Speaker 1: You're listening to The Lady Vanisher's catch up series number four.
Speaker 1: I'm Alison Sandy.
Speaker 2: And I'm Brian Seymour. We begin by looking back at
Speaker 2: episode ten, which introduced the piece of information that changed
Speaker 2: the course of our investigation. A personal ad written in
Speaker 2: French and placed in the bilingual French Australian newspaper Le
Speaker 2: Courier Australia on December tenth, nineteen ninety four by a
Speaker 2: man seeking a relationship. This is the ad he placed.
Speaker 3: Monsieur can stor celibadel grand braun sobra non.
Speaker 1: Female that roughly translates as a tall forty seven year
Speaker 1: old single man with brown hair, a non smoker uni
Speaker 1: who is cultured, intelligent and can speak a number of languages.
Speaker 1: He owns multiple properties or big businesses and is highly motivated.
Speaker 1: He is warm and welcoming, but also quite serious, and
Speaker 1: he's looking for an unattached lady with a view for
Speaker 1: a permanent relationship or marriage. The letters bc BG in
Speaker 1: the ad stand for bon chice bon genre, which translates
Speaker 1: as good style, good class. It's apparently an expression used
Speaker 1: in France to describe members of the upper class, typically
Speaker 1: well educated, well connected, and descended from old money. There
Speaker 1: are two ways to get in touch. There's a phone
Speaker 1: number and a post office box for lennox Head in
Speaker 1: northern New South Wales. That's not too far from Byron Bay.
Speaker 1: In fact, it's just a twenty minute drive. And at
Speaker 1: the bottom of the personal ad there's also a name.
Speaker 2: M. A.
Speaker 3: Mikael or MF. Ramichel.
Speaker 1: We thought would give you a moment to let that sink.
Speaker 1: In no doubt, you're automatically doing what we did, connecting
Speaker 1: the dots with Marion's case. Our first action was to
Speaker 1: dial the number listed in the ad.
Speaker 4: You have reached the message bank of private number.
Speaker 1: Hi, It's Alison Sandy from the seven network.
Speaker 3: Can you please give me a call on zero. So
Speaker 3: far we haven't heard back.
Speaker 2: Let's examine the ad further. We know the qualities of
Speaker 2: the man, cultured, educated and motivated would have appealed to Marion,
Speaker 2: and if his age in nineteen ninety four was forty
Speaker 2: seven by nineteen ninety seven, he would have been around
Speaker 2: fifty two years younger than Marion. The post office box
Speaker 2: listed is in the seaside holiday town of lenox Head.
Speaker 2: That's just a short drive south of Barren Bay, the
Speaker 2: place where most of Marion's money was withdrawn. Now let's
Speaker 2: look at the name. The ad was placed by a
Speaker 2: mister f Ramkeel. Marion officially changed her name to Florabella
Speaker 2: Natalia Marion Ramackel in May nineteen ninety seven. And yes,
Speaker 2: in both cases the surname Ramkeel is spelled exactly the
Speaker 2: same way. It's an uncommon name in Australia. There isn't
Speaker 2: one we can find listed in the white pages or
Speaker 2: on the electoral role. From our other searchers, we've learned
Speaker 2: that the f Ramakel who held the post office box
Speaker 2: in the Lenoxhead area in the nineteen nineties appears to
Speaker 2: have long since moved on. We have found Rameckel's living
Speaker 2: in the United States, but mostly the name pops up
Speaker 2: in Luxembourg, the small European country bordered by France, Germany
Speaker 2: and Belgium. Remember the customs documents for Florabella Remichel when
Speaker 2: she supposedly came back to Australia stated that she was
Speaker 2: a housewife from Luxembourg and that personal ad was written
Speaker 2: in French, with the writer claiming to be a polyglot
Speaker 2: or multilingual in Luxembourg. The residents generally are multilingual. There
Speaker 2: are three official languages Luxembourgish, French and German, although many
Speaker 2: people can also speak English, Portuguese and Italian.
Speaker 1: It seems like far too many coincidences. We have to
Speaker 1: track down the man who posted this ad, this monsieur remical.
Speaker 1: This ad was discovered by Joni, a researcher and good friend.
Speaker 1: Now but back in twenty nine nineteen, Joanie was a
Speaker 1: listener who decided to do some digging of her own.
Speaker 5: So essentially essentially Radical or Ramacle as a name is
Speaker 5: something that features essentially nowhere in all of Australia, no
Speaker 5: family groups, no history of the name. So to me
Speaker 5: it jumped completely out at me. So I guess the
Speaker 5: story is. I was sitting at the computer, I was sick,
Speaker 5: it was midnight, and I thought I'll run the name
Speaker 5: through and suddenly, from nineteen ninety four December nineteen ninety four,
Speaker 5: this ad popped up in a French speaking newspaper coming
Speaker 5: out of Sydney. And this was something that totally took
Speaker 5: me by surprise. I thought, what is this? So I
Speaker 5: then quickly ran it through an online translator and found
Speaker 5: that it was a man a mister f Ramicle who
Speaker 5: was looking for a long term relationship or marriage, and
Speaker 5: he well, his ear box was located in Lenox Head
Speaker 5: and his phone number was a Ballana or Lenox Head
Speaker 5: phone number. So that's essentially what was in the paper.
Speaker 3: But you didn't stop there, did you.
Speaker 5: I didn't stop there, So, like a dog with a
Speaker 5: bone and lots of time on my hands, so I
Speaker 5: essentially sat on the computer pretty much all nice and
Speaker 5: just started delving and digging deeper into the surname. Discovered
Speaker 5: that the actual translator itself, and this is where all
Speaker 5: the finer details do come in, is that it's actually
Speaker 5: the Luxembourg die So the ad isn't in French as
Speaker 5: we know it, so there are a few little words
Speaker 5: and things in there that aren't actually French. They're purely
Speaker 5: targeted to Luxembourg. So this is where I thought, oh, okay,
Speaker 5: well looking at the information that was on the passport
Speaker 5: coming back in, and then I thought this looks quite interesting.
Speaker 5: So yeah, So basically, in a nutshell, I mapped out
Speaker 5: anything that was radical that was Luxembourg and started to
Speaker 5: gather together all the family groups. Because there's only around
Speaker 5: one hundred radicals around the world as far as I've
Speaker 5: been able to tell, majority in the US and a
Speaker 5: couple of smaller families in Luxembourg. Now considering that the
Speaker 5: ad was in French, that was why I was looking
Speaker 5: at the Luxembourg connections as well. Yeah, certainly there are
Speaker 5: only three veils that I've been able to find, you know,
Speaker 5: publicly listed that begins with an F. So there's one
Speaker 5: in Germany, one in Luxembourg, and one in the US.
Speaker 5: So looking at the year how they were as mentioned
Speaker 5: in the ad, then looking at the same year of
Speaker 5: birth online and found someone that matches all of that criteria.
Speaker 5: You know, I must have been a social worker for
Speaker 5: twenty odd years. Family violence is one of my I
Speaker 5: guess specialties, if you want to call it that. And certainly,
Speaker 5: just looking at I really feel, you know, even before
Speaker 5: finding this information, just looking at the actual case. I've
Speaker 5: been a massive True Climb podcast listener for many many
Speaker 5: years as well, and just purely looking at her actions
Speaker 5: and how quickly things changed, and I can just see
Speaker 5: coercive control over a lot of her actions.
Speaker 3: Tell me more about that.
