Speaker 1: This is the case of Marion Barter, a mother teacher
Speaker 1: friend missing for twenty five years.
Speaker 2: You know, I know something that she was going to vanish,
Speaker 2: that's for sure.
Speaker 1: The bizarre circumstances surrounding her disappearance.
Speaker 2: I'm not sure if it was intentional or there is
Speaker 2: something more foul afoot.
Speaker 3: If you could imagine a teacher coming straight from say
Speaker 3: little house on the prairie to the eighties, that was
Speaker 3: Marian Barter.
Speaker 2: What I see.
Speaker 4: Whether you find Marian Barter dead or alive, I honestly
Speaker 4: believe somebody has that key piece of information.
Speaker 1: And the relentless quest of a daughter to find her mum.
Speaker 3: Something had happened, Something has happened to make her leave.
Speaker 5: I am one hundred percent sure, one hundred percent sure
Speaker 5: that somebody knows something.
Speaker 1: The lady vanishes, Episode forty five. I'm Alison Sandy.
Speaker 6: And I'm Brian Seymour.
Speaker 1: This will be the last episode we publish ahead of
Speaker 1: the coroner handing down her findings in Sydney on Wednesday,
Speaker 1: thirtieth of November. We will wrap up a few loose ends,
Speaker 1: but there is still a lot more ahead. Finally, we
Speaker 1: have interviewed Julaine the latest alleged victim of Rick Blum
Speaker 1: to come forward after reading about the Lady Vanisher's investigation.
Speaker 6: So, as you already know, Julaine met Rick or Frederick
Speaker 6: as he called himself in two thousand and six in Belgium.
Speaker 6: After meeting and falling in love with Rick, Gelaine says
Speaker 6: she was robbed of her life savings, forced to start
Speaker 6: life again in her twilight years. She moved from Belgium
Speaker 6: to a small farm in France, which is where our
Speaker 6: colleague and translator Estelle Sanchez called and spoke with her.
Speaker 6: Some of it you'll already be familiar with, but this
Speaker 6: interview is virtually unedited from start to finish, so it
Speaker 6: gives you a better and fuller picture of what Julaine
Speaker 6: would say if she testified, and why she wants her
Speaker 6: story out there.
Speaker 7: Jelene sidnuvum Guillen or aba, yes, Gillen, it's me again.
Speaker 7: Everything's ready, we can start. Thank you so much for
Speaker 7: accepting this interview.
Speaker 2: You're welcome. I feel the complaint so he couldn't hurt
Speaker 2: anyone else. And he continued on, I understand so well
Speaker 2: the position of the lady who vanished, because they are
Speaker 2: people in my family that I care a lot about,
Speaker 2: and I was so sad to have lost them. I'm
Speaker 2: slightly sick today. I apologize. But you can ask me
Speaker 2: all the questions you want, all.
Speaker 7: Right, So to start the interview with an easy question,
Speaker 7: can you tell me your name, where you come from,
Speaker 7: the occupation you've had in your life.
Speaker 2: Yes, my name is Jilene. My maiden name is don Lois.
Speaker 2: I've had several jobs in my life, but the one
Speaker 2: I've done for the longest time that I particularly loved,
Speaker 2: but I exhausted me because I was carrying all the
Speaker 2: pain in the world on my back. I was an
Speaker 2: insurance broker. It was very difficult. I had a home office.
Speaker 2: I have many children. I've had a husband that was
Speaker 2: sick for a long time and eventually passed, so my
Speaker 2: children were still very young and I had to raise them.
Speaker 2: The irony of the situation is it was my husband
Speaker 2: who wanted many children, and so I had them because
Speaker 2: I loved him. I was the only one raising my children,
Speaker 2: and it was very difficult to raise them.
Speaker 8: They have two diplomas, so I'm satisfied.
Speaker 2: It's evidently from the sweat of my bro and when
Speaker 2: I think about.
Speaker 8: This individual who left with all of my money.
Speaker 2: Still today, it's very difficult to leave because I would
Speaker 2: have needed that money.
Speaker 7: And so if you start talking about further idea, Devali,
Speaker 7: how did you meet him for the first time? We
Speaker 7: know about the ad you published in the newspaper, but
Speaker 7: could you explain it to me in a few words?
Speaker 2: Listen? He replied to me with a very well written
Speaker 2: letter in very good French without any spelling mistakes, which
Speaker 2: is fairly rare, and that I like. Following his letter,
Speaker 2: we met and that's it. He ended up living at
Speaker 2: my place. I was in a vulnerable state because I
Speaker 2: helped one of my sons in France whose house had
Speaker 2: burned in the car as well.
Speaker 8: He didn't have any id papers left.
Speaker 2: And I don't think you know how difficult it is
Speaker 2: to read you documents, especially in France.
Speaker 7: Yes, well, I'm French, so I do have an idea
Speaker 7: of how it is.
Speaker 8: All right, I'll tell you.
Speaker 2: Then. Everywhe i'd go on the ground floor, they tell
Speaker 2: me everything's in order, really, but go to the first floor.
Speaker 2: That's where you need to go. And there they tell me,
Speaker 2: but Madam, nothing's in order. And so one day I
Speaker 2: had to make threats at the notary's office to simply
Speaker 2: get the proof they own their property back. It was
Speaker 2: the fifth time I was going in a long distance
Speaker 2: from where I was coming from, and I thought it
Speaker 2: was the last time I was coming. They would always
Speaker 2: tell me to come back later when it's ready, and
Speaker 2: it was never the case. So I wait for the
Speaker 2: waiting room to be fall and I shot it. I
Speaker 2: demand to get my document right away because I won't leave,
Speaker 2: and so that's when I obtained it.
Speaker 7: It was like that everywhere everywhere French administration. Yes, of course,
Speaker 7: all of these shows your character of being strongbled and
Speaker 7: knowing what you want. If we go back to the
Speaker 7: main question, can you remember which journal you published your adam?
Speaker 2: Absolutely? Nowadays this journal has completely changed, But it was lam.
Speaker 2: It was a small free journal distributed in several areas
Speaker 2: and many people would publish an ad in it. He
Speaker 2: only needed to open it. And the lawyer that one
Speaker 2: of my friends really wanted me to consult that he
Speaker 2: paid the feast force said to me, because feeling a
Speaker 2: complaint is something very difficult mentally, we feel so dumb, sodom, foolish, imbecile.
Speaker 2: How did we feel for someone's show like that. But
Speaker 2: that lawyer told me, listen, man, stop harming yourself. That
Speaker 2: guy is a professional swindler. And it's true because he
Speaker 2: had the art and manner to present things that we
Speaker 2: had to believe him, and myself we.
Speaker 8: Thought she knew people.
Speaker 2: I was duped just like a naive, an embassade, and
Speaker 2: so it's very difficult to accept. To find a complaint
Speaker 2: to the police because you can see on their face
Speaker 2: that this is what they think, that you are a needio.
Speaker 7: From what you started to tell me, how is Frederick?
Speaker 7: What did you like about him? What impression did he
Speaker 7: give you, or at least what made you I imagine
Speaker 7: that you him or made you want to marry him?
Speaker 2: Well, that's it. I became a widow. I wasn't fifteen,
Speaker 2: so you see how it is. This is very difficult
Speaker 2: to bear, especially since I took care of my husband
Speaker 2: when he was ill for eight years. My husband was
Speaker 2: very charming, very interesting, very smart, much more knowledgeable than me,
Speaker 2: and so I would always ask him for advice and
Speaker 2: would always follow what he would say. So to find
Speaker 2: myself alone overnight, it's very hard.
Speaker 8: But you did it for years, Yes, I did it
Speaker 8: for years.
Speaker 2: It was a short fall that would get worse with
Speaker 2: the years, you see, and so we'll still call him Frederick.
Speaker 2: He was very smart and very well spoken. He could
Speaker 2: talk about everything you see. And on top of this,
Speaker 2: he had the same accent as that of my husband
Speaker 2: because he was born in the same city. Well, if
Speaker 2: it was the truth, but I think that's the case
Speaker 2: because he did have that accent.
Speaker 7: So your husband was from Belgium as well, if I
Speaker 7: understand correctly.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, on the border who know friends somewhat?
Speaker 7: Yes, of course, I've lived there most of my life.
Speaker 2: I should know, right, so you know the region around
Speaker 2: lil Yes, of course. So my husband was from Tournam,
Speaker 2: so you see where it is.
Speaker 7: Yes, it's not the border right at the end.
Speaker 2: Of his root it was friends.
Speaker 8: So you see a guy who talked just like.
Speaker 2: My husband, and on top of this, with a lot
Speaker 2: of knowledge, not as much as my husband, but still
Speaker 2: very good. I don't glorify my husband. I'm only telling
Speaker 2: the truth, you know. But because you didn't know him,
Speaker 2: you wouldn't know. I've always tried not to compare, but
Speaker 2: it was so obvious he had that for himself, to
Speaker 2: have the same accent the one from Northern Friends.
Speaker 7: Yes, I see, so from what we understand, the relationship
Speaker 7: evolved very fast. So how did this all happen? Did
Speaker 7: he make promises or did he speak of the relationship
Speaker 7: as long term or and to have common projects? How
Speaker 7: did it all happen?
Speaker 2: There's one thing that seemed weird to me is that
Speaker 2: he never made love to me. Never or really yeah,
Speaker 2: but for me it.
Speaker 8: Wasn't primardl But it seems very weird to me.
Speaker 2: Okay, So he made the pretense that he had always
Speaker 2: been like this and that the doctors tried to heal
Speaker 2: him but that they didn't succeed.
Speaker 8: But the sexcessive events tell me something else.
Speaker 7: So not wanting to have sexual relationships or not being
Speaker 7: able to he told.
Speaker 2: Me he could not, but actually kids, yes exactly. But
Speaker 2: I learned about this after only he never told me
Speaker 2: anything about this. What he talked about was that we
Speaker 2: would go get married because he never tried to hide
Speaker 2: that he lived in Australia and that he was a
Speaker 2: bank representative. But I was the one thing for everything,
Speaker 2: even his shirts. All of that seemed weird to me,
Speaker 2: But he always had good explanations and he wasn't scurly
Speaker 2: to explain anything to me.
Speaker 8: He was so convinced on my knafe. The bigger it
Speaker 8: was the more I believed him.
Speaker 7: That's it to have such a confidence in oneself to
Speaker 7: be able to convince anyone of anything.
Speaker 2: He when he talked about getting married in that so
Speaker 2: it was on the way to arrive in Australia marriage
Speaker 2: and so he wanted me to live without telling anything
Speaker 2: to my kids, and for that I said no, And
Speaker 2: he quickly redeemed himself saying, yes, I understand each your children,
Speaker 2: and so we'll cook a meal for them before leaving.
Speaker 2: He cooked the meal himself. I was the one who
Speaker 2: had the emergence, but he did the biggest part. He
Speaker 2: would tell me, look, you won't have enough for the
Speaker 2: many people. So I put count on him and same
Speaker 2: thing to go get the money. He never left me
Speaker 2: alone when I was going to get the money. He
Speaker 2: was always with me. And so as soon as I
Speaker 2: had it, we would ask me to give to him
Speaker 2: below the table.
Speaker 7: So the money you're referring to, what was it for that?
Speaker 8: It was good to as soul.
