Speaker 1: This is the case of Marion Barter, a mother, teacher,
Speaker 1: friend missing for twenty six years.
Speaker 2: You know, no sign that she was going to vanish.
Speaker 3: That's for sure.
Speaker 1: The bizarre circumstances surrounding her disappearance, I'm not.
Speaker 4: Sure if it was intentional or if there's something more foul afoot.
Speaker 5: If you could imagine a teacher coming straight from say
Speaker 5: little house on the prairie to the eighties, that was
Speaker 5: Marian Barter.
Speaker 4: What I say, whether you find Marian Barter dead or alive,
Speaker 4: I honestly believe somebody has that key piece of information.
Speaker 1: And the relentless quest of a daughter to find her mum.
Speaker 6: Something had happened, Something has happened to make her leave.
Speaker 4: I am one hundred percent sure, one hundred percent sure
Speaker 4: that somebody knows something.
Speaker 1: The Lady Vanishers episode fifty four. I'm Alison Sandy.
Speaker 7: And I'm Brian Seymour.
Speaker 1: Belgium, nineteen thirty nine, World War II was broken out. Traditionally,
Speaker 1: Belgium has always tried to stay out of conflict, and
Speaker 1: true to form, the Belgian government had already announced its
Speaker 1: intention to remain neutral. They did this in World War
Speaker 1: One two, but Germany still invaded, so the nation's leaders
Speaker 1: knew they were only buying a little time. As expected,
Speaker 1: Belgium's economy and people were depressed. It was during this year,
Speaker 1: on July ninth, to be specific, that Willy Copperol was
Speaker 1: born in Tournay, about one and a half hours west
Speaker 1: of the capitol. His father, Desiree David, was born in
Speaker 1: nineteen oh five in Gellenden, a tiny Belgian village with
Speaker 1: fewer than fifteen hundred people. His mother, Maria Coppernol, was
Speaker 1: born in nineteen thirteen, also in Belgium. Desiree David died
Speaker 1: in nineteen forty three of peritonitis, and Maria, who was
Speaker 1: pregnant with Willy's younger brother, also called Desiree, lost her
Speaker 1: leg when a bomb apparently fell on her bed. So
Speaker 1: Willie was placed in an orphanage, where he would remain
Speaker 1: until nineteen fifty one, six years after the war ended,
Speaker 1: when he was almost a teenager. Willie's other younger brother,
Speaker 1: Freddie David, died in nineteen eighty nine when he was
Speaker 1: just forty eight years old. Apparently he fell to the
Speaker 1: ground when he got out of the car. Cause of
Speaker 1: death is believed to be an aneurysm or heart attack.
Speaker 1: Shortly after, so did Maria and her second husband, Andre Wooters.
Speaker 1: The three of them all died within twelve months of
Speaker 1: each other. You'll remember that only a few years earlier
Speaker 1: they were all working together in the family's furniture business.
Speaker 5: Hello, Madam Willie David is my first cooking and when
Speaker 5: you talk about Maria Kupernon, in fact, his mother was
Speaker 5: my mother's older sister. The last time I had contact
Speaker 5: with my cooking was in two thousand and seven, during
Speaker 5: one of his visits to Belgium.
Speaker 8: I am one of the youngest.
Speaker 5: In the family, as my mom was the eleventh of
Speaker 5: thirteen children, and Aunt Maya was among the orders.
Speaker 1: This is from Blum's cousin, who last year responded to
Speaker 1: emails from one of our devoted listeners who wishes to
Speaker 1: remain anonymous, advising her that his aunt's uncles and mother
Speaker 1: were raised by extremely upright parents. He said they had
Speaker 1: a Dutch speaking Catholic father, Charles Coppernall, who had quote
Speaker 1: high principles.
Speaker 5: I know that my mother told me a lot about
Speaker 5: how my cousin had done a lot of stupid things
Speaker 5: and had been in prison, especially in France. He was
Speaker 5: not allowed to come to Belgium anymore. Principle, and my
Speaker 5: aunt sometimes went to England to see him. My couldin
Speaker 5: had started a career in the Gendarmerie as a horse
Speaker 5: rider and married well in Brussels with someone from a
Speaker 5: good family.
Speaker 1: We understand he's referring to Janine Leroy, who had two
Speaker 1: children to him, including a son called Gayton.
Speaker 5: Unfortunately, he had a very badfall from his horse and
Speaker 5: what Declaire hunched it from the short amerily and later
Speaker 5: there was a divorce.
Speaker 1: Just for completeness. Willie very briefly married again, at this
Speaker 1: time to a woman called Nicole Reynold.
Speaker 5: My mother said that this has tacted him greatly psychologically
Speaker 5: and unfortunately leading down a slop. He then started bouncing
Speaker 5: checks and that kind of his chief. I have the
Speaker 5: impression that my mother used to tell me about the
Speaker 5: trips to England. Around nineteen eighty to nineteen eighty six,
Speaker 5: both my aunt and her three sons ran finisher shops
Speaker 5: in Belgium and Luxembourg. It was in his family business.
Speaker 1: He said. His aunt Maria was a bit rejected by
Speaker 1: some of her siblings because of Willie's mistakes.
Speaker 5: He still has a brother, but they have no contact. However,
Speaker 5: I think he had contact with what the cookings of
Speaker 5: ours in TURNI.
Speaker 1: And that Blum's youngest brother, Desiree, is still alive.
Speaker 5: Didier kept in touch with one of my own's a
Speaker 5: million's daughters.
Speaker 1: It was the information from this cousin which led to
Speaker 1: the discovery of Charlotte, a pseudonym we used to protect
Speaker 1: her identity.
Speaker 5: I had a cooking, Michelle Copennaut, who died in twenty ten,
Speaker 5: a little before my mother. I know from an uncle
Speaker 5: that really had an affair with my cookin's widow a
Speaker 5: few months after his death, and he is said to
Speaker 5: have this possessed her of a certain amount of money.
Speaker 1: We passed this on to Tom and Yannick, and the
Speaker 1: rest is history. It seems. Willis many years and the
Speaker 1: orphanage left its mark. You may recall this one story
Speaker 1: he told Everlyn about his life, the time.
Speaker 4: He used to bury people alive when he was growing up.
Speaker 4: That one of the things that he liked to do
Speaker 4: in the village, him and some of his friends. Someone
Speaker 4: had harmed one of the girls in the village, so
Speaker 4: they got the guy and they buried him alive. With
Speaker 4: hungry cats, and that this is you know, how they
Speaker 4: used to take care of people.
Speaker 1: It's hard to separate fact from fiction with Rick Blum. Remember,
Speaker 1: he has also told people that his entire family died
Speaker 1: in Nazi death camps, which is completely untrue. At the
Speaker 1: very least, he seems to have had a troubled upbringing,
Speaker 1: abandoned by his parents, raised by strangers, forced to fend
Speaker 1: for himself at a time where everyone was fighting for survival.
Speaker 1: We do know for a fact that his daughter, Evelyn,
Speaker 1: had a difficult childhood, enduring abuse and trauma, thanks partially
Speaker 1: at least to her father's total lack of interest in
Speaker 1: her well being. However, she grew into a very different person. Here,
Speaker 1: she recalls when she found out Blum was her real father.
Speaker 4: It was around the age of fifteen, maybe sixteen years old.
Speaker 4: I had an interaction with my stepfather. It wasn't a
Speaker 4: very nice one, and he threw some passports at me.
Speaker 4: He said, you're not my daughter. He saw at me,
Speaker 4: you get out of this house, and then he said
Speaker 4: some other things which I can't repeat. That really bad.
Speaker 4: It wasn't told to me in a very nice way.
Speaker 4: So it was it was incredibly shocking. So I think
Speaker 4: I just wandered around the streets of Melbourne numb for
Speaker 4: a couple of days. I didn't know who I was,
Speaker 4: so and that was the experience of how I found out.
Speaker 1: We leave Luxembourg earlier the day after meeting with Monique
Speaker 1: to drive back to Brussels, but not before taking a
Speaker 1: detour to travel to Rick Blum's hometown, Tournay. Heading into
Speaker 1: Tournay and seventy thousand people, quite large, but not far
Speaker 1: from the boarder from France, Litl is only twenty kilometers away,
Speaker 1: and we're heading to the police station, but not before
Speaker 1: getting a nice cup of coffee. I didn't know what
Speaker 1: to e throw from Tornae. I hear it's a medieval town,
Speaker 1: so I can see some a little bit further up,
Speaker 1: there's some nice spires and looks really pretty. It's not
Speaker 1: really on the tourist route though, so it's one of
Speaker 1: those things that you'd only go to if we're going
Speaker 1: out of your way and had a reason to. Generally,
Speaker 1: it's no Bruges. While we're here, we're planning on seeing
Speaker 1: a house that was in the name of Freddie David.
Speaker 1: We don't know if that's the real Freddie David arm
Speaker 1: or actually Brick Blum using the name Blum using the
Speaker 1: name Freddie David. So we're not quite sure which one
Speaker 1: it is, but we're going to check out the house anyway.
Speaker 1: The alleged home of Freddie David is a two story
Speaker 1: red brick terrace apartment down a narrow alleyway. Within a
Speaker 1: few minutes walking distance is the Grand Place, home to
Speaker 1: the city's historic Belfry and the fabulously Gothic Cathedral of
Speaker 1: Our Lady, which dates back to the twelfth century. Like
Speaker 1: the Belfry, it's a World Heritage Site. There's also a
Speaker 1: statue of Marie Christine de la Lange, who was the
Speaker 1: governor's wife back in the sixteenth century and when he
Speaker 1: was away and the city was invaded, she successfully led
Speaker 1: the defense against a Spanish army general, the Duke of Palmer.
Speaker 1: So here I am in Tourney, and it is a
Speaker 1: very working class town, there's no doubt about it. And
Speaker 1: I'm not far from the police station where I just
Speaker 1: went in and for chan it's lunchtime, so I didn't
Speaker 1: get to speak to who I needed to speak to.