Speaker 5: So as soon as I saw the letter that Sally
Speaker 5: had posted up online, don't worry about me, you know,
Speaker 5: I'm okay that sort of thing. Also putting her name
Speaker 5: within the string of names, so the fact that she's
Speaker 5: retaining a small little piece of herself in Marion in
Speaker 5: the choice of that within the name. But it hasn't
Speaker 5: gone first, the money coming out of the bank, you know,
Speaker 5: five thousand dollars every day. It just really frustrates me,
Speaker 5: just as a general Joe blow on the street, that
Speaker 5: the police would take the fact that she took the
Speaker 5: money as like a tick against her being, you know,
Speaker 5: living well, alive, choosing to disappear to me. I think that,
Speaker 5: you know, probably as the years of progress now we're
Speaker 5: a bit more aware of how you know, predominantly men
Speaker 5: can control women and can do it very quickly.
Speaker 1: How do they go about it in your experience.
Speaker 5: Well, certainly it starts off with love bombing all the way.
Speaker 5: So love bombing meaning you know, like it's just the
Speaker 5: most overwhelming feeling of safety, security, love, passion, romance. You know,
Speaker 5: you are their world, you are everything to them. And
Speaker 5: then that turns into I want to see you all
Speaker 5: the time. I want to know where you are all
Speaker 5: the time. I want to I want to phone you
Speaker 5: five or six times a day. I need to you know,
Speaker 5: you're looking good in that outfit, that maybe consider this outfit,
Speaker 5: so things, you know, can progress quite quickly, and especially
Speaker 5: for someone like Marion who has been looking for love
Speaker 5: and can't be without a man, as her friend said,
Speaker 5: or always wants to be with a man. It's those
Speaker 5: sort of things I could I could just looking at
Speaker 5: her victimology so to speak, and again just talking as
Speaker 5: a joe blow off the street, certainly I would see
Speaker 5: her as being an absolute prime candidate for someone who
Speaker 5: you know, quite possibly had repeated this behavior time and
Speaker 5: time again with women, and that was how we operated.
Speaker 5: So certainly I just see I just see certain aspects
Speaker 5: of it. Putting all her things into storage, keeping you know,
Speaker 5: certain things out, but they're not telling her daughter where
Speaker 5: these things were, throwing her future son in law out
Speaker 5: of the house, so that there was no meeting of
Speaker 5: the minds. Because I guess what I've found over the
Speaker 5: years is that women in retrospect, they can actually look
Speaker 5: back and say, yeah, I didn't want anyone to meet
Speaker 5: this new partner. You know, I wanted him because we
Speaker 5: were so wrapped up in each other. I wanted him
Speaker 5: to be kept separate from everybody else.
Speaker 3: But how might have wanted that too, right?
Speaker 5: Yes, yep, absolutely.
Speaker 1: Because isn't that part of the control thing as well,
Speaker 1: you know, keeping them being a secret to everyone else?
Speaker 6: Is that?
Speaker 5: Yep? Yeah, definitely.
Speaker 1: In this episode, we also considered Clark Hunter, the mysterious
Speaker 1: Facebook user who approached Sally online several years ago and
Speaker 1: left the following message.
Speaker 2: Natalia is alive, but you never see her again. It
Speaker 2: was not your intention to disappear.
Speaker 1: She was forced when Sally chased up the comments. Clark
Speaker 1: Hunter responded, but very soon his account was deactivated. Clark
Speaker 1: Hunter used the name Natalia Marion had changed her name
Speaker 1: to Flora Bella Natalia Marion remarkable. Both Joni and I
Speaker 1: discovered through our own investigations that in Luxembourg it's not
Speaker 1: uncommon for people to go by their second name, so
Speaker 1: that Clark Hunter seems much more legitimate. I guess now.
Speaker 5: It's when I saw that after doing all of this
Speaker 5: deep dive. Yes, I thought, oh, that is that is
Speaker 5: very interesting, especially Natalia and not Natalie, like retaining the
Speaker 5: true wording as well. Yeah, it's just it is just
Speaker 5: such a baffling case.
Speaker 1: It is, But this to me, seems out of all
Speaker 1: the tips and leads and everything that we've gotten, this
Speaker 1: one seems to me like the most solid.
Speaker 5: Yes, if only, if only we could get the passport,
Speaker 5: the ins and outs, all of those details, because that
Speaker 5: would certainly either propel it forward or put it the
Speaker 5: rest exactly if we could get that information, because essentially,
Speaker 5: you know, like I've gone to the library and I've
Speaker 5: gotten out all of the physical phone books from the
Speaker 5: bar and Bay area, the Grafton area, and the Gold
Speaker 5: Coast area looking for a ramical you know, from nineteen
Speaker 5: ninety three up to two thousand. I think I went,
Speaker 5: and there's just no one anywhere. His non existence.
Speaker 1: Well, we have shared that information with police. Gary Shean
Speaker 1: did indicate that would take some time, but regardless, we're
Speaker 1: going to plug on and keep doing our own investigation.
Speaker 1: I think that, regardless of anything, we just have to
Speaker 1: follow this rabbit down this hole. Like this is an
Speaker 1: absolute definite. And as I said, when I think of
Speaker 1: what Clark Hunter said, she was forced again, I'm not
Speaker 1: directly linking the two, no, but yeah, we have to
Speaker 1: investigate that possibility given all the coincidences.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, absolutely, because I can see it just looking
Speaker 5: at the story. What Sally has said, you know, filled
Speaker 5: in quite a lot of the gaps. I can most
Speaker 5: definitely see, you know, even from a week or a
Speaker 5: few weeks in, I think that Marion was potentially a
Speaker 5: prime candidate for getting sort of swept up captured, you know,
Speaker 5: sell your house, sell everything, Let's go and live in
Speaker 5: Luxembourg with all of the all of the lavender bushes
Speaker 5: and the music and the art, and the French speaking
Speaker 5: multiple languages, like it's such an exotic country, and you know,
Speaker 5: it's just I just think it is something well worth
Speaker 5: pursuing for sure.
Speaker 2: But if Marian was planning all along to go to
Speaker 2: Luxembourg with some exotic stranger, why go to London and
Speaker 2: spend weeks in the south of England first? Was it
Speaker 2: a ruse to hide her true intentions from her family?
Speaker 2: Did she encounter some unforeseen delay which kept her from
Speaker 2: traveling to the European continent, or perhaps she did end
Speaker 2: up in Luxembourg at some point before her passport returned
Speaker 2: to Australia. So we're starting to collect quite a few
Speaker 2: leads which are pointing overseas. It's time for us to
Speaker 2: follow them. Sally and I head to the UK and Europe.
Speaker 2: In England, we go straight to Tunbridge Wells. The police
Speaker 2: in Kent already know we're coming. We gave them advance
Speaker 2: warning and information about Mary case. Sally spends twenty minutes
Speaker 2: explaining what's happened in the past twenty two years. Hey,
Speaker 2: see what happened?
Speaker 7: Well, I just met a I'm not sure what his
Speaker 7: status is, maybe he's the sergeant. His name was Luke Stablein,
Speaker 7: really nice young guy and he he said he's just
Speaker 7: done a bit of googling and stuff like that this
Speaker 7: morning just to get a bit of a heads up
Speaker 7: on what the story is actually about, and knew that
Speaker 7: I was coming in this morning to speak to them.
Speaker 7: So there's had been a group of them who had
Speaker 7: been discussing it this morning and talking about what they
Speaker 7: can and cannot do. No surprise, they can't do anything
Speaker 7: unless Australian Police contact them directly and ask for their help.
