00:40:25,239 --> 00:40:28,799
Speaker 2: And well there's no documentation with New Southwest Police to

824
00:40:28,800 --> 00:40:31,319
Speaker 2: say that anyone rang me, so there's question in their

825
00:40:31,360 --> 00:40:33,680
Speaker 2: world as to do that phone call actually happened. And

826
00:40:33,719 --> 00:40:35,520
Speaker 2: I was like, well, it definitely happened, because that's what

827
00:40:35,640 --> 00:40:38,400
Speaker 2: started the ball rolling with my grandfather taking over and

828
00:40:38,400 --> 00:40:43,600
Speaker 2: going to the Salvation Army and yeah, so look, it

829
00:40:44,080 --> 00:40:47,200
Speaker 2: was a big fat mess, to be honest, and I

830
00:40:47,320 --> 00:40:50,839
Speaker 2: just honester goodness. I just thought by walking in there

831
00:40:50,880 --> 00:40:53,279
Speaker 2: and telling them I had concerns and walking away that

832
00:40:53,920 --> 00:40:55,879
Speaker 2: even though they said to me, oh, we've located her,

833
00:40:55,920 --> 00:40:57,799
Speaker 2: for some weird reason, in my head, I just thought

834
00:40:57,840 --> 00:41:01,799
Speaker 2: she'd still be, you know, in this system, and she

835
00:41:01,960 --> 00:41:02,560
Speaker 2: just wasn't.

836
00:41:03,120 --> 00:41:06,280
Speaker 1: And taking on face value what the police have told

837
00:41:06,320 --> 00:41:09,000
Speaker 1: you and that if they've located, they know where she

838
00:41:09,160 --> 00:41:13,120
Speaker 1: is or whatever. Okay, we're bringing it to two thousand

839
00:41:13,120 --> 00:41:15,680
Speaker 1: and seven, and you've got an officer in charge who's

840
00:41:16,000 --> 00:41:19,879
Speaker 1: making inquiries, making inquiries about like when she came into

841
00:41:19,960 --> 00:41:22,880
Speaker 1: the country or the type of inquiries that could have

842
00:41:22,880 --> 00:41:24,000
Speaker 1: been done ten years before.

843
00:41:24,120 --> 00:41:26,320
Speaker 2: Two thousand and seven was when I went to the AFP,

844
00:41:26,440 --> 00:41:27,960
Speaker 2: and then it was two years after that that I

845
00:41:28,040 --> 00:41:29,759
Speaker 2: got the OIC. So I had like a bit of

846
00:41:29,760 --> 00:41:32,640
Speaker 2: a looking to nine. Now. Yeah, so there's a guy

847
00:41:33,280 --> 00:41:37,680
Speaker 2: Steve McAllister. He was actually working with Missing Persons Unit

848
00:41:37,719 --> 00:41:40,080
Speaker 2: at that time and he was president at the inquest

849
00:41:40,080 --> 00:41:42,680
Speaker 2: as well, and gave evidence and he remembered my mom's

850
00:41:42,680 --> 00:41:44,560
Speaker 2: case and he said I remember because I was a

851
00:41:44,560 --> 00:41:47,160
Speaker 2: big soccer fan and Marian was married to Johnny Warren.

852
00:41:48,560 --> 00:41:51,200
Speaker 1: Another side issue, Johnny Warren for people that don't know

853
00:41:51,320 --> 00:41:53,279
Speaker 1: who's a hero of mine, Captain soccer roop.

854
00:41:53,880 --> 00:41:56,240
Speaker 2: I still people cry when I go, oh, yeah, Johnny

855
00:41:56,360 --> 00:41:58,400
Speaker 2: was married to my mum. They go there he was not.

856
00:41:58,800 --> 00:42:01,440
Speaker 2: I go, yeah he was. I've met him. He actually

857
00:42:01,440 --> 00:42:03,000
Speaker 2: taught me how to play soccer a little bit when

858
00:42:03,000 --> 00:42:03,520
Speaker 2: I was little.

859
00:42:03,560 --> 00:42:05,080
Speaker 1: So that's pretty cool.

860
00:42:05,160 --> 00:42:05,959
Speaker 2: Yeah, it is cool.

861
00:42:06,000 --> 00:42:08,480
Speaker 1: But okay, so that is something that yeah, because it

862
00:42:08,640 --> 00:42:12,040
Speaker 1: was such a high profile. So people understand that when

863
00:42:12,080 --> 00:42:13,759
Speaker 1: they got Johnny Warret.

864
00:42:13,400 --> 00:42:15,040
Speaker 2: And when they got married, they were front page of

865
00:42:15,040 --> 00:42:17,080
Speaker 2: the newspaper. So mum was right in the thick of

866
00:42:17,120 --> 00:42:20,000
Speaker 2: it when john was at his best, you know, captain

867
00:42:20,040 --> 00:42:23,080
Speaker 2: of the soccer whose captain of his local team here

868
00:42:23,080 --> 00:42:26,960
Speaker 2: in Sydney, and you know, doing really great things in

869
00:42:27,000 --> 00:42:32,040
Speaker 2: the world of soccer. And yeah, so anyway, so two

870
00:42:32,080 --> 00:42:34,400
Speaker 2: thousand and nine, we've got Gary on board. He's finding

871
00:42:34,440 --> 00:42:36,680
Speaker 2: all these things. So he'd found the medicare, he'd found

872
00:42:36,680 --> 00:42:39,880
Speaker 2: out about the crime Stoppers call. And then in twenty

873
00:42:39,960 --> 00:42:44,359
Speaker 2: eleven he spoke to Immigration in Brisbane and he got

874
00:42:44,360 --> 00:42:48,000
Speaker 2: a file that showed him that my mum's name had

875
00:42:48,000 --> 00:42:50,480
Speaker 2: been changed to Florabella Ramchel.