Speaker 1: This lovely young officer asked me basically what I thought
Speaker 1: of the town, and I said, oh, it's really lovely.
Speaker 1: It's medieval and really pretty. I really like it.
Speaker 8: And she's so very poor though.
Speaker 1: It's very poor, which of course is true. There's no
Speaker 1: sign of any affluence and a lot of emythy shops,
Speaker 1: but the medieval history is amazing. I just can't get
Speaker 1: over how much this city really has to offer. It's
Speaker 1: an old, fortified city, there's a lot of nancial architecture
Speaker 1: and it's just beautiful. So definitely recommend coming to Tournay.
Speaker 1: Tournay is one of the oldest cities in Belgium. It
Speaker 1: was fortified under Emperor Maximian in the third century AD
Speaker 1: and was very wealthy in the Middle Ages. The city
Speaker 1: is predominantly French speaking, and much of the population here
Speaker 1: considers itself more French than Belgian. Like Luxembourg, It's had
Speaker 1: many rulers and is the only Belgian city which was
Speaker 1: once part of England. When Henry the Eighth reigned, he
Speaker 1: defended the Stronghold, building an enormous tower and castle, with
Speaker 1: sentries and bow men posted there. The tower has now
Speaker 1: been turned into a weapons museum, most of which are
Speaker 1: from World War II. Tournay was badly damaged in nineteen
Speaker 1: forty when the Germans invaded, and a lot of the
Speaker 1: city has had to be rebuilt. Now back to Evelyn
Speaker 1: and her interview with Liam Bartlett from Spotlight. Much of
Speaker 1: this was mentioned in my earlier interview, by there are
Speaker 1: extra bits and pieces which provide more context to her recollections.
Speaker 4: I went back to the to my stepfather's house when
Speaker 4: he wasn't home, and then I went into the wardrobe
Speaker 4: and I went looking for things, and that's where I
Speaker 4: found all the photos with my mother and Rick Bloom
Speaker 4: as he's called now, And I took those things.
Speaker 3: And they were all the early fo all the.
Speaker 4: Early photographs, and they looked so happy and so in love.
Speaker 4: So yeah, I thought, Yeah, there's someone out there that's
Speaker 4: that sort of cares about me, and that I'll find
Speaker 4: that person. Yeah, But it wasn't straight away. I didn't
Speaker 4: move on that straight away because my life was pretty
Speaker 4: hectic for many years. I didn't really get a chance
Speaker 4: to act on it until I was into my twenties.
Speaker 7: Evelyn is talking about the photographs of herself with her
Speaker 7: mother before she died, and images from her mum's wedding
Speaker 7: to Rick Bloom then Willie Wooters.
Speaker 3: Those photographs are quite how can I put it there?
Speaker 3: Those photographs are quite reflective of what looks like a
Speaker 3: good relationship, doesn't it.
Speaker 4: Yes, I would think so.
Speaker 3: Much happier days. Obviously it went downhill very quickly, but
Speaker 3: it's quite interesting to look back on.
Speaker 4: I don't know what to make of it. I think
Speaker 4: that my mother and he may have loved each other.
Speaker 4: It looks like that. I've only got the photos to
Speaker 4: go on. The stories about their relationship are certainly very
Speaker 4: different to what the photos look like, so I'm not sure. Really.
Speaker 4: I don't think their relationship was long. I think that
Speaker 4: he was already married and already had had children, and
Speaker 4: he lied to her.
Speaker 3: Do you think he was married when he married him?
Speaker 5: Um?
Speaker 4: Well, what I understand is that he was married. She
Speaker 4: was just nineteen. My grandmother found out he was married.
Speaker 4: He very quickly divorced, and he hadn't been with his
Speaker 4: first wife for very long and then he married my mother.
Speaker 3: So he could have been a bigness.
Speaker 4: He could have been anything.
Speaker 3: It's been hard, has it for you to sort of
Speaker 3: nail down those dates from the records and his actions.
Speaker 4: It's been near impossible to nail down anything, So.
Speaker 3: Help me out here when you're born, He decides quite quickly,
Speaker 3: that's it. I'm off the relationships over. Is that? Am
Speaker 3: I interpreting it right?
Speaker 6: Well?
Speaker 4: You might be, but your guess is probably as good
Speaker 4: as my guess. I don't think anyone actually knows, and
Speaker 4: that's what the problem is. We can only go buy
Speaker 4: the paperwork that's there and it looks like they came
Speaker 4: to Australia together. No one really knows what's happened from there.
Speaker 4: There's just the stories that people share. My mother, I think,
Speaker 4: was going back and forth overseas. She had some different places.
Speaker 4: She stayed here in Australia. I believe I was just
Speaker 4: a couple of weeks old and I was sent on
Speaker 4: a plane back to my grandmother's in here in Belgium,
Speaker 4: so I wasn't with her the whole time. I don't know.
Speaker 4: I don't know how long they were together for or
Speaker 4: not together for. I think she married my stepfather in
Speaker 4: seventy two, so I would have been around two years old.
Speaker 4: But again I'm not really sure.
Speaker 3: When you did get the chance to track him down,
Speaker 3: how old were you when you had a first conversation
Speaker 3: with him.
Speaker 4: I would have been around twenty five, maybe twenty six
Speaker 4: years old around that time. Yeah, so nineteen ninety five.
Speaker 3: And how did that first conversation go.
Speaker 4: The very first conversation was a phone call. There was
Speaker 4: very short, very sweet. He seemed happy to hear from me.
Speaker 4: He had been pre told by their consulate in Australia
Speaker 4: that he had a daughter, so it was I didn't
Speaker 4: have to call him and announce myself in that way.
Speaker 4: He was expecting my call and we just organized to
Speaker 4: catch up for dinner and then then we met in
Speaker 4: near an overtwel in Melbourne, went to some restaurant for dinner,
Speaker 4: and that's where he proceeded to tell me that he
Speaker 4: was a coin dealer, international traveler dealing in coins.
Speaker 1: He had a.
Speaker 4: Briefcase with him that was full of cash. You just
Speaker 4: got back from a big trip overseas where he sold
Speaker 4: lots of coins.
Speaker 3: That's what he told you. Did you see the cash?
Speaker 4: No, I didn't. I didn't ask to. I was just
Speaker 4: excited just to meet my father, so I just enjoyed
Speaker 4: the dinner. And for the first first time.
Speaker 3: Did you ask him in that conversation? You know what
Speaker 3: happened that. I mean, all those years, what what what
Speaker 3: went wrong?
Speaker 7: Uh?
Speaker 4: Yeah I did. I did ask him. I said to him,
Speaker 4: how come you never came in looked for me? And
Speaker 4: he said, I didn't. I didn't know that. I didn't
Speaker 4: know anything about you. My first knowledge of you was
Speaker 4: the Consulate calling me to let me know I had
Speaker 4: a daughter. I didn't even know your mother was dead
Speaker 4: until now that you've told me.
Speaker 3: Did you believe that?
Speaker 4: I'm not sure I believed it, but I accepted that
Speaker 4: that's what he said at the time. I didn't question
Speaker 4: it further.
Speaker 3: You wanted to believe it?
Speaker 4: Oh no, Oh no, I know absolutely. Just I am
Speaker 4: still struggling to come to terms with how much he lies,
Speaker 4: and you know that's just one of all his lies.
Speaker 3: How many conversations have you had with him all up.
Speaker 5: All up?
Speaker 4: I mean, it would be probably less than ten times
Speaker 4: that I've caught up with him, but I can't give
Speaker 4: you an exact number because I don't remember each time clearly.
Speaker 4: I just remember the times where there were things said
Speaker 4: that left me left me really just feeling traumatized and
Speaker 4: scared and unable to process. Well I had been what
Speaker 4: he would whatever it was that he was saying to me, So,
Speaker 4: I have those sorts of memories.
Speaker 3: Can you talk to me about some of those conversations.
Speaker 3: I mean, clearly, he's never taken it a step further,
Speaker 3: Clearly he doesn't want to be part of your life
Speaker 3: and has never made any attempt to do so. But
Speaker 3: what sort of things has he told you in those
Speaker 3: times that you have had a father daughter conversation, if
Speaker 3: I can put it that way, Yeah, I.
Speaker 4: It that way. But yeah, So in the first couple
Speaker 4: of meetings with him, I spoke to him about an
Speaker 4: inheritance from my grandmother and she owned a property in Brussels,
Speaker 4: and I felt that something had gone amiss with that
Speaker 4: whole settlement procedure. And he said that he would be
Speaker 4: doing a trip to Belgium soon and he may know
Speaker 4: a friend of a cousin or a distant cousin of
Speaker 4: someone to have something to do with my family. He'd
Speaker 4: find something out and that when he came back, you'd
Speaker 4: get in touch and let me know if he'd been
Speaker 4: able to find any information out about it. He told
Speaker 4: me that he thought as well that my mother was
Speaker 4: a slut, and.
Speaker 3: He said to you, he said that to me this
Speaker 3: is the woman that he married.
Speaker 4: The woman, Yes, yeah, Why.
Speaker 3: Would he say that? Why would you paint your mother
Speaker 3: in that light to you years after she'd passed away.