Speaker 7: I told him the story. He said, I don't like
Speaker 7: to make judgment on anything, but he said if it
Speaker 7: was us here in Kent, we would do everything in
Speaker 7: our power to help people to get some answers, particularly
Speaker 7: in circumstances like this.
Speaker 2: Circumstances yet.
Speaker 7: Yeah, so he said it would be everything in their
Speaker 7: power to do what they could to help the people financeers.
Speaker 7: But he did stress to me, I can't do anything
Speaker 7: like I couldn't leave my DNA. He couldn't take a
Speaker 7: report or anything unless it's a directive from Australian Police.
Speaker 7: Back to square one, I guess. But look, I said
Speaker 7: to him, at least you know that I'm here. I
Speaker 7: offered to give my DNA and just leave it in
Speaker 7: the event that I am actually sitting here, and can
Speaker 7: you take it. I find it really difficult that it's
Speaker 7: such a big deal here because I literally walked into
Speaker 7: bar and Bay Police and they stuck a thing in
Speaker 7: my mouth and put it in a bag and that
Speaker 7: was my DNA test. So it took literally two minutes.
Speaker 7: So I don't understand from my point of view, why
Speaker 7: it's such a big deal over here that they can't
Speaker 7: take it, being that I've suggested while I'm sitting in
Speaker 7: your office, can you take it and if you need it,
Speaker 7: you can keep it. If you can't use it, you
Speaker 7: throw it in the bin. But obviously they've got different
Speaker 7: rules and regulations here, so yeah, there's not really much to.
Speaker 2: Tell, So really it's down to the New South Wales Police.
Speaker 2: He should have reached out to the police here years ago, surely.
Speaker 7: Well, I said when I left, I said, my goal
Speaker 7: would be to get my DNA here so that we
Speaker 7: could run it against any Jane does and also put
Speaker 7: her on the missing person's list here because there is
Speaker 7: a lot of elderly people living in these areas who
Speaker 7: potentially might have might have sat down, had tea with her,
Speaker 7: might have sat and had lunch with her one day
Speaker 7: as a woman traveling potentially by herself through these quaint
Speaker 7: little towns, so you know, there's every chance that someone
Speaker 7: may recollect seeing her or speaking to her, or seeing what.
Speaker 8: Happened to her.
Speaker 2: But without that inquiry from our police.
Speaker 7: Need the police to step up here, I really really do.
Speaker 7: I really need them to help me.
Speaker 2: Waiting for us is Christina, the woman who's taken it
Speaker 2: upon herself to investigate Marion's story. We're at the Tunbridge
Speaker 2: Wells Hotel and it's a beautiful Sunday morning, about to
Speaker 2: have tea and Christina and Zali clearly hitting it off
Speaker 2: like best friends, and they've only just met just a
Speaker 2: few minutes ago. And from opposite sides of the world,
Speaker 2: now linked and obviously connected. Like Sally, Christina is a
Speaker 2: mum without a mother.
Speaker 4: I could relate to Sally on some personal level, and
Speaker 4: I did say to Sally, I don't mean to deflect
Speaker 4: from her case at all, but I lost my own
Speaker 4: mum when I was nineteen. Oh no, it's cancer, and
Speaker 4: just thought maybe I can get a few bits of
Speaker 4: information relating to Sussex. But obviously things have snow Vaudevitch
Speaker 4: since that point. Close to here you have Tonbridge where
Speaker 4: there's Tonbridge Castle there, which we're pretty sure marian visited.
Speaker 4: That's just a short distance north of here, in Tonbridge Wells.
Speaker 4: And then we could head for the south towards the
Speaker 4: Sussex coast. We could go to Alfreston and East Sussex,
Speaker 4: where Marianne said on the other postcards, and then down
Speaker 4: to the coast in Brighton, another location that she seemed
Speaker 4: to be.
Speaker 2: And then we're on our way. First stop, ton Bridge Castle.
Speaker 8: It's open. Do you want to go in there and
Speaker 8: have a lot? Sure, Okay, let's see if someone was
Speaker 8: working here.
Speaker 1: Hello you, thank you.
Speaker 6: My name is Sally.
Speaker 8: I'm come from Australia. Would any of you happen to
Speaker 8: be working here in nineteen ninety seven? Yeah, okay, and.
Speaker 3: You working up here?
Speaker 9: I was here, I.
Speaker 10: Was here, I did here.
Speaker 8: My question is my mum's missing person. And she came here.
Speaker 7: Sent me this brochure and told me that she was here.
Speaker 8: And this is my friend Christina.
Speaker 7: We're actually doing a podcast in Australia to help try
Speaker 7: and find her because police have really just given up
Speaker 7: and they're not looking for her anymore.
Speaker 8: And it's been quite terrible because she came to the UK.
Speaker 8: She was supposed to come for a year long holiday.
Speaker 7: And her passport came back in six weeks after she left,
Speaker 7: and all her money was drained out of her bank
Speaker 7: account in five thousand dollars increments, which nearly one hundred
Speaker 7: and twenty thousand dollars back then.
Speaker 8: So yeah, we've come to try and see if we
Speaker 8: can retrace her steps and.
Speaker 7: That actually Marian Barter, I've got a photo.
Speaker 8: I'll show you a photo of her.
Speaker 7: When I walked in, I thought, oh, you never know,
Speaker 7: you might have been I mean, I never expect anybody
Speaker 7: to have been here. I didn't remember twenty two years ago.
Speaker 7: Remember I know, she said to me in one of
Speaker 7: the letters, she said, oh, people recognize that I'm from Australia.
Speaker 8: Is really is my accent really that bad?
Speaker 7: Because she always liked to speak quite proper and quite well,
Speaker 7: and she felt that people knew she was a stranger
Speaker 7: because of out occer kind of accent.
Speaker 4: Which is why you'd hope someone would remember meeting her
Speaker 4: or having a conversation with her, because that would have
Speaker 4: led to a conversation about Australia and why she was here.
Speaker 4: And I just hope that person.
Speaker 8: Is two papers, yeah, Career okay.
Speaker 11: And the other one is called The Times of Tunbridge okay,
Speaker 11: which is a freebie okay.
Speaker 6: And lots of people picked that up just to read
Speaker 6: on the train or something like that, so.
Speaker 8: That might be where you're going. Okay.
Speaker 12: There's also one of these two that's okay. There's also
Speaker 12: age much called Facebook group.
Speaker 8: Oh yes, I'm on those.
Speaker 7: There's a tree's amazing.
Speaker 1: That's right.
Speaker 2: There's a face that's usually quite good, and that's usual
Speaker 2: quite good for people.
Speaker 3: You'll get information about what's happening in television things like that.
Speaker 4: So we're trying to find out if any of anything
Speaker 4: from back then, whether it was in some sort of
Speaker 4: archive somewhere, you know, where old tay for work, or
Speaker 4: because I would have thought with the visitors book, Yeah,
Speaker 4: that's kept mind reason where that might be.
Speaker 6: It would be wonderful if you did find something, wouldn't it.
Speaker 8: Yeah.
Speaker 7: We were talking about this in the car actually, and
Speaker 7: I think Christina was saying too. You know, it's funny
Speaker 7: because something like this, you'd kind of imagine that people
Speaker 7: feel in a book to keep for records for years
Speaker 7: and years, not something that you get rid of in
Speaker 7: seven years, like a typical bank report or tax deep
Speaker 7: details something like that. More for history, you know, So
Speaker 7: maybe that you never know, Maybe you guys might find
Speaker 7: it tucked away somewhere.