876
00:42:50,280 --> 00:42:52,000
Speaker 1: And that was only a matter of months before she

877
00:42:52,040 --> 00:42:53,800
Speaker 1: went overseas in ninety seven.

878
00:42:54,040 --> 00:42:57,520
Speaker 2: She changed it on the fifteenth of May nineteen ninety seven.

879
00:42:57,560 --> 00:42:59,799
Speaker 2: She left on the twenty second of May. Twenty second

880
00:42:59,800 --> 00:42:59,960
Speaker 2: to you.

881
00:43:00,320 --> 00:43:01,840
Speaker 1: So that's a bit of a headspin for you.

882
00:43:02,320 --> 00:43:04,760
Speaker 2: Well, and my birthday is the twelfth of May. Other's

883
00:43:04,840 --> 00:43:08,879
Speaker 2: day is always falls around my birthday. So it really

884
00:43:08,880 --> 00:43:10,799
Speaker 2: blew my mind. And this is a lot to deal

885
00:43:10,840 --> 00:43:13,640
Speaker 2: with from an emotional site it as well, because I'm thinking,

886
00:43:13,680 --> 00:43:15,399
Speaker 2: why did she not tell me? Well, I mean we

887
00:43:15,400 --> 00:43:17,360
Speaker 2: were pretty close. I moved up from Sydney to go

888
00:43:17,400 --> 00:43:20,719
Speaker 2: and live with my mum. I'd see her weekly, you know,

889
00:43:20,800 --> 00:43:22,680
Speaker 2: multiple times a week. She come and have dinner with

890
00:43:22,680 --> 00:43:26,640
Speaker 2: me every Thursday night where I worked. So twenty eleven

891
00:43:27,000 --> 00:43:32,640
Speaker 2: we find out about the name change. And I'm going

892
00:43:32,680 --> 00:43:37,840
Speaker 2: to fast forward here from this moment to twenty sixteen.

893
00:43:38,960 --> 00:43:42,160
Speaker 2: So twenty sixteen, I've got a lady who's following my

894
00:43:42,239 --> 00:43:45,560
Speaker 2: Facebook page. I set the Facebook page up in twenty thirteen.

895
00:43:46,400 --> 00:43:48,239
Speaker 2: I had less than a thousand followers on it. And

896
00:43:48,280 --> 00:43:50,080
Speaker 2: if you go back and read all the very beginning

897
00:43:50,080 --> 00:43:51,880
Speaker 2: of that, I was close to giving up, and then

898
00:43:51,920 --> 00:43:53,719
Speaker 2: i'd come back again. I'd close to giving up, and

899
00:43:53,760 --> 00:43:56,360
Speaker 2: it was just such a roller coaster ride of crazy.

900
00:43:56,960 --> 00:43:58,879
Speaker 2: And she contacted me and she said, look, Sally, I've

901
00:43:58,920 --> 00:44:02,360
Speaker 2: just gone on to the National Missing Person's Register and

902
00:44:02,520 --> 00:44:06,359
Speaker 2: your Mum's not on there. And so I thought that's

903
00:44:06,360 --> 00:44:08,399
Speaker 2: so weird. So I had a look, wasn't on there?

904
00:44:08,440 --> 00:44:11,759
Speaker 2: So I rang my friend Rebecca Cotts again. I said, hey, Beck,

905
00:44:11,840 --> 00:44:13,760
Speaker 2: I've just had a lady contact me. And she said

906
00:44:13,880 --> 00:44:16,160
Speaker 2: that mum's name's not on the missing person's register. I

907
00:44:16,200 --> 00:44:18,960
Speaker 2: can't see it either. Can you have a look. And

908
00:44:19,000 --> 00:44:22,160
Speaker 2: she said she has a look, and she says, oh, well,

909
00:44:22,239 --> 00:44:24,560
Speaker 2: this actually something on the file that I haven't seen before.

910
00:44:25,239 --> 00:44:26,960
Speaker 2: I have to get approval to give it to you.

911
00:44:27,120 --> 00:44:29,160
Speaker 2: Let me go and do that and see what they say,

912
00:44:29,760 --> 00:44:31,439
Speaker 2: and I'll come back to you. So anyway, she comes

913
00:44:31,480 --> 00:44:33,239
Speaker 2: back to me and she said, I've got approval. I'm

914
00:44:33,239 --> 00:44:35,520
Speaker 2: going to send it to you. And it was a document,

915
00:44:35,960 --> 00:44:40,200
Speaker 2: so it's on AFP letterhead, but that document actually has

916
00:44:40,520 --> 00:44:44,719
Speaker 2: that on the seventh of December twenty eleven, my mum

917
00:44:44,920 --> 00:44:49,200
Speaker 2: was located, and on the eighth of November that year,

918
00:44:49,360 --> 00:44:53,120
Speaker 2: so a month before ish. The case had been suspended

919
00:44:54,200 --> 00:45:00,719
Speaker 2: on those dates again, eighth of November nineteen twenty and eleven,

920
00:45:01,360 --> 00:45:04,200
Speaker 2: and then she was located on the seventh of December

921
00:45:04,680 --> 00:45:08,360
Speaker 2: twenty eleven, and that I had been it says underneath it,

922
00:45:08,360 --> 00:45:10,880
Speaker 2: there's a notation that says that I had been notified

923
00:45:11,840 --> 00:45:12,680
Speaker 2: of that decision.

924
00:45:14,560 --> 00:45:18,160
Speaker 1: So I want to scream for you, how how do

925
00:45:18,239 --> 00:45:19,080
Speaker 1: you deal with that?