Speaker 4: I mean, I can't answer that question. I don't know
Speaker 4: why anyone would say something like that about someone that
Speaker 4: they apparently loved, someone that's dead. They're not there to
Speaker 4: defend themselves and to someone that you meant to care
Speaker 4: about your daughter. They just there's nothing about that that
Speaker 4: I can provide an answer for that makes any sense
Speaker 4: to me. I thought he was just horrible. And then
Speaker 4: he went on to tell me that he had found
Speaker 4: out some information about my grandmother's inheritance while he was overseas,
Speaker 4: and that there's not a rumor rumor is the wrong word,
Speaker 4: but there's a sort of an understanding in what's left
Speaker 4: of my family, people who I've never never met, but
Speaker 4: who are aware of the two children of Alner. They
Speaker 4: live in Australia, and the understanding is that there was
Speaker 4: some sort of arrangement made where my grandmother's second husband
Speaker 4: could keep the state in exchange for the daughter being
Speaker 4: given as a I don't know, you know, the stepfather
Speaker 4: in Australia could keep the daughter and the step grandfather
Speaker 4: could keep the money. So that doesn't make a lot
Speaker 4: of sense. It makes no sense. I didn't speak to
Speaker 4: him again after that for quite a few years. It
Speaker 4: wasn't something I was able to at all understand. And
Speaker 4: it's not that I can't, it's not so much that
Speaker 4: I still don't understand it, but I mean, but at
Speaker 4: that time, that you know, the delivery of something like
Speaker 4: that was just it was it was very painful. I
Speaker 4: could barely repeat it to my partner at the time
Speaker 4: at the time, just that that the idea that something
Speaker 4: like that might have happened, or that that someone who
Speaker 4: is meant to be my father said something like that
Speaker 4: to me, Like I just it was just so out
Speaker 4: of this world to try to understand what any of
Speaker 4: that meant. But I knew he was no good, that,
Speaker 4: you know, after he said those things to me, I
Speaker 4: knew he was he was no good. I didn't want
Speaker 4: to have anything to do with him.
Speaker 3: So that impression that you got help him being no good, Yeah,
Speaker 3: it was just from those nine or ten conversations you've
Speaker 3: had with him in your life. Yeah, you worked out pretty.
Speaker 4: Quickly, pretty quick. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, when was the last time you spoke to him.
Speaker 4: So then fast forward a few years after that last interaction,
Speaker 4: my then partner thought that I should contact him. He
Speaker 4: was putting a great deal of pressure on me to
Speaker 4: contact him because he thought that maybe I had initially
Speaker 4: over dramatized those initial meetings and that maybe I would
Speaker 4: be able to get some sort of I guess the
Speaker 4: therapy closure. Yeah, from having some contact with him, and
Speaker 4: so yeah, at his bequest, I guess I just sort
Speaker 4: of went forward that way and I made contact with
Speaker 4: him again, and it was it was immediately bad. He
Speaker 4: answered the phone, I said who it was, and he said,
Speaker 4: what do you want? And then he said, you know
Speaker 4: you are you have something. I can't remember exactly how
Speaker 4: it went. You know, you know, how dare you ring me?
Speaker 4: Or you have no right to ring me? I transferred
Speaker 4: you ten thousand dollars to try and help me, and
Speaker 4: you didn't even have the decency to say thank you.
Speaker 4: I was just on the other end of the phone.
Speaker 4: What is this guy talking about?
Speaker 3: Is that right? Did he give you money?
Speaker 6: No?
Speaker 4: Can give me a cent? He said, I'll go and
Speaker 4: I'll go and look into it, check into my bank statement,
Speaker 4: and then I'll contact you back and then he came
Speaker 4: back and he said, oh, you know, something wasn't right,
Speaker 4: but okay, I'll talk. You know, I'll talk to you
Speaker 4: because I didn't. I didn't give you that money. It
Speaker 4: was just odd.
Speaker 3: Was he worried that you'd turn up on his doorstep
Speaker 3: in New South Wales, up in Balana or something and
Speaker 3: make yourself known to his current wife and his two kids.
Speaker 4: I'm not sure. I mean he may have been. He
Speaker 4: gave me a photo of his two children and he said,
Speaker 4: they this is your brother and sister.
Speaker 3: Well they are half brother and half sister.
Speaker 4: Yeah right. He said that his wife wasn't comfortable to
Speaker 4: tell them about me, so he said that she knew
Speaker 4: about me and while he was away overseas, because he
Speaker 4: was gone for months and months, and I did have
Speaker 4: the number of the house, so I did call the
Speaker 4: house to ask if he was around, and his wife
Speaker 4: answered the phone and when I said who it was,
Speaker 4: she said something like, yeah, sure you are, and was
Speaker 4: very cold. She just flung up on me. So all
Speaker 4: of the interactions were just odd.
Speaker 3: So you've never spoken to that half brother, half sister.
Speaker 3: Never do they know you exist?
Speaker 4: I would imagine they do by now?
Speaker 3: Was that the final conversation with your dad.
Speaker 4: No, no, no, there's a bit of a story to
Speaker 4: the final conversation. So there's three final meetings, if I
Speaker 4: can put them that way. There in my early thirties.
Speaker 3: So this is quite a long time agovernment.
Speaker 4: Yeah, quite a while ago.
Speaker 3: So the last time I talked to him was what
Speaker 3: years ago?
Speaker 4: Yeah, yep, around twenty years ago.
Speaker 3: Haven't been No, why is that? What did he say
Speaker 3: that last conversation that was so bad?
Speaker 4: Well, first off, he was at my house and he
Speaker 4: wanted to share with me something important that as his daughter,
Speaker 4: there's something he could do for me so that I
Speaker 4: could look after myself better. Was that he could teach
Speaker 4: me how to poison people. And he went through a
Speaker 4: very descriptive method and then finished by saying that if
Speaker 4: I ever needed to use that method on anybody, that
Speaker 4: it would be through poisoning food. They would develop flu
Speaker 4: like symptoms within a couple of weeks, and then within
Speaker 4: a week or two they'd be dead and it would
Speaker 4: be untraceable. At the same time that he was sharing
Speaker 4: that with me, that he was sitting in my home,
Speaker 4: he'd met my children, his grandchildren, and he was saying
Speaker 4: that he there and he was bragging to me about
Speaker 4: when he was younger that he and some of his
Speaker 4: mates what they used to like to do bury people
Speaker 4: alive with hungry cats. And you know that this is
Speaker 4: this is a style of seeking revenge. He was just
Speaker 4: he was.
Speaker 7: He was.
Speaker 4: He was a scary character. Then after that meeting, he
Speaker 4: came back to Melbourne, so he wasn't I was in Melbourne,
Speaker 4: he wasn't. Some weeks later asked me to meet him
Speaker 4: in the city at a cafe. He pre warned me
Speaker 4: that he had a proposition for me, so along I went.
Speaker 4: I met him and he started to say to me
Speaker 4: that in this world, there's only two ways you can
Speaker 4: really look after yourself financially, and one is with your
Speaker 4: mind and if you have something created that you can
Speaker 4: come up with and you'll be able to be self supporting.
Speaker 4: But that clearly you don't have that, and so your
Speaker 4: only other option is to sell your body. And then
Speaker 4: he said to me, but I have another proposition for you,
Speaker 4: and that is I just need to get legal documents
Speaker 4: drawn up in regard to life insurance, which I'm going
Speaker 4: to go overseas and there are people who will be
Speaker 4: signing these documents and then you don't need to worry
Speaker 4: about the people. I'll be taking care of them, and
Speaker 4: then we'll I'll split the proceeds with you.
Speaker 3: Or was that a suggestion to be involved in some
Speaker 3: sort of criminal activity.
Speaker 4: Well, I definitely think it was a suggestion to be
Speaker 4: involved in some sort of criminal activity. But I also
Speaker 4: wasn't sure what he was suggesting, because he was talking about,
Speaker 4: you know, life insurance and taking care of people. I mean,
Speaker 4: I barely made it out of that cafe to my car.
Speaker 4: I had a terrible migraine. I was sick. It was terrible.
Speaker 4: I was literally unable to process what he had said,
Speaker 4: and I didn't want to. I didn't want clarification on it.
Speaker 4: I just wanted the whole situation just to just to
Speaker 4: go away.
Speaker 3: Well, that there's a biological father suggesting that you prostitute yourself, Yes, yep,
Speaker 3: he was serious.
Speaker 4: Well, I think that maybe it was more a manipulative
Speaker 4: tactic to let me know that that would be my
Speaker 4: only option if I didn't go ahead with what he
Speaker 4: was proposing, which and I don't understand what it was
Speaker 4: that he was proposing, but obviously it wasn't anything good.
Speaker 3: That's beyond strange.
Speaker 4: It's beyond strange. I mean, honestly, I thought, after he
Speaker 4: had shared stories with me about burying people alive and
Speaker 4: trying to educate me on how to poison people so
Speaker 4: that he could empower me to kill people, that that is,
Speaker 4: I mean, that is the literal sense of what it
Speaker 4: was that he was saying to me. So putting that
Speaker 4: together with then these suggestions with life insurance policies taking
Speaker 4: care of people, I was just my brain went into
Speaker 4: full imagination of what that could mean. I was deeply,
Speaker 4: deeply ashamed, and.
Speaker 3: Well, no, wonder you were physically ill? Yeah, yeah, and
Speaker 3: that was it. That was the end. You've cut off.
Speaker 4: And then then then the end came. A week or
Speaker 4: so after that conversation where he contacted me, I obviously
Speaker 4: told him that I wasn't interested in being involved and
Speaker 4: whatever it was that he was doing. Then he called
Speaker 4: again and said he was coming to town, asked me
Speaker 4: to pick him up from the airport, that he he'd
Speaker 4: had some business to take care of, and then he'd
Speaker 4: come for dinner. It might sound strange that I still
Speaker 4: went ahead to see him again, but I was. I
Speaker 4: was scared of him at this stage and I wasn't
Speaker 4: I wasn't really sure what to do. Like, I wasn't
Speaker 4: sure whether if I didn't outright a rejection of him,
Speaker 4: whether that would put me in danger or not. I
Speaker 4: just didn't know. So I picked him up from the
Speaker 4: airport where he presented to me a bottle of Bollinger,
Speaker 4: and we got to the car and said, just you know,
Speaker 4: drop me off and I'll be back for dinner. You
Speaker 4: take this home and put it in the fridge and
Speaker 4: get it chilled for us. So I dropped him off,
Speaker 4: and he was laughing as he got out of the car,
Speaker 4: saying that he was just had to go and collect
Speaker 4: like a forty or a fifty thousand dollars cash off
Speaker 4: someone who only had his phone number and would never
Speaker 4: be able to trace him or get that money back.