Speaker 2: So because my children would come visit us in Australia
Speaker 2: in order for them not to have to ask me
Speaker 2: for money to live there since we don't go there
Speaker 2: for twenty four hours. He would open bank accounts for
Speaker 2: each of them. So I had to supply those accounts
Speaker 2: from Belgium before living and he was the one who
Speaker 2: was going to be in charge of it because it
Speaker 2: was in his bank. So since I never refrained on
Speaker 2: what I would give to my kids, I gave it.
Speaker 2: He found the right way. He even counted the money
Speaker 2: in front of.
Speaker 7: Me, right so he never tried to hide what he
Speaker 7: was doing here, As he said, the bigger it was,
Speaker 7: the better he could hide his real intention exactly, I'm wondering.
Speaker 7: He said, he wanted you not to tell your kids,
Speaker 7: and you refused. What made you refuse at that moment?
Speaker 7: Because you've accepted the rest? So why were the kids
Speaker 7: the last stroll you got?
Speaker 2: I think the love I have for my children, and
Speaker 2: he noticed directly because he backed out, he directly agreed
Speaker 2: with me. He so that I wouldn't better on that.
Speaker 2: Similar to so I went to see my son in
Speaker 2: France and I wanted to bring my passport. I don't
Speaker 2: know why. At that moment, he barely couldn't retain from
Speaker 2: getting angry at me. He said, look, you don't need
Speaker 2: your passport to good friends, which was true. Someone is
Speaker 2: trying to prevent me from doing something. I persist. One
Speaker 2: shouldn't bother me with something like this, and he told,
Speaker 2: if any chance you don't have your passport to go
Speaker 2: to Bali, I'll be very angry at you. And I
Speaker 2: told him, I'm sorry, but I'm bringing my passport and
Speaker 2: it's fortunate that I took it because I'm certain that
Speaker 2: he would have done something with it. I would have
Speaker 2: had even more trouble with this. He would have forged
Speaker 2: it because he wanted too much for something, not.
Speaker 7: To what And well, you might want to talk about
Speaker 7: the person is Rick. I don't know, you choose.
Speaker 2: I'm happy to talk about anything. Look, in any case,
Speaker 2: it's tring me a lot. It gets hard to sleep
Speaker 2: at night, and everything you want, but I don't care.
Speaker 2: It has to be punished. If I could get some
Speaker 2: money back, that would help a lot. But what is
Speaker 2: most important is I'm lucky to be alive. Whereas the
Speaker 2: person who's searching for her mom at the moment, her
Speaker 2: mom she's not there anymore.
Speaker 8: That's what is dramatic.
Speaker 6: July and her family have told us repeatedly that they
Speaker 6: feel she is lucky to be alive. Alexandra quickly formed
Speaker 6: the opinion that Rick might harm or kill her mother
Speaker 6: in law, a fear that Juli and herself would come
Speaker 6: to share.
Speaker 8: I believe I got very scared of him twice.
Speaker 7: How did you feel endangered?
Speaker 2: Once because he absolutely wanted me to go to hospital
Speaker 2: to do the sleep of near control. She said, it's
Speaker 2: very dangerous. You could die from it with simply a
Speaker 2: pillow on your face. And I thought, what is the
Speaker 2: bad putting a pill on my face? With a strength
Speaker 2: he had, So at that moment I got scared of him.
Speaker 2: Why did I not kick him out? That I don't understand.
Speaker 7: So the episode with the pillow, did he try to
Speaker 7: explain to you what could happen with sleep? At me?
Speaker 7: That's it? That's it, So showing you with the pillow
Speaker 7: that you would suffocate.
Speaker 2: And so at that instance, I thought, what sorts of
Speaker 2: ideas does he have in mind? And because in any case,
Speaker 2: we didn't cuddle in bed, and that bed was very big,
Speaker 2: it might have.
Speaker 8: Been too matters wide.
Speaker 2: Oh well, so I would let done far from him,
Speaker 2: and he did the same for the following nights. In
Speaker 2: any case, he didn't like it, so.
Speaker 7: It didn't want physical proximity. It was mostly intellectul that's it.
Speaker 7: And the second occasion in which he got scared.
Speaker 2: He wanted me to go back to the hospital to
Speaker 2: do a liver ultra sunds. I never had anything to
Speaker 2: the liver, and at the hospital that's what they said.
Speaker 2: But Madam, there's no issue with your liver, and so
Speaker 2: he explained to me. Always was a risk with the
Speaker 2: liver because you could be poisoned. And so I thought,
Speaker 2: what strange ideas he has in minds?
Speaker 7: Yeah, that's it. Why would you be poisoned?
Speaker 2: And all the time I had a cramp in my
Speaker 2: calf and he wanted to take care of it, saying
Speaker 2: he could make a disappear, and I refused.
Speaker 8: I didn't want him to touch me.
Speaker 7: Right, So you were already suspicious of him, or there
Speaker 7: was a form of fad that was already there.
Speaker 2: It was already near the end. He showed me too
Speaker 2: many aspects of him that were strange. But in spite
Speaker 2: of all of this, I didn't kick him out. And
Speaker 2: for that I don't understand myself, because I remember clearly
Speaker 2: that I was scared of some things, but there was
Speaker 2: a part of me that loved it, and I probably
Speaker 2: woted in other life.
Speaker 8: That the one I had.
Speaker 7: Yeah, it was the fantasy of going to another country
Speaker 7: to live the Australian dream.
Speaker 2: Yes, but what I found very strange as well. So
Speaker 2: my husband's name is Dubois, so in France, my name
Speaker 2: is Dubois. In Belgium it's don Lois because that's how
Speaker 2: it is. It's below so he was saying jibois jube bush.
Speaker 8: I found it.
Speaker 2: Really, it was somewhat outrageous to me because well I
Speaker 2: didn't know the bush. I still don't know it and
Speaker 2: I will never know it, but I know we can.
Speaker 8: Get lost in it. And I found it a treasureus.
Speaker 2: That he would dare call me like that. So one
Speaker 2: side of me was suspicious of him, not at the beginning.
Speaker 2: Everydent lived after yes, and so it was a love
Speaker 2: hate situation. One side of me hated his behavior, but
Speaker 2: the other side of me was three what he could give.
Speaker 8: Me in Australia.
Speaker 2: I would have had a big house and domestic help,
Speaker 2: a couple that would have done all the house coores,
Speaker 2: so I wouldn't have to do the course anymore, not
Speaker 2: even prepare the meals, because that she did himself and
Speaker 2: he was tasty. You see, So all this put together,
Speaker 2: Australia was the Eldorado.
Speaker 7: And do you know where you would have gone in Australia?
Speaker 2: Not at all. And one of my clients was a
Speaker 2: retired aircraft pilot. He told me, look, madam, Australia is
Speaker 2: not right next door, because I would have been able
Speaker 2: to come back every two weeks.
Speaker 7: Further excess right, he told you you would visit Belgium
Speaker 7: very regularly.
Speaker 2: So when you put all this together, it's ridiculous that
Speaker 2: I would have believed this.
Speaker 7: It's not ridiculous more taking advantage of someone's ignorance on something,
Speaker 7: or using someone's feelings as a minturn end. We talked
Speaker 7: about it with your daughter in law, that he was
Speaker 7: a professional swindler and it seemed that he got to
Speaker 7: understand your weak spots and exploit them. What did he
Speaker 7: tell you about his past? What did you explain about himself?
Speaker 7: Who he was?
Speaker 2: He told me he was a shot arm something that
Speaker 2: I was able to verify. He was a gendarme in
Speaker 2: a suburb in Brussels, but I knew very well since
Speaker 2: I used to live there, and so the gendarmes that
Speaker 2: the repress sort of revolved from the population. He told
Speaker 2: me he had a limp, and from his recollection it
Speaker 2: was due to how people beat him during that event.
Speaker 2: And because I have myself seen gendermes that I have
Speaker 2: been beaten by the population, I believed all of it.
Speaker 8: These are the only things he told me himself.
Speaker 7: So he never mentioned anything from I don't know his childhood,
Speaker 7: not at all.
Speaker 2: He never talked about his parents nor his family, absolutely not.
Speaker 7: So it would be more inclined to tell you things
Speaker 7: about history, facts, things that would know happened in history
Speaker 7: in France or Belgium, but never anything personal. Is that it?
Speaker 2: Yes, that's it. And for me it was credible because
Speaker 2: I knew that period, so it was easy to make
Speaker 2: me believe anything he'd say.
Speaker 7: And did he mention anything about the money he had,
Speaker 7: properties he owned, that kind of things. What did he say?
Speaker 2: She told me because he knew what could happen with
Speaker 2: ben Kinds. He changed his password every fifteen days.
Speaker 7: So he changed his password to make sure nothing worried
Speaker 7: because he knew.
Speaker 2: There were so many scams and he didn't want to
Speaker 2: be scammed. She insisted on.
Speaker 1: That, pausing briefly. This is a common ploy used by fraudsters,
Speaker 1: warning the person they are scamming not to fall the
Speaker 1: scams a classic ploy to create the illusion they are
Speaker 1: legitimate and on your side, one we know Rick used
Speaker 1: multiple times, For example, when he convinced John Oldenburg to
Speaker 1: let him bury her jewelry in her backyard just in
Speaker 1: case it was stolen. It worked then, as it worked
Speaker 1: with Gilane.
Speaker 7: To mention he didn't want to be scammed when it
Speaker 7: was a swindler himself. It's definitely. Did he give you
Speaker 7: numbers estimations of how much he owned?
Speaker 2: No, that I knew from the fact that he was
Speaker 2: a bank representative.
Speaker 7: Did he ever ask you to give him a proxy,
Speaker 7: especially for the money for your children?
Speaker 2: She never asked me for a proxy. He told me
Speaker 2: I'm doing it. He would do it himself to open
Speaker 2: up accounts at their names.
Speaker 7: And so you went to the bank to ask them
Speaker 7: to move the funds into those accounts.
Speaker 8: No, no, no, I had to take them the funds
Speaker 8: in cash.
Speaker 7: Yes, yes, so all of this money was in cash.
Speaker 2: Yes, absolutely, And he was with me and right after
Speaker 2: getting the money, we went to get coffee somewhere, and
Speaker 2: I had to give him the money build on the
Speaker 2: table so no one would see, right.
Speaker 7: And how much did he steal? I know we already
Speaker 7: have an estimation, but we know he also stole high
Speaker 7: value items. How much did he steal?
Speaker 2: He wanted everything that I had value to have it
Speaker 2: in Australia, because otherwise I would have been side without
Speaker 2: all of this. You see, it was always so I
Speaker 2: wouldn't be unhappy to.
Speaker 7: Always turn things in a certain way so it would
Speaker 7: appeal logical to you.
Speaker 2: He had a photo of all my children in a
Speaker 2: large format that I found after he left. He didn't
Speaker 2: take it with him.
Speaker 7: The foods weren't of interest to him.
Speaker 2: Of course. It's the the same thing with the books
Speaker 2: that mattered to me, except for dictionaries that had a
Speaker 2: lot of value that he took away. But for the rest,
Speaker 2: why would I take books with me when we could
Speaker 2: buy them new ones there?
Speaker 8: And I didn't react to that.
Speaker 2: It was stupid because I wouldn't have found important books
Speaker 2: in French in Australia.
Speaker 7: And when you learned the troth about Fredrik, if we
Speaker 7: look at the scene he went to this last dinner
Speaker 7: at your son and daughter in laws. You waited for
Speaker 7: Frederick and he didn't come. Could you re explain that
Speaker 7: to me? And the moment you understood it scam?
