Speaker 1: Listeners are advised this podcast contained sensitive material relating to
Speaker 1: poisons and how they can cause death. If this subject
Speaker 1: triggers adverse emotions, we urge you to contact Lifeline on
Speaker 1: thirteen eleven fourteen or visit them at www dot lifeline
Speaker 1: dot org dot AU.
Speaker 2: This is the case of Marion Barter, a mother teacher
Speaker 2: friend missing for twenty five years.
Speaker 1: You know someone that she was going to vanish, that's
Speaker 1: for sure.
Speaker 2: The bizarre circumstances surrounding her disappearance.
Speaker 3: I'm not sure if it was intentional or there's something
Speaker 3: more foul afoot.
Speaker 1: If you could imagine a teacher coming straight from say
Speaker 1: little house on the prairie to the eighties, that was
Speaker 1: Marian Barter. Whether you find Marian Barta dead or alive,
Speaker 1: I honestly believe somebody has that key piece of information.
Speaker 2: And the relentless quest of a daughter to find her mum.
Speaker 1: Something had happened, something has happened to make her leave.
Speaker 4: I am one hundred percent sure, one hundred percent sure
Speaker 4: that somebody knows something.
Speaker 2: The lady vanishes episode forty seven.
Speaker 1: You don't believe me, Oh, it's not the question. I believe.
Speaker 2: I'm Alison Sanders.
Speaker 1: And I'm Brian Seymour.
Speaker 3: Yes, but I can remember every little detail, her name,
Speaker 3: miss Froy everything.
Speaker 2: When we started this podcast, Brian chose a name The
Speaker 2: Lady Vanishes, reminiscent of the nineteen thirty eight Alfred Hitchcock
Speaker 2: movie of the same name. I met her last night
Speaker 2: at the hotel you thought you did name. Indeed, Marian
Speaker 2: has vanished, and although we are they are a lot
Speaker 2: closer to knowing what happened to her, we still don't
Speaker 2: know where she is. There have been so many developments,
Speaker 2: none of which are more significant than the discovery of
Speaker 2: the man of many names, Rick Blum and his connection
Speaker 2: to Marian at the time of her disappearance. Since learning
Speaker 2: of his existence and meeting him at the Inquest, we've
Speaker 2: learned much about him, which triggered my memory of another
Speaker 2: movie released in nineteen forty four, this time directed by
Speaker 2: George Koker, but very much in the Hitchcock theme. Gaslight
Speaker 2: follows opera singer Paula played by Ingrid Bergmann, who marries
Speaker 2: her accompanist Gregory Anton in a two week whirlwind romance.
Speaker 2: Unbeknownst to her, that is not his real name and
Speaker 2: he is just using her to secure a fortune in
Speaker 2: jewels belonging to her murdered aunt.
Speaker 1: Since the day I.
Speaker 3: Lost your problem, Yes, you're right, that's when it began, Yes,
Speaker 3: against you, still standing there and saying look look at
Speaker 3: this letter and staring at nothing.
Speaker 2: Anton, played by French actor Charles Boyer, is a master
Speaker 2: manipulator trying to make Paula believe she's going mad. One
Speaker 2: of his tactics is to dim the gas lights, and
Speaker 2: when she notices, says it's just a figment of her imagination.
Speaker 1: It hurts me when you're ill and fancy.
Speaker 2: It's where the term gas lighting comes from Cameron. But
Speaker 2: eventually police Inspector Brian Cameron played by Joseph Cotton sees
Speaker 2: through he's act and you from.
Speaker 3: The first moment I saw you that you were dangerous
Speaker 3: to me, From the first moment I saw you that
Speaker 3: you were dangerous to her.
Speaker 2: Dangerous. That's the word. Monique Cornelius used a lot when
Speaker 2: describing blum Or Frederick to Hedevari as she knew him.
Speaker 2: Her interview in our last EPISO shows he was the
Speaker 2: ultimate gaslighter. He knew how to get exactly what he wanted,
Speaker 2: large sums of money and valuables from unsuspecting victims. He
Speaker 2: targeted lonely women at their most vulnerable moments, bombarded them
Speaker 2: with romance and promises of a new life, manipulated them
Speaker 2: to make them second guess their own decisions, convinced them
Speaker 2: to cut themselves off from family members, and made sure
Speaker 2: they put their trust entirely in him. It's horrible to
Speaker 2: think about, and what became clear by his responses at
Speaker 2: the inquest was that he felt no compassion or empathy
Speaker 2: for any of the women he duped, except perhaps for Monique,
Speaker 2: who managed to see him for what he really was
Speaker 2: before any real harm was done. But the question remains,
Speaker 2: is this man more than a menacing serial fraudster. Could
Speaker 2: he be a killer?
Speaker 1: Monique isn't the only one who thinks so. Julane recalled
Speaker 1: his obsession with poisons and feared he would try to
Speaker 1: smother her with a pillow. Estranged daughter Evelyn was made
Speaker 1: to feel she was going crazy for believing he might
Speaker 1: poison her with a bottle of champagne, and Jeanette Gaffney
Speaker 1: Bowen was so concerned about the threat he posed to
Speaker 1: her safety that she resorted to taking out an apprehended
Speaker 1: violence order against him. Then, of course, there's Rick Bloom's
Speaker 1: preoccupation with asking women to dye their hair blonde. Remember
Speaker 1: his cousin's widow, whom he abandoned in Balley, had her
Speaker 1: hair colored blonde after Rick Bloom arranged it, and he
Speaker 1: asked Janet Oldenburg to bleach her hair before traveling to Europe,
Speaker 1: although she never did. It's difficult to believe this Rick
Speaker 1: Bloom happens to prefer blondes, after all, his wife Diane
Speaker 1: is a brunette. So we decided to investigate whether there
Speaker 1: could be something more insidious behind his motivations. It was
Speaker 1: not easy finding a poisons expert in Australia willing to
Speaker 1: come on the podcast to discuss this issue.
Speaker 5: Hello, Hello, how are you, Brian?
Speaker 1: I'm well how are you? But I tracked down a
Speaker 1: highly qualified toxicologist and expert in poisons based in Pennsylvania
Speaker 1: in the United States, Doctor Anne Chappelle.