926
00:45:19,760 --> 00:45:24,520
Speaker 2: Not very well? Not very well. It's emotionally draining. And

927
00:45:24,560 --> 00:45:28,440
Speaker 2: so I jumped straight on the phone to Gary Sheen,

928
00:45:28,760 --> 00:45:34,080
Speaker 2: Oh I see, and said, I've just had something comes

929
00:45:34,080 --> 00:45:36,520
Speaker 2: through from Rebecca. I explained the situation and I said,

930
00:45:36,520 --> 00:45:40,239
Speaker 2: I've got this document in front of me and told him.

931
00:45:40,280 --> 00:45:41,680
Speaker 2: He said, can you read it to me? So I

932
00:45:41,719 --> 00:45:43,759
Speaker 2: read it to him and he said can you read

933
00:45:43,800 --> 00:45:49,040
Speaker 2: it again? I read it again, and he said, okay,

934
00:45:49,080 --> 00:45:50,920
Speaker 2: I'm going to make a call. I'm going to come

935
00:45:50,920 --> 00:45:54,200
Speaker 2: back to you. So he rang me back. I don't

936
00:45:54,200 --> 00:45:56,000
Speaker 2: remember if it was straight away all the day after,

937
00:45:56,160 --> 00:45:59,480
Speaker 2: but he did ring me back pretty quickly, and he said,

938
00:46:00,360 --> 00:46:07,400
Speaker 2: I've spoken to them and it seems it's a typo.

939
00:46:07,440 --> 00:46:08,040
Speaker 1: Who's them?

940
00:46:09,080 --> 00:46:11,239
Speaker 2: I couldn't even tell you. Actually, I don't know who.

941
00:46:11,360 --> 00:46:14,200
Speaker 2: I don't know who them is. But he said, I'm

942
00:46:14,239 --> 00:46:16,239
Speaker 2: going to ring them again. I'm going to have a

943
00:46:16,280 --> 00:46:19,080
Speaker 2: deeper chat about it and see what's happening. So anyway, so.

944
00:46:19,200 --> 00:46:22,320
Speaker 1: A type that's a long typo that someone's been located,

945
00:46:22,360 --> 00:46:25,520
Speaker 1: that was on missing persons and located. That's more than

946
00:46:25,520 --> 00:46:25,920
Speaker 1: the typo.

947
00:46:26,080 --> 00:46:29,120
Speaker 2: I would suggest the fact that I actually couldn't cope

948
00:46:29,120 --> 00:46:30,920
Speaker 2: with the fact that they said, okay, well they suspended

949
00:46:30,960 --> 00:46:34,400
Speaker 2: it on the eighth of November. But you're even telling

950
00:46:34,440 --> 00:46:36,800
Speaker 2: me that you told me on the seventh of December.

951
00:46:37,200 --> 00:46:39,600
Speaker 2: You didn't tell me anything. I've never heard that information,

952
00:46:39,840 --> 00:46:43,560
Speaker 2: hence the shock value of it. But I was like

953
00:46:43,600 --> 00:46:47,320
Speaker 2: a month like that's anyway. It was just a yeah again,

954
00:46:47,400 --> 00:46:50,120
Speaker 2: mind blowing. And he did ring me back and he said,

955
00:46:50,120 --> 00:46:53,960
Speaker 2: I've spoken to them, And how it works is we've

956
00:46:54,000 --> 00:46:56,600
Speaker 2: got two boxes, so you're either missing or you're found.

957
00:46:57,400 --> 00:46:59,800
Speaker 2: And because we deem that your mother is missing because

958
00:46:59,840 --> 00:47:01,560
Speaker 2: she sold her house, she quit her job, and she

959
00:47:01,680 --> 00:47:04,440
Speaker 2: changed her name, we have no choice but to marko

960
00:47:04,600 --> 00:47:05,160
Speaker 2: is located.

961
00:47:06,560 --> 00:47:08,680
Speaker 1: Is that a computer telling them that?

962
00:47:09,120 --> 00:47:10,759
Speaker 2: And I just came back and I said, well, maybe

963
00:47:10,800 --> 00:47:13,480
Speaker 2: you need a third box, you know, like maybe we

964
00:47:13,520 --> 00:47:15,800
Speaker 2: need that box in the middle. And the thing that

965
00:47:15,880 --> 00:47:17,879
Speaker 2: upsets me a lot about my mum's case is all

966
00:47:17,920 --> 00:47:21,560
Speaker 2: the assumptions they're assuming that because she sold her house,

967
00:47:21,560 --> 00:47:24,680
Speaker 2: and they're assuming because she changed her name and that

968
00:47:25,000 --> 00:47:28,600
Speaker 2: she went overseas that she wanted to go missing. That's

969
00:47:28,600 --> 00:47:31,080
Speaker 2: a massive assumption to make on someone that you don't know.

970
00:47:31,520 --> 00:47:35,839
Speaker 1: Sally, I make I'll make the assumption. If we're talking assumptions,

971
00:47:35,840 --> 00:47:39,000
Speaker 1: it looks like every assumption that was made was to

972
00:47:39,000 --> 00:47:42,360
Speaker 1: reduce the work to get your mum off the missing

973
00:47:42,400 --> 00:47:46,120
Speaker 1: persons not having to do inquiries that possibly should have

974
00:47:46,160 --> 00:47:50,200
Speaker 1: been done. And I'm not about beating up on individual

975
00:47:50,200 --> 00:47:53,759
Speaker 1: police or it's an organizational problem. There's a problem when

976
00:47:53,760 --> 00:47:57,320
Speaker 1: this type of thing happens and you've carried the weight

977
00:47:57,440 --> 00:48:01,239
Speaker 1: of these mistakes being made. But you're either the most

978
00:48:01,320 --> 00:48:06,600
Speaker 1: unluckiest person in the world or these things. So, Okay,

979
00:48:07,680 --> 00:48:10,279
Speaker 1: you found out now that your mum's not missing, that

980
00:48:11,600 --> 00:48:14,319
Speaker 1: she's Yeah, so you go through life thinking, oh, well,

981
00:48:14,320 --> 00:48:16,440
Speaker 1: she's not missing. My mother just doesn't want to talk

982
00:48:16,480 --> 00:48:18,040
Speaker 1: to me. And my mother that I was close with

983
00:48:18,080 --> 00:48:20,400
Speaker 1: my whole life just doesn't want to talk to me.