Speaker 4: He was sort of bragging about that, jumped out of
Speaker 4: the car, and then I took the champagne home, put
Speaker 4: it in a fridge, and never heard from him again,
Speaker 4: and the next day's number was disconnected. That was it,
Speaker 4: and that was it. And that champagne bottle I put
Speaker 4: in big black texture on it, poison, and it sat
Speaker 4: on the top of our fridge for months, days later,
Speaker 4: I took it down to the Haran police station and
Speaker 4: I went in there and I said, I asked them,
Speaker 4: you know, can someone help me? I think that someone
Speaker 4: has tried to poison me. And I don't know what
Speaker 4: the police thought of some young woman holding a bottle
Speaker 4: of Bolinger saying help me, someone's trying to poison me.
Speaker 3: I probably thought you were completely lupid. Yeah, I understand
Speaker 3: why you would be paranoid. Yeah, So he's never turned up.
Speaker 3: That was it? That was it, twenty odd years ago.
Speaker 4: Twenty odd years ago.
Speaker 3: Can we just go back to the bit about the poison?
Speaker 4: Sure?
Speaker 3: So why did he Why is he giving you advice
Speaker 3: about poisoning to kill? This is unprompted advice.
Speaker 4: It's unprompted.
Speaker 5: Yes.
Speaker 4: We were having a conversation about my stepfather and some
Speaker 4: of the things that I had been through as a
Speaker 4: younger person with my stepfather, and he said that he
Speaker 4: asked me for He said, I want to know where
Speaker 4: he lives. I have a writer, you know, as your father,
Speaker 4: to do what I must do and get get the
Speaker 4: revenge or something like that. The implication was that he
Speaker 4: wanted to cause physical harm to my stepfather. And I
Speaker 4: said to him, you know, like, oh, no, you know,
Speaker 4: I don't. I don't do that. And then I think
Speaker 4: from there it was sort of like, well, then if
Speaker 4: you're not going to allow me to do what I
Speaker 4: want to do, then the least I can do for
Speaker 4: you is to teach you how to take care of yourself.
Speaker 4: You should know how to poison people. That was and
Speaker 4: the cause of the conversation.
Speaker 3: That's a bizarre He initiates a conversation about poisoning people
Speaker 3: to kill them.
Speaker 4: I mean bizarre as a word, yeah, bizarre. I mean
Speaker 4: I see him as a as a criminal. I don't
Speaker 4: see him as bizarre. When I think of bizarre, I
Speaker 4: think of someone in a clown. So I don't think
Speaker 4: it's very funny. I don't know what's going on there.
Speaker 4: I don't have answers, but whatever it is, it's not good.
Speaker 4: It's dark, and I think he's capable of anything. It's
Speaker 4: more than twenty years ago. I don't walk around anymore
Speaker 4: frightened for my life, but at the time I was
Speaker 4: frightened for my life. I couldn't give you an explanation why.
Speaker 4: A combination of all of the conversations that he had
Speaker 4: with me, the dreadful way in which he treated me,
Speaker 4: and I was scared, and not just any normal fear.
Speaker 4: When I took that bottle to the paran station. I
Speaker 4: went there because I thought I was I believed in
Speaker 4: an attempt at my life had been made. Intuitively, I
Speaker 4: believed that.
Speaker 3: So did they end up testing him?
Speaker 4: Oh no they no, they no, no, No, they didn't
Speaker 4: take it, didn't check me seriously at all.
Speaker 3: Here's the weird thing. Yeah, it stopped me. If you
Speaker 3: think I'm being melodramatic, but when he's talking to you
Speaker 3: about poisoning people and he describes the symptoms, the symptoms
Speaker 3: he's describing almost identical to what your mother had just
Speaker 3: before she passed away at the age of thirty one.
Speaker 4: Yeah, well, the autopsy report says that she presented at
Speaker 4: her doctor seven days before death with flu like symptoms, yes,
Speaker 4: or throw tohn solidis or flu likes. She wasn't diagnosed
Speaker 4: as having ton solidis, but just with those sorts of symptoms.
Speaker 3: I mean, is that just a complete coincidence?
Speaker 5: Oh?
Speaker 4: I mean again, how can I answer a question like that?
Speaker 3: I have you been through that year?
Speaker 4: Of course?
Speaker 3: Yeah, of course, is it possible? I mean, when's the
Speaker 3: last time your mother had contact with this play, do
Speaker 3: you know?
Speaker 4: I don't know. She died in nineteen seventy seven. I
Speaker 4: was seven years old, so my ability at that age
Speaker 4: to place her locations with him is not really that great.
Speaker 4: But I think from what I understand, she did go
Speaker 4: to see her mum in Belgium in nineteen seventy seven,
Speaker 4: so herself, her mother, and her brother. I think they
Speaker 4: were all together at the house in Brussels, And I
Speaker 4: can imagine, even though I've heard stories that you know,
Speaker 4: my mother wanted to get away from him because she
Speaker 4: thought he was a crook and that she found him
Speaker 4: to be violent, and you know that she underwent trauma
Speaker 4: trying to start a new life away from him. I
Speaker 4: believe that he was her first real love, and she
Speaker 4: had a child with him. I can't imagine that she
Speaker 4: would have been over him like that. If she was
Speaker 4: in Belgium seeing her mum, I can imagine that she
Speaker 4: would have made contact and seen him, even just to
Speaker 4: talk a cup of coffee, to talk about children. I mean,
Speaker 4: isn't that Isn't that what normal people do? They trying
Speaker 4: and connect with other people that are meaningful to them
Speaker 4: in their life.
Speaker 3: And he was coming back and forth a lot.
Speaker 4: It was back and forth a lot, So.
Speaker 3: It's a reasonable proposition.
Speaker 4: It's a reasonable proposition that.
Speaker 3: In the final months weeks of her life she had
Speaker 3: some sort of contact with him here in Belgium.
Speaker 4: So it's reasonable to think that it'd be better if
Speaker 4: it could be proven. When my family passed away, in
Speaker 4: talking about my grandmother and her ownly two children, I
Speaker 4: grew up always feeling that there was something about that
Speaker 4: that wasn't right. It is so it's so strange. Does
Speaker 4: how does a whole family just get wiped out? You know,
Speaker 4: like one's person's in their sixties, one's thirty one, one's
Speaker 4: twenty five years old? How is that even? You know what?
Speaker 4: Were they all born genetically you know, predisposed to terrible
Speaker 4: diseases or you know, how does something like that even happen?
Speaker 4: For me, it was always a question and it's still
Speaker 4: a question. But I just people just used to treat
Speaker 4: me like there was something you know, you just accept
Speaker 4: the fact that they're dead, like you know that that
Speaker 4: happens and normally has happened in life. I always thought,
Speaker 4: you know, it's really strange. I just I couldn't explain it.
Speaker 4: But I always felt that something nefarious had happened, that
Speaker 4: there was something dark about it. And of course, when
Speaker 4: I met him, and then when he started telling me
Speaker 4: he thought my mother was a Slatin, And you know,
Speaker 4: as as I got to know him a little bit
Speaker 4: better and the sorts of things he was saying, all
Speaker 4: of a sudden in my mind I connected those things
Speaker 4: and thought, you know, could it be possible, that's all.
Speaker 4: Could it be possible that this person is the person
Speaker 4: that's responsible for this really shitty life that I've had, Like,
Speaker 4: who could it be? But I don't have answers for that.
Speaker 4: There's still questions.
Speaker 3: What about the dates? Have you looked at the death dates?
Speaker 3: You know how many weeks it was in between your
Speaker 3: your grandmother passing and your mom And I don't.
Speaker 4: I don't, I don't have the documents. I'm not sure
Speaker 4: interesting it would be.
Speaker 3: It would be so as this story unfolds for you,
Speaker 3: because it's it's unfolding for everybody who's been affected. But
Speaker 3: as the details become more and more public, and as
Speaker 3: you become more aware of all these details, knowing the
Speaker 3: sort of trail of human.
Speaker 4: Destruction, it's devastating.
Speaker 3: This guy has left behind and you share his DNA.
Speaker 3: How does that make you feel? Is there a sort
Speaker 3: of sense of what shame? Guilt? How do you cope
Speaker 3: with it?
Speaker 4: Well, for a long time there was deep, deep shame.
Speaker 4: I'm not really sure how. I'm not really I don't
Speaker 4: know how to sort of explain it. How I sort
Speaker 4: of came to deal with that. I think, I mean,
Speaker 4: I I had a lot of help, support groups, ashram psychologists, counselors,
Speaker 4: I was. I built a massive network of support around
Speaker 4: myself to try and unpack things. And I think eventually
Speaker 4: I just came to the realization that I'm not defined
Speaker 4: by another human being. I'm defined by my own actions
Speaker 4: in this life, and that by building a life that
Speaker 4: was meaningful to me, based on honesty and having good
Speaker 4: values and integrity, that that's sort of who I became.
Speaker 4: It's just not how I started off. I'm not saying
Speaker 4: I started off that.
Speaker 3: Way, because so there was a lot to unhap and
Speaker 3: there was a lot.
Speaker 4: To unpack, and I had to sort of reinvent, not
Speaker 4: reinvent myself in a false way, but more recovery, like
Speaker 4: the recovery of myself was what was needed to.
Speaker 3: Get back to who you want it to be.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and that's what happened. And then somehow those sort
Speaker 4: of shackles of shame, I guess, fell off, and it
Speaker 4: just stopped being part of my life, and you know,
Speaker 4: time went by and time went by. Although being re
Speaker 4: immersed in this now, you know, I can say that
Speaker 4: the weight of it is definitely back. But I'm probably
Speaker 4: got better skills for being able to deal with it
Speaker 4: than I did the first time around, for sure.