Speaker 5: I'm a board certified toxicologist. I have a PhD in
Speaker 5: Pharmacology and toxicology from Saint Joseph's University and Philadelphia. I've
Speaker 5: been a practicing toxicologist for over twenty five years.
Speaker 1: Can you tell me what are some of the common
Speaker 1: poisons that have been used to kill people.
Speaker 5: Well, there's intended poisons and unintended poisons. Of course, the
Speaker 5: most frequently unintended kind of poison are prescription drugs actually,
Speaker 5: where somebody has overdosed on those prescription drugs or it
Speaker 5: is a drug that's not intended for them. So that
Speaker 5: is actually something that is of concern and wide abuse.
Speaker 5: And you see that quite a bit in terms of
Speaker 5: other kinds of poisons. I know, we don't think of
Speaker 5: these traditionally as poisons, but there's a lot of deaths
Speaker 5: associated with alcohol as well as things like the other
Speaker 5: opiates and such. Another again, we don't think of those
Speaker 5: traditional poisons, but really that's what they are. When you're
Speaker 5: thinking about you know, consumers or just in the general public.
Speaker 5: Some of those most common poisons is actually carbon monoxide.
Speaker 5: Carbon monoxide is an odorless, tasteless gas, and when you
Speaker 5: breathe it in likes the red blood cells better than
Speaker 5: your oxygen does, so it displaces the oxygen and so
Speaker 5: you're carrying around carbon monoxide instead of oxygen, and it
Speaker 5: basically starves your body. So that is a you know,
Speaker 5: that's very common in terms of a poison.
Speaker 1: And what about intended poisonings. I mean, we've already I
Speaker 1: get the Christie Arsenick and hold lies, and we've all
Speaker 1: seen the movies. But what are some of the poisons
Speaker 1: that employed by people intending to kill?
Speaker 5: Well, there was a very famous case just a few
Speaker 5: years ago of Viktor Yuschenkov in Russia. He was poisoned
Speaker 5: with dioxin. And dioxin you can see very clearly how
Speaker 5: he has a normal looking face, and for a week
Speaker 5: or so after he was poisoned, he got very, very sick.
Speaker 5: You could see hyper pigmentation in his face. You could
Speaker 5: see he had problems with this thyroid. He nearly died.
Speaker 5: So there's a lot of those kinds of poisons that
Speaker 5: you know at a very we as a toxicologist, we
Speaker 5: always say the dose makes the poison. But I want
Speaker 5: to modify that just a little bit. It's not just
Speaker 5: the dose that makes the poison. It's also the route
Speaker 5: of exposure. So you know, for some things, they can
Speaker 5: go through the skin very easily. So if you put
Speaker 5: something on a door, it gets through the skin and
Speaker 5: reacts very quickly. So if you're thinking about poisons too,
Speaker 5: there's two ways I think to think about poisons. One
Speaker 5: is that classic movie where you know, the spy gets caught.
Speaker 5: He falls down and he breaks open a tooth and
Speaker 5: they're cyanide and he cracks it and he's dead in
Speaker 5: thirty seconds. Then we also have the more chronic type
Speaker 5: poisonings that you might see in some of the Agatha
Speaker 5: Christie books. You know arsenic, you know, low doses of
Speaker 5: arsenic over extended period of time. There's other heavy metals
Speaker 5: and such that over time they build up in your
Speaker 5: system and it's hard to detect them because your symptoms
Speaker 5: are pretty generic. Actually, I don't feel good. I have
Speaker 5: some diarrhea, you know, I'm really tired and lethargic. And
Speaker 5: then over time those get worse and worse, and then
Speaker 5: you can go into organ failure. All depends on the
Speaker 5: form of the material. For example, arsenic, even though it's arsenics,
Speaker 5: there's some more potent arsenics than other arsenics depending on
Speaker 5: the form.
Speaker 1: Okay, and you're talking when you say over time, days, weeks, months.
Speaker 5: It can be Radon is considered a poison. It's a
Speaker 5: gas you breathe it. It's a lot of times, at
Speaker 5: least here in the us. You have it in different
Speaker 5: rock formations, and so if you have a house with
Speaker 5: a foundation, sometimes you can get from that foundation seepage
Speaker 5: of that radon gas into the basement, and over a
Speaker 5: period of twenty thirty years of exposure to those low
Speaker 5: levels of radon gas, you can develop lung cancer. So
Speaker 5: you know, sometimes it's thirty days, sometimes it's thirty seconds,
Speaker 5: and you know it's really about what is that intended target.
Speaker 5: Some of the most I guess efficient I'm using air
Speaker 5: quotes here for efficient are poisons that stop your ability
Speaker 5: to have a functioning heart or a functioning brain. So
Speaker 5: those short term ones, those are things that again displace
Speaker 5: the oxygen or maybe there isn't any oxygen if you're
Speaker 5: just breathing nitrogen, let's say, or certain chemicals that when
Speaker 5: they get into your body, they stop your cells from
Speaker 5: being able to make energy. And because they can't make energy,
Speaker 5: they die. And where are the cells in your body
Speaker 5: that need the most energy your heart, your brain. So
Speaker 5: so you may see these kinds of you know, chest pains,
Speaker 5: or they collapse, they can't breathe, they you know, the heart,
Speaker 5: you know, it looks like a heart attack or where
Speaker 5: you know, they their brain just you know, stops well,
Speaker 5: you have brain damage and then you can't come back
Speaker 5: from that.
Speaker 1: I'm hitting pause here for a second. Doctor Chappelle is
Speaker 1: talking about poisons that can impact your major organs like
Speaker 1: your brain and heart. Not to draw any conclusions, but
Speaker 1: just to remind you, Rick Bloom's third wife, Ilona Kinsel,
Speaker 1: a hairdresser who probably used chemicals to treat customers hair,
Speaker 1: was just thirty one years old when she died behind
Speaker 1: the steering wheel of her car in Melbourne in nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy seven, apparently because of something to do with her heart.