984
00:48:21,239 --> 00:48:24,320
Speaker 1: Where does it ramp up again to become a missing

985
00:48:24,360 --> 00:48:28,160
Speaker 1: person's well, because when you receive that, do you just go, well,

986
00:48:29,120 --> 00:48:31,520
Speaker 1: am I just banging my head against the brick wall?

987
00:48:31,760 --> 00:48:32,600
Speaker 1: What am I meant to do?

988
00:48:32,600 --> 00:48:35,360
Speaker 2: Do? I? Yeah, one hundred percent, you do? And I

989
00:48:35,400 --> 00:48:40,640
Speaker 2: think for me that was that lady contacting me through

990
00:48:40,640 --> 00:48:43,880
Speaker 2: my Facebook page was early twenty sixteen, and then the

991
00:48:44,000 --> 00:48:46,359
Speaker 2: language that I was getting for the remainder of that

992
00:48:46,480 --> 00:48:50,279
Speaker 2: time from police was my hands are tied. I am

993
00:48:50,360 --> 00:48:53,480
Speaker 2: doing this in my spare time, so I'm madly trying

994
00:48:53,520 --> 00:48:56,239
Speaker 2: to shoot ideas, like you know, okay, well, why don't

995
00:48:56,239 --> 00:48:58,600
Speaker 2: we check did she do a tax return? Like she's

996
00:48:58,600 --> 00:49:01,040
Speaker 2: come back in on the second of August, she's left

997
00:49:01,080 --> 00:49:04,000
Speaker 2: before the end, before end of financial year. Maybe if

998
00:49:04,000 --> 00:49:06,000
Speaker 2: she's come back, and if money is such a drive,

999
00:49:06,480 --> 00:49:08,680
Speaker 2: thinking that she's going to the bank every day for

1000
00:49:08,719 --> 00:49:10,480
Speaker 2: three and a half weeks to take out five thousand

1001
00:49:10,520 --> 00:49:13,680
Speaker 2: dollars every day, Clearly she wants money if it's her,

1002
00:49:13,880 --> 00:49:17,000
Speaker 2: so she might have been entitled to a tax returns,

1003
00:49:17,040 --> 00:49:19,960
Speaker 2: so therefore she might have done that. Can we check

1004
00:49:19,960 --> 00:49:24,440
Speaker 2: if she's touched her superannuation? Can we get the passenger list?

1005
00:49:24,480 --> 00:49:25,920
Speaker 2: I was thinking of all the things I couldn't do

1006
00:49:26,000 --> 00:49:29,120
Speaker 2: because I was bound by privacy, right, so her privacy

1007
00:49:29,160 --> 00:49:33,440
Speaker 2: madded my hopes to find my mother. Clearly didn't it.

1008
00:49:34,920 --> 00:49:37,360
Speaker 2: So I was giving him and feeding him all these ideas,

1009
00:49:37,560 --> 00:49:41,120
Speaker 2: and he wouldn't tell me much about what he'd found,

1010
00:49:41,239 --> 00:49:43,440
Speaker 2: or he's like, what I've heard was that he couldn't

1011
00:49:43,480 --> 00:49:47,200
Speaker 2: access ATO. The only people that can access ATO, sorry,

1012
00:49:47,239 --> 00:49:50,960
Speaker 2: the police can only access ato information if the person's

1013
00:49:51,000 --> 00:49:54,880
Speaker 2: in jail or in prison. He couldn't access it. So

1014
00:49:54,920 --> 00:49:56,520
Speaker 2: that was one part of it, and we had to

1015
00:49:56,560 --> 00:49:59,880
Speaker 2: wait to see if the coroner could access that information.

1016
00:50:00,440 --> 00:50:04,879
Speaker 2: Then he told me he'd looked at the passenger list,

1017
00:50:04,920 --> 00:50:07,680
Speaker 2: but there was nothing that stood out, and he told

1018
00:50:07,680 --> 00:50:10,080
Speaker 2: me that she hadn't touched a super and that was

1019
00:50:10,600 --> 00:50:15,719
Speaker 2: probably about it. And then so that's twenty sixteen. We

1020
00:50:15,880 --> 00:50:18,279
Speaker 2: just sort of plodding along again and I'm sort of

1021
00:50:18,320 --> 00:50:21,120
Speaker 2: tapping away on Facebook and I'm trying to get some people,

1022
00:50:21,160 --> 00:50:22,960
Speaker 2: you know, do you know anything? And can you share

1023
00:50:22,960 --> 00:50:28,439
Speaker 2: my story please? Someone knows something. Again, very stressful time

1024
00:50:28,480 --> 00:50:32,040
Speaker 2: of life, busy with three children who are now teenagers

1025
00:50:32,080 --> 00:50:34,200
Speaker 2: and going into high school, and you know, trying to

1026
00:50:34,200 --> 00:50:37,200
Speaker 2: manage life as well and not rocking myself in the