Speaker 2: Do you? That went very fast as well? Since explained
Speaker 2: to me he had to go to the Netherlands to
Speaker 2: settle a business issue. He had suggested that he could
Speaker 2: have been dangerous, and so it was afterwards that we
Speaker 2: would go have dinner with my son and daughter in
Speaker 2: law and he never came. I was worried and I
Speaker 2: went to the police to signal a dangerous disappearance. And
Speaker 2: at the police station they asked me if he had
Speaker 2: another name. I didn't have an order to give them.
Speaker 2: He never told me about anything like this, so I
Speaker 2: said no, and the people at the police station insisted.
Speaker 8: I thought it was very strange.
Speaker 2: At last, they told me not to worry about him,
Speaker 2: that he was still alive because he was required going
Speaker 2: through customs. What was that going through customs? Whilce we
Speaker 2: should have gone together.
Speaker 7: Because he went through customs for Australia.
Speaker 5: Is that it?
Speaker 2: He left for Australia on his own and they could
Speaker 2: tell me which flight he took, So I thought he
Speaker 2: turned me and he has all of my money and
Speaker 2: he lives on his own.
Speaker 6: Just a quick side note again, there are similarities here
Speaker 6: with Janet Oldenburg's case. Remember Janet was left in England
Speaker 6: while Rick Bloom headed back to Australia alone.
Speaker 7: Yes, so it would be pretty straightforward to understand what
Speaker 7: the situation was after all this.
Speaker 2: Right then, I thought it was certain there wasn't any
Speaker 2: hope left for me.
Speaker 8: At the police station said.
Speaker 2: You were worried about him?
Speaker 8: No, you can be relieved he's still alone.
Speaker 7: Not very real sharing, No, not at all.
Speaker 8: It meant that he had dumped me.
Speaker 7: How did you react to this?
Speaker 2: I feel the complaint against him very shortly after, because
Speaker 2: I told myself, if I don't do it, one, he
Speaker 2: will be able to repeat it with others. Two.
Speaker 8: I never here but the rest of the story.
Speaker 2: Whereas because I feel the complaint well, in Belgium, since
Speaker 2: there are two languages, I should have had the right
Speaker 2: to choose to keep speaking my language as me to
Speaker 2: speak Flemish, and I couldn't explain myself with as many
Speaker 2: nuances and Flemish as I would have been able to
Speaker 2: in my mother tongue.
Speaker 8: It seems logical on top.
Speaker 2: Of this, I didn't have my house anymore since he
Speaker 2: wanted me to sell it, so it was on sale.
Speaker 2: But at that point he understood that he wouldn't get
Speaker 2: another dollar from me, and that's why he never came
Speaker 2: to my daughter in laws.
Speaker 7: Did he know that because you bought the other house
Speaker 7: in France with the money from the sale?
Speaker 2: No, not that, but simply because I wouldn't give it
Speaker 2: to him.
Speaker 7: But how did he understand that?
Speaker 2: Well? I suppose that he understood it, because that's how
Speaker 2: it was in my mind. I wouldn't give it to
Speaker 2: him because I would buy a house for my son,
Speaker 2: woulds He's a farmer, so he needed this land, so
Speaker 2: that's what I would buy it. He told me himself
Speaker 2: that she understood it very well why I would help
Speaker 2: my child and not give him the money.
Speaker 7: Right, So Frederick told you understood because you probably thought
Speaker 7: to himself that your children would always be a priority.
Speaker 7: And it could have been a reason why he left,
Speaker 7: because he realized it wouldn't be able to swindle you
Speaker 7: as much as it hoped to.
Speaker 2: It was very clear in my head, and because I
Speaker 2: wouldn't hide what I would do, anyone could know just
Speaker 2: by asking me.
Speaker 8: So he probably asked me, and I told.
Speaker 7: Him and not accept that. You would say no.
Speaker 8: That's for sure.
Speaker 2: But in any way, as soon as he'd feel some
Speaker 2: sort of a position on my part, he would backtrack
Speaker 2: very first. He wouldn't try to oppose me. Apart from
Speaker 2: the passport episode, What was.
Speaker 7: Your reaction when you learned that Frederick was married with
Speaker 7: two kids.
Speaker 8: I didn't know that.
Speaker 7: Yes, but you learned about it after right when you
Speaker 7: learn the truth about him? When did you find out
Speaker 7: that he had done the same to other women? How
Speaker 7: did you find out the truth about him?
Speaker 2: When you find a complaint In Belgium, you can have
Speaker 2: a look at the record. I didn't have a lawyer
Speaker 2: with me, so it was very fast. I got to
Speaker 2: look at this record file for about fifteen minutes, not more,
Speaker 2: and I couldn't make copies since I didn't have a lawyer.
Speaker 8: But I was able to.
Speaker 2: See his record file and I took as many notes
Speaker 2: as I could. He turned fourteen years in prison for fraud,
Speaker 2: identity theft and all the things along these lines, and
Speaker 2: that I was able to read at the Louver police station,
Speaker 2: which is the biggest city than the one I filled
Speaker 2: the complaint too. Tevery Man is attached to Louver and
Speaker 2: that's where they had his record file.
Speaker 7: And when you looked at the file, can you remember
Speaker 7: if it was in his name for the edvari or
Speaker 7: did they mention other names his sutur names.
Speaker 2: I don't remember what the name was, but I think
Speaker 2: the Tory police explained to me he sent a record
Speaker 2: from Australia to Belgium in order to take the name
Speaker 2: do it Vary, and that I found out things to
Speaker 2: my day. We researched about the name. She found that
Speaker 2: someone with a name do head over in that I've met.
Speaker 2: She had an important position at the un but I think.
Speaker 7: She passed from the United Nations.
Speaker 2: He said yes, and so she invited me to her house,
Speaker 2: and she assured me because he had from my perspective,
Speaker 2: he posed as the cousin of that person. And she
Speaker 2: told me she had no cousin with that name. She
Speaker 2: didn't have any cousins at all. I fell it call correctly.
Speaker 2: He had posed as the godson of that person of
Speaker 2: her dentist right.
Speaker 7: So that's what he told you, that he was the
Speaker 7: god son of that person, of the real divide yes.
Speaker 2: And so that person told me after Frederic left that
Speaker 2: she was born in Hungary and that she could speak Hungarian.
Speaker 2: He told me he could speak Anguaryan too. She said
Speaker 2: she'd never have a cousin with that name. I was
Speaker 2: somewhat mad at this person because I told her, well,
Speaker 2: she was mad at me because I told her, Madam,
Speaker 2: if you had feel the complain when you found out
Speaker 2: someone's solier identity, I would have probably not fullen for
Speaker 2: shure myself.
Speaker 8: And she said I should not try.
Speaker 2: To blame her for this when I could have been
Speaker 2: more careful myself.
Speaker 1: These claims of stealing someone else's identity sound very familiar.
Speaker 1: That's exactly what happened to the real fnand Ramaica. And
Speaker 1: remember Rick used the name Bernard DuPont, which he admitted
Speaker 1: while giving evidence at the inquest. It was the name
Speaker 1: of the manager of a B and P bank branch
Speaker 1: he used in Sydney.
Speaker 7: Well, with what ifs, you could change the whole world,
Speaker 7: as the saying goes. But for sure, if people had
Speaker 7: come forward earlier, especially since the police fire was so
Speaker 7: full already, we would not be at this point today.
Speaker 2: For sure, she would never have entered my house because
Speaker 2: he would stay in the house when I would go
Speaker 2: out to get groceries for one and he would just
Speaker 2: stay in the house.
Speaker 7: So he never bought anything.
Speaker 8: Nothing, nothing, nothing.
Speaker 2: Simply told me he would buy taut On comic books
Speaker 2: to offer as gifts for his friends in Australia.
Speaker 8: I never saw these comic books, but that's what he said.
Speaker 7: And so if we look at the whole situation from
Speaker 7: a larger perspective, including the story of Marian Barta and
Speaker 7: with the current inquest, do you think they should listen
Speaker 7: to your story prior to making any decisions on the findings.
Speaker 7: Would you give your testimony in an Australian court even
Speaker 7: speaking French? Do you think it could make a difference
Speaker 7: if you were giving you testimony in a legal framework.
Speaker 2: I'd be happy to testify. I couldn't pay for the trip,
Speaker 2: that's for sure, but I'd be happy to give it
Speaker 2: as long as I'd get plenty of support to make
Speaker 2: sure my health doesn't.
Speaker 8: Suffer more from it than it already has.
Speaker 2: I'm doing all this to help these people who lost
Speaker 2: their mum and cope love her anymore. I'm still alive
Speaker 2: because I was lucky enough to feel the danger before
Speaker 2: it happened. I felt there was a danger twice, although
Speaker 2: I didn't dump him when it happens, which I don't understand,
Speaker 2: but I still manage to protect myself.
Speaker 7: You showed him you would stand up your ground, and
Speaker 7: that's potentially what made him leave because he realized it
Speaker 7: wouldn't be the easiest. Came you, What would you say
Speaker 7: to other victims, people that potentially knew him at some
Speaker 7: point in their lives and would know something about the
Speaker 7: case but didn't go public.
Speaker 2: That's obvious to file a report. Better late than never,
Speaker 2: that's for sure. He told me on the phone, if
Speaker 2: I hear about you again, you'll have to deal with me.
Speaker 2: And he could have hurt me in other ways till
Speaker 2: I'm sure, But in spite of this, I still filed
Speaker 2: a report. What I could try to do is reaching
Speaker 2: out to the police in Tournee, because they're the ones
Speaker 2: who asked me to testify and had hoped they could
Speaker 2: get me some of my money back. The detective didn't
Speaker 2: reply to my messages that were nice. I wasn't trying
Speaker 2: to blame him in any way, but he gave me
Speaker 2: hope and then no no. That police inspector asked his
Speaker 2: direct supervisor to ask me to come to see him
Speaker 2: because he found that compared to the case of that
Speaker 2: toney lady that got scammed even more than I is,
Speaker 2: what was the state of the lady compared to me
Speaker 2: who had overcome I'll tell.
Speaker 8: You something and you probably can tell compared.
Speaker 2: To other people. I have a capacity to overcome situations,
Speaker 2: but I can feel inside me that it's hurting me.
Speaker 2: The most important is my attempt at helping others, rather
Speaker 2: than consider how much it can hurt me. I tell
Speaker 2: myself I could always make up with my family that
Speaker 2: loves me, whereas the others can't. For example, the lady
Speaker 2: from Tuna, she changed her hair color and he had
Speaker 2: bend on her INVALI from.
Speaker 1: What I know, Pause for a second, just highlighting a
Speaker 1: couple of things here. The verbal threat that Julian mentions,
Speaker 1: if I hear about you again, you'll have to deal
Speaker 1: with me. It sounds similar to the experience Jeanette Gafney
Speaker 1: Bowenhead after she went to police about mister Blom and
Speaker 1: another thing. Julne said, the other woman from Tournay who
Speaker 1: was duked changed her hair color before heading to Bali
Speaker 1: with Rick Blum. Remember Janet Oldenburg in her testimony during
Speaker 1: the inquest, she said Blum had asked her to change
Speaker 1: her hair color too, but when she went to have
Speaker 1: it done, the hairdresser refused. On with Julaine's interview.
Speaker 7: Could you tell me a little bit more about that
Speaker 7: lady from Tournay, Where did you learn?
Speaker 2: I can only tell you what the tourlet police told me.