Speaker 3: But in many ways, you are also one of the victims. Yeah,
Speaker 3: that's the thing is I mean, you were as much
Speaker 3: a victim, if you don't mind me saying that, as
Speaker 3: as all the women that he has.
Speaker 4: I mean, if he can do to his own daughter,
Speaker 4: I mean, what does that say about him and what
Speaker 4: he is capable of?
Speaker 3: So well, that really sort of answers the question. I mean,
Speaker 3: that's you know, so it has played on your mind
Speaker 3: to a massive amount, a.
Speaker 4: Massive amount, And I don't want him to be my father,
Speaker 4: obviously I wish he wasn't, But that is the person
Speaker 4: that I'm biologically connected to. I've sitting in rooms and
Speaker 4: listened to how he's devastated other people's lives, and it's
Speaker 4: it's sickening.
Speaker 3: Are you amazed by the length and breadthought. I mean,
Speaker 3: it's such a when I use that term trailer destruction,
Speaker 3: but it doesn't it doesn't really cover it doesn't.
Speaker 4: It doesn't, it doesn't stop. We went while we were here,
Speaker 4: we went to try and get a document translated, and
Speaker 4: we discovered, for example, just a little, just a little
Speaker 4: thing while we were here that I've been left with
Speaker 4: a I think it was like a in today's equivalence,
Speaker 4: nearly three hundred thousand dollars debt to the state in
Speaker 4: Brussels that he's managed to pass on to me that
Speaker 4: I was unaware of.
Speaker 3: You have a tax deb Yeah, yeah, and you've only
Speaker 3: just discovered.
Speaker 4: That, right, Yeah, not obviously not my debt, but something
Speaker 4: that he's passed on to me.
Speaker 3: How has he done that?
Speaker 4: I think that the investigation into it is still being unpacked.
Speaker 4: It's not one hundred percent clear, but it looks like
Speaker 4: he was using the name of his deceased brother to
Speaker 4: maybe accumulate assets as well as debts, and then he
Speaker 4: used his legally known name to renounce his estate to
Speaker 4: his deceased brother, even though it was his alias was
Speaker 4: his deceased brother so he renounced himself legally from his
Speaker 4: own debt in this other name. And then the way
Speaker 4: that the laws work here is that it just the
Speaker 4: succession follows on to whoever the next person in line is.
Speaker 4: And so they've been waiting for ann answer from me
Speaker 4: for a while about this. So we're going to sort
Speaker 4: that out while we're here as well.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so he doesn't want to know you as a daughter,
Speaker 3: but he's happy to pass on a three hundred thousand
Speaker 3: dollars tax debt in Belgium.
Speaker 4: So it seems it just never stops, does it. It
Speaker 4: just gets worse. It's not like, yeah, it's not being
Speaker 4: unpacked and that's it. There's an end to what he's done.
Speaker 4: It's the more digging, the worse it's getting. So I'm
Speaker 4: not quite sure what that's going to uncover, but I
Speaker 4: think the digging needs to continue.
Speaker 3: Well, what other questions that you still want to answered?
Speaker 4: Ever, for myself, I don't think I do, because if
Speaker 4: I start to want to have questions answered, then I
Speaker 4: think that it will derail me because the answers won't
Speaker 4: ever be forthcoming. So I think for me it's probably
Speaker 4: better as it may be left eye known I'm not sure.
Speaker 4: I mean, it would be good to know, obviously what
Speaker 4: happened to my family, but wanting to have answers to
Speaker 4: that was it stopped me from being able to live
Speaker 4: life for decades. So I don't want to I don't
Speaker 4: want the rest of my life to be like that.
Speaker 4: But I guess I would like to know, though. But
Speaker 4: even more importantly is what's happened to Sally's mother?
Speaker 5: Well?
Speaker 4: I know where my mother is, but where is where
Speaker 4: is Sally's mother? That's I think that question needs to
Speaker 4: be answered.
Speaker 3: Do you think he'll ever tell the truth to the
Speaker 3: coronial in quest? Do you have any confidence in that?
Speaker 4: No? No, I think that he'll find it funny that
Speaker 4: he gets to keep it to himself. But I believe
Speaker 4: that it can be found out without him having to confess.
Speaker 4: I think that they I think that they should investigate.
Speaker 4: I even think that a lot of digging should happen,
Speaker 4: real digging, real digging.
Speaker 3: Did he ever tell you why he used so many names,
Speaker 3: so many aliases?
Speaker 5: Oh?
Speaker 4: Well, I mean that was something I didn't know anything about.
Speaker 4: I've only learned that more recently. So I asked him
Speaker 4: about the name on my birth certify which was different
Speaker 4: to the name that he was using when I met him.
Speaker 4: So on my birth certificate, his Willy Woters and the
Speaker 4: Consulate when they found him for me, they said that
Speaker 4: he was Frederic de heather Diary. So I did ask
Speaker 4: him about that. He said that he lost his family
Speaker 4: in the Holocaust and that he was five years old.
Speaker 4: His mother, father, brothers, and sisters had all been gassed,
Speaker 4: and that he was the only survivor taken in by
Speaker 4: a German family. The family changed his name to Wooters
Speaker 4: to protect him and they raised him.
Speaker 3: Well, that's that's a terrific story.
Speaker 4: Yeah. I had to tell my daughter the unfortunates. I said,
Speaker 4: do you know that that story about our family that
Speaker 4: I've told you that, you know, this is sort of
Speaker 4: part of our history. There's a very real chance that
Speaker 4: it's probably not true. And she said she was just like, oh, well,
Speaker 4: I have my identity attached to that story. You need
Speaker 4: to find out what's going on. So my daughter wants
Speaker 4: to know too.
Speaker 3: It's a pretty low act, isn't it. Yeah, making out
Speaker 3: that you're a Holocaust survivor.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, it's terrible. I think he was from what
Speaker 4: I understand, he was put in an orphanage, why his mother?
Speaker 3: Is there anything that's come out in the inquest that's
Speaker 3: really surprised you?
Speaker 4: Well, he obviously said that he didn't have any contact
Speaker 4: with me or know anything about me. I'm not I'm
Speaker 4: not sure exactly what it was. I can't quote it.
Speaker 4: I found it terribly difficult to watch that in quest,
Speaker 4: so I didn't see all of it. But just I
Speaker 4: think he knows something about me but has had nothing
Speaker 4: to do with me or something like that. I mean,
Speaker 4: that's just an outright lie. That's a lie in the inquest?
Speaker 3: What has been more than one? So? Yeah, isn't that
Speaker 3: the danger of living a life like that for so
Speaker 3: many years? Well, you're going to get caught somewhere along
Speaker 3: the line, aren't you. Do you think it's about time?
Speaker 3: Do you think that there is a good chance that
Speaker 3: justice will finally be delivered to your father?
Speaker 4: I hope, so, I hope. So there's a paper trail there.
Speaker 4: It just needs to be found. People need to know
Speaker 4: what's happened, you know. God forbid, if there are other
Speaker 4: families out there with missing people and they haven't been
Speaker 4: able to identify the person that was in contact with them,
Speaker 4: maybe there'll be answers for lots of people through this, And.
Speaker 3: That's the other thing. It's a really good point, isn't it,
Speaker 3: Because who knows how this sort of story unfolds. Do
Speaker 3: you think we've got to the bottom of it, or
Speaker 3: could there be for example, other women, other wives, other
Speaker 3: people who may have been victims.
Speaker 4: Anything is possible, isn't it. We know that there are
Speaker 4: lots of victims so far in regard to financial fraud,
Speaker 4: and even though we just call it outright theft and
Speaker 4: threatening people, intimidating them, standing over them, the stories are
Speaker 4: there already of multiple experiences of that by people, about
Speaker 4: how far it goes anything's possible.
Speaker 3: You used to term earlier about it getting dark, getting
Speaker 3: very dark. I think that's a really good way of
Speaker 3: putting it. One thing I find especially dark is this theme,
Speaker 3: this pattern that seems to come up with many of
Speaker 3: the women that he meets about asking them to go
Speaker 3: to the hospital have a liver check, and this supposed
Speaker 3: fascination with poisons. What do you make of all that.
Speaker 4: I don't know what the liver check is about. I've
Speaker 4: listened to the poisons expert or a sort of an
Speaker 4: explanation of what these things might be. And I understand
Speaker 4: that if someone's been poisoned and they've bleached their hair,
Speaker 4: for example, then that that would hide, that would conceal
Speaker 4: the poison that would be present in their hair. So
Speaker 4: you know, I mean, I just don't I don't know.
Speaker 4: Anything is possible. That there's a lot of things that
Speaker 4: he has said that I guess, you know, confessions of somebody.
Speaker 4: It sounds like confessions of somebody that's that's proud to
Speaker 4: be doing those sorts of deeds in life.
Speaker 3: But has he really in some of the things he's
Speaker 3: told you, for example, has he really done them? Has
Speaker 3: he perpetrated some of these acts perhaps crimes? Or is
Speaker 3: he just a fantasist?
Speaker 4: Don't know, don't know. I even thought when he told
Speaker 4: me that a deal had been struck between my step
Speaker 4: grandfather and my stepfather regarding, you know, who keeps the
Speaker 4: money and who keeps the girl sort of thing, that
Speaker 4: I had just a feeling like that he was in
Speaker 4: a way that maybe he made the deal that it
Speaker 4: wasn't them, and that he was enjoying telling me that
Speaker 4: he'd done that to me, but without directly telling me
Speaker 4: that it was him, using other characters. So but again
Speaker 4: there's no way to know, and my interactions with him
Speaker 4: left me feeling not just very scared, but also importantly,
Speaker 4: the impact on me was that I thought I was
Speaker 4: losing my mind. I thought maybe I had lost my mind,
Speaker 4: and so it was. It was a devastating impact on
Speaker 4: me emotionally and mentally, like the years of what I
Speaker 4: had to work through, it was just devastating.
Speaker 1: You.
Speaker 3: But you genuinely thought he was a dangerous man.