1027
00:50:37,239 --> 00:50:40,480
Speaker 2: corner because I think for me at the very beginning,

1028
00:50:40,680 --> 00:50:44,719
Speaker 2: I remember watching a story on missing persons very early on,

1029
00:50:44,800 --> 00:50:49,040
Speaker 2: and there was two women and one of their sons

1030
00:50:49,600 --> 00:50:52,399
Speaker 2: and the little boy just kept crying the entire time

1031
00:50:52,440 --> 00:50:55,319
Speaker 2: on the show, and I just, for me, I just

1032
00:50:55,360 --> 00:50:57,640
Speaker 2: didn't want my kids to have to live that, and

1033
00:50:57,680 --> 00:50:59,640
Speaker 2: I didn't want I just wanted to be strong, and

1034
00:50:59,680 --> 00:51:02,000
Speaker 2: I just wanted to be a person to go, you

1035
00:51:02,040 --> 00:51:04,880
Speaker 2: know what, my mum matters. She's your grandmother. I know

1036
00:51:04,960 --> 00:51:06,960
Speaker 2: you've never met her before, but it's really important that

1037
00:51:07,000 --> 00:51:09,000
Speaker 2: we do the right thing for everybody. I want everyone

1038
00:51:09,000 --> 00:51:12,360
Speaker 2: to know what's happened to her. And I was still

1039
00:51:12,800 --> 00:51:15,000
Speaker 2: probably by that point, I was starting to believe that

1040
00:51:15,040 --> 00:51:18,240
Speaker 2: maybe she wasn't alive because I didn't just didn't believe.

1041
00:51:18,320 --> 00:51:20,320
Speaker 2: I didn't believe she wouldn't turn up for Owen's funeral.

1042
00:51:20,400 --> 00:51:22,120
Speaker 2: I didn't believe she wouldn't turn up for my wedding

1043
00:51:22,200 --> 00:51:24,600
Speaker 2: when I had kids, like all these big key moments

1044
00:51:24,600 --> 00:51:28,480
Speaker 2: in life that she wasn't there for. So we sort

1045
00:51:28,480 --> 00:51:33,000
Speaker 2: of plotted along from twenty sixteen up until twenty nineteen. Well,

1046
00:51:33,040 --> 00:51:37,560
Speaker 2: actually that's the end of twenty eighteen, and that's when Alison,

1047
00:51:37,640 --> 00:51:40,480
Speaker 2: Sandy and I were put in touch with each other.

1048
00:51:40,600 --> 00:51:44,000
Speaker 2: And Allison works for Channel seven and a friend of

1049
00:51:44,040 --> 00:51:46,759
Speaker 2: hers had sort of wrung me, who knew from a

1050
00:51:46,800 --> 00:51:48,480
Speaker 2: parent of school, saying, you know, if I could get

1051
00:51:48,520 --> 00:51:51,200
Speaker 2: you onto sixty minutes or Sunday night program, would you

1052
00:51:51,200 --> 00:51:54,040
Speaker 2: be interested? And I said, absolutely I would. My grandmother,

1053
00:51:54,160 --> 00:51:57,200
Speaker 2: So my mom's mum was living by herself in her

1054
00:51:57,280 --> 00:52:01,120
Speaker 2: beachfront property up and the Sunshine Coast, and she never

1055
00:52:01,160 --> 00:52:04,319
Speaker 2: spoke about it, like we did not talk about my mum,

1056
00:52:04,440 --> 00:52:06,080
Speaker 2: and I didn't want to upset her. When I did

1057
00:52:06,080 --> 00:52:09,280
Speaker 2: that Woman's Day article way back, I got into trouble.

1058
00:52:09,440 --> 00:52:10,680
Speaker 2: You know, you didn't tell us you were doing it,

1059
00:52:10,680 --> 00:52:12,080
Speaker 2: and I was like, well, no one ever asked me

1060
00:52:12,160 --> 00:52:13,560
Speaker 2: what I'm doing. I don't want to. I don't know

1061
00:52:13,560 --> 00:52:14,800
Speaker 2: how to bring it up with you guys, because you

1062
00:52:14,800 --> 00:52:17,360
Speaker 2: don't want to talk about it. So I wasn't prepared

1063
00:52:17,400 --> 00:52:18,920
Speaker 2: to do anything. And the irony of that is, as

1064
00:52:18,960 --> 00:52:21,600
Speaker 2: soon as she passed away, I said to my kids

1065
00:52:21,600 --> 00:52:23,880
Speaker 2: and my husband, I'm going to approach sixty minutes and

1066
00:52:23,920 --> 00:52:25,759
Speaker 2: see if they would like to do a story on it,

1067
00:52:25,760 --> 00:52:28,560
Speaker 2: because someone knows something. And so I wrote to them

1068
00:52:28,560 --> 00:52:30,840
Speaker 2: probably five or six times, and they didn't respond to

1069
00:52:30,880 --> 00:52:33,520
Speaker 2: me at all, and I just thought, I'm just another

1070
00:52:33,560 --> 00:52:36,719
Speaker 2: missing person story that no one's really interested in. And

1071
00:52:36,800 --> 00:52:39,000
Speaker 2: I met Alison. We went out for a coffee and

1072
00:52:39,120 --> 00:52:41,920
Speaker 2: we pretty quickly decided then that the amount of information

1073
00:52:42,040 --> 00:52:44,200
Speaker 2: I had and the details that we were working with

1074
00:52:44,320 --> 00:52:47,080
Speaker 2: and there was more investigation that we could have done

1075
00:52:47,120 --> 00:52:51,120
Speaker 2: on the name, we decided to do a podcast. Okay,

1076
00:52:51,200 --> 00:52:53,560
Speaker 2: So the podcast launched on the first of.