Speaker 2: When she came back from Bali, she filed a report
Speaker 2: in Tournai since she lived there. She told them she
Speaker 2: had stopped to have any contact with her family after
Speaker 2: he asked her to, although her family helped her a lot,
Speaker 2: since she was in Bali couldn't understand any English, so
Speaker 2: you can imagine, and she didn't have any money left
Speaker 2: because he had taken everything, absolutely everything, so she had
Speaker 2: to ask her family. I apologized for her behavior so
Speaker 2: they would have helped get back to Belgium, and so
Speaker 2: they were nice.
Speaker 8: In her family and forgave everything.
Speaker 2: Whereas only because he asked her too, she had changed
Speaker 2: her hair color and so he left her in Valley
Speaker 2: to go to Australia.
Speaker 7: It's very similar situation, same destinations. Apart from the fact
Speaker 7: that she did live with him and you managed not to.
Speaker 2: She gave him everything, her house.
Speaker 7: So very similar to have sold everything she owned.
Speaker 2: Yes, in my opinion, he saw the difference between her
Speaker 2: and me after he'd known me, because it happened after me.
Speaker 8: That's what the lawyer told me.
Speaker 2: A professional swindler learns from his mistakes.
Speaker 7: And what do you think the main difference was between
Speaker 7: you and her?
Speaker 2: She didn't have the stomach to define him for me.
Speaker 2: No was no I think a lot before saying yes
Speaker 2: or no. So maybe she was weaker than me in
Speaker 2: that sense. Maybe I don't know.
Speaker 7: But in spite of all this, it would have been
Speaker 7: difficult because although you yourself thought you knew people's intentions,
Speaker 7: you were ready to stay your house. You can't to
Speaker 7: live with him. It was already very drastic, even on
Speaker 7: your part of the story. It didn't happen fully, but
Speaker 7: it does show how well it could manipulate its victims.
Speaker 2: That's certain because the money from my car sale, he
Speaker 2: has it. All the cash money I had at that time,
Speaker 2: I gave it to him.
Speaker 7: And the amount of money involved is around seventy thousand
Speaker 7: euros right.
Speaker 2: Yes, on top of all the high value objects he
Speaker 2: took as well. He took two chests and my daughter
Speaker 2: in law that you talked to. Wanted to help him
Speaker 2: with it, but he refused, saying he could deal with
Speaker 2: it on his own. One day, I went back home
Speaker 2: and the chest had disappeared. Of course he didn't want
Speaker 2: her to know where he was shipping on a chest.
Speaker 2: But from all of this, I didn't think he was strange.
Speaker 2: That's what I said before. The bigger it was, the
Speaker 2: more I believed him.
Speaker 7: And to conclude on this, what would you want to
Speaker 7: see happened to Frederick der Davari rig Blum and all
Speaker 7: the synonyms that exist, And what would it take for
Speaker 7: you to find closure?
Speaker 2: The ideal situation would be for me to get that
Speaker 2: money back so I can leave more comfortably. That's one
Speaker 2: of thing that I can spoil the little ones invite
Speaker 2: them to the restaurant, whereas now they're the ones inviting me,
Speaker 2: which is adding insults to injury, being able to buy
Speaker 2: other things and being able to live at ease, and
Speaker 2: most importantly that he would not be able to cause
Speaker 2: harm to anyone else, but he will go to jail
Speaker 2: for the rest of his days. That's what I want.
Speaker 7: Another question that comes to mind from the fact that
Speaker 7: he took all of your savings. Did you have access
Speaker 7: to a retirement fund that you contributed for or were
Speaker 7: you your own boss, and in that case you put
Speaker 7: money on the site for a retirement on your own
Speaker 7: in the sense that do you today have access to
Speaker 7: a retirement fund.
Speaker 2: I do have access to a retirement fund. But I'll
Speaker 2: tell you the small flat I have in Belgium to
Speaker 2: go see my children.
Speaker 8: Unfortunately, I buy it as a.
Speaker 2: Life annuity for the good reason that I didn't have
Speaker 2: any savings left to paid cash, which means I need
Speaker 2: to continue to pay as long as the person is alive.
Speaker 2: And for now, each month I got to pay nine
Speaker 2: hundred and fifteen euros, So remove that from my pension
Speaker 2: as well as all the taxes. I'm strangled.
Speaker 7: It goes fast.
Speaker 2: Yes, I still suffer from it today because I don't
Speaker 2: have enough money because of him.
Speaker 7: What do you think would have happened if you had
Speaker 7: followed him?
Speaker 2: Now that I know the truth, I would have died,
Speaker 2: as Frederick used to say, instead of Jibois, he said
Speaker 2: Jue Bush. That's it.
Speaker 8: Either he would have.
Speaker 2: Lost me somewhere there or he would have put pill
Speaker 2: on my face directly, being that I did have sleep
Speaker 2: up near. He had proof of my children went after
Speaker 2: him in the justice system because there was a medical fire.
Speaker 2: Even too, it wasn't difficult. If I had died, it
Speaker 2: wouldn't have been the pill, but sleep up near that
Speaker 2: went on for too long. If I had followed him,
Speaker 2: I wouldn't have survived, There's no doubt about it. Or
Speaker 2: he would have abandoned me in Bali like the tone
Speaker 2: woman or in the bush in any way.
Speaker 7: Do you have anything else to add, things that we
Speaker 7: maybe haven't covered.
Speaker 8: No, I don't think so.
Speaker 2: Let's say, for everything, he had tales to get my
Speaker 2: money out of my pocket. He would even stories all
Speaker 2: the time, and I believed him, and I still don't
Speaker 2: understand myself for it. If other people think that are
Speaker 2: interrogating me, they will learn more about the case. I'm
Speaker 2: happy to do anything. My goal is this, as I said,
Speaker 2: since we won't be able to resurrect the Lady's mom, well,
Speaker 2: for me, it would be to get my money back
Speaker 2: and end my days at ease.
Speaker 7: Did you manage to forgive yourself for this time of
Speaker 7: your life?
Speaker 9: No?
Speaker 2: Really, no, I'm still mad at myself. I'm still mad.
Speaker 7: At myself, even knowing the truth.
Speaker 2: Who is yes, because I thought I understood so well
Speaker 2: the truth about my clients. You know, a lot of
Speaker 2: clients like to get a bigger sum and sometimes even
Speaker 2: provide false testimonies. And I would make sure I would
Speaker 2: get to know my clients at some point in my life.
Speaker 2: I had five hundred of them, and I didn't see this.
Speaker 2: I don't understand. I don't understand. I didn't change. I
Speaker 2: was never stupid. I've had claims before that I refused
Speaker 2: to help because I knew something was illegal with that guy.
Speaker 2: I completely feel for it. Yeah, yes, yes, because hoopeat
Speaker 2: for the consequences of this as well me obviously, but also.
Speaker 8: My children in what way because I don't have anything
Speaker 8: else to offer.
Speaker 2: Before every time there was a celebration on my place,
Speaker 2: I would always pay for everything, absolutely everything. I wouldn't
Speaker 2: even expect a flower bouquet. I would offer them everything.
Speaker 2: And the fact that I can't do that anymore, they
Speaker 2: also suffer the consequences for that.
Speaker 7: Unfortunately, there are things like this that we can change.
Speaker 7: But it's good to be able to talk about it
Speaker 7: that people can learn about your story. Ultimately, it's probably
Speaker 7: about acceptance of something you don't understand. And that it
Speaker 7: could happen to anyone, that there are many people just
Speaker 7: like he that were hurt by the same man.
Speaker 2: That man cannot continue to hurt people. That's what needs
Speaker 2: to be done, because he's still capable of this. Because
Speaker 2: when I found out the truth, he was still in Belgium.
Speaker 2: I had him on the phone and I said to him,
Speaker 2: give me back everything it took from me, and he
Speaker 2: had the nerve to tell me I didn't take anything
Speaker 2: from you.
Speaker 7: So he had him on the phone and he denied.
Speaker 2: Yes exactly. He threatened me, said if I hear anything
Speaker 2: else from you, so that meant if I reported him,
Speaker 2: But I still did. I told myself, no, he cannot
Speaker 2: continue to hurt everyone around him. And how surprised I
Speaker 2: was when I heard about the other case from the
Speaker 2: torn airpolice because I thought he wouldn't dare try anything else.
Speaker 2: Well that wasn't true.
Speaker 7: Well, we hope with our podcast about Marion Barter that
Speaker 7: we can find enough evidence so he can be found guilty.
Speaker 7: It would be good to get to that point then. Anyway,
Speaker 7: thank you so much to have answered all of our
Speaker 7: questions today, to have fully engaged in it. We have things,
Speaker 7: will find closure and we wish you the best, so
Speaker 7: thank you again so much for answering our call.
Speaker 2: You're welcome. What I will do is contact the twenty
Speaker 2: police and ask whether this lady, if she's still alive,
Speaker 2: who'd agree to further report against him. She probably has
Speaker 2: more to tell than me, since she found herself in
Speaker 2: this situation and they so she accepted more things than
Speaker 2: it is in the report I have In Belgium, I
Speaker 2: have the name of the twenty detective, so I could
Speaker 2: try to contact him, provaded that he's not retired, et cetera.
Speaker 2: One because a lot of time has past.
Speaker 7: Did you ever find out the name of the lady
Speaker 7: to which it happened?
Speaker 1: No, And this story is about to be spread even further.
Speaker 1: Our colleague from the Luxembourg Word, Tom Riddell, says they
Speaker 1: will publish articles with their sister newspapers Arkaner Zaiitung and
Speaker 1: Arkaner Nagwichten. Together the printed versions have a combined circulation
Speaker 1: of eighty eight thousand people, but there are likely more
Speaker 1: of the online versions. These papers will reach into the
Speaker 1: German speaking part of Belgium, and it's our understanding the
Speaker 1: Luxembourg Word will publish another article just before the inquest
Speaker 1: findings are delivered.
Speaker 6: A lot of people have asked whether Julane's evidence will
Speaker 6: be considered as part of the current in quest. The
Speaker 6: answer is no. However, Soundly has the option of requesting
Speaker 6: a new inquest based on further evidence now coming to light.
Speaker 6: If the coroner recommends New South Wales Police continue their
Speaker 6: investigation and refers the case to the Director of Public
Speaker 6: Prosecutions to assess whether there's enough evidence for criminal proceedings
Speaker 6: to be undertaken, that may not be necessary. It's clear
Speaker 6: the genie is now out of the bottle and more
Speaker 6: people will likely keep coming forward. The level of assistance
Speaker 6: and expertise we've had from listeners wanting to provide whatever
Speaker 6: assistance they can since this podcast launched has been incredible,
Speaker 6: Thank you one and all. Speaking of which, Julane's daughter
Speaker 6: in law Alexandra Piraboom, has been back in touch.
Speaker 7: Just now. I have called the place where Frederic d'davari
Speaker 7: rented a room in two thousand and six. They gave
Speaker 7: me the following information. Name for Direkt o'davari, date of
Speaker 7: birth eight of July nineteen thirty nine. Place of birth, Tournay, Belgium.
Speaker 7: Number of ID document E seven five delivered Newcastle. Duration
Speaker 7: of the rand June two thousand and six to September
Speaker 7: two thousand and six. Address in Australia your Thong Road
Speaker 7: A two two two nine, Coimba. They agree to give
Speaker 7: me more information if they are contacted by police.