Speaker 4: Oh I did.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that was and here is a person who's willing
Speaker 3: to forgive because you sort of almost wanted that relationship
Speaker 3: to work, so you were quite open, and yet you
Speaker 3: came away feeling as though he was capable of bad things.
Speaker 4: One hundred percent. I came away feeling that way.
Speaker 3: So maybe he's more career criminal than Walter Mitty.
Speaker 4: He might be potentially a lot, a lot worse than
Speaker 4: we all think this. We might be just only scratching
Speaker 4: the surface with our understanding of him at this stage,
Speaker 4: which is why it's so important that he's investigated properly
Speaker 4: and that his movements are tracked properly.
Speaker 3: I struggle with the whole idea that you have never
Speaker 3: been interviewed properly by police.
Speaker 4: I'm not sure how that works. Maybe the police need
Speaker 4: to be given the green light to go ahead and
Speaker 4: start gathering evidence.
Speaker 3: I'm not sure, or maybe the coroner will order exactly that.
Speaker 4: I hope, So, I hope. So people need answers. I've
Speaker 4: lived with this for a long time, but Sully needs answers.
Speaker 4: And there's a lot of people that are coming out
Speaker 4: even telling their story that maybe wouldn't share their story
Speaker 4: because of how humiliating it is if it wasn't for
Speaker 4: the fact that there's someone out there with a missing mother.
Speaker 4: And I think that hopefully that that prompts small people
Speaker 4: to step forward if there are more people out there.
Speaker 3: People don't just vanish from the face of the earth,
Speaker 3: do they not. No, Marian's got to be somewhere.
Speaker 4: To be somewhere, to be somewhere. You can't imagine that
Speaker 4: she would not want to talk to her daughter. I mean,
Speaker 4: that's just insanity to me to think that that's even
Speaker 4: a possibility.
Speaker 3: Let me ask you this, especially as a woman. Forget
Speaker 3: about being a daughter for a moment, but as a woman,
Speaker 3: because as you know, we've heard so many stories from
Speaker 3: so many different women, that are essentially the same story
Speaker 3: in their connection with Rick Bloom, Willie Wooters, Frederick Dad
Speaker 3: of very whatever he calls himself a particular point in time,
Speaker 3: a lot of his approaches to these lonely women have
Speaker 3: been the same, and they've ended up in the same tragedy.
Speaker 3: What sort of person, what sort of man is capable
Speaker 3: doing that to somebody else? To exploit and take advantage
Speaker 3: of a woman.
Speaker 4: In that way, I see it as somebody that is opportunistic,
Speaker 4: somebody that has no feeling for their fellow man. Because
Speaker 4: lots of people are lonely. It's not a crime to
Speaker 4: be lonely or to be vulnerable. But to understand that
Speaker 4: about people and to then actively work to take advantage
Speaker 4: of them is I don't have I mean, to me,
Speaker 4: it's just disgusting. I don't have the acumen to really
Speaker 4: explain it. It is to me, it's sociopathic in its nature.
Speaker 4: That's how I see it, and I see it that
Speaker 4: way because this isn't about just leaving somebody just broken
Speaker 4: hearted because you know, they thought that they had someone
Speaker 4: that loved them, but now they're back to being lonely again.
Speaker 4: This is about taking people's life savings from them and
Speaker 4: their personal belongings from them that they needed to support
Speaker 4: their families or to retire on. These are people whose
Speaker 4: lives now are completely and utterly destroyed. There's women out
Speaker 4: there who have to have their children look after them
Speaker 4: when they wanted to look after their children. This is
Speaker 4: I mean, how do you do that to people's lives?
Speaker 3: Well, you put it well, I mean you're not only
Speaker 3: exploiting their emotions, but employing.
Speaker 4: The emotions for the purpose of taking those things. So
Speaker 4: it's more than just exploitative.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you can't get much lower.
Speaker 4: No.
Speaker 7: Liam then goes on to ask if Evelyn is happy
Speaker 7: with the interview. She tells him that she is.
Speaker 3: Well, I think you I think the way you put it,
Speaker 3: you know, it was really nice, and you brought that
Speaker 3: into the conversation, which was even nice. The way you
Speaker 3: did it about Sally, I think that's really that's lovely.
Speaker 3: There's someone who's just, you know, she just won't give up.
Speaker 3: I really admire that. I think it's fantastic. She's just
Speaker 3: been going and going and going against all lots.
Speaker 4: And I'm still keeping exactly that is in your imagination.
Speaker 4: Get over it.
Speaker 3: But when you think about it. You're doing the same
Speaker 3: thing in a sense because of no fault of your own,
Speaker 3: because of your circumstance, and you as a little girl
Speaker 3: being shunted here and shunted there and then it's pretty
Speaker 3: it's very rough. But you've still managed to come back
Speaker 3: from that and that was an easy which is a
Speaker 3: credit to you.
Speaker 4: And then so I understand why people don't come back I.
Speaker 3: Talking about with the homesess. But but the point is
Speaker 3: that you've actually not only turned that around, but you
Speaker 3: were still in there essentially almost a representative for your mum.
Speaker 3: I mean, if there is a darker side to that ending,
Speaker 3: even if there's not, I'm sure she'd still be very
Speaker 3: proud of the way that you still helping the fight.
Speaker 4: Well, thank you for saying that. I think that these women,
Speaker 4: these lost women, deceased women, then they need to be honored.
Speaker 4: All of them need to be honored because they haven't
Speaker 4: had a voice. Their voice is gone. None of us
Speaker 4: know what happened to them, what they went through, and
Speaker 4: so we all have to do our bit to try
Speaker 4: and uncover that as best as we can for them
Speaker 4: and be their voice.
Speaker 3: Do you think of your mom's memory?
Speaker 4: I mean I've got very fond memories of my mum.
Speaker 4: I was close to her, So it's been nice being
Speaker 4: here in Brussels. You see the little girls walking around
Speaker 4: and they're done up like little dolls and chasing their
Speaker 4: parents around, Papa Papa. I don't get to hear that
Speaker 4: in Australia in the same way, and that's you know,
Speaker 4: that's how things were for me when I was a
Speaker 4: little girl. So it's beautiful, it's nice. It's also odd
Speaker 4: just looking at the same situation again but still having
Speaker 4: no answers, you know. I mean, no matter what gets
Speaker 4: done here, there's no bringing back my mother. She's gone.
Speaker 4: My grandmother's property in Brussels, it's gone. You know, somebody's
Speaker 4: purchased that legitimately, it's gone. My mother's jewelry that my
Speaker 4: stepfather would never give me even a little near place
Speaker 4: that she bought for me. Those things they're gone. You know,
Speaker 4: things are gone. We all have to sort of move
Speaker 4: on with our life. But you know, for Sally, it's
Speaker 4: different because that closure is not there. So I'm going
Speaker 4: to find out. I've got to find out what happened.
Speaker 4: I think that the least, that's the least that the
Speaker 4: coroner can do is asked for an investigation, and tomanswers.
Speaker 7: It's hard to imagine how traumatic Evelyn's life was made
Speaker 7: by her biological father, especially when she also had to
Speaker 7: endure a very difficult and traumatic upbringing. You might recall
Speaker 7: an episode forty eight we mentioned that after Evelyn's mother, Ilona,
Speaker 7: died at the wheel of her car from a possible
Speaker 7: heart attack in nineteen seventy seven, law firm Morris Blackburn
Speaker 7: wrote letters to the coroner and the ombunsman in Victoria
Speaker 7: requesting a death certificate and a copy of the post
Speaker 7: mortem examination in relation to a worker's compensation claim being
Speaker 7: pursued by Ilona's dependence. This confused us and as Elona
Speaker 7: was not at work when she died. Also, we remembered
Speaker 7: Evelyn telling us that Rick Bloom had birth certificates for
Speaker 7: her and for her stepbrother, showing Rick as his father
Speaker 7: using the name Willie Wooters. Who was actually making the
Speaker 7: worker's comp claim on behalf of the children? Was it
Speaker 7: Michael Reid or could it be Rick Bloom using the
Speaker 7: birth certificates to fraudulently claim on their behalf And what
Speaker 7: could be the basis for such a claim? We asked
Speaker 7: Evelyn about it, and she told us Michael Reid changed
Speaker 7: her name just after her mother died to Evelyn Read.
Speaker 7: Although it was not done legally, Evelyn thinks that Michael
Speaker 7: did get some money from a worker's compensation claim on
Speaker 7: her mother's death. In a letter written by a lawyer
Speaker 7: from Maurice Blackburn in February nineteen seventy eight, they spell
Speaker 7: out their frustration about the delay in getting a post
Speaker 7: mortem report for a loner.
Speaker 9: Such a delay appears inexcusable, particularly when a possible workers'
Speaker 9: compensation case is involved. As under Section forty one B
Speaker 9: of the Workers' Compensation Act, the claim has to be
Speaker 9: notified to the employer within six months from the date
Speaker 9: of death. It is rather difficult when the deceased's dependence
Speaker 9: cannot find out what was the cause of death and
Speaker 9: hence former judgment about whether they have a good worker's
Speaker 9: compensation claim.
Speaker 7: We wondered how the post mortem report would affect whether
Speaker 7: or not they could mount a worker's compensation claim. Now
Speaker 7: we asked Evelyn about whether her stepfather was involved.
Speaker 4: My understanding is that he instigated this claim on behalf
Speaker 4: of Chris and I. Of course we were so young,
Speaker 4: we had no idea about it. When I think back
Speaker 4: to a little later in life, when I was a teenager,
Speaker 4: he made mention of money being set aside for Chris
Speaker 4: and I, and around the age of eighteen, I asked
Speaker 4: for the money was basically told to go to hell,
Speaker 4: probably not in those words, but something of that nature.
Speaker 4: I did my own snooping around a bit later and
Speaker 4: found that a worker's compensation case had been lodged and
Speaker 4: a financial contribution towards Chris and I was put aside.