Speaker 2: If the guest book is found and Marion's name is
Speaker 2: in it, there might also be the name of someone
Speaker 2: he was traveling with. Sally leaves her name and contact details.
Speaker 8: Thank you for your time.
Speaker 1: Thank you.
Speaker 2: Marion next traveled south in her hire car one hour's
Speaker 2: drive to the tiny hamlet of Alfriston the postcard Marion
Speaker 2: sent Sally from Alfreston. Began thinking of you as I
Speaker 2: explored the quaint little shop on my tour to the
Speaker 2: historic village of Alfriston. The card featured a sticker in
Speaker 2: the top left hand corner advertising that shop Sallie's Craft
Speaker 2: and Gift Center. It's here Sally has one of her
Speaker 2: most powerful moments yet. The shop is now an interior
Speaker 2: design store, and just as Sally arrives, the owner returns
Speaker 2: and lets her in, allowing her to explore and literally
Speaker 2: walk in her mother's footsteps.
Speaker 8: Intriguing.
Speaker 7: So do you remember when it was called Sally's Craft?
Speaker 4: No, No, I way beyond beyond the people who have
Speaker 4: it before me?
Speaker 7: Okay, okay, Well, my mum, Marian came for a holiday
Speaker 7: for a year in the UK. Yes, and sadly she disappeared.
Speaker 7: So she disappeared in nineteen ninety seven and one of
Speaker 7: my last contacts with her was a postcard that she
Speaker 7: sent me from Alfriston.
Speaker 6: Yes, with the postcard is actually of the shop front, Yes,
Speaker 6: And she put a little gold sticker that said Sally's
Speaker 6: Craft on the back of the postmer you know how
Speaker 6: they do this year.
Speaker 7: So she stuck out on the back of the postcard
Speaker 7: as well. So they're kind of retracing her steps a
Speaker 7: little bit in hope that we might find somebody that
Speaker 7: might remember her.
Speaker 2: The new owner of the shop, Diana no is the
Speaker 2: former owner Carol. Christina has already written a letter to
Speaker 2: Carol but hasn't heard back yet.
Speaker 7: It was it's actually a nice comforting feeling for me.
Speaker 7: I felt very much like Mum was around, if that
Speaker 7: makes any sense. Like I just felt like everything that
Speaker 7: was in there was her taste, and she loved fabrics
Speaker 7: and wallpaper and very much, you know, very much Upper Alley.
Speaker 7: So it was kind of nice to be in there,
Speaker 7: to be honest, to know that she'd stepped there and
Speaker 7: that was you know, I could have been at last
Speaker 7: steps for all we know. I don't know, but it
Speaker 7: sounds a bit morbid to say that, But you don't know,
Speaker 7: so that I know for fact she was there, So
Speaker 7: it was kind of nice being in there.
Speaker 2: Before we head on our way again, we come across
Speaker 2: the village post box, possibly the very same one Marian
Speaker 2: used to mail a postcard there twenty two years ago.
Speaker 2: After a short drive to the coast, Sally and Christina
Speaker 2: arrive in the seaside town of Brighton, home to the
Speaker 2: famous Peer. It's a melting pot of cultures and a
Speaker 2: vibrant party town. It also featured an odd little store
Speaker 2: when Maryan visited there in nineteen ninety seven, called the
Speaker 2: Cat Shop. She was so taken with that she purchased
Speaker 2: a postcard bearing its name and sent it home to
Speaker 2: some elderly relatives who loved cats.
Speaker 5: There you go.
Speaker 8: You.
Speaker 4: Okay, So we're standing opposite amethys. I think that's how
Speaker 4: it was pronounced. Yeah, and this is the shot that
Speaker 4: used to be the cat Shop.
Speaker 7: Yeah. I don't know what the cat shop was, he said,
Speaker 7: do you reckon?
Speaker 8: It was like just things.
Speaker 12: For your cat.
Speaker 4: I know what it was, I do from some of
Speaker 4: the Facebook groups that I reached out to. So the
Speaker 4: lady who run the shop she sold basically everything cat
Speaker 4: so cushions, ornaments, gifts, trinkets. It was cat world basically,
Speaker 4: and she sold these like bizarre looking cat dollies, basically
Speaker 4: cats dressed up in clothing and wearing spectacles. It was
Speaker 4: a bit of a sort of strange, bizarre concept for
Speaker 4: the cat lovers. Yeah, so that would have been where
Speaker 4: Marion purchased the postcard.
Speaker 2: She walked along.
Speaker 7: Yeah, so I'm not sure how long she was here for. No,
Speaker 7: but being like the trip that we just did, like,
Speaker 7: it's definitely not all in a day, is it like.
Speaker 8: You would say, would do Alphaston? Alvist is not that big.
Speaker 4: So Alphaston you could do in a short time.
Speaker 7: Come here and stay the night or yeah, you certainly
Speaker 7: wouldn't do this and then go all the way back
Speaker 7: to Tunbridge.
Speaker 4: Wells like it's bright and as we are. It's a
Speaker 4: big city and there's a lot to see, and this
Speaker 4: is where you would spend I would say at least
Speaker 4: a couple of days, maybe longer if you really wanted
Speaker 4: to have a look around and see everything there was
Speaker 4: to see as a tourist. So I would imagine these
Speaker 4: lanes that are quite popular for tourists. She would have
Speaker 4: spent some time walking around these looking at the little shops,
Speaker 4: which is how she come across the cat shop.
Speaker 7: Yeah, and I think in their postcutch. She literally says,
Speaker 7: I stumbled across this cute little shop and reminded me
Speaker 7: of you guys.
Speaker 8: That might have been Sally's craft.
Speaker 6: I don't know, I.
Speaker 7: Can't remember, but funny feeling it was the the this
Speaker 7: is the post couch she sent you her great her
Speaker 7: aunties and was Nony, dub and Margie and now were
Speaker 7: the most beautiful sisters you ever met, and they loved
Speaker 7: their cats, so kind of fitting that she would stumble
Speaker 7: across it and feel that that was a nice thing
Speaker 7: to send them.
Speaker 1: So once again.
Speaker 7: Putting a real personal touch here on the contact and
Speaker 7: keeping in crafts absolute the family with that postcard to
Speaker 7: your aunties and that one to you from Sally's Croft Center,
Speaker 7: it shows that her family was in her thoughts thinking
Speaker 7: a utory of birthday present. Yeah, you know, like you
Speaker 7: don't do that in my opinion, if you're planning to disappear.
Speaker 7: And you know, some people have said, oh, maybe that
Speaker 7: was to buy some time, but why did she need
Speaker 7: to buy time? Like it was in an era where
Speaker 7: we didn't have computers, we didn't have social media.
Speaker 2: No, we didn't have Facebook.
Speaker 7: It wasn't as easy to be found as it is today.
Speaker 7: Life was very different back then, and that's ten to wash.
Speaker 7: You know, we didn't know where she was. We couldn't
Speaker 7: search for her on snap maps and keep an eye
Speaker 7: on where she was like my kids can do with me,
Speaker 7: you know, So life was very different.
Speaker 4: Imagine if she hadn't sent the postcards, we wouldn't have
Speaker 4: very much to go on at all.
Speaker 1: We wouldn't have any but she's.
Speaker 4: Left some clues for us by sending the postcards. So
Speaker 4: it's almost as if she was inviting family members in
Speaker 4: to be part of her trip. What she was doing, Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 4: it's not like she was trying to hide what she
Speaker 4: was doing.