Speaker 1: Joni has been chasing down documents regarding the purchase of
Speaker 1: property by Rick Blum's daughter, particularly the one that was
Speaker 1: mentioned by a former neighbor last episode.
Speaker 4: Attached to the docks for mate's purchase on twenty fifth
Speaker 4: of October two thousand for three slash forty eight to
Speaker 4: fifty Cedar Crescent in East Ballina two four seven eight.
Speaker 4: It was bought for one hundred and thirty thousand banklone
Speaker 4: one hundred and four thousand, therefore twenty six thousand either
Speaker 4: oweing or a deposit. The first home buyers grant gave
Speaker 4: an amount of seven thousand plus total exemption for stamp duty.
Speaker 4: Thus she would have needed nineteen thousand for that unit purchase.
Speaker 4: At that time, at age twenty, she had only just
Speaker 4: started working for Quantescen as a flight attendant. Interestingly, this
Speaker 4: is the same street as where Rick was living in
Speaker 4: nineteen eighty eight in a brand new apartment complex.
Speaker 5: Just jumping in here suggested in episode forty four Tainted
Speaker 5: Love that both children of Rick received an inheritance from
Speaker 5: their grandmother in either nineteen ninety eight or nineteen ninety nine,
Speaker 5: of approximately thirty thousand dollars Australian each. At the Inquest.
Speaker 5: Diane Dehader very stated this when Casselton asked her about it. Question,
Speaker 5: when either Andre or Maria died, do you know whether
Speaker 5: they left an inheritance to your husband? Her answer, no, Well,
Speaker 5: she did leave something to my children, but that disappeared
Speaker 5: because we weren't over over there at all, and she
Speaker 5: left them some shares, that was all, but we never
Speaker 5: received them. Question in relation to your husband, it's your
Speaker 5: understanding when Maria died nothing was left to Rick. Answer no, nothing.
Speaker 1: Then Joni goes on to explain the details of my
Speaker 1: day's property purchase in two thousand, as explained earlier in
Speaker 1: an email from our listener.
Speaker 5: I make no suggestion that this purchase was done using
Speaker 5: funds gained from her father, but just stating that it
Speaker 5: was done. Interestingly, this property is only a few houses
Speaker 5: up on the same street from where Rick and the
Speaker 5: family were living in a first floor apartment in nineteen
Speaker 5: eighty nine with a beautiful ocean view and a walk
Speaker 5: through to the parkland to the beach. There are many
Speaker 5: other fascinating observations to be made in relation to the
Speaker 5: buying and selling of real estate by Rick and other
Speaker 5: members of his family from the nineteen seventies to this day,
Speaker 5: especially in light of Rick being an invalid pensioner, Diane
Speaker 5: also being on a pension as Rick's disability care, as
Speaker 5: well as all the events that were going on in
Speaker 5: the life of Rick at the time these purchases occurred.
Speaker 5: We hope to be able to bring you these observations soon.
Speaker 1: Joni also had this to say about Rick Blum's ex wife, Aloner.
Speaker 5: Look, I'm acutely aware that this situation we're about to
Speaker 5: describe does include family members who are still very much
Speaker 5: living and affected by this every day, and we do
Speaker 5: our absolute best to protect those who have offered information
Speaker 5: that may help to find out what's happened to Marian.
Speaker 5: But this needs to see the light now. It's vital
Speaker 5: this information is made available to not only show support
Speaker 5: to Ghislaine, Janette, Monique and Janet who bravely stood up
Speaker 5: and told their stories, but to also encourage any other
Speaker 5: women to stand up and speak their truth. Sell and
Speaker 5: I have spent endless hours on the phone, particularly this
Speaker 5: last eighteen months, trying to work through all the bits
Speaker 5: of information, some that just simply fall into our laps
Speaker 5: from various sources. A hint, a name, a fake account,
Speaker 5: a fake name, A Bernafone sal had a been her
Speaker 5: bonnet about the fact that Alona Read Rick Blum's third
Speaker 5: wife had died at a very young age of thirty
Speaker 5: one back in nineteen seventy seven, So we started to dig. Yes,
Speaker 5: nineteen seventy seven was twenty years before Marion disappeared, but
Speaker 5: it still spiked our interest. After finally getting Ilona's immigration
Speaker 5: file opened at the National Archives of Australia, which was
Speaker 5: a bit of a struggle for some unknown reason, we
Speaker 5: found that Alona had apparently married Willie Wolter's aka Rick
Speaker 5: Blum in Belgium on the tenth of May nineteen sixty nine.
Speaker 5: This is curious as there was a handwritten note in
Speaker 5: the file that on the twenty first of March nineteen
Speaker 5: sixty nine, so a couple of months before she was
Speaker 5: invited to leave for her new life in Australia on
Speaker 5: the sixteenth of April, but she had attended the counter
Speaker 5: of the Australian Embassy in Brussels on the third of April,
Speaker 5: requesting to postpone departure until the nineteenth of May nineteen
Speaker 5: sixty nine, which was nine days after they married. Also
Speaker 5: noted in the file was that Alona's contact address was
Speaker 5: Rue des Francs Etabek, Belgium. This was the same address
Speaker 5: where the business Ranoff Pubs was in nineteen sixty eight
Speaker 5: and where Willie Wouters was also noted as living. Curiously,
Speaker 5: Rick Blum denied any involvement in this business entity to
Speaker 5: this day on the stand in evidence. We've also heard
Speaker 5: from two independent sources that Ilona's family allegedly employed a
Speaker 5: private detective to find out who this Willy Wouters was.
Speaker 5: That they were seemingly very very suspicious of him and
Speaker 5: they did not trust him from the first meeting and
Speaker 5: did not want him around their daughter. They also did
Speaker 5: not know that Alona had made an application to emigrate
Speaker 5: to Australia, so this was kept secret from them sound familiar.
Speaker 5: They also found that he was allegedly still married to
Speaker 5: his previous wife, Nicole. We have not seen any documentation
Speaker 5: to prove or disprove these accounts. We were then able
Speaker 5: to confirm that Alona had one daughter in Sydney in
Speaker 5: nineteen seventy and that her father was Willie Wolters on
Speaker 5: her birth certificate. At four months of age. In nineteen seventy,
Speaker 5: Aloner put her daughter on a plane in the care
Speaker 5: of another woman to return to her parents in Belgium
Speaker 5: without her Alona then returned shortly after this. The reasons
Speaker 5: for this are known, but I won't elaborate here for
Speaker 5: privacy reasons. Alona was allegedly then reunited with Willy in Lille, France,
Speaker 5: once he had returned to Europe from Australia after his cruise,
Speaker 5: where he met Diane and Ilona and Willie lived together
Speaker 5: in lil with their young baby daughter until just before
Speaker 5: he was arrested there After separating from Willie second time
Speaker 5: in France, Ilona married her second husband in Budapest, Hungary,
Speaker 5: and she had another child, and then the family then
Speaker 5: returned to Australia to live. On a cold day earlier
Speaker 5: this year, I went to the Public Records Office prov
Speaker 5: in Melbourne. Victoria prov has been my second time for
Speaker 5: quite a few years and I was looking forward to.
Speaker 7: Going back there.
Speaker 5: I ordered up a record I thumbed through a thickish folder,
Speaker 5: a post mortem investigation record or a body card of
Speaker 5: missus Alona read as. There was no inquest at this time.
Speaker 5: Elona was aged thirty one years when she died. She
Speaker 5: was a hairdresser at the local Edward Beale salon. At
Speaker 5: this time, she had two young children. On the thirteenth
Speaker 5: of July nineteen seventy seven, Ilona was found slumped over
Speaker 5: the steering wheel of her car at an intersection in
Speaker 5: Saint Kilda. There was no damage to the car and
Speaker 5: no sign of any injury. An ambulance arrived and tried
Speaker 5: to save her life. She was taken to the Alfred Hospital,
Speaker 5: but sadly, had already passed away in her car. Her
Speaker 5: cause of death on her death certificate was a heart attack. However,
Speaker 5: the autopsy report states that there was no damage to
Speaker 5: her heart. This led to more questions than answers for us.
Speaker 5: There have been multiple accounts given by various family members
Speaker 5: of the actual cause of her death. Unfortunately, Elona's toxicology
Speaker 5: space scimens were not processed until the tenth of April
Speaker 5: nineteen seventy eight, some nine months later. The office of
Speaker 5: the Ombertsman presiding Mister JV. Dillon, was notified of this
Speaker 5: and proceeded to investigate. Work backlog at the laboratory was
Speaker 5: found to be the cause. Only a few weeks after
Speaker 5: Elona's death, an oh ands compensation claim was considered by
Speaker 5: a local law firm because this occurred on Elana's drive
Speaker 5: home from work. They were seeking compensation for her dependence.
Speaker 5: The lawyers involved in this potential claim were agitating for
Speaker 5: a death certificate to be released as soon as possible
Speaker 5: so that this claim could be considered, as they only
Speaker 5: had six months to lodge the claim. I'm going to
Speaker 5: fast forward to the present day. I visited the spring
Speaker 5: Vale Botanical Cemetery on a hunch to try and locate
Speaker 5: Elana's grave and to see what records were available, as
Speaker 5: she was listed in any deceased search online. I was
Speaker 5: directed to another cemetery in the area after the staff
Speaker 5: got the old books out to locate her. Upon arrival,
Speaker 5: to my amazement, I was told by a lonely old
Speaker 5: caretaker that the cemetery hut near the cemetery gates, which
Speaker 5: kept all these records for this cemetery had burnt down
Speaker 5: many years before by arsonists.
Speaker 2: I located her.
Speaker 5: Final resting place with some difficulty in the Roman Catholic
Speaker 5: section amongst a swarm of ballants. After returning home and
Speaker 5: more searching, I discovered that there was a community board
Speaker 5: that ran the cemetery up until it was moved under
Speaker 5: the banner of the larger Springvale Botanical Cemetery. I found
Speaker 5: a newspaper article from the early two thousands in the
Speaker 5: local paper about the community board. Rang the mobile phone
Speaker 5: number and a lady answered from a remote town in
Speaker 5: regional Victoria. Yes, she said, it is assumed everything is lost,
Speaker 5: but she had secretly kept copies of all of the records.
Speaker 5: So said she'd have a look and see what she
Speaker 5: could find, and miraculously showing me back a few hours
Speaker 5: later and said that she had found the records that
Speaker 5: I was after. On the burial record, Elona's name was
Speaker 5: spelt incorrectly. The O had been changed to an A
Speaker 5: as in Elna. This had our heads spinning once again. Essentially,
Speaker 5: this error made her unsearchable in the current trust records.
Speaker 5: She was hard to find, but we found her. At
Speaker 5: this time, we'd also managed to locate another person known
Speaker 5: to Elona and also to Rick Blum through a series
Speaker 5: of bizarre circumstances and coincidences. You just would not believe
Speaker 5: even if we told you. There's so much more to tell,
Speaker 5: and we have felt for a long time that this
Speaker 5: information is too important not to voice now, considering that
Speaker 5: both Gislaine and Jeannette both mentioned this theme within their
Speaker 5: own accounts, so it needs to be said for those wondering,
Speaker 5: we have followed the correct process in relation to submitting
Speaker 5: all this information to the right people at the right
Speaker 5: time that can act on it. This account is dedicated
Speaker 5: to Ilona Jacqueline Elizabeth Reid Kinzl nineteen forty six to
Speaker 5: nineteen seventy seven. May you rest in peace, Ilona.
Speaker 1: We've heard more from Rick and Diane's former neighbor as well.