Speaker 4: I remember I had to write a letter to someone
Speaker 4: to access the funds, and I recall that it had
Speaker 4: been almost all cleaned out. I understand that he had
Speaker 4: had access to it previously.
Speaker 7: We also asked Devilen about the possibility that Rick Bloom
Speaker 7: may have been involved, as he already had a long
Speaker 7: history of fraud by the time Aloner passed away.
Speaker 4: I don't know whether Rick was involved in this, whether
Speaker 4: there had been any pre existing agreements or arrangements between
Speaker 4: the men, or if in fact it was Rick making
Speaker 4: this claim. There is no reason why it couldn't be
Speaker 4: Rick instead of my stepfather. One thing for sure. Either way,
Speaker 4: stepfather either got paid or he knew about it. I
Speaker 4: do recall he was very cagey about it and didn't
Speaker 4: want me to find out any information. I recall that
Speaker 4: he was not happy when I found out the little
Speaker 4: information I could.
Speaker 7: Michael Reid told us that there was a worker's compensation
Speaker 7: payment of about eighteen thousand dollars relating to Ilona's death,
Speaker 7: and he claims the entire amount went to both Evelyn
Speaker 7: and her brother Chris. As to how Elona's death officially
Speaker 7: from natural causes could be grounds for a worker's compensation claim.
Speaker 4: I'm not sure about this one, but I was told
Speaker 4: by him that it was because she died on her
Speaker 4: way home from work. Also, I think the report mentions
Speaker 4: that the person who found her in the car was
Speaker 4: also the same person her boss or colleague. She was
Speaker 4: a hairdresser.
Speaker 1: Aloner worked at an Edward Beiale hair Salem, not far
Speaker 1: from where she died. We found a letter from another
Speaker 1: law firm acting for the insurer of Edward Beale, who
Speaker 1: also wrote to the coroner requesting the post mortem as
Speaker 1: they were defending against the workers comp claim. Evelyn also
Speaker 1: says that a document about her grandmother's estate in Belgium
Speaker 1: stated that Willie Wooters aka Frederic de HEEEVERI made a
Speaker 1: private agreement on behalf of his children a loner, Evelyn
Speaker 1: Wooters and Christopher in regard to the estate.
Speaker 7: We want to revisit something we've mentioned briefly before. One
Speaker 7: of the first things that ran alarm bells for us
Speaker 7: was Marion's choice for her new name, Flora Bella Natalia
Speaker 7: Marion Remachel, Remachel we now know was the name Rick
Speaker 7: Bloom was using. Marion kept her own name, adding Natalia.
Speaker 7: We're not sure why she chose that name and Floraarabella.
Speaker 7: In episode eleven, we revealed that our former colleague in Luxembourg,
Speaker 7: journalist Sarah Kaymes, had discovered that Flora Bella was the
Speaker 7: name of a line of crockery made by the villar
Speaker 7: Roy and Bosch company in Luxembourg.
Speaker 2: Hi, Brian and Allison, my press contact from villar Roy
Speaker 2: and Bosch, got back to me today. She did some
Speaker 2: research into my questions and here's what she found out.
Speaker 2: The Florabella line first went into production in the early
Speaker 2: nineteen nineties and was made until about nineteen ninety four.
Speaker 2: It was distributed worldwide, so it is possible that Marion
Speaker 2: could have bought Flora Bella china made in Luxembourg in Australia. However,
Speaker 2: my contact also told me that this particular design was
Speaker 2: never hand painted, so they weren't signed by decorators. While
Speaker 2: it is possible that Marion might have owned a Flora
Speaker 2: Bella set, the Villaroy and Bosch theory does not provide
Speaker 2: a connection to the name Remachel Best Sarah.
Speaker 7: In May twenty nineteen. Since then we've learned more. This
Speaker 7: was Rick Bloom giving evidence at the Coronial Inquest on
Speaker 7: February sixteen, twenty twenty two. He is answering questions about
Speaker 7: his affair with Monique Cornelius in the early nineteen eighties
Speaker 7: in Luxembourg.
Speaker 8: She introduced me to the Bosch there bush dinner plate
Speaker 8: and all that, the Bosch factory in Lixembourg, and I
Speaker 8: went with her to a concert. She introduced me to
Speaker 8: all the people you had to know in Luxembourg.
Speaker 7: Monique subsequently told police that Rick was lying. She did
Speaker 7: not introduce him to Villeroy and Bosch tableware, and she
Speaker 7: has never been to their factory. We're not sure why
Speaker 7: Rick would make this up, but he appears to have
Speaker 7: inadvertently solved the mystery of why Marian chose the name Florabella.
Speaker 7: Villarroy and Bosch Australia answered questions we put to them,
Speaker 7: confirming that the Floribella tableware pattern they made in Luxembourg
Speaker 7: was available in Australia between nineteen ninety two to nineteen
Speaker 7: ninety four and in Queensland through the David Jones department stores.
Speaker 7: To summarize, Rick has admitted he was introduced to Villarroy
Speaker 7: and Bosch tablewhere he claims in the early eighties. Vill
Speaker 7: Roy and Bosch manufactured the Florabella range in Luxembourg from
Speaker 7: nineteen ninety to nineteen ninety nine. It was available in
Speaker 7: Australia between nineteen ninety two to nineteen ninety four, the
Speaker 7: same year that Rick Bloom placed a personal land using
Speaker 7: the name Fernand Remichel Marion changed her name to Flora
Speaker 7: Bella in nineteen ninety seven when she was having a
Speaker 7: relationship with Rick Bloom aka Fernand Remical. Did Marion buy
Speaker 7: the tablewhere before meeting Rick? Did Rick buy it for
Speaker 7: her as part of his well practiced love bombing. Regardless,
Speaker 7: it now seems most likely that Marian chose the name
Speaker 7: because she liked this tableware collection and was planning to
Speaker 7: start a new life in Luxembourg with her new boyfriend.
Speaker 7: A search by police could quickly discover if Rick Bloom
Speaker 7: owns any table where from this collection. Even without that,
Speaker 7: Rick's admission that he was familiar with Phileroy and Bosch
Speaker 7: seems to confirm once and for all Marian's odd choice
Speaker 7: of name. And we have an update about poisons. You
Speaker 7: heard earlier that Evelyn claimed her father outlined a very
Speaker 7: specific method of fatally poisoning people that would produce flu
Speaker 7: like symptoms and that the victim would die within one
Speaker 7: to two weeks and that it would not be detected
Speaker 7: in a post mortem examination. Will not share the details
Speaker 7: of this method for obvious reasons, but we did reach
Speaker 7: out to our poisons expert toxicologist and Chappelle in Pennsylvania.
Speaker 6: I'm a board certified toxicologist. I have a PhD in
Speaker 6: pharmacology and toxicology from Saint Joseph's University in the United States,
Speaker 6: and I've been working in the chemical industry and the
Speaker 6: pharmaceutical industry now for over twenty five years.
Speaker 7: As you know, we and the Lady Vanishes have spoken
Speaker 7: to someone who has given us. What they claim is
Speaker 7: a method for fatally poisoning someone told to them by
Speaker 7: a person of interest in our investigation. Now, I had
Speaker 7: no idea whether or not this method could achieve what
Speaker 7: its stated purpose was. That's why I'm approaching you. You've
Speaker 7: had a look at it. What your impression could someone
Speaker 7: kill using the method that I've explained to you.
Speaker 6: So I don't want to be giving advice and guidance,
Speaker 6: of course, so all of this is on a true hypothetical.
Speaker 6: Food born illnesses are nothing to sneeze at. I guess
Speaker 6: I could say food born illnesses is one of the
Speaker 6: most common poisons that you will find across the world.
Speaker 6: That's why we have such active in the United States
Speaker 6: Food and Drug Administrations and in other countries as well
Speaker 6: to protect the food supply. And there are a number
Speaker 6: of natural toxins that are produced by bacteria and fungi
Speaker 6: and such that when they get into the body, can
Speaker 6: cause a problem. So what normally happens is that, let's
Speaker 6: suppose you're eating lettuce and the lettuce is contaminated with
Speaker 6: perhaps E. Coli or Lysteria bacteria. When you eat that
Speaker 6: and it gets inside your body, the acid in your
Speaker 6: stomach should break down a lot of that those toxins
Speaker 6: and such. But if you are compromised or there is
Speaker 6: something else going on or maybe overwhelms your immune system,
Speaker 6: that bacteria can continue to flourish in your intestines and
Speaker 6: produce these different toxins. So some are easy to see
Speaker 6: in some kind of blood screen because they're pretty common.
Speaker 6: They look for those different toxins that might come from
Speaker 6: again equali, Salmonella, Listeria, Legionnaire's disease, all these different kinds
Speaker 6: of bacteria, others which are not quite as common you
Speaker 6: might have to do some kind of special test for.
Speaker 6: And many times these other kinds of toxins that are released,
Speaker 6: like the botulism toxin, those tend to be different adverse
Speaker 6: effects that you would see. They tend to be neurotoxins.
Speaker 6: So the adverse effects are not necessarily throwing up, violent diarrhea, cramping.
Speaker 6: It tends to be more of a you know, sleep
Speaker 6: neurological effects, like you might become more sleepy or have
Speaker 6: problems with some of your muscle functioning, and that's eventually
Speaker 6: can be what kills you. So it really depends on
Speaker 6: the kind of toxin that we're talking about now, the
Speaker 6: botulinum toxin is one of the most toxic, you know,
Speaker 6: the least amount that can kill you. You also don't
Speaker 6: see it very often because of modern food practices. So
Speaker 6: botulism is an anaerobic process. It thrives in an anaerobic environment,
Speaker 6: which means there's not oxygen. So you'd really have to
Speaker 6: look at the symptoms of the person to be able
Speaker 6: to give you a clue on what poison it might be.
Speaker 7: A few questions are using out of that. Just you
Speaker 7: mentioned symptoms with the cold and flu, lock symptoms match
Speaker 7: any of those toxins.