Speaker 7: Well, I mean, even if you think about the fact
Speaker 7: about the comments about the Steiner School and this comments
Speaker 7: to other friends saying she'd met Susie Cooper who had
Speaker 7: come over in exchange the TSS and that she was
Speaker 7: a good contact to have if she decided to teach
Speaker 7: in the UK. I one hundred percent think she would
Speaker 7: love the lot of the European lifestyle. Like I never
Speaker 7: have said that that's not a thing or that would
Speaker 7: be out of the realm of possible. But the fact
Speaker 7: that her passport never left Australia after it returned, and
Speaker 7: I don't know, I'm tired of looking over my shoulder
Speaker 7: everywhere I go. Like people are on Facebook today, go
Speaker 7: make sure you're looking into the crowds, and make sure
Speaker 7: you're looking in the superhoo, make sure you're looking over here.
Speaker 7: I'm like, if I do that all the time, I
Speaker 7: will be.
Speaker 4: A basket case crazy.
Speaker 7: I will be a basket case so of course, if
Speaker 7: I see someone that catches my attention that I think
Speaker 7: might possibly be her, I certainly.
Speaker 2: Have a good look.
Speaker 7: You know, this is surreal for me to stand across
Speaker 7: the way and know that she walked in there, and
Speaker 7: you know, technically speaking, that's the last postcard we have. Yeah,
Speaker 7: so that was This is actually the last point of core.
Speaker 7: I mean, we've got no proof that it was her
Speaker 7: taking the money out of her bank account. We have
Speaker 7: no proof that it.
Speaker 1: Was her who used the Medicare cards.
Speaker 2: So no, we have proof that she was here.
Speaker 8: Yeah, that's solid proof.
Speaker 4: And then that postcard was posted with the postage stamp
Speaker 4: is Hastings. Yeah, so it's quite possible that she headed
Speaker 4: east from here, okay, and possibly went to Hastings.
Speaker 7: Okay, how far is Hastings from here?
Speaker 4: It would probably take thirty minutes Okay, so she bought
Speaker 4: it and twenty to thirty minutes.
Speaker 7: Yeah, okay, so got care and concern and you know,
Speaker 7: time to write it, not just write a quick school
Speaker 7: and work it in the post.
Speaker 4: Do you know, I think I think she's traveled east
Speaker 4: from here or gone on to Hastings or somewhere surrounding Hastings.
Speaker 4: And that's where the postcard from the cat shop eventually
Speaker 4: got posted from.
Speaker 7: Okay, okay, well, you know, we've a it's been an
Speaker 7: absolute rollercoaster being over here, like we have not stopped.
Speaker 7: You know, You're getting up at four am and being
Speaker 7: out till one am trying to find information like if
Speaker 7: it's not holidays is like an absolute mission that I've
Speaker 7: never experienced in my life, you know. And for the
Speaker 7: fact that at the end, the fact that you know,
Speaker 7: we might not have got any results for anything, you know,
Speaker 7: it's it's such a gamble to come and do this
Speaker 7: sort of stuff. But I can say we spent the
Speaker 7: whole day yesterday retracing mom's steps all through like starting
Speaker 7: at Tunbridge Wells, going to Tunbridge Castle, going to Sally's
Speaker 7: Craft or what used to be Sally's Craft, and meeting
Speaker 7: the lady who now owns that shop, you know, and
Speaker 7: for her to give me a hug and have tears
Speaker 7: in her eyes and give me her name and her
Speaker 7: number and say, please let me know how you go
Speaker 7: with your mum. You that was such a special moment
Speaker 7: for me because I'm standing in that shop going, holy Dooley,
Speaker 7: this is where my mum was standing like this is
Speaker 7: I know that sounds weird, Like I could go and
Speaker 7: stand it out the front of her house in Ashmore,
Speaker 7: but it's not the same. It's to be here and
Speaker 7: walk the steps that she last known to me. Like
Speaker 7: you know, I said to Christina yesterday when we're standing
Speaker 7: out the front of what was the cat shop which is.
Speaker 6: Now a.
Speaker 3: Bottleo.
Speaker 7: Essentially we're standing at the front, I'm like, this is
Speaker 7: the last known place factual that I have that my
Speaker 7: mum was here. I have a postcard from her that
Speaker 7: she sent to her cousins from that shop. So you know,
Speaker 7: there's speculation whether she used her passport to come back
Speaker 7: into the country. There's speculation whether it was her who
Speaker 7: took the money out of her account. This speculation, whether
Speaker 7: it was her who used a Medicare card in Grafton.
Speaker 7: That's all speculation, that's not fact. We don't know for sure.
Speaker 7: We don't know if her identity was used to do that.
Speaker 7: But I know for fact that it's her on the postcard,
Speaker 7: and I know for fact that she was at that place.
Speaker 7: So that was really important and I'm so grateful for that.
Speaker 7: That's that's a really special special thing for me to
Speaker 7: be able to do and I've wanted to do that
Speaker 7: for a very long time, and I didn't know how
Speaker 7: I was going to do it because I didn't want
Speaker 7: to come just by myself, do you know what I mean.
Speaker 7: I didn't want to come and rock up, and I
Speaker 7: didn't know how it would feel and what would.
Speaker 8: Be the case.
Speaker 7: So the fact that I had a whole team behind
Speaker 7: me and we're out there together, that was really awesome.
Speaker 2: Oh God, you're going to make me cry now, Okay,
Speaker 2: I'm going to stop, Monsieur can Seli Badal. Now let's
Speaker 2: focus again on that personal AD and.
Speaker 3: I met Kayla.
Speaker 2: We've been able to find and if Remichel of precisely
Speaker 2: the right age to match the forty seven year old
Speaker 2: man listed in the nineteen ninety four ad in Le Courier.
Speaker 2: Australian Fernande Remikal was born on December two, nineteen forty seven,
Speaker 2: and he's now seventy one. To be absolutely clear, there
Speaker 2: is no firm evidence to suggest that he's connected to
Speaker 2: that AD or that Marion even knew him, but there
Speaker 2: is a possibility, so we need to find out for sure.
Speaker 2: The Framichel we found is not in Australia or England.
Speaker 2: He's in Luxembourg.
Speaker 12: My sons just passing through twenty seven thousand feet of
Speaker 12: just over one hundred miles left to go, so it
Speaker 12: take us twenty minutes were expected to touch date just
Speaker 12: after a half past and that we don't know if
Speaker 12: you can see that windows a fairly nace Sam plays
Speaker 12: blon it not two discimilar to lond.
Speaker 2: Between nineteen sixty six and nineteen sixty eight he played
Speaker 2: three soccer games for the national Luxembourg team. That's around
Speaker 2: the same time as Johnny Warren, Marian's first husband was
Speaker 2: playing for Australia.
Speaker 12: Help us for Londing.
Speaker 3: Please can you found owther all of your personal belongings?
Speaker 1: Friday Speaker's away.
Speaker 2: Is this the man who knows what happened to Marrian?
Speaker 2: Episode ten ended with a cliffhanger, leaving our listeners quite
Speaker 2: literally on the doorstep at the home of a seventy
Speaker 2: one year old man in Luxembourg, a mister Fernand Remachel.
Speaker 2: Here is what happened in episode eleven.
Speaker 7: Hello, I'm Sally finand No.
Speaker 2: As we've said before, we have no firm evidence that
Speaker 2: he had any link to marry in, but so many
Speaker 2: bizarre coincidences have led us to his door. Just a
Speaker 2: recap Monsieur Jon.