Speaker 10: Hi, Allison, I don't want to be a past but
Speaker 10: I remember a few other things about Rick Bloom and
Speaker 10: his family. Listening to the podcast and reading comments has
Speaker 10: triggered my memory. One night, their son David brought his
Speaker 10: new girlfriend to his parents' place next door after they
Speaker 10: left I heard Diane yell at her husband, don't you
Speaker 10: ever say something again. She was not the quiet, meek wife.
Speaker 10: I also remember that shortly after Rick returned from his
Speaker 10: overseas trip, his son bought himself a brand new Honda
Speaker 10: sports car. Rick said at the time he told David
Speaker 10: to buy another car, but would not listen to him.
Speaker 10: His daughter lived around the corner in Avenue, Miami. Rick
Speaker 10: told us that she owned a house there.
Speaker 7: We all do.
Speaker 10: I found this odd that the whole family owned a
Speaker 10: big house, but they lived in a run down little unit.
Speaker 10: The house was later sold, and Rick wanted to complain
Speaker 10: to the real estate agent because it didn't sell fast enough.
Speaker 10: When the daughter got married in Bali, my husband picked
Speaker 10: up Rick and Diane from the Gold Coast airport. Rick
Speaker 10: gave him one hundred dollars for petrol. They were not poor,
Speaker 10: but lived in Squalor. I have a photo. In hindsight,
Speaker 10: I think they wanted to be mobile and not worry
Speaker 10: about leaving possessions behind. I never saw anything of value
Speaker 10: at their place on the few occasions I was there,
Speaker 10: but according to Rick, his wife had some valuable jewelry.
Speaker 1: Regards ingrid English recollection of Diane differs significantly from Angela
Speaker 1: from Kazi, who was a teenager when she knew the d'headaberries.
Speaker 3: Well, my recollection of Rick was that in the nineties
Speaker 3: he had darker gray hair than what he does now
Speaker 3: from what I've seen on the footage, and that was
Speaker 3: short at the sides of the back and sort of
Speaker 3: probably similar length on top, and a similar kind of build,
Speaker 3: maybe not quite a success and sort of much more
Speaker 3: upright than sort of the images we've seen of him
Speaker 3: going to and from court in Ballina. Well, with regards
Speaker 3: to Diane, to me, she was a very similar build
Speaker 3: to what she is now in the mid nineties, maybe
Speaker 3: slightly lighter as the sum of it may have been
Speaker 3: in the past, but in the nineties, to my knowledge,
Speaker 3: she still had the same. For my recollection, she had
Speaker 3: the same sort of long dark hair, similar kind of length,
Speaker 3: and the same kind of you know face you always
Speaker 3: had a hair out. And she just when I have
Speaker 3: seen what I've seen of her the coronial she looks
Speaker 3: just looks, you know, twenty to thirty years older than
Speaker 3: she did then, but she looks like exactly the same person.
Speaker 3: So to me, I've never met Marian obviously, but it
Speaker 3: looks Diane look very different to the photos I've seen
Speaker 3: of Marian and those other reports of that in the
Speaker 3: podcast of Diane being quite dominating in the two thousands.
Speaker 3: Doesn't see it at all with my knowledge or experience
Speaker 3: of her. But obviously people change and relationships change and
Speaker 3: so on. But yeah, from the photos I've seen of Marion,
Speaker 3: Diane doesn't resemble Marian in the slightest.
Speaker 1: The contrasting accounts aren't unusual, as Angela only really saw
Speaker 1: Diane in public, whereas Ingrid saw Diane at her home.
Speaker 1: That's her domain, So that would explain why she's confident
Speaker 1: and asserts herself more. It's hard to know what the
Speaker 1: real relationship between Diane and Rick actually is, but they
Speaker 1: have been together for a very long time. Diane knows
Speaker 1: her husband, but none of this proves she had anything
Speaker 1: to do with his illicit activities.
Speaker 6: Now, a bit of a change of pace, an example
Speaker 6: of why it's so important that each missing person's case
Speaker 6: is investigated thoroughly. The dedication of a single police officer
Speaker 6: can make a real difference. Allison recently spoke with retired
Speaker 6: New South Wales Police detective Damian Loon The former detective
Speaker 6: joined the New South Wales Police Force in nineteen eighty six,
Speaker 6: and twelve years later he was given a one page
Speaker 6: document from the Missing Persons Unit about the disappearance of
Speaker 6: a young mother named Lynnette Dawson from Sydney's Northern Beaches
Speaker 6: in nineteen eighty two. It was a case that dogged
Speaker 6: him throughout his career and despite setbacks, he never gave
Speaker 6: up hope of getting answers on the back of publicity
Speaker 6: and evidence reveal yielding the podcast The Teacher's Pet. Lynette's husband,
Speaker 6: Chris Dawson, was this year convicted and jailed for the
Speaker 6: murder of his first.
Speaker 11: Wife, Christopher Michael Dawson, on the charge little about eight
Speaker 11: January nineteen eighty two at Bayview or elsewhere in the
Speaker 11: state of New South Wales, you did murder Lynnette Dawson.
Speaker 11: I find you guilty when you mess it down.
Speaker 12: I was just given her a job, and this particular
Speaker 12: one was Lynn Dawson in ninet ninety eight. And at
Speaker 12: that stage I was stationed at d Y and Sydney's
Speaker 12: Northern Beaches and I didn't live far from there, so
Speaker 12: all the beaches which I grew up and I know
Speaker 12: the area backwards, so I was comfortable in working in
Speaker 12: an area that I knew quite well. And I've got
Speaker 12: the Dawson case in July nine ninety eight.
Speaker 1: And what were your first thoughts.
Speaker 12: Well, I've got a single suit of paper with a
Speaker 12: missing person's number on it and a black and white
Speaker 12: photograph of Lynnette Dawson and the circumstances where she had
Speaker 12: been reported missing. And it wasn't until I think I
Speaker 12: spoke to are a person by the name as sam
Speaker 12: as JC that I immediately knew and I spelled a
Speaker 12: rat about that former husband.
Speaker 1: So does it come down to gut instinct a lot
Speaker 1: in your job, because.
Speaker 9: I was asked this in the trial, but.
Speaker 12: I would probably on reflection in hindsight, yes, it is.
Speaker 12: You know something's happened. You know, it's just that gut
Speaker 12: and I don't know where.
Speaker 9: It comes from.
Speaker 12: I think it's probably all the different avenues of different
Speaker 12: investigations if you've done over the years, and some weird.
Speaker 9: Stuff as well.
Speaker 12: And I really believe that it is a gut instinct
Speaker 12: and it just drives you more or less. And you know,
Speaker 12: I've never locked anyone up has been innocent, So and
Speaker 12: my gut feeling has probably been right all the way through.
Speaker 1: Anyway, do you get the encouragement to follow through on
Speaker 1: these sorts of things or is there a lot more
Speaker 1: pressure to sort of clear it up as quickly as
Speaker 1: you can.
Speaker 12: A quick investigation is a good one, but that could
Speaker 12: you know, you could come and start with the brief
Speaker 12: evidence for a quarter or a jury down the track somewhere.
Speaker 12: So I was encouraged, and I had a wonderful detective inspector,
Speaker 12: Paul Hume. There was a DVY at the time, and
Speaker 12: he was my superior, but he gave me a lot
Speaker 12: of slack to work on this particular Dawson brief, and
Speaker 12: he encouraged me all the way through. I was listed
Speaker 12: at various times by a different staff to do various things.
Speaker 9: And I must say without.
Speaker 12: His support, it probably wouldn't have gone anywhere. If there
Speaker 12: was pressure on me to wrap it up as quickly
Speaker 12: as possible. I knew that it wouldn't be wrapping it
Speaker 12: up in a week or a month or a year.
Speaker 12: I knew that was going to be a lengthy investigation
Speaker 12: because allegedly Lynn had been cited at various places, so
Speaker 12: we had to negate all of that before we could
Speaker 12: really progress onto anything more serious.
Speaker 1: So right from the beginning, you didn't believe that you'd
Speaker 1: gone missing of her own volition.
Speaker 12: No, not a mother of two young children who had
Speaker 12: difficulty conceiving children and had also expressed a desire to adopt.
Speaker 12: So this particularly young mother age thirty three when she
Speaker 12: went missing, was also looking forward to her eldest daughter's
Speaker 12: first day at preschool and what mother wouldn't and for
Speaker 12: her to walk off the face of the earth, it
Speaker 12: was unplausible to me. And I knew straightaway that Chris
Speaker 12: Dausen was in the cross theres from day one, really
Speaker 12: and just it just meant we're.
Speaker 9: Not We've got to get this right.
Speaker 12: So it took a lot of time, and eventually we
Speaker 12: took it to a number of perennial inquests.
Speaker 1: Why did it take so long? And I know you've
Speaker 1: answered this question a lot of times, but obviously you
Speaker 1: come across a lot of roadblocks, you do.
Speaker 12: You do, Look, you have a lot of misinformation, a
Speaker 12: lot of wild leads, et cetera.
Speaker 9: That term fruitless.
Speaker 12: The times that it took it was because I took
Speaker 12: it to the coroner at the first about in two
Speaker 12: thousand and one, and the coroner read the brief of
Speaker 12: it evidence that cleve coin in his court and terminated
Speaker 12: the inquest and recommended that a known person be charged
Speaker 12: with an indictable offense. So obviously a known person would
Speaker 12: be the suspect and the indicitible fence would be murdered.
Speaker 12: It went to the DPP and then some nine months
Speaker 12: later they informed me that they wouldn't proceed with any
Speaker 12: indictment because it was insufficient evidence. So that's where the
Speaker 12: brief stalled then. So I wasn't getting a lot of
Speaker 12: media at that stage about it because I needed to
Speaker 12: get it out there in the headlines about this missing
Speaker 12: person in Dawson, and the only way I could do
Speaker 12: that was to utilize various rent and electronic media, etc.
Speaker 9: I wasn't satisfied with the.
Speaker 12: Director of Public Prosecutions, reasoning they're just ad insufficient evidence.
Speaker 12: When I inspired, I was told that they couldn't tell
Speaker 12: me where I was short due to privileged information.
Speaker 9: So I sort of stuck it in no man's land really.
Speaker 12: And then back in the two thousand and three, I
Speaker 12: approached the Glibe Coroner's Court again to the sergeant assisting
Speaker 12: the coroner and we decided then to run another inquest
Speaker 12: in two thousand and three at Westmead before Magistrate Karllenovic,
Speaker 12: who was this ideputy state coroner, and that involved on
Speaker 12: this particular occasion, having all the witnesses giving their evidence
Speaker 12: before the coroner and being asked questions by the sergeant
Speaker 12: assist in the coroner, and also the defense less of
Speaker 12: that which turned out to be Better Dawson that was
Speaker 12: Chris Dawson's brother.
Speaker 1: What I don't understand is a lot of these cases
Speaker 1: I find people like yourself are discouraged to you know,
Speaker 1: you basically said, look, you know the best you can
Speaker 1: hope for as a coronal, or you know, we don't
Speaker 1: have the resources, or you know what I mean. How
Speaker 1: come you were able to keep beating the drum on this.
Speaker 12: Because I think I had a fair bit of media
Speaker 12: in two thousand and three with the Australian story, so
Speaker 12: that kept it alive some some like, you know, it's
Speaker 12: like a candle.
Speaker 9: I lit candle flickering in the wind, but it wasn't
Speaker 9: going out, and I think I was.