Speaker 1: I'll leave that as food for thought, and now back
Speaker 1: to my interview with doctor Chappelle. Can I just run
Speaker 1: through a couple of poisons that I've gone through and
Speaker 1: made up a list. It's not a definitive list of anything,
Speaker 1: but just ask you about some of these poisons. And
Speaker 1: you mentioned cyanide. Sinid does strike me as a poison that,
Speaker 1: when administered in the correct dose, can kill very quickly.
Speaker 1: How does it do that?
Speaker 5: Cyanide is one of those chemicals that inhibits your cell's
Speaker 5: ability to make energy to sustain itself. So when it
Speaker 5: can't sustain itself, the cell dies. And again that's like
Speaker 5: in your heart, your brain, those kinds of regions of
Speaker 5: your body. That's you know, detrimental. You can't support life
Speaker 5: if you're not having a beating heart or a functioning brain.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and very quickly does that.
Speaker 5: It does at high enough dose. Yes, there's a little
Speaker 5: bit of cyanide in a lot of things like pit fruit,
Speaker 5: you know, apricots, apples, there's a little bit of cyanide
Speaker 5: in there. But again it's the dose that makes the poison.
Speaker 1: Right, okay, And something like asenic, I mean in movies
Speaker 1: and novels, it's it's tried as a poison that can
Speaker 1: kill quickly. Also, what sort of dosed and what sort
Speaker 1: of method of delivery would be required to kill within
Speaker 1: a day.
Speaker 5: So arsenic is a little bit different. When it gets
Speaker 5: into your body, it interferes with certain enzymes that are
Speaker 5: critical for correct functioning of yourselves. So it binds to
Speaker 5: these different enzymes. There's over two hundred of these different enzymes,
Speaker 5: and then that is where when they start shutting down,
Speaker 5: that's where you see the adverse effects. So the other
Speaker 5: thing is that arsenic can be stored in the body.
Speaker 5: It's not very waters voluble, so it likes to hang
Speaker 5: out in the fat part of your body, and so
Speaker 5: you can have this like reservoir of it too, so
Speaker 5: you can get a low dose of it, but over
Speaker 5: time it can build up in your body and then
Speaker 5: you can see some more severe adverse effects with it.
Speaker 5: But again, the adverse effects with acute, very high doses
Speaker 5: of arsenic tend to be nausea, vomiting, adominal pain, severe diarrhea.
Speaker 5: But the chronic is where you see this kind of
Speaker 5: multi organ disease, and it's really it can be very
Speaker 5: difficult to pinpoint.
Speaker 1: What about something like strychnine.
Speaker 5: Well, strych nine has an interesting history because it was
Speaker 5: used as a rodent side pesticide and it was used
Speaker 5: for killing like small little birds and rodents. It used
Speaker 5: to be used medically actually because they found that it
Speaker 5: could strengthen certain contractions, so they thought it would be
Speaker 5: good for someone who needed some extra help with their
Speaker 5: heart muscle. But then they realized that that really isn't
Speaker 5: the right way to use strychnine. So what happens with
Speaker 5: strychnine is that it is a neurotoxin, which means it
Speaker 5: affects the nerves that give the signals for the muscles
Speaker 5: and other parts of your body to do something. So
Speaker 5: basically it doesn't allow an off switch, so your muscles
Speaker 5: keep keep doing what you know, twitching or whatever. So
Speaker 5: if an acute overdose of strychnine, the part of the
Speaker 5: body that gets affected that's of concern would be the
Speaker 5: heart because it can't contract like it's supposed to, and
Speaker 5: or the diaphragm. You know, your diaphragm is what moves
Speaker 5: up and down to help you breathe, so basically you suffocate.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 5: The other thing about strychnine is that it can be
Speaker 5: absorbed through the skin, through your eyes, and so that's
Speaker 5: another way it makes it very dangerous. And digitalis so
Speaker 5: digitalis so many of these poisons, what we're calling poisons,
Speaker 5: there are actually extracts from various plants. The stryccht nine
Speaker 5: is actually extracted from the seed of the strictness nux
Speaker 5: vomica tree. Digitalis is associated with the purple foxglove, and
Speaker 5: so a long time ago there were some medicinal benefits
Speaker 5: of foxglove because they found if they put it on
Speaker 5: the skin where there was an open sore, it helped
Speaker 5: to heal that Native Americans found that if you gave
Speaker 5: it to some one who was suffering from some leg swelling,
Speaker 5: it would make the leg swelling grow down. Because the
Speaker 5: digitalis improves how the heart contracts. So if the heart
Speaker 5: contracts better, it's working better. Your volume is up, your
Speaker 5: pressure is up, and you're able to excrete the fluids
Speaker 5: out of your kidney much better. So when you think
Speaker 5: of what the overdose or poisoning would be, it affects
Speaker 5: other muscles that actually contract. So you see a lot
Speaker 5: of in the GI track, You see nausea, vomiting, diarrhea,
Speaker 5: in your eyes, you can have vision changes because the
Speaker 5: pupils are controlled by different muscles. And also too much
Speaker 5: you can get in a regular heartbeat too fast, too slow.
Speaker 5: So so much of these poisons is really getting down
Speaker 5: to the basic pharmacology and where do these substances interact,
Speaker 5: and that's why they've been exploited medicinally. But then again,
Speaker 5: the dose makes the poison too much and you can
Speaker 5: get that exaggerated pharmacologic effect and that can turn deadly.
Speaker 1: How difficult is it to get your hands on a
Speaker 1: poison that can be used to keel and particularly from
Speaker 1: things that are typically found in the home.
Speaker 5: Well. Again, some of the most common poisons are your
Speaker 5: pharmaceuticals that you keep in your bathroom when you haven't
Speaker 5: used all of your vicodin after you had your teeth
Speaker 5: out or something, so those tend to be the most common.