Speaker 1: In late nineteen ninety four, there was the personal ad
Speaker 1: in Le Career Australian, the French English newspaper for a
Speaker 1: monsieur f Ramichel, a cultured, educated, middle aged man looking
Speaker 1: for love in Lennox Head. That was two and a
Speaker 1: half years before Marion Barter packed up her life and
Speaker 1: headed overseas. Now she may never have even seen that ad.
Speaker 1: But what the ad proves is that a mister Ramichel,
Speaker 1: who was just a couple of years younger than Marian,
Speaker 1: listed an address and phone number not too far away
Speaker 1: in northern New South Wales. At the time, Marion lived
Speaker 1: on the Gold Coast, and Lennox Head is also very
Speaker 1: close to Byron Bay, where most of Marion's money was drained.
Speaker 1: He was a man looking for love and she was
Speaker 1: someone who wanted to be in love. Also, what about
Speaker 1: the mysterious tall stranger in Marion's car, spotted by Sally
Speaker 1: and Chris not long before her trip, the one Marion
Speaker 1: tried to hide, the one she said later she met
Speaker 1: at the Gold Coast Arts Center. Then there's Marion's name change,
Speaker 1: to Florabella Natalia Marion Ramichel. The name Ramichel is so
Speaker 1: rare in Australia we can no longer find it. We've
Speaker 1: only been able to track down one f Ramchel, of
Speaker 1: precisely the same age as the man in the ad,
Speaker 1: and he coincidentally played professional soccer for Luxembourg at the
Speaker 1: same time Marian's first husband, Johnny Warren, played for Australia.
Speaker 2: So much possibility and yet still so many ifs. We've
Speaker 2: come all the way to Luxembourg on a charts.
Speaker 12: They help us prepare for Lunding.
Speaker 1: Please can younound do owther all of your personal bloggings?
Speaker 1: Freddy speakers away.
Speaker 2: We meet up with journalist Sarah Kanes.
Speaker 11: My name is Sarah and I'm a journalist for the
Speaker 11: Luxembourg Bought.
Speaker 2: We made contact with Sarah before we left Australia. She's
Speaker 2: now covering this story in Luxembourg and for our trip
Speaker 2: she also acted as our translator. We've managed to find
Speaker 2: mister Remikill's address from a number of business documents. Rather
Speaker 2: than call, we head straight there root recalculation.
Speaker 8: There left.
Speaker 2: Sister around the corner.
Speaker 11: On the left three hundred meters.
Speaker 2: Sally is a whirl of emotion.
Speaker 3: Is one hundred meters. It's hard to tell if anyone's
Speaker 3: destination yep, okay, that's a chat. Okay, let's good.
Speaker 2: How will fernand Remikill react to what Sally has to say?
Speaker 2: But no one is home. We'll have to return later
Speaker 2: for a walk, will be anywhere. We're concerned because our
Speaker 2: time here is limited. We have just four days. In
Speaker 2: the meantime, Sally tries to see the Luxembourg police to
Speaker 2: tell them her story. They respond in a way We've
Speaker 2: come to expect.
Speaker 7: We're here and I can't even go to the police
Speaker 7: like We've contacted the police and have said no, you
Speaker 7: need to go through Australia. So I'm damned if I do,
Speaker 7: and I'm damned if I don't. Really, because I'm here,
Speaker 7: I'm happy to.
Speaker 8: Give my DNA to them.
Speaker 7: We're not happy to take it because it's another jurisdiction.
Speaker 7: So I'm face with yet another yackage in the road.
Speaker 2: I guess they can't do anything unless New South Wales
Speaker 2: Police formally makes a request. We repeatedly struck out while
Speaker 2: door knocking a number of homes in Luxembourg. So then
Speaker 2: we made some phone calls. One of them was to
Speaker 2: a Monique Cornelius, the former wife of Bernay Maem Monicolino.
Speaker 2: Back then, we had no idea just how important Monique
Speaker 2: would be to Maryan's story, and neither did she. Hello, Monique,
Speaker 2: is this Monique? It are Hello? My name is Brian.
Speaker 2: I'm a journalist from Australia. I'm here with Sarah. Yeah,
Speaker 2: we're looking we're looking for Fernande. They were actually looking
Speaker 2: for Marianne, who we believe New York ex husband Fernande.
Speaker 2: They've been divorced for more than thirty years.
Speaker 13: Mary Anne, I don't know Anny Marianne.
Speaker 10: But Marianne, yes, no, not here.
Speaker 2: Maybe you knew her by a different name. She had
Speaker 2: another name. It was Flora Bella, Natalia Marion Renmachel.
Speaker 13: Marianne o Macco that I know. I know that's his sister,
Speaker 13: my former husband.
Speaker 2: Yes, no, this is a different woman.
Speaker 11: She's from Australia.
Speaker 7: She is all right, yeah, but the woman all paint
Speaker 7: very well.
Speaker 11: Oh right, yeah, okay, what the woman we're looking for
Speaker 11: is from Australia. Do you know any was your was
Speaker 11: your ex husband ever in in Australia? Do you know?
Speaker 11: You don't know okay, okay, okay.
Speaker 10: You're sure that it is Smellian yes, yes.
Speaker 2: Or Flora Bella. And let me ask you when did
Speaker 2: you divorce your ex husband?
Speaker 13: For when I was through six, No, I'm seventeen.
Speaker 2: Oh okay, it was Finanze so.
Speaker 6: Seventies as well, sixty seven seventeen.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and was was Bonande playing soccer when you were
Speaker 2: together playing football?
Speaker 13: Dana was playing football. Yeah, he was a good football player.
Speaker 2: And what was he like? Well, I'm actually recording this
Speaker 2: for our podcast money, and I just want to know
Speaker 2: a bit about what fernand was like. Can you tell
Speaker 2: us a bit about what he was like as a husband.
Speaker 10: My husband was very spot if. He studied psychology, and yeah,
Speaker 10: he was a sportive man and a tactic many he
Speaker 10: played very well foot football. He was in our nationally
Speaker 10: kid And afterwards we had together a library, that's to say,
Speaker 10: a shop with held books, you know, yes, and afterwards
Speaker 10: we will re divorced or.
Speaker 13: Ten years later, thirty six, thirty.
Speaker 10: Seven a year.
Speaker 13: But no, I don't know what he's doing. And really
Speaker 13: he's building many houses also apartments and so on, and
Speaker 13: he's forgotten with a woman. But I don't even know
Speaker 13: the first name. The secret name is always is living
Speaker 13: in the ustling now?
Speaker 2: Yes? And what was Fernande like? Was he a good husband?
Speaker 2: Did he spend time with his friends? What was he like?
Speaker 10: No?
Speaker 13: No, that is personal.
Speaker 7: You know.
Speaker 13: I will never say something good or something worse about
Speaker 13: my husband. I loved that boy. He was a good man.
Speaker 12: Yeah, it was a good guy.
Speaker 13: He is a good guy that I know.
Speaker 2: Oh, thank you very much. Yeah, and I appreciate that. Absolutely.
Speaker 2: I want to ask you to betray a confidence or
Speaker 2: a privacy, of course, all right, you so, But just
Speaker 2: to be clear, we were calling about a Flora Bella,
Speaker 2: Natalia Lemachel. Do either of those names ring a bell
Speaker 2: that name? Never read that name or Natalia not? Okay, Well,
Speaker 2: thank you very much for talking with this. Okay, bye bye,
Speaker 2: a new day and another attempt to see fernand Remichel. Okay, Sally,
Speaker 2: this is the third day we've come to this house.