1077
00:52:53,520 --> 00:52:56,040
Speaker 1: April and the name of the podcast, The.

1078
00:52:56,080 --> 00:52:59,959
Speaker 2: Lady vanishes, and so the ball sort of started rolling again.

1079
00:53:03,200 --> 00:53:06,239
Speaker 1: And I see there in twenty eighteen reference to a

1080
00:53:06,400 --> 00:53:12,080
Speaker 1: ministerial file, So whether a leather was fired off to politicians?

1081
00:53:12,280 --> 00:53:13,359
Speaker 1: Did that occur as well?

1082
00:53:13,480 --> 00:53:15,880
Speaker 2: Well, I didn't really know too much about that. I

1083
00:53:15,960 --> 00:53:18,520
Speaker 2: knew that that was something that Gary was looking into,

1084
00:53:19,800 --> 00:53:22,160
Speaker 2: and he was cranky about it. He said, if this

1085
00:53:22,280 --> 00:53:24,520
Speaker 2: is going down a rabbit hole, that's not true. I

1086
00:53:24,600 --> 00:53:26,759
Speaker 2: remember him saying that to me. But I didn't really

1087
00:53:26,800 --> 00:53:28,680
Speaker 2: know what was going on because they weren't talking to me.

1088
00:53:28,719 --> 00:53:31,439
Speaker 2: They weren't communicating what it was exactly for me. So

1089
00:53:32,600 --> 00:53:34,640
Speaker 2: I was left in the dark with that information and

1090
00:53:34,680 --> 00:53:37,920
Speaker 2: I don't believe it when anywhere. So I'm a bit

1091
00:53:38,000 --> 00:53:41,160
Speaker 2: still gray in what actually was going on with that.

1092
00:53:41,719 --> 00:53:48,280
Speaker 2: But at that point we launched the podcast first of April,

1093
00:53:48,840 --> 00:53:51,400
Speaker 2: we sort of put a call out. I guess Joni

1094
00:53:51,480 --> 00:53:55,960
Speaker 2: who you'll hear about soon enough, Johnie Cokondos. She's researcher

1095
00:53:56,080 --> 00:53:59,160
Speaker 2: who has been helping me for in our six years

1096
00:54:00,000 --> 00:54:03,040
Speaker 2: and she was listening to the Lady Vanisher's. She's an

1097
00:54:03,080 --> 00:54:05,839
Speaker 2: avid listener of true crime. She's been listening for twenty years.

1098
00:54:06,280 --> 00:54:08,680
Speaker 2: And she said, the difference between you, Sal and other

1099
00:54:08,719 --> 00:54:12,120
Speaker 2: podcasts I've heard before was you actually asking for people

1100
00:54:12,160 --> 00:54:14,279
Speaker 2: to help. And so when I heard that, I just

1101
00:54:14,360 --> 00:54:16,120
Speaker 2: thought I might just sit down and have a bit

1102
00:54:16,160 --> 00:54:19,560
Speaker 2: of a play. And I was playing with the name

1103
00:54:19,640 --> 00:54:22,920
Speaker 2: Ramckurl because when she looked into it, there was no

1104
00:54:23,160 --> 00:54:26,960
Speaker 2: Ramackeurls in Australia except for my mum. And we were like, oh,

1105
00:54:27,040 --> 00:54:29,160
Speaker 2: this is a pretty rare name. Turns out there's only

1106
00:54:29,160 --> 00:54:31,879
Speaker 2: one hundred and one Ramic Curls in the world. Put

1107
00:54:31,920 --> 00:54:35,799
Speaker 2: into perspective, so no Jane does or you know Jane

1108
00:54:35,880 --> 00:54:40,040
Speaker 2: Smith or anything. It's a very rare name. And she

1109
00:54:40,360 --> 00:54:45,400
Speaker 2: herself her husband's grandmother went missing or great grandmother went missing,

1110
00:54:45,440 --> 00:54:48,200
Speaker 2: and she and the family had worked for fifteen years

1111
00:54:48,200 --> 00:54:50,359
Speaker 2: to try and find her, and they actually did find her,

1112
00:54:51,320 --> 00:54:53,920
Speaker 2: and what had happened to her. She'd been deceased, but

1113
00:54:54,600 --> 00:54:56,280
Speaker 2: they did find her. And she just thought to herself,

1114
00:54:56,360 --> 00:54:59,200
Speaker 2: I've got these tools here that potentially I can help Sally.

1115
00:54:59,239 --> 00:55:00,719
Speaker 2: I'll just have a bit of a play around and

1116
00:55:00,760 --> 00:55:03,319
Speaker 2: see what I find. She was sick, she had the flu,

1117
00:55:03,800 --> 00:55:06,040
Speaker 2: and she was up at midnight and she punched it

1118
00:55:06,080 --> 00:55:10,160
Speaker 2: in and this ad binged up on her screen. She's

1119
00:55:10,200 --> 00:55:12,520
Speaker 2: so excited she jumped ran and jumped in on her husband.