Speaker 5: In terms of other poisons, sometimes it's things that we
Speaker 5: don't often think of, like bleach, but that tends to
Speaker 5: be more of a direct acting poison. It destroys the
Speaker 5: mucous tissues, so if you drink it, it's more of
Speaker 5: a caustic agent, and we don't really think of that
Speaker 5: at least I don't tend to think of that as
Speaker 5: a traditional poison. But in terms of other things that
Speaker 5: can be dangerous, you also have to think of who
Speaker 5: is the person being affected. If it is a small child,
Speaker 5: they don't have as much body weight, they don't have
Speaker 5: necessarily a full capacity of their liver to be able
Speaker 5: to metabolize and change how these are in the body,
Speaker 5: or even the elderly. You have someone who is old,
Speaker 5: their liver function tends to be lower, their kidneys might
Speaker 5: not work as well, so a agent that works for
Speaker 5: a young person might be very different in an old person.
Speaker 1: So I did in drop. But you mentioned to liver.
Speaker 1: What role does liver a function play in how a
Speaker 1: poison that affects the body.
Speaker 5: So when you ingest anything through your stomach, the first
Speaker 5: place all that blood goes to after it visits your
Speaker 5: stomach and your intestines, is it goes through the liver.
Speaker 5: And the role of the liver is to either break
Speaker 5: down some of those nutrients and other components into their
Speaker 5: smaller pieces. But it is also a really good way
Speaker 5: to make substances that and metabolize them or change them
Speaker 5: into something else. So the only way you can get
Speaker 5: these substances, any substance really out of your body is
Speaker 5: to make it water soluble, So it means to make
Speaker 5: it so that you can pee, poop, or breathe it out.
Speaker 5: So things that are difficult that sequester in your fat,
Speaker 5: that are hard to get out, those can accumulate in
Speaker 5: your body. And I also also think of it this way.
Speaker 5: You have a normal dose of vicodin that you've been
Speaker 5: taking for your back, and you've been taking it for
Speaker 5: a couple of weeks, your liver automatically will start to
Speaker 5: ramp up its production of the enzymes that break that
Speaker 5: opiate down. So then if you stop taking that opiate,
Speaker 5: your liver it goes back down to its normal levels
Speaker 5: of those enzymes. Well, let's suppose four months later you're like, oh,
Speaker 5: you know what, I really need some vic it In
Speaker 5: the last time I took it, I had to take
Speaker 5: three to feel better. You take three, but your body
Speaker 5: is used to you not taking any and so you've
Speaker 5: overdosed because your enzymes that you have are not in
Speaker 5: high enough concentrations to be able to get rid of
Speaker 5: that effectively. Also, think of it like tolerance for alcohol.
Speaker 5: You know, you haven't you've had a drink, you drink
Speaker 5: two drinks a night. For a while, you don't drink anything,
Speaker 5: and then you're an easy date. So that's the way
Speaker 5: it works. You know, it's a natural it's a way
Speaker 5: for your body to accommodate. So usually the liver is
Speaker 5: really good about making things less toxic. Sometimes it can
Speaker 5: take something in and make it more toxic, or it
Speaker 5: is so busy working on that toxicint that you've overwhelmed
Speaker 5: it and those other you know, it's like when you
Speaker 5: get really really drunk, your body can only handle so
Speaker 5: much alcohol before you start having some adverse effects of
Speaker 5: that alcohol because it just doesn't have the capacity. So again,
Speaker 5: the very young, the very old people that are have
Speaker 5: liver disease or chronic alcoholics or such, they tend to
Speaker 5: have a more compromised liver function, and so they have
Speaker 5: to be more careful in some of the intended and
Speaker 5: unintended exposures they may have.
Speaker 1: The reason I asked doctor Chappelle specifically about how the
Speaker 1: liver is affected is because Marian undertook a liver function
Speaker 1: test the month before she traveled to England and Gulaine
Speaker 1: Dubois den Loys claimed that Rick Bloom asked her to
Speaker 1: take a liver test a scan before their planned trip.
Speaker 1: Let me ask you this, If I was intending to
Speaker 1: poison a otherwise healthy adult, what benefit would it be
Speaker 1: to me to have them submit to a liver function
Speaker 1: test to find out what their liver function was? Would
Speaker 1: that be information that would help me in deciding a
Speaker 1: dose or method of delivery.
Speaker 5: Well, think of it this way. Those kind of substances
Speaker 5: that are metabolized into inactive substances that might help with
Speaker 5: liver function. But for something like cyanide, where it gets
Speaker 5: in your body and it interacts with those cells very quickly,
Speaker 5: it's going to damage you before it actually even gets
Speaker 5: to really to the liver. So there's you have to
Speaker 5: think about what, you know, what's your ultimate goal here?
Speaker 5: You know, are you really trying to poison them quickly?
Speaker 5: You've got to get with something that maybe your liver
Speaker 5: wouldn't break down, or just some that acts so fast.
Speaker 1: And now that you mentioned that, I mean, it does
Speaker 1: I guess, you know, when I think about you know,
Speaker 1: it is unthinkable, but you know, I'm trying to imagine
Speaker 1: if I ever wanted to poison someone, you know what,
Speaker 1: I think I probably would lean towards pharmaceuticals, very very
Speaker 1: powerful opiates that are otherwise available for things like chronic pain,
Speaker 1: post operative k things that you actually can get your
Speaker 1: hands on. If they say you've you know, you've got
Speaker 1: a loft long injury, you have chronic bind, your your
Speaker 1: disability pension, you would presumably have access to all sorts
Speaker 1: of pharmaceuticals that potentially could be misused intentionally to harm someone.