Speaker 2: They're still not here. In terms of this this house
Speaker 2: and this man, this name, it's so unique. It's such
Speaker 2: a strong lead. I mean, is this the strongest lead
Speaker 2: we've had about someone who might know.
Speaker 1: What happened to you?
Speaker 2: And yet it's never been followed up? Our day is
Speaker 2: in Luxembourg, Regard very quickly running out, but we suspect
Speaker 2: Fernand may return home. As the European elections are being
Speaker 2: held the next day, and whilst anyone over seventy does
Speaker 2: not have to vote, many choose to and they can
Speaker 2: only vote in their local electorate. We resort to phoning Fernand. Unexpectedly,
Speaker 2: he answers myan, but the call doesn't go too well.
Speaker 2: There's confusion as he says he doesn't speak English. What
Speaker 2: we've come to ask him can't be translated over the phone,
Speaker 2: especially the documents and photos we have to show him.
Speaker 2: We have to see him face to face, so we
Speaker 2: return to his home sky. Perhaps because of our earlier
Speaker 2: phone call, Fernand appears now to be very weary of us.
Speaker 2: With Sarah by her side to translate, Sally walks up
Speaker 2: to Finan's front door.
Speaker 7: That's the way, letn't come out.
Speaker 4: Hello.
Speaker 2: He's not happy to see them.
Speaker 8: I am Sally, Fernande.
Speaker 7: Nice to meet notice to meet you.
Speaker 3: My name is Sally.
Speaker 7: I've come from Australia. Do you understand English?
Speaker 2: He refuses to shake Sunie's outstretched hand, and then does
Speaker 2: not look at her. Instead, he focuses on Sarah and
Speaker 2: makes conversation with her in luxembourgish, Okay.
Speaker 1: So what do you want to ask?
Speaker 7: So I have I found an ad that you put
Speaker 7: in the newspaper in Australia in northern New South Wales
Speaker 7: back in nineteen ninety four, and I was just wondering
Speaker 7: if you can tell me how long you were in Australia.
Speaker 12: I was a title.
Speaker 11: He wants to to stop. So this is my mom.
Speaker 7: What does that mean?
Speaker 4: Just what does that mean?
Speaker 12: He doesn't want to talk and we should leave.
Speaker 7: He says, okay, well this is my mom.
Speaker 11: Yeah, okay, thank you, thank you.
Speaker 4: Mm hmm.
Speaker 2: Sally can't see. But while she was talking with finnand
Speaker 2: the garage door opened and his partner slipped out to
Speaker 2: take photos of me and my cameraman in our car
Speaker 2: parked down the road. Do you want to come with us?
Speaker 10: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Sure, okay. After coming all this way, we are to
Speaker 2: everyone involved to politely request the opportunity to talk about
Speaker 2: the circumstances which have led us here. We need to
Speaker 2: speak with Fernand and at the very least find out
Speaker 2: if he has ever heard of Marian or if he's
Speaker 2: ever been to Australia and to explain the confusion over
Speaker 2: our phone call. Hello, Fernanne, just two minutes of your
Speaker 2: time please, and then we'll leave you alone. We just
Speaker 2: need a couple of minutes of your time. Hello, we
Speaker 2: just need a couple of minutes of your time. Can
Speaker 2: we have a quick chat please, I've come all the
Speaker 2: way from Australia. Just two minutes, it's please, it's nothing bad.
Speaker 2: I just need a quick two minutes and then I'll
Speaker 2: leave you alone. I just need to answer a couple
Speaker 2: of questions and then I'll leave you a line. But
Speaker 2: I can't do it through the window. I need to
Speaker 2: tell you something just very quickly, just just very quickly.
Speaker 2: Then I'll leave your line. It's nothing bad. We've come
Speaker 2: all the way from Australia. We just need your help.
Speaker 2: Can you please help us just just a two minutes?
Speaker 2: Van Mien Newton bitter. We can't leave until we just
Speaker 2: speak for two minutes.
Speaker 10: Then we'll go.
Speaker 11: Then we'll leave, she said, saying you can also explain
Speaker 11: what you want if you're standing here.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, well, we're trying to help Sally find someone
Speaker 2: that she's been missing for a long time, and we
Speaker 2: think that you fernand might know something that might help us,
Speaker 2: so we just want to have a quick chat. He
Speaker 2: may not, but he might be able to help us.
Speaker 2: We'll just take two minutes.
Speaker 8: It's nothing bad, We need no harm.
Speaker 2: Just two minutes. Okay, it's a good story. We just
Speaker 2: need some help. Okay, we'll put the camera away. We'll
Speaker 2: put the camera away and we'll just have a quick chat,
Speaker 2: just us, no camera. A police car arrives carrying two officers.
Speaker 2: They're happy with our explanation of why we're here. Then
Speaker 2: fernand comes marching from the house towards us. We thought
Speaker 2: it'd be better to appear in person show them what
Speaker 2: we were doing, because we didn't. We couldn't explain it
Speaker 2: on the phone. It's too difficult. It's a mixed up
Speaker 2: conversation in English and Luxembourg. We didn't mean to scare you.
Speaker 2: We apologized. We didn't mean to do that. We weren't
Speaker 2: your house before. Where'd you go for holidays? The police
Speaker 2: quickly realized there is no threat and they assist us
Speaker 2: in trying to talk with Fernande and Mary. And then
Speaker 2: you played for Luxembourg.
Speaker 9: If you play, so, Fernande, just to be clear that
Speaker 9: you're not saying he's definitely not looking for that.
Speaker 2: It's perhaps a little confusing to follow. We've since had
Speaker 2: our entire conversation translated, So what you're about to hear
Speaker 2: our segments of our actual chat with Fernande and a
Speaker 2: description of what he's saying based on our translation. Fernandez
Speaker 2: saying he's been with his current partner but he jo
Speaker 2: say Noah for forty years, and that the ad was
Speaker 2: placed twenty five years ago. He asks, why would he
Speaker 2: go all the way to Australia to place an ad
Speaker 2: looking for a wife. It's illogical and it should be
Speaker 2: clear now that it has nothing to do with him.
Speaker 2: He says, he's never been to Australia. Noah agrees, And
Speaker 2: if the mother of that woman he's referring to Mary
Speaker 2: and annt Sally came here and took on his name,
Speaker 2: where would he have hidden her? Do you know Flora Bella,
Speaker 2: Florabella Natalia, Marian Ramachel.
Speaker 4: Yeah, he has never heard that name.
Speaker 2: Never heard that name. Okay, so you're a completely different
Speaker 2: man who happens to be the same age as the
Speaker 2: person in the ad. It's an amazing coincidence, isn't it.
Speaker 2: Finanz says, we should have explained the situation better. He
Speaker 2: felt our approach was quote like being ambushed by gypsies,
Speaker 2: a derogatory term to use, we're told. He then speaks
Speaker 2: to the police officer, saying, I'm sure you come across
Speaker 2: a lot of coincidences where you think it can't be
Speaker 2: and then it is all the other way around. The
Speaker 2: officer agrees with him. I keep asking questions. Very few
Speaker 2: from Michel in the world, very few, hardly any and
Speaker 2: same age amazing.
Speaker 11: In ash So in the south, but he's a lot younger.
Speaker 2: Younger wouldn't be him, so you're the right age. And
Speaker 2: also Marion Flora Bella said she was living in Luxembourg,
Speaker 2: so f rammchel Luxembourg, same age, it's amazing. Fernand responds
Speaker 2: that if she was here in Luxembourg she would have
Speaker 2: to be registered.