Speaker 12: I think that my other superiors where I worked at
Speaker 12: different commands, sort of knew my determination about this, and
Speaker 12: I think they were got it a bit shy and
Speaker 12: telling me to know to stop it or it's going
Speaker 12: to go nowhere, forget it. You got you've got other jobs,
Speaker 12: don't forget. I have plenty other investigations going on at
Speaker 12: the same time, so I had to prioritize all my investigations.
Speaker 12: And you know, certainly there was some of the investigations
Speaker 12: I was running. You know, I was in at risk
Speaker 12: to someone's safety, so that took a priority. And then
Speaker 12: when I had some clear time, then I got stuff
Speaker 12: back into the doors and matter, and I was in
Speaker 12: and I don't think anyone could really tell me to
Speaker 12: stop it. I think a couple tried to, but I
Speaker 12: just believe that they knew my determination in this. But
Speaker 12: I don't think that they were. They all a bit
Speaker 12: shy and give me the direct.
Speaker 9: Order about it.
Speaker 1: I mean that's good. I guess having that background and
Speaker 1: maybe you know, having done the hard yards and things
Speaker 1: like that, you had a status potentially that some of
Speaker 1: the others that I've heard, you know, that have come
Speaker 1: up against these things are just you know, like come on,
Speaker 1: get over it sort of thing. So there wasn't any pressure.
Speaker 1: There was no detriment to your career to keep stealing
Speaker 1: this case.
Speaker 9: No, Look, I don't think so.
Speaker 12: The periods of stalling were I suppose the drive was
Speaker 12: diminishing because I didn't know where I was going with
Speaker 12: this at that stage. And after the second inquest, and
Speaker 12: I thought it was a very very healthy inquest and
Speaker 12: all the witnesses across examined and they gave their evidence
Speaker 12: before the coroner. He also terminated that inquest up to
Speaker 12: five days of hearing and directed that a known person
Speaker 12: be charged with murder.
Speaker 9: And yet again the DPP, for their own.
Speaker 12: Reasons which I'm not tribute to, wouldn't proceed with an indictment.
Speaker 12: That it takes the air out of your lunch basically,
Speaker 12: And how do to go back to a family and
Speaker 12: tell them that when you have done everything as as
Speaker 12: much as possible that you think you could. And it
Speaker 12: also is a hindrance to me because knowing that they
Speaker 12: wouldn't issue an indictment against Dawson, and I couldn't go
Speaker 12: and lock him up.
Speaker 9: I couldn't go. I could go off, could have.
Speaker 12: Gone and arrested him and charged him, but it would
Speaker 12: have been quite admit, because there was going to be
Speaker 12: no prosecution. So I didn't do that, and it may
Speaker 12: have even believed to be like a malicious prosecution if
Speaker 12: I'd had gone and done that.
Speaker 9: So I had to stick within the guidelines and sit
Speaker 9: on there, you.
Speaker 12: Know, knowing what they were saying that they weren't going
Speaker 12: to prosecute I, and they just kept saying, keep going,
Speaker 12: keep going with it. And that's what I did for
Speaker 12: all up eighteen odd years.
Speaker 1: That's a DPP that said that kept going with it.
Speaker 12: I had a meeting with them in the early who
Speaker 12: might have been twenty eleven, twenty twelve, and it was
Speaker 12: the deputy director of the DPP. There was the chief
Speaker 12: of staff to the police Minister President. There was the
Speaker 12: command of the homicide squad. My commander was there, and
Speaker 12: I gave a briefing, a verbal briefing to the DPP,
Speaker 12: the deputy director, and eventually he just said to me,
Speaker 12: or keep going with you, keep going. So he didn't
Speaker 12: say they weren't going to prosecute, but they didn't tell
Speaker 12: me not just to keep going.
Speaker 9: But he just keep going with it. And what do
Speaker 9: you do? How do you get more evidence?
Speaker 12: You know, you can't make it up, So you know,
Speaker 12: we did various media stuff, and luckily I had a
Speaker 12: fairly good relationship with the police murder unit and they
Speaker 12: were very, very very good with their job, and when
Speaker 12: I required them assistance, I went to them and they
Speaker 12: would put out a press release and suddenly I would
Speaker 12: have a little bit more interested in And I have
Speaker 12: different people wreaking crime stoppers, et cetera, or other witnesses
Speaker 12: coming forward.
Speaker 1: You seem so different to a lot of them, these
Speaker 1: others when we start the cold cases, in the sense
Speaker 1: that you see the benefit of getting media and it's
Speaker 1: not a detriment, you know, like you an anomally in
Speaker 1: that respect.
Speaker 12: It's not too many people would agree with me in
Speaker 12: that because I think the media are intrusive and right
Speaker 12: the wrong they you know, people say, I don't read
Speaker 12: that newspaper, this particularly news, because it's all rubbish. But
Speaker 12: who else is going to help me. There's someone else
Speaker 12: out there sticking the hand up and saying, well, you know,
Speaker 12: we'll help you with this.
Speaker 9: And it was to me.
Speaker 12: I've always said in my life as a police officer,
Speaker 12: the police are the community and the community are the police.
Speaker 12: So to get that out there via and particularly on
Speaker 12: the Northern beaches where a large circulation of the local
Speaker 12: rag was called the Many Day, and everyone had heard
Speaker 12: about Lin Dawson, and it's got conversations generated and other
Speaker 12: people would then come forward. So yeah, to say that
Speaker 12: I'm probably probably very minor percentage of the of the
Speaker 12: coppers out there that think that the media can do
Speaker 12: a good job.
Speaker 9: I think they do and I use them to my
Speaker 9: best of my ability.
Speaker 1: Is that the difference I mean because something like a
Speaker 1: lind Dawson case and some of these others, obviously the
Speaker 1: whole advent of podcasts has meant that these cold cases
Speaker 1: are being represented all the time. Is that the difference
Speaker 1: then is having that tenacity and that you know, that
Speaker 1: drive and everything to rather than say, look, we just
Speaker 1: want to clear this up, just keep pursuing it because
Speaker 1: you know you don't know what's going to come out.
Speaker 1: Is that Why do you think that case is like
Speaker 1: these like Lin Dawson and that can now get a result?
Speaker 9: Absolutely?
Speaker 12: And I think nowadays we have to be naive to
Speaker 12: think that the media can't or investigative journalism doesn't assist
Speaker 12: a case.
Speaker 9: It may do.
Speaker 12: Some will argue that it may interfere with a jury,
Speaker 12: it may playing things in their minds before a person
Speaker 12: get a fair trial, and that's I understand that completely.
Speaker 12: But you know, without using that avenue, I was basically
Speaker 12: stalled at the water hell, so I was dog battling.
Speaker 12: I wasn't going anywhere, and without their assistance through the
Speaker 12: early days the inquiry, even to the later stages of
Speaker 12: the inquiry, it became paramount that you know, I had
Speaker 12: to work hand in hand, and I think some people
Speaker 12: might have frowned upon that, but I certainly didn't because
Speaker 12: they got my view out there on social media, they
Speaker 12: got it out there in the newspapers, it meet radio
Speaker 12: and TV, whatever, and it certainly did assist the investigation.
Speaker 1: So I guess the other thing is when there is
Speaker 1: a case where the investigation potentially didn't handle it well
Speaker 1: at the beginning, that seems to be that maybe the
Speaker 1: difference is, you know, the images everything, and if there's
Speaker 1: potential needative exposure for people who didn't quite handle it
Speaker 1: the way they should have in the first place. Is
Speaker 1: that where I suppose there might be more opposition in
Speaker 1: these sorts of cases.
Speaker 9: Yeah, look, going back.
Speaker 12: To the early eighties and when particularly when she went missing,
Speaker 12: it wasn't handled very well, but in saying that that
Speaker 12: there's two sides to every story, and people were being
Speaker 12: told that Dawson had heard from his wife and she
Speaker 12: was okay basically, or she was up on the Central
Speaker 12: coast or staying with friends. So the way that we
Speaker 12: would do things now is a lot different. I think
Speaker 12: if we had crossed our tas in those days and
Speaker 12: dotted our eyes, it may have.
Speaker 9: Been a little bit different.
Speaker 1: I think certainly. The one other cases that I've worked
Speaker 1: on were that the conclusions drawn at the beginning, and
Speaker 1: there seems to be a tendency in a lot of cases,
Speaker 1: not in yours, thank goodness, as a cold you know,
Speaker 1: coming into it as a cold case where they don't
Speaker 1: want you to disagree with the conclusion that was drawn
Speaker 1: at the time. Did you come across.
Speaker 9: That, No, not really.
Speaker 12: I just think we have to put a new set
Speaker 12: of fresh eyes on the on the brief and you
Speaker 12: really can't criticize what happened earlier, and it was you know, unfortunately,
Speaker 12: some of the records that we required weren't available. That
Speaker 12: was disappointing not to have those because they weren't kept
Speaker 12: for I think after seven years they were all destroyed
Speaker 12: so we had never had those records, and that would
Speaker 12: have been so very very handy for the investigation because
Speaker 12: we could have gone back and looked at certain phone
Speaker 12: calls being made, et cetera, and trace those phone calls. Yeah,
Speaker 12: but I think it's more or less it's important. I'm
Speaker 12: not going to criticize, but I'll just say I think
Speaker 12: it's a good, always good idea to put a set
Speaker 12: of fresh eyes.
Speaker 1: Across a brief And I guess the other thing is
Speaker 1: a lot of families and there seems to be a
Speaker 1: dearth of places that families and victims can go. You know,
Speaker 1: Like I've come across different groups that you have people
Speaker 1: in there where they just feel like the police aren't helping.
Speaker 1: In your case, thank goodness you were there, but there's
Speaker 1: a lot of people trying to get justice out their
Speaker 1: families and that where they feel like the police aren't
Speaker 1: interested in This is all over the country. This is
Speaker 1: not just Wales or anything. But do you know whether
Speaker 1: that's an issue or whether that's something that is a
Speaker 1: stemic problem, you know, resources things like that. Is this
Speaker 1: something that maybe needs to be you know, looked at
Speaker 1: from a systemic change or I think now.
Speaker 12: I think this daw this Dawson verdict is really it
Speaker 12: probably will and I'd like to think that will change.
Speaker 12: That's that that thinking. We are a better police force
Speaker 12: now than we were back in the eighties. And I
Speaker 12: know for a fact that if any missing personnel is
Speaker 12: reported to the police that it is a very very
Speaker 12: thorough investigation now. And sometimes we don't have all the
Speaker 12: answers for the family. Unfortunately, there are just some things
Speaker 12: we just can't solve, and we have to tell that
Speaker 12: to the family. But I think now we are and
Speaker 12: I'm happy to say that we're probably the world leader
Speaker 12: and the investigation of missing persons now, and I think
Speaker 12: this Daws' brief will sort of be spoken about needs
Speaker 12: to come to you. Aspiring detectives all say, well, you know,
Speaker 12: I never give up on these sort of matter's because
Speaker 12: you never know what might happen.
Speaker 9: And what happened forty years.
Speaker 1: Later, the big deficit you had was not having a body.
Speaker 1: Did you ever think without a body you'd be able
Speaker 1: to get a murder charge?
Speaker 9: No?