Speaker 5: Well, like insulin. There's another example. Let's suppose I was
Speaker 5: a diabetic. You know, you really throw off someone's insulin
Speaker 5: or their ability to process that sugar, you can throw
Speaker 5: them into a sugar coma. So you know, I've seen
Speaker 5: that in several kinds of thriller books and such. You know, again, though,
Speaker 5: if you do have a death, if there's an autopsy
Speaker 5: that is performed afterwards, and part of that autopsy they
Speaker 5: look at your medical history, what drugs were you taking,
Speaker 5: and they can tell a lot from just even a
Speaker 5: look around your different organs. Were you do you have
Speaker 5: a fatty liver? You know, did you? So that could
Speaker 5: indicate that maybe had some liver liver disease. You know,
Speaker 5: if you start seeing adverse effect in a particular region
Speaker 5: of the body that might be associated with a poison,
Speaker 5: well then that might lead you down a path. But
Speaker 5: the problem with poisons, you know, and if you're trying
Speaker 5: to get away with something, the poison you're not looking
Speaker 5: for is the one that goes undetected. I mean, all
Speaker 5: of these different drugs and pharmaceutical agents, you know, there
Speaker 5: are different methods that the drug developers will use to
Speaker 5: you know, look at the levels in the body for
Speaker 5: therapeutic uses, but they don't always use those for actual
Speaker 5: you know, overdoses. They would look and they'd say, oh, well,
Speaker 5: and was prescribed. You know, these four drugs Okay, we
Speaker 5: don't know of any you know, there's some levels in there,
Speaker 5: but you know, you have an unexplained death, you know,
Speaker 5: and then they might start looking around to say, oh wait,
Speaker 5: it looks like their heart stopped. Okay, what could have
Speaker 5: caused their heart to stop? And then you know, you
Speaker 5: look around at some of the other things. That's why
Speaker 5: sometimes you see that it takes four to six weeks
Speaker 5: for toxicology testing to get done so that you can
Speaker 5: determine a cause of death. Well, sometimes that's because they're
Speaker 5: looking for something they don't have a method, and they
Speaker 5: need to develop a method for Sometimes there's a big backup,
Speaker 5: or sometimes you just have to find a lab that
Speaker 5: can actually detect that particular agent that you think it
Speaker 5: might be.
Speaker 1: If I can ask you about the method of delivery
Speaker 1: or ingestion of a poison, and you mentioned poisons like famously,
Speaker 1: the Russian opposition leader Navali was poisoned with Ovchuk to
Speaker 1: the Scrippoles, the father and the daughter in London. That's
Speaker 1: obviously an extremely toxic designed weapon. Yeah, the Russians have
Speaker 1: a biological agent. But in terms of things around the home,
Speaker 1: I mean, what sorts of methods of delivery I'm thinking, like,
Speaker 1: would I try and add it to someone's tea or
Speaker 1: something they're going to drink. Would I mix it in
Speaker 1: with their food? Would I put it on their clothes?
Speaker 1: What sorts of methods of delivery for these these sorts
Speaker 1: of poisons that are accessible to the ordinary person, things
Speaker 1: like as you say, pharmaceutical is very powerful. Pharmaceuticals or
Speaker 1: other poisons that might be around the house.
Speaker 5: A lot of times, the sense of taste and smell
Speaker 5: help you to understand if you are being poisoned. This
Speaker 5: is an evolutionary mechanism that humans have developed over time.
Speaker 5: So many times poison will taste bitter, or if you're
Speaker 5: going to eat a meal, maybe it tastes sour or
Speaker 5: it smells awful to say that, maybe it's bad and
Speaker 5: contaminated with some kind of bacteria. So that's our sensory
Speaker 5: organs tend to help us with that. Now, there are
Speaker 5: many different poisons that don't necessarily have a taste or smell,
Speaker 5: but you know a lot of the things that you
Speaker 5: might be thinking of, like a hemlock or some of
Speaker 5: these the arsenic the cyanide those they tend to have
Speaker 5: a very bitter taste or very bitter smell. Almond smell
Speaker 5: very distinctive. So if you were going to be doing
Speaker 5: something to someone's tea or whatever part of that is,
Speaker 5: you need to make sure that you know it's it's undetectable.
Speaker 5: You know, do you make something that's really sweet and
Speaker 5: then put something in there to counteract the bitter. But
Speaker 5: you know that's where you know, if you're looking at
Speaker 5: a lot of natural products, they tend to have a
Speaker 5: very distinctive smell or taste. You know, we use medicinal
Speaker 5: herbs and other herbs all the time. You know, my
Speaker 5: mother in law hates cilantro. She can tell cilantro in
Speaker 5: her food from five hundred yards away. So again, that
Speaker 5: can be very powerful as a tool to deter ingesting
Speaker 5: something bad. So I think you really have to work
Speaker 5: to cover it up.
Speaker 1: And I guess if I was poisoned with the prescription
Speaker 1: drug that I wasn't prescribed in that you know someone
Speaker 1: else had sourced the drug and found a way to
Speaker 1: get me to ingest it. How launchly is it that
Speaker 1: that would be detected again if they're not looking for
Speaker 1: that drug. If I look at my medical history and
Speaker 1: look at what I've been taking and that's not on
Speaker 1: the least would I even taste for it.
Speaker 5: Well, let's give an example of someone and wanted to
Speaker 5: offer you. So they took insulin and gave you a
Speaker 5: really high dose of insulin. You went into insulin shock,
Speaker 5: and you died. Well. Upon death, most of the time,
Speaker 5: they will take certain measurements of the blood of the
Speaker 5: different fluids and they will run, you know, look at
Speaker 5: your red blood cells. They will look at the amount
Speaker 5: of sugar and potassium and all those kinds of things
Speaker 5: that are in some of your bodily fluids, and they
Speaker 5: may say, Wow, this guy had a huge amount or
Speaker 5: not enough sugar in his body. That's weird. I wonder
Speaker 5: why that happened. So again, if you were already pretty sick,
Speaker 5: they might not go to look for that. So that's
Speaker 5: why it's important that they take a full medical history
Speaker 5: upon death. They look at the drugs you were on
Speaker 5: or not. How active were you, you know, were you
Speaker 5: a chronic drinker? You know? Did you were you a
Speaker 5: person that like to be do engage in risky behaviors
Speaker 5: those kinds of things. So you know, it really depends.
Speaker 5: I think, well, I guess you would really have to
Speaker 5: know the person and understand enough about that person and
Speaker 5: their routines if you're trying to make it look like
Speaker 5: somebody else was not involved.
Speaker 1: So ideally you'd want to study the person over the
Speaker 1: course of a few weeks or months to work out
Speaker 1: exactly the best method. Right again, to some clear on
Speaker 1: the liver, what benefit is there to me of knowing
Speaker 1: someone's liver function in terms of saying selecting the right
Speaker 1: dose of a prescription medication.