1120
00:55:12,600 --> 00:55:14,680
Speaker 2: She said in Oh my god, I found something. I

1121
00:55:14,680 --> 00:55:17,560
Speaker 2: found something. And so that ad was in the La

1122
00:55:17,640 --> 00:55:20,799
Speaker 2: Courier Australian. It's a French speaking newspaper that runs out

1123
00:55:20,800 --> 00:55:25,240
Speaker 2: of Sydney, and it was a gentleman with the initial

1124
00:55:25,600 --> 00:55:29,440
Speaker 2: M and then f ramachel and it sort of just

1125
00:55:29,560 --> 00:55:33,759
Speaker 2: goes along, you know, single forty seven I think he

1126
00:55:33,880 --> 00:55:36,120
Speaker 2: I think it was he was forty seven. The ad

1127
00:55:36,160 --> 00:55:38,959
Speaker 2: was written in nineteen ninety four and it Stilla talks

1128
00:55:38,960 --> 00:55:43,759
Speaker 2: about his single, good looking, non smoker, non drinker, a

1129
00:55:43,800 --> 00:55:48,600
Speaker 2: polygue loot speaking multiple languages and bon chik boncha, which

1130
00:55:48,600 --> 00:55:50,400
Speaker 2: is like a term that he put in there, which

1131
00:55:50,440 --> 00:55:53,920
Speaker 2: we've found out means good taste, good style, and looking

1132
00:55:53,960 --> 00:55:56,839
Speaker 2: for a relationship, potential marriage. And it had a po

1133
00:55:56,960 --> 00:56:00,720
Speaker 2: box in Ballina, New South Wales with a phone.

1134
00:56:00,560 --> 00:56:03,880
Speaker 1: Number okay to keep our listeners on a song with it.

1135
00:56:04,320 --> 00:56:08,360
Speaker 1: You've got the surname, a unique surname. It's the same

1136
00:56:08,400 --> 00:56:12,520
Speaker 1: surname as your mother changed her name to correct. And

1137
00:56:12,600 --> 00:56:16,040
Speaker 1: there's an advertisement ninety four of a gentleman around your

1138
00:56:16,040 --> 00:56:20,680
Speaker 1: mother's age putting out interested in meeting someone.

1139
00:56:20,520 --> 00:56:25,040
Speaker 2: Correct and he's in Ballina. And for the geographical sense

1140
00:56:25,080 --> 00:56:27,839
Speaker 2: of of the exercise, my mum's money was coming out

1141
00:56:27,880 --> 00:56:31,440
Speaker 2: in Byron Bay. Ballina is the next town on northern

1142
00:56:31,440 --> 00:56:35,640
Speaker 2: New South Wales. So our heads were spinning at that point.

1143
00:56:36,640 --> 00:56:38,960
Speaker 2: We know that the police tried to find records of

1144
00:56:39,000 --> 00:56:41,120
Speaker 2: who owned that phone number back then, and they kept

1145
00:56:41,160 --> 00:56:43,879
Speaker 2: hitting brick walls, tell us you don't have records going

1146
00:56:43,920 --> 00:56:46,480
Speaker 2: that far back, and that was all legit like that

1147
00:56:46,640 --> 00:56:49,640
Speaker 2: was the case. But it actually took a gentleman who

1148
00:56:50,320 --> 00:56:52,560
Speaker 2: is a local. He'd listened to the lady Vanishes as well,

1149
00:56:52,600 --> 00:56:55,240
Speaker 2: and he just took himself down to the local library

1150
00:56:55,239 --> 00:56:58,800
Speaker 2: and hand scanned all the phone books at the time

1151
00:56:58,920 --> 00:57:01,560
Speaker 2: and then ran it through micro fish and he found

1152
00:57:01,600 --> 00:57:04,160
Speaker 2: the phone number and it was linked to a business

1153
00:57:04,200 --> 00:57:07,880
Speaker 2: called Baalana Coin Investments had the address of where the

1154
00:57:07,920 --> 00:57:12,319
Speaker 2: property was in Ballina as well, so link. Yeah. So

1155
00:57:12,360 --> 00:57:14,960
Speaker 2: I've found some amazing people through this who have just

1156
00:57:15,040 --> 00:57:18,360
Speaker 2: helped me or helped us, like everybody in the mix

1157
00:57:19,320 --> 00:57:23,560
Speaker 2: be able to get to where we are today. And

1158
00:57:23,880 --> 00:57:27,760
Speaker 2: anyway that the owners of that business were called Frederic

1159
00:57:27,960 --> 00:57:31,960
Speaker 2: Heavedariry and Dianda Heavedariry. Frederic to Heavidairy turns out to

1160
00:57:31,960 --> 00:57:32,880
Speaker 2: be Rick Blum.

1161
00:57:33,240 --> 00:57:38,640
Speaker 1: Okay, all right, well, Rick Blum, or that's what we'll

1162
00:57:38,680 --> 00:57:42,080
Speaker 1: call it. Call him here. Let's because I wanted to

1163
00:57:42,080 --> 00:57:44,360
Speaker 1: see how it's all tied in you. You've explained it

1164
00:57:44,480 --> 00:57:47,320
Speaker 1: very clearly to me, having read film in the pieces

1165
00:57:47,320 --> 00:57:51,880
Speaker 1: that I didn't fully understand through the report from the coroner.

1166
00:57:51,960 --> 00:57:55,240
Speaker 1: So we've got this person by the name of Rick Blum.

1167
00:57:56,080 --> 00:57:58,920
Speaker 1: Now you've told us how it became involved in the

1168
00:57:58,960 --> 00:58:01,680
Speaker 1: investigation in the inquest that was run. I just want

1169
00:58:01,720 --> 00:58:05,880
Speaker 1: to read something out. I'm being careful here that before

1170
00:58:05,880 --> 00:58:08,440
Speaker 1: we start talking about Rick Blom, I want to put

1171
00:58:08,480 --> 00:58:10,960
Speaker 1: on record he's not been charged with anything relating to

1172
00:58:11,000 --> 00:58:14,960
Speaker 1: your mother's disappearance. So we put that on record. The

1173
00:58:15,000 --> 00:58:19,160
Speaker 1: state coroner, in her findings regarding mister Blom stated, and

1174
00:58:19,240 --> 00:58:22,640
Speaker 1: he gave evidence at the inquest into your mother's disappearance

1175
00:58:23,520 --> 00:58:26,280
Speaker 1: thirteen days and this is what the coroner said in

1176
00:58:26,320 --> 00:58:30,200
Speaker 1: her findings. I do not accept as accurate anything mister

1177
00:58:30,240 --> 00:58:33,560
Speaker 1: Blom has said in evidence, in the absence of independent

1178
00:58:33,640 --> 00:58:39,439
Speaker 1: corroborating evidence, that's fairly powerful, powerful comments to make about

1179
00:58:39,480 --> 00:58:40,000
Speaker 1: the witness.