Speaker 12: No, because there are stated cases previously in our judicial
Speaker 12: system where there have been convictions of nobody. And I
Speaker 12: wasn't concerned about that at all because too coroners who
Speaker 12: found her to be deceased, So that was a legal
Speaker 12: argument that they'd be get over very quickly. But I
Speaker 12: have no problem with nobody homicides because there have been
Speaker 12: people convicted and there are some still serving custodial sentence
Speaker 12: for those homicides.
Speaker 1: What about when they lie in inquest because obviously assuming
Speaker 1: that Chris Dawson and his brother would have been part
Speaker 1: of those, is there any way that you can kind
Speaker 1: of get them on perjury or anything like that in
Speaker 1: the process, or it was always you know, you're kind
Speaker 1: of limited to just chasing the murder charge.
Speaker 12: Oh no, no, that's that's not for me to investigate.
Speaker 12: That's really a matter for the attorney general about perjury.
Speaker 12: But look, you know you've got to say, you are
Speaker 12: going to court, you're pulling the finger at somebody and
Speaker 12: they're telling you a different story.
Speaker 9: That's and that's the evidence.
Speaker 12: That's where we come down to, you know, a verdict
Speaker 12: who's telling the truth. It's got to be on beyond
Speaker 12: a reason no doubt that someone's been murdered, and that's
Speaker 12: a pretty high bar when you look at it, particularly
Speaker 12: for a jury matter.
Speaker 9: But if they're telling FIBs.
Speaker 12: Well, you know, I've been lied to all my life
Speaker 12: as a police officer, and I'm just used to it.
Speaker 12: And it doesn't worry me when people lie, because when
Speaker 12: they do, they come unstuck. And it doesn't worry me
Speaker 12: if they lie to me because I know that eventually
Speaker 12: that I'm going to be see through their lives and
Speaker 12: prove that they.
Speaker 1: Are What would you say to you want to be
Speaker 1: detectives starting out? You know, like, how do you as
Speaker 1: you say, it is a different world, but in some
Speaker 1: ways it's probably a bit harder with some of the barriers,
Speaker 1: like they don't have your status, they don't have your
Speaker 1: you know, having laid the groundwork and everything. And what
Speaker 1: advice would you give to true detectives who want to
Speaker 1: solve crimes, want to solve murders.
Speaker 12: And I've thought about this quite often too, because you know,
Speaker 12: and some of my shortcomings as with all, but make
Speaker 12: sure that you take meticulous notes and record them, then
Speaker 12: follow them on your investigation system, because years later they
Speaker 12: can be brought up and as evidence, et cetera, or
Speaker 12: shown you as an ad been worrying whilst you've been
Speaker 12: cross examined in the witness box ever report with the family.
Speaker 12: Don't treat them as just someone who's a nuisance. Be
Speaker 12: with them, Be honest with them, be open with them,
Speaker 12: don't lie to them, don't promise them anything, but tell
Speaker 12: them that you do your best. And when you have
Speaker 12: these old matters and you think you're never going to
Speaker 12: get a result, just keep going at it.
Speaker 9: Do not give up.
Speaker 12: Don't let it go, because as we've seen in this matter,
Speaker 12: this could have been easily forgotten about and never reserviced again,
Speaker 12: and then we would have had a family out there
Speaker 12: that will never know the answers. Then Dawson's parents went
Speaker 12: to their graves not knowing what happened to their daughter.
Speaker 12: The two young children grew up not knowing what happened
Speaker 12: to their mother, and now they do. And maybe if
Speaker 12: it's closure, I'm not sure that you know. Just be
Speaker 12: honest and particulous note taking and follow every lead down
Speaker 12: a rabbit hole, because you never know what you're going
Speaker 12: to find.
Speaker 1: What about if you're discouraged, What about if people say
Speaker 1: to you you're chasing your tail. The most you can
Speaker 1: hope for is a coronial.
Speaker 12: Yes, well that's well through the current has got a
Speaker 12: function to determine who, what, when, we're and why, And
Speaker 12: particularly in matter of suicide, families want to get to
Speaker 12: the bottom of what happened. And with our investigations we
Speaker 12: do that. We paint the current a picture and he
Speaker 12: makes the determination and he gives an outcome. If that's
Speaker 12: the best as far as you can go, we'll go
Speaker 12: and do it. But make sure everything you've done is
Speaker 12: meticulous and you do a good job. I look in
Speaker 12: doing the doors and I made telling mistakes. Don't worry
Speaker 12: about that in the following up some leads or particularly
Speaker 12: getting obtaining statements at stages where I should have got them,
Speaker 12: and I know they were taking years later.
Speaker 1: But the trust your gut instinct.
Speaker 12: Always trust your gut because you'll find you're never wrong.
Speaker 9: And I think it's just common sense.
Speaker 12: People that we know we know between right and wrong,
Speaker 12: and that's common sense. And that's if you know something
Speaker 12: is not right, you have that feeling about something's not right,
Speaker 12: we'll go with your float. Don't put blinkers on. Think
Speaker 12: outside the square as well. You know, as I said,
Speaker 12: when you're doing investigations, and I teach this to the
Speaker 12: young young aspiring detectives in the investigator's course. You know,
Speaker 12: don't be one eyed about something. You don't have your
Speaker 12: blinkers on. Think about all the possible scenarios, you know.
Speaker 12: And there's a good old saying, and I've always said,
Speaker 12: and I say this to the young detectives, that when
Speaker 12: you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be
Speaker 12: the truth. You know, that was just a job that
Speaker 12: I was really proud of because the family and I'm
Speaker 12: close with the family, and I got to meet the
Speaker 12: eldest daughter again a couple of weeks ago, and just
Speaker 12: to get a hug from her, and when she said
Speaker 12: thank you that, you know, that's all I need. I
Speaker 12: don't need anything else. You know, that's enough. I don't
Speaker 12: need pats on the back or anything else. That was
Speaker 12: just enough for me, because I think I've retired and
Speaker 12: I think, well, did I do atole job?
Speaker 9: At the end of the day, I think, yeah, I
Speaker 9: think I did.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think you did too.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I really appreciate you taking the time and you are
Speaker 1: an inspiration because you know, we come across so many
Speaker 1: people that are frustrated and everything and just feel like
Speaker 1: they've got no hope and just to have someone say
Speaker 1: that there is hope, you know, just makes it's just
Speaker 1: good to have a positive angle.
Speaker 9: Yeah, oh thanks, Alis. I really appreciate your crime words.
Speaker 12: And as I said, I'm a big fan of the
Speaker 12: media and you know, without them, but I don't think
Speaker 12: that this would have gone over the line without that,
Speaker 12: you know, I reached out to so many people halfway
Speaker 12: around the world. People knew about this, you know, so
Speaker 12: it was always on someone's lips somewhere, And that's what
Speaker 12: we don't want to forget that.
Speaker 9: We have got to keep this.
Speaker 12: Going all the time, you know, because it can easily
Speaker 12: just be forgotten.
Speaker 1: At the very least, Rick Blum knows more about Marian's
Speaker 1: disappearance than he's willing to tell, and he's committed other crimes,
Speaker 1: the extent of which we're yet to know. We're hoping
Speaker 1: the coroner recommends charges be laid against Blum, or at
Speaker 1: least recommends he be investigated further, and refers the case
Speaker 1: to the Office of the Director of Pblic Prosecutions. They
Speaker 1: can then assess what charges, if any, can be laid.
Speaker 1: They can take into account all evidence, regardless if it
Speaker 1: was tendered to the coroner or not. And Sally and
Speaker 1: Joni can hand over the considerable dossier they've managed to
Speaker 1: compile on Rick Blum, which currently can't be tendered. The
Speaker 1: coroner hands down her findings this week, but that's by
Speaker 1: no means the end. The case of Lynn Dawson had
Speaker 1: two coronial inquests before the trial. This sort of investigation
Speaker 1: takes time, especially when the next of kin and investigative
Speaker 1: journalists have to fight so hard to convince authorities there
Speaker 1: really is something wrong.
Speaker 6: The Lady Vanishes has now been running for more than
Speaker 6: three years. There are forty five episodes, twenty one conversations
Speaker 6: and six catch up episodes which are being used by
Speaker 6: new and existing listeners to get a snapshot of the
Speaker 6: first twenty plus episodes. This is a case where we
Speaker 6: had no inkling of what was done and who had
Speaker 6: done it. We began with no guarantees that we would
Speaker 6: find anything. The first crucial thing we focused on was
Speaker 6: the name Remachel. We assessed that it was a key
Speaker 6: to unlocking what happened to Marian. Even though a driver's
Speaker 6: license in the name Fernand Remakeel was sitting in the
Speaker 6: files of the Queensland Department of Transport and Main Roads.
Speaker 6: It was our extraordinary researcher Joni, who applied various combinations
Speaker 6: of spacing in her searches in the online newspaper archive
Speaker 6: trove that led to the discovery of the nineteen ninety
Speaker 6: four personal ad placed by Rick using the name m
Speaker 6: Ad Mikael. This podcast is unlike other true crime stories
Speaker 6: as it is an investigation playing out in real time,
Speaker 6: spanning several countries, which has transformed from what authorities only
Speaker 6: ever considered an occurrence about a woman they believed was
Speaker 6: not even missing, to a coronial inquest and a possible
Speaker 6: murder investigation by homicide detectives. Since we started, the following
Speaker 6: has happened. Marion is now considered missing and has been
Speaker 6: placed on the National Missing Person's Register. The New South
Speaker 6: Wales Police Homicide Squad launched Task Force DURANNGA, a dedicated
Speaker 6: team devoted to finding out the truth behind Marian's disappearance.
Speaker 6: A coronial inquest investigating Marion's fate and whether New South
Speaker 6: Wales Police handled the case properly has been held in Sydney,
Speaker 6: Ballina and Byron Bay. A five hundred thousand dollars reward
Speaker 6: for information about what happened to Marion was announced and
Speaker 6: a convicted con man who was admitted to having a
Speaker 6: secret affair with Marion around the time she went missing,
Speaker 6: has emerged as the prime suspect. The Lady Vanishes is
Speaker 6: all original content, and since launching in April twenty nineteen,
Speaker 6: we've uncovered significant failings in the police investigation, prompting police
Speaker 6: finally to do the work they should have done in
Speaker 6: the first place. The Lady Vanishers has now been downloaded
Speaker 6: fourteen million times and now you, our devoted listeners, are
Speaker 6: part of this journey, which only ends when we find
Speaker 6: out what happened to Marian. Thank you, and finally, a
Speaker 6: special thanks to our other super sleuths June, Sam, Kelly,
Speaker 6: Mandy and Christina. Your help and support has been indispensable.
Speaker 6: If you knew Marion or have any information about her
Speaker 6: or her whereabouts, we'd love to hear from you. Our
Speaker 6: website is sevennews dot com dot au slash news slash
Speaker 6: the Lady Vanishers, and you can also message us here.
Speaker 6: You can also send us an anonymous tip at the
Speaker 6: Lady Vanishes dot org. If you like what you're hearing,
Speaker 6: don't forget to subscribe. Please rate and review our series.
Speaker 6: It helps new listeners find us presenter and executive producer
Speaker 6: Alison Sandy, investigative journalist Brian Seymour, producer and writer Sally Eels.
Speaker 6: Researcher Joony Condos, sound design Mark Wright, Graphics Jason Blandford,
Speaker 6: Transcripts and translation Estelle Sanchez. The theme and much of
Speaker 6: the music by Nicholas Gasparini at the Darkpiano dot Com.
Speaker 6: Thanks again to the Alliance Francis. This is a Seven
Speaker 6: News production.