Speaker 5: Well, that's a tough question. It really depends on the medicine.
Speaker 5: Some medicines you have to give with food, some without food.
Speaker 5: The numbers that you get from a general liver function
Speaker 5: test that just give you an idea of kind of
Speaker 5: you know, is it functioning pretty normally. Your actual dose
Speaker 5: is dependent on a number of things in terms of
Speaker 5: the root of exposure. You know, if it was injected
Speaker 5: versus eaten, Like if you ate insulin, you wouldn't have
Speaker 5: a problem because your stomach breaks it down into just
Speaker 5: its little pieces and you wouldn't have an adverse effect. So,
Speaker 5: you know, someone who is pretty large, you know they
Speaker 5: may have a normal lever function, but their distribution, you know,
Speaker 5: you would need a lot more of that drug in
Speaker 5: their body to be able to exert that kind of
Speaker 5: adverse effect. So it really depends on a lot of things.
Speaker 1: And what about in terms of detecting whether a poison
Speaker 1: is present in a person post mortem? I mean, I've
Speaker 1: often heard, I've seen on these same cop shows where
Speaker 1: they take a sample of the hair and analyze that
Speaker 1: when they're looking for something specific. I mean, would is
Speaker 1: that a method of detecting a poison the presence of
Speaker 1: a poison in a deceased person, And what difference, if any,
Speaker 1: would it make if that person had dowed the heat
Speaker 1: to expiring.
Speaker 5: So hair can provide a record of exposure for some agents.
Speaker 5: That's things like cocaine, marijuana, opiates, methanhetamines, ecstasy, PCP. You
Speaker 5: can also use it for certain heavy metals as well,
Speaker 5: and usually it has about a three month history to it.
Speaker 5: You really can't get, you know, the end of my hair.
Speaker 5: You couldn't get you know, what happened a year ago,
Speaker 5: And you really can't always pinpoint the true time. You
Speaker 5: can't say, okay, this this piece here was September of
Speaker 5: twenty twenty. Some drugs bind to the melanin, which is
Speaker 5: the dark color, very very well and very tightly, so
Speaker 5: you can if you were to bleach the hair or
Speaker 5: relax it chemically treat it. Sometimes you can affect the
Speaker 5: concentration of some of those substances in the hair and
Speaker 5: make it.
Speaker 1: Hot to take the presence of a poisonous substance.
Speaker 5: Yes, And if you do have alopecia, you don't have
Speaker 5: any hair on your head, they may take it from
Speaker 5: another part of your body, if you have chest hair,
Speaker 5: if you have pubic hair, arm pit hair. There are
Speaker 5: some other places where they may try to get some
Speaker 5: hair samples. They tend to put like to the ones
Speaker 5: on the top of your head. They usually need about
Speaker 5: an inch and a half or so to be able
Speaker 5: to get it.
Speaker 1: In terms of taking hair from other parts of the body,
Speaker 1: presumably you would only do that. You wouldn't even taste
Speaker 1: the hair if you suspected fambpl or suspected expose you
Speaker 1: to a poisonous substance. Right, It's very rare that I've
Speaker 1: saying the hair was tasted. They'd have to be looking
Speaker 1: for something, wouldn't I right?
Speaker 5: Generally, Yes, and it could be that they take a
Speaker 5: hair sample in case they need it, you know, for later.
Speaker 5: They may not do it right at the time of death.
Speaker 5: Maybe they look at you know, at a much later times.
Speaker 5: It's not something that's routine.
Speaker 1: I should just ask you about some other sort of
Speaker 1: classic if I can put it that way, poisons that
Speaker 1: a kara and knight just say, shuch as, oleander and
Speaker 1: not shade. Are these things that are still commonly or
Speaker 1: used it all?
Speaker 5: Well, I'm not sure about those, but I know that,
Speaker 5: you know, we talk about them and classic toxicology training,
Speaker 5: and I think it's more common in areas where you
Speaker 5: have nightshade and oleander that you know, you would warn hikers,
Speaker 5: you know, to not touch it, not ingest it. So
Speaker 5: from that regards, yes, you know what you know. In
Speaker 5: my suburbia life, I may have some poison ivy nearby,
Speaker 5: but you know I'm not cultivating nightshade either.
Speaker 1: And there are some poly toxic mushrooms out there on
Speaker 1: the deathcat mushroom.
Speaker 5: Oh yes, mushrooms. My piece of advice. If you found
Speaker 5: it in a store, it's edible. If you find it
Speaker 5: at a farmer's market, it's edible. If you're on a hike,
Speaker 5: I wouldn't do it. It's very difficult to tell them
Speaker 5: apart yeah, and again.
Speaker 1: The most sorts of mushrooms that are poisonous twists and
Speaker 1: can kill very quickly. Yes, and how do they typically
Speaker 1: affect the body? I know that's a very broad question,
Speaker 1: but again, what sort of attack on our system can
Speaker 1: we expect from a mushroom?
Speaker 5: Many of the death caps they tend to be neurotoxic.
Speaker 5: And so again you ingest it, and it usually takes
Speaker 5: a day or two for it start to the poison
Speaker 5: to start to in the metabolites of that to build
Speaker 5: up in your liver and damage your liver and then
Speaker 5: that causes you know, sequential organ failure.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Okay, with this case we're looking into, it's very
Speaker 1: taken a very unusual and morbid twist that this person
Speaker 1: may have killed and has on several occasions expressed an
Speaker 1: interest in poisons and boasted that he can poison without
Speaker 1: being detected post mortem, which is an extraordinary claim to make.
Speaker 1: I don't know if he's done it or not, that's
Speaker 1: not for us to decide, but that sort of let
Speaker 1: us to ask Welton, and how easy is it to
Speaker 1: poison someone? How do these poisons work? And you've been
Speaker 1: wonderful and helping to understand a little bit of that.
Speaker 1: Thank you very much.
Speaker 5: Yeah, no problem, It's fit a pleasure.
Speaker 2: Most of you are probably wondering what's going on with
Speaker 2: the inquest. We are also and contact the media team
Speaker 2: for the coroner each week to check in. On Monday,
Speaker 2: the twentieth of March, the following announcement was made.