1180
00:58:41,600 --> 00:58:51,960
Speaker 3: Your thoughts, Oh my thoughts, Look, I have a lot.

1181
00:58:54,280 --> 00:58:58,120
Speaker 1: Can I retract that question? Can I just say, because

1182
00:58:58,320 --> 00:59:00,640
Speaker 1: we're going to wrap up part one in a sect,

1183
00:59:00,680 --> 00:59:03,160
Speaker 1: but let's just I want to make another comment because,

1184
00:59:03,560 --> 00:59:05,960
Speaker 1: as I said, I went through the coroner's findings and

1185
00:59:06,000 --> 00:59:10,720
Speaker 1: it's very comprehensive. The coroner also made these comments about

1186
00:59:10,720 --> 00:59:15,800
Speaker 1: the person we know is Rick Blom quote from the

1187
00:59:15,840 --> 00:59:19,600
Speaker 1: coroner's findings. Throughout his adult life, mister Blum has routinely

1188
00:59:19,680 --> 00:59:22,280
Speaker 1: changed his name. He admitted before the court to using

1189
00:59:22,320 --> 00:59:25,800
Speaker 1: a number of different aliases over the years, including the following.

1190
00:59:25,920 --> 00:59:27,880
Speaker 1: And I'll try and pronounce it these properly, but they're

1191
00:59:27,920 --> 00:59:35,440
Speaker 1: a wide range of names. So Bernard DuPont, Fernando, Nicholas, Remarkale, Frederick,

1192
00:59:35,600 --> 00:59:43,120
Speaker 1: David Dexavier, Rick Blum, rich Richard's, Richard, Lloyd west Richard

1193
00:59:43,200 --> 00:59:56,160
Speaker 1: Lloyd Westbury, Rick Richard, Rick west Wiley, Copperyle Wiley, David Copperiley, Wiley, Wooters, Shane, Frederick,

1194
00:59:56,280 --> 01:00:02,680
Speaker 1: David Dexavier and Zabdel Zilling. They're fourteen names. Yeah, so

1195
01:00:03,080 --> 01:00:06,840
Speaker 1: let's let's just conclude, just.

1196
01:00:06,720 --> 01:00:08,960
Speaker 2: To help you with some of the pronunciations, please.

1197
01:00:08,920 --> 01:00:12,240
Speaker 1: Because I want let's do it this way with the

1198
01:00:12,400 --> 01:00:16,000
Speaker 1: with the pronunciations. If people are listening to this podcast,

1199
01:00:17,040 --> 01:00:19,720
Speaker 1: maybe these names mean something to them.

1200
01:00:20,240 --> 01:00:24,200
Speaker 2: So the Heavin Dairy, Heavindary is their surname, Bernard du

1201
01:00:24,240 --> 01:00:27,320
Speaker 2: pont yep. And what are the ones were there? Oh,

1202
01:00:27,360 --> 01:00:28,280
Speaker 2: Willy Willy.

1203
01:00:28,080 --> 01:00:30,400
Speaker 1: Wooters, Willy Wooters and.

1204
01:00:30,400 --> 01:00:33,720
Speaker 2: Willy Copperoll so Copperanole is his birth name.

1205
01:00:34,040 --> 01:00:37,720
Speaker 1: Okay, fourteen names, and we.

1206
01:00:37,600 --> 01:00:40,600
Speaker 2: Have actually found fifty two aliases.

1207
01:00:40,920 --> 01:00:43,280
Speaker 1: I don't think we can read those all out, but.

1208
01:00:43,320 --> 01:00:44,920
Speaker 2: I didn't even have the list here with me. But

1209
01:00:45,080 --> 01:00:48,080
Speaker 2: that's that's what we have found in our investigations so far.

1210
01:00:48,160 --> 01:00:50,920
Speaker 2: But they are the ones that were read out in

1211
01:00:51,040 --> 01:00:51,680
Speaker 2: the inquest.

1212
01:00:51,960 --> 01:00:55,920
Speaker 1: Okay, and look, we're joking about this, but it's not

1213
01:00:56,680 --> 01:00:59,520
Speaker 1: not a joke. And I'm reading this out and this

1214
01:00:59,560 --> 01:01:01,800
Speaker 1: is all I'm choosing my words carefully because these are

1215
01:01:01,840 --> 01:01:05,240
Speaker 1: comments from the coroner that had the inquest running over

1216
01:01:05,320 --> 01:01:08,280
Speaker 1: an extended period of time. We're going to take a

1217
01:01:08,280 --> 01:01:10,600
Speaker 1: break here. When we get back, I want to find

1218
01:01:10,600 --> 01:01:15,160
Speaker 1: out more about Rick Blom and also talk about all

1219
01:01:15,200 --> 01:01:18,280
Speaker 1: the extraordinary stuff that was uncovered during the inquest. And

1220
01:01:18,600 --> 01:01:21,600
Speaker 1: I'm going to ask you an important question. I'd like

1221
01:01:21,640 --> 01:01:23,800
Speaker 1: to just get your thoughts on it. So let's take

1222
01:01:23,800 --> 01:01:25,760
Speaker 1: a break and we'll be back for part too shortly