Speaker 6: When I think of cold and flu, I think of congestion,
Speaker 6: body aches, running nose, that sort of thing. Many of
Speaker 6: these toxins again are a result in extreme cramp, diarrhea, vomiting,
Speaker 6: you know, really attacking that gut lining. And then eventually
Speaker 6: when you become more compromised, or if that toxin gets
Speaker 6: into the bloodstream, then you can start to see other
Speaker 6: organs begin to become affected and then you end up
Speaker 6: with like systemic sepsis organ failure.
Speaker 3: What about this?
Speaker 7: Is it possible for something that talks and lack bunch
Speaker 7: and bunchel on them to kill within three to seven days.
Speaker 6: Yes, absolutely, if you have a high enough concentration in
Speaker 6: your body. Now, again, your body has a tremendous capacity
Speaker 6: to fight off different bacteria and toxins and such, and
Speaker 6: so if you are more elderly or the young, or
Speaker 6: maybe you've got some other underlying condition, you are more susceptible.
Speaker 6: So it really depends on your immune state. You can't
Speaker 6: say every healthy person would be able to fight off
Speaker 6: you know, these kinds of things. But it's the same
Speaker 6: with the food borne illnesses. You see a broad swath
Speaker 6: of people that can become sick if you have some
Speaker 6: kind of outbreak with a food borne bacteria.
Speaker 3: And is it possible for someone to.
Speaker 7: And again we're not going to discuss the method that
Speaker 7: I've passed on to you. We're certainly not giving anyone
Speaker 7: a blueprint for how to potentially do something like this.
Speaker 7: But more very broadly, is it possible for someone to
Speaker 7: create this kind of toxin using you know, everyday things.
Speaker 6: It's possible, but you've really got to make sure you've
Speaker 6: got that that bacteria in the system. So again, something
Speaker 6: like botulism would be harder because again that's an anaerobic bacteria.
Speaker 6: So it thrives where there's not oxygen, So you've really
Speaker 6: got to find, you know, hot spot for botulism that bacteria.
Speaker 6: So it's a little harder. I'm not saying it's unrealistic.
Speaker 4: But it isn't.
Speaker 6: It's not like I'm going to be like, hm, I'm
Speaker 6: just gonna ri up some in my bathroom. It really
Speaker 6: has to be a calculated, very thoughtful process to try
Speaker 6: and be able to culture these kinds of thing without
Speaker 6: getting sick yourself. Because again, let's not forget that these
Speaker 6: are very very potent toxins. So you have the bacteria,
Speaker 6: bacteria produces the toxin, and the toxin is what is
Speaker 6: the problem. So you know it's not it's you know,
Speaker 6: it's dangerous for both sides.
Speaker 7: I would say, when you first read that method that
Speaker 7: I sent you, did it stock you with something that
Speaker 7: was feasible?
Speaker 6: Feasible yes, lucky maybe, yes, not guaranteed. Again, the method
Speaker 6: you described was it reads well on paper. Let's put
Speaker 6: it that way. It would be really great and nag
Speaker 6: at the Christie type scenario, but you know, again, I'd
Speaker 6: have to really think about it more. I'm not I'm
Speaker 6: not convinced one hundred percent let's put it that way.
Speaker 7: It struck me as well. I was deeply didstood when
Speaker 7: I read it, because it was clearly not a random
Speaker 7: scat of round outline. It was the measured thoughts of
Speaker 7: someone who divided some time and attention to doing these
Speaker 7: That was my impression, was that your impressions.
Speaker 6: Yes, And it strikes me as curious as they thought
Speaker 6: it might work on that person, So I think that
Speaker 6: there must have been some kind of trial and error.
Speaker 6: So was there any kind of similar type death? A
Speaker 6: lot of times you'll find that that, Well, you're the
Speaker 6: expert when it comes to crime, but I've watched enough
Speaker 6: crime shows to know that they don't try that on
Speaker 6: a human the first time. They've got a practice on
Speaker 6: it to see if it has its desired effect. So
Speaker 6: it wouldn't surprise me if there were some maybe other
Speaker 6: evidence of a cat or a dog or some other
Speaker 6: kind of animal, horse, whatever, that may have passed under
Speaker 6: suspicious circumstances as they perfected and tried this method.
Speaker 7: Yeah, and just lastly, how easy or difficult would it
Speaker 7: be to detect this kind of toxin in a post
Speaker 7: mortem exam? Would an examine and necessarily even be looking
Speaker 7: for it.
Speaker 6: So, going back to this scenario, an isolated case, you
Speaker 6: would look at how the person passed, what was the
Speaker 6: progression of the symptoms. There is typically a standard battery
Speaker 6: of tests that are done looking for the toxins associated
Speaker 6: with the common bacterias again, the E. Coli, the salmonella, listeria,
Speaker 6: there's a whole host of these kinds of things. Something
Speaker 6: like botulism. Looking for the botulinum toxin is not on
Speaker 6: a common panel because it's again it's harder if you
Speaker 6: don't see it as often, and according to my research,
Speaker 6: it takes a couple of days to run the test
Speaker 6: and it is a specialized test, so they wouldn't necessarily
Speaker 6: see it in a quick screen or in a common screen.
Speaker 7: That's great, and I'd asked everything I'd wanted to. I
Speaker 7: guess lastly, how unusual is this kind of request in
Speaker 7: your experience?
Speaker 6: Well, you know, through my website, I often get strange
Speaker 6: requests in terms of, hey, I'm writing a book, could
Speaker 6: you help me tell me if this person might die
Speaker 6: if you do this, And I tend to avoid a
Speaker 6: lot of those. But you know, the lady Vanishing has
Speaker 6: a bit of a street cred around here, so I
Speaker 6: think it's a little different, But no, I don't often
Speaker 6: get those questions.
Speaker 7: On the question of liver function. Two of the women
Speaker 7: our person of interest was involved with, he requested they
Speaker 7: both get liver function tests just out of the blue.
Speaker 7: They didn't have any history of liver problems, they were healthy. Otherwise,
Speaker 7: is that a could that in any way be an
Speaker 7: indicata for someone attempting to employ this method?
Speaker 3: Would it be of any use?
Speaker 6: So, your liver is an extremely critical part of your
Speaker 6: body's ability to defend itself against toxins that are from
Speaker 6: the outside world, you know, things that you breathe in
Speaker 6: the air or might eat, but also through your own
Speaker 6: metabolic processes. Your metabolism to eat the food, to process
Speaker 6: the food into energy naturally produces waste. It is abnormal
Speaker 6: to ask someone to go get a liver function test,
Speaker 6: especially if they don't show any other symptoms or you know,
Speaker 6: if they if they're not precluded, maybe they have orrhosis
Speaker 6: or something where you've got an ongoing chronic condition in
Speaker 6: your liver and they want to you know, you want
Speaker 6: to just check and make sure everything's going okay. To
Speaker 6: ask for it alone is quite is quite strange. There
Speaker 6: was one more thing that I thought was interesting when
Speaker 6: we had talked about they had asked the people to
Speaker 6: dye their hair. Yes, so if somebody was asking someone
Speaker 6: to dye their hair, you might detect certain a means
Speaker 6: in their blood screams. But you have to be looking
Speaker 6: for that. So I find it interesting like they might
Speaker 6: want to you know, and again I don't know all
Speaker 6: the details, but the idea that they would want to
Speaker 6: add something to the body which they thought might confuse
Speaker 6: a blood test, or add something into a blood test
Speaker 6: that might you know, I'd have to do some more digging,
Speaker 6: but that's you know, you commonly see a means and
Speaker 6: other kinds of these are dyes that you would find
Speaker 6: in different hair coloring solutions.
Speaker 7: Thanks for hoping us.
Speaker 6: No problem. Good to talk to you, Brian.
Speaker 1: We've been told a Learner apparently had scarlet fever as
Speaker 1: a child, which may have compromised her immune system, although
Speaker 1: neither the autopsy nor her own doctor could determine a
Speaker 1: definite cause of death, and complaints were made to the
Speaker 1: state Ombudsman relating to laboratory tests to determine Ilona's cause
Speaker 1: of death being delayed for more than six months. When
Speaker 1: they're usually undertaken within days. This was due to a
Speaker 1: massive work backlog, a chemist report not being filed, and
Speaker 1: difficulty recruiting enough qualified toxicologists to do the work coming up.
Speaker 1: We hear from Evelyn's brother Chris.
Speaker 5: Said to me, so, I think that she was really
Speaker 5: in love with Mike.
Speaker 2: She really loved you, really love William at the time,
Speaker 2: but then I found out what he was about.
Speaker 1: And her stepfather, Michael Reid.
Speaker 8: When I kissed her goodbye in the morning of the
Speaker 8: day she died and she'd asked me to meet her
Speaker 8: for lunch, her lips were very cold, and I said,
Speaker 8: that's a kiss of death.
Speaker 3: That is terrible.
Speaker 1: If you knew Marion or have any information about her
Speaker 1: or her whereabouts, we'd love to hear from you. Our
Speaker 1: website is sevennews dot com dot au forward slash news
Speaker 1: forward slash The Lady Vanishers, and you can also message
Speaker 1: us here. You can also send us at anonymous tip
Speaker 1: at www dot Lady Vanishers dot org. If you like
Speaker 1: what you're hearing, don't forget to subscribe. Please rate and
Speaker 1: review our series. It helps new listeners find us. Presenter
Speaker 1: and executive producer, Alison Sandy investigative journalist Brian Seymour, writer
Speaker 1: and producer Sally Eels, Sound design Mark Wright, Graphics, Jason Blamford,
Speaker 1: translation and transcripts Astelle Sanchez, voice actors or Willian Ritter,
Speaker 1: Bonnie Durcell and the Brisbane Newsroom. The theme and much
Speaker 1: of the music by Nicholas Gasparini at the Darkpiano dot com.
Speaker 1: Thanks again to Alliance Franseille. This is a Seven News production.