Speaker 6: Reinquest into the disappearance and suspected death of Marion Barter
Speaker 6: aka Flora Bella Natalia Marion Remichel. The Inquest into the
Speaker 6: Disappearance of Marion Barter will resume in May. A three
Speaker 6: day hearing before State Coroner Teresa O'Sullivan will commence on
Speaker 6: thirty one May twenty twenty three at ten am in
Speaker 6: Lismore Court. Please note that listing dates can be subject
Speaker 6: to change.
Speaker 2: Three days at Lismore in northern New South Wales, near
Speaker 2: where Rick Blum lives. We understand from the postponement of
Speaker 2: the findings that the coroner wanted to be able to
Speaker 2: consider new information which has come to light. But does
Speaker 2: that mean mister Blum could also be called back? I
Speaker 2: guess we'll find out in a few months. During our
Speaker 2: four year journey, we have had the privilege of getting
Speaker 2: to know some of our most dedicated listeners and sleuths.
Speaker 2: They include Jennifer, who was attended every day of the inquest,
Speaker 2: not just in Sydney where she's from, but along with
Speaker 2: husband Ken, traveled to Byron Bay and Ballina when the
Speaker 2: hearings were held there. Jen organized the petition which resulted
Speaker 2: in Marion Barter finally being put on the Australian Missing
Speaker 2: Persons Register, and has organized a new petition to have
Speaker 2: the reward for information into Marian's disappearance lifted to one
Speaker 2: million dollars. For more details, please visit our Facebook page.
Speaker 2: Another friend of the podcast, k McNiven, has not only
Speaker 2: been providing us with some new information of late, she's
Speaker 2: also been helping to pull together an accurate timeline of
Speaker 2: the significant events in Rick Blum's life, the events that
Speaker 2: we know of anyway, and how they connect with the
Speaker 2: timeline we've previously created for Marian Barter, particularly the occurrences
Speaker 2: leading up to her disappearance. Obviously, there are several key
Speaker 2: pieces of evidence which led to breakthroughs. The first happened
Speaker 2: in twenty ten when Detective Gary Sheehan learned that Marian
Speaker 2: had changed her name to Flora Bella Natalia Marian Remikel
Speaker 2: before her trip overseas in June nineteen ninety seven. After
Speaker 2: that information was revealed in the podcast. In twenty nineteen,
Speaker 2: listener Joni used the name Remickel to track down a
Speaker 2: personal ad from a nineteen ninety four French Australian newspaper
Speaker 2: posted by Monsieur f Remichel, which included a Lennox Head
Speaker 2: post office box and a Ballana phone number that then
Speaker 2: led to Luxembourg soon after and the only person in
Speaker 2: the world with that name and age, the real Fernand Remicel. Then,
Speaker 2: on September twenty fourth, twenty twenty, Detective Lisa Pisotto discovered
Speaker 2: a Queensland driver's license in the name f nand Remicel.
Speaker 2: It's important to give police credit where it's deserved. After
Speaker 2: this podcast was launched, New South Wales dismantled the Missing
Speaker 2: Persons unit and set up a new unit, appointed homicide
Speaker 2: detectives and resources to do this very difficult work. Detective
Speaker 2: Pisotto was the first to find the Queensland license taken
Speaker 2: out with a false name. Less than a month later,
Speaker 2: on October fifteenth, Detective Senior Constable Sasha Perazza went to
Speaker 2: the New South Wales State Library and searched old editions
Speaker 2: of phone books for the Ballona phone number listed in
Speaker 2: the ad and discovered it was linked to a business
Speaker 2: Ballona Coin Investments. An Australian security as an Investment Commission
Speaker 2: search revealed Frederick and Diana Hedeveri as the directors of
Speaker 2: this company. Further police investigations revealed as many as thirty
Speaker 2: aliases for Rick Blum, including for nand Remichel, an identity
Speaker 2: he stole after having an affair with the real mister
Speaker 2: Remikeel's ex wife. After speaking with mister Blumm himself in
Speaker 2: twenty twenty one, he confirmed that he not only knew Marion,
Speaker 2: but had an affair with her in the months leading
Speaker 2: up to her overseas trip, and took a trip to
Speaker 2: the UK at almost exactly the same time that Marian did.
Speaker 2: Early in the making of this podcast, we spoke to
Speaker 2: Laura Richards, an award winning expert on domestic abuse, coerceive control, stalking,
Speaker 2: sexual violence, homicide and risk assessment. Helloh, but that was
Speaker 2: before we'd even heard of Rick Blum and his various aliases.
Speaker 4: So my name's Laura Richards. I'm a criminal behavior analyst.
Speaker 4: I previously worked at New Scotland Yard and ran their
Speaker 4: sexual Offenses section and the homicide Prevention Unit, and I
Speaker 4: also worked in their Violent Crime and Intelligence and Analysis Unit.
Speaker 4: And I was the advisor to the Association of Chief
Speaker 4: Police Officers on violence and spent a lot of time
Speaker 4: working on cases that involve missing women, domestic abuse, coercive control, stalking.
Speaker 4: I changed the law on stalking in England and Wales
Speaker 4: and then on coercive control and now other parts of
Speaker 4: the world. I'm working in America and Australia to criminalize
Speaker 4: coercive control and i have a podcast called Crime Analyst
Speaker 4: where I talk about my work and the cases to
Speaker 4: try and educate people and resolve cases as well. And
Speaker 4: I've recently launched a YouTube channel called Crime Analyst, where
Speaker 4: again I talk through cases, many of which involve women
Speaker 4: who have been victimized or disappeared or murdered and the
Speaker 4: search for truth and giving them a voice and giving
Speaker 4: their families a voice has been a very important part
Speaker 4: of my work and ensuring that the narrative is corrected
Speaker 4: when the wrong information is put out, and that might
Speaker 4: be by the media, it might be by the police,
Speaker 4: but to ensure that we get to the truth of
Speaker 4: what went on and that we hold abusers to account.