Speaker 7: And then the soccer. Can we explain the soccer thing
Speaker 7: to you?
Speaker 2: With Johnny Warren Marian, her first husband, Australian soccer captain,
Speaker 2: football captain, when you were playing.
Speaker 7: Nineteen sixty eight, you played in No Johnny played over here.
Speaker 2: And my mum came over with We have quite a
Speaker 2: disjointed conversation trying to figure out whether Australian soccer star
Speaker 2: Johnny Warren and Fernand Ramical's paths may have crossed. Fernand
Speaker 2: seems quite interested in finding out about Johnny, where he played,
Speaker 2: whether he had games in Luxembourg, but he says he's
Speaker 2: never heard of him. Finanz says he played for Luxembourg
Speaker 2: when he was eighteen and was meant to become a
Speaker 2: professional player in Belgium, but he was injured at the
Speaker 2: age of twenty one in nineteen sixty nine and had
Speaker 2: to stop playing. Sally asks more questions relating to Johnny.
Speaker 7: He played the World Cup, so he played lots of places.
Speaker 7: Did you go to Japan?
Speaker 2: Fernand then turns to the police officer and asks, why
Speaker 2: do I have to answer all these questions. I'm standing
Speaker 2: in front of my door and have to tell complete
Speaker 2: strangers whether or not I've been to Japan. The officer says,
Speaker 2: if you don't want to talk, you don't have to,
Speaker 2: and later it's a weird situation, of course. Fernand continues
Speaker 2: saying I want to help them. I want to help them.
Speaker 2: I would help him. He seems nice, referring to me.
Speaker 2: His wife adds they are nice. Then ferinand says they
Speaker 2: went about it the wrong way. Well, now that we're friends,
Speaker 2: can have a proper talk. Now that we're friends, can
Speaker 2: we sit down properly at all? A quick but Fernand refuses.
Speaker 2: He says, had he been approached differently, quote, I would
Speaker 2: have said, I'm the first person who wants to help
Speaker 2: his partner. Marie Jose adds that she would have even
Speaker 2: cooked something for us to eat. Sally prompts Sarah to
Speaker 2: ask why he wouldn't shake her hand. Why wouldn't you
Speaker 2: shake her hand? Why did you fand Fernand responds by
Speaker 2: describing how Sally should have approached him, and I, quote,
Speaker 2: shall I tell you what you should have said going forward?
Speaker 2: You should say, excuse the disturbance. I hope I'm not intruding.
Speaker 2: If I could have five minutes of your time, I
Speaker 2: would like to ask you a question. My name is
Speaker 2: such and such. I want to ask you something. We
Speaker 2: are looking for a person. You don't have to answer me.
Speaker 2: If you want to help us, then do that. That's
Speaker 2: how you should do it. And yet that is exactly
Speaker 2: what we did do. There's more talk about soccer, and
Speaker 2: ultimately it's the police officer who brings our impasse to
Speaker 2: an end of point to talk. But that's interview. Yes,
Speaker 2: the police officer says, I don't think this will amount
Speaker 2: to anything today. Try again when everyone is willing to
Speaker 2: sit down and talk. Maybe Monday, where you could just
Speaker 2: talk more calmly, when you've slept on it for a
Speaker 2: couple of nights. Maybe you'd even agree to an interview.
Speaker 2: Then Maddy JS says there's nothing to talk about, not him.
Speaker 2: Fernand then asks for Sally and Marion's names to be
Speaker 2: written down for him. Yeah, do you want to write
Speaker 2: He's got a note if he can write the name down.
Speaker 2: I think you want to write the name down.
Speaker 7: Picture.
Speaker 8: This is her name.
Speaker 7: This is the name, and she came to Luxembourg on
Speaker 7: the passport with that name. Said she was married, only
Speaker 7: coming back to Australia for three days. Her passport never left.
Speaker 2: The police officer explains how her passport came back, but
Speaker 2: the trail vanished and so did she, adding that they
Speaker 2: are now looking to find anyone who might have known
Speaker 2: the woman back. Then, we explain about Marion's name change
Speaker 2: and Fernand asks more questions how old is she is
Speaker 2: that her picture? Taking a close look at Marion's photo,
Speaker 2: Marty Jose tells Sally she resembles her mum. Then, before
Speaker 2: we finally depart, Fernande says he'll see what he can do.
Speaker 12: Okay, come out.
Speaker 1: Interestingly, a few weeks ago, as Sally and Brian were
Speaker 1: about to travel to Luxembourg, we were made aware of
Speaker 1: a posting in an online forum.
Speaker 2: Ala rocheche de monsieur Fernand Michel.
Speaker 1: It basically translates as.
Speaker 14: In search of mister Fernand Remachel. Hello, does anyone here
Speaker 14: know mister Fernand Remachel. I cannot find his location. I'm
Speaker 14: trying to get in touch with him again. I met
Speaker 14: him in Australia a long time ago.
Speaker 12: Michel.
Speaker 14: Thanks Michelle.
Speaker 1: Now, we're not sure whether Michelle is a female or male.
Speaker 1: Is it one of our listeners who's also a sleuth,
Speaker 1: or is it someone who actually knew Fernand Remichel. Regardless, Michelle,
Speaker 1: we'd like to hear from you. Since Sally and Brian
Speaker 1: left Europe, we've received a couple of emails from Sarah Kanes,
Speaker 1: the journalist from.
Speaker 3: The Luxembourg Word.
Speaker 1: The first provides an update from police on whether Sally
Speaker 1: can supply a DNA test to match against any potential
Speaker 1: Jane does. The second email came six days later and
Speaker 1: is a little left field. It may perhaps provide an
Speaker 1: explanation though, as to Marion's choice of Florabella when she
Speaker 1: changed her name. Sarah has discovered a line of Vilroy
Speaker 1: and Bosh crockery named Florabella. It features white dishes, plates,
Speaker 1: tea cut saucers and teapots with a distinctive floral design.
Speaker 1: After contacting a representative from Vilroy and Bosch, Sarah discovered
Speaker 1: that the Floribella line went into production in Luxembourg in
Speaker 1: the early nineteen nineties and was made until about nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety four. It was distributed worldwide and so it's entirely
Speaker 1: possible that Marian could have come across it and purchased
Speaker 1: it in Australia. Of course, we went straight to Google
Speaker 1: to have a look, and there it is. We already
Speaker 1: know Marion liked fine China. We are sally whether she
Speaker 1: thinks her mum would have liked the Floribella design. Her
Speaker 1: answer are resounding yes. And that was where we hit
Speaker 1: the pause on the Lady vanishes. As we waited for
Speaker 1: people and organizedzations to get back to us, for authorities
Speaker 1: to make decisions and take action.
Speaker 2: Next in the catch up series what happened in the
Speaker 2: two years of waiting before the start of the inquest
Speaker 2: into Marion's disappearance.
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 the
Speaker 1: Lady Vanishers and you can also message us here and
Speaker 1: if you like what you're hearing, don't forget to subscribe.
Speaker 1: Please rate and review our series. It helps new listeners
Speaker 1: find us. Presenter and executive producer Alison Sandy, Presenter and
Speaker 1: investigative journalist Brian Seymour, producer and writer Sally Eels. Sound
Speaker 1: design Mark Wright, transcripts Charlie Dally Watkins and Alice Sinclair.
Speaker 1: Graphics Jason Blampard. The theme and much of the music
Speaker 1: by Nicholas Gasparini at the Dark Giano dot com.
Speaker 3: This is a seven years production