Speaker 4: And my most recent campaign has just resulted in a
Speaker 4: victory twenty two years to ensure dangerous domestic abuses and
Speaker 4: coercive controllers are on the same register as sex offenders,
Speaker 4: to create a clear culture change, so that we focus
Speaker 4: on perpetrators and their behavior, particularly as some of them
Speaker 4: are very devious, very manipulative, and we should be looking
Speaker 4: at them and closing them down just like we do
Speaker 4: any other dangerous type of offender and criminal that's in
Speaker 4: England and Wales. It was announced on February the twentieth,
Speaker 4: as I said, after twenty two years, which tells you
Speaker 4: what a steep hill it is to climb to get
Speaker 4: the very basic provisions in place to ensure that women
Speaker 4: and children are.
Speaker 2: Protected Powersive control is often talked about now, particularly in
Speaker 2: relation to domestic violence. The definition, as provided by Relationships
Speaker 2: Victoria is a pattern of controlling and manipulative behaviors in
Speaker 2: a relationship. They go on to describe twelve familiar tactics
Speaker 2: used by perpetrators, including isolating their victim from a support network,
Speaker 2: monitoring their activities throughout the day, denying them freedom and autonomy,
Speaker 2: limiting act says to money and control of finances, making
Speaker 2: jealous accusations about the time spent with their family and friends,
Speaker 2: and of course gaslighting. I go on to usk Laura
Speaker 2: whether she considers Marian was a victim of this and
Speaker 2: whether our investigation is on the right track.
Speaker 4: Yes, well, with Marion's case, of course, it's some time ago,
Speaker 4: so this case is always going to be a challenge,
Speaker 4: and I think it's a real credit to Marion's daughter
Speaker 4: and to the lady Vanishes to be so persistent and
Speaker 4: keep asking questions, which is all about my work crime
Speaker 4: analysts to ensure that the right questions are asked of
Speaker 4: the right people, and that we're curious and we trust
Speaker 4: our instincts about people when we see patterns repeating specifically,
Speaker 4: and I always felt with Marion's case, as I know
Speaker 4: from many other cases I've worked, the months leading up
Speaker 4: to her disappearance are the most important. So we knew
Speaker 4: that she changed her name, and that came after some time.
Speaker 4: She changed her name, she sold her house, she went
Speaker 4: abroad on the premise that she was going for adventure
Speaker 4: and fun, but there was always a sense that somebody
Speaker 4: else might have been influencing her and part of that change,
Speaker 4: and of course then an ad was found that it
Speaker 4: was most likely answered by her because of the name change,
Speaker 4: that's a very unusual name that she used. And I
Speaker 4: think following that lead has been a very tenacious task
Speaker 4: to go to the UK but also to Luxembourg to
Speaker 4: do the door knocking, which is what it always takes,
Speaker 4: boots on the ground and energy and passion to ask
Speaker 4: the right questions, and of course that has led to
Speaker 4: various people like Monique Cornelius, who's very important in all
Speaker 4: of this, who has signposts due to someone called Rick Blum.
Speaker 4: And in terms of his behavior, well, I think there's
Speaker 4: lots of things that are very interesting, and I think
Speaker 4: the first thing is that he did use an alias
Speaker 4: of Remacale, which again is a very important name because
Speaker 4: that's what Marian changed her name. To the fact that
Speaker 4: he admitted to a relationship, that's a very significant piece
Speaker 4: of information that has come out that he had a
Speaker 4: three month relationship with her, and in fact he told
Speaker 4: the police there were two different relationships that he had
Speaker 4: with her, so he's now on her timeline and that's
Speaker 4: important the fact that they leave the country round about
Speaker 4: the same time and they enter the country round about
Speaker 4: the same time. Is that coincidence? I don't believe in coincidences,
Speaker 4: particularly when you're looking at all disparate bits of information
Speaker 4: that can point in one direction. And her bank account
Speaker 4: being emptied, that was always the mystery of who's emptying
Speaker 4: and taking money out of the bank account. So looking
Speaker 4: at his behavior and his timeline matched against her behavior
Speaker 4: and her timeline, I believe that all the evidence points
Speaker 4: in one direction, particularly when you have uncovered other women
Speaker 4: who even at the coronial inquiry, other women gave evidence
Speaker 4: about his pattern of behavior and establishing a pattern of behavior.
Speaker 4: But that's what I do for my day to day work,
Speaker 4: looking at patterns, and his is significant in that he
Speaker 4: has a history of promising women who are vulnerable and
Speaker 4: lonely the world and taking from them everything that he can,
Speaker 4: having manipulated them into an even more vulnerable position, i e.
Speaker 4: Taking them out of their normal environment where they've got
Speaker 4: family and friends, taking them into another environment where they
Speaker 4: are totally dependent on him, having them sign over money
Speaker 4: and valuables and so on, with the promise of a
Speaker 4: better life together. He appears to be very good at
Speaker 4: reading the emotional temperature of women and being melionesque, being
Speaker 4: who they want him to be, and getting into that
Speaker 4: dependent state. And then it seems that he exploits them,
Speaker 4: having entrapped them, and takes their money, and that to
Speaker 4: me looks like a significant pattern of course of control.
Speaker 4: And course of control is really about a behavioral regime
Speaker 4: that somebody uses to exploit, to entrap, to isolate, and
Speaker 4: to utterly dominate them and create this codependency so that
Speaker 4: they can be totally manipulated. And often it happens at
Speaker 4: the start of a relationship, and it's a strategic campaign
Speaker 4: where somebody love bombs the other person, where they promise
Speaker 4: them the world, They say everything that they will do
Speaker 4: that sounds incredibly appealing, but they have a different end
Speaker 4: in mind. And I see that repeat Patten, when I've
Speaker 4: listened to other women give evidence about his behavior, and
Speaker 4: certainly Monique who said that he's very, very, very very dangerous,
Speaker 4: and I have to say I believe her testimony. These
Speaker 4: are women who are credible, and when you put them
Speaker 4: all together, it paints a very disturbing picture of Rick
Speaker 4: Blum's behavior. And he has to be looked at and
Speaker 4: seriously investigated for his behavior and his involvement potentially in
Speaker 4: the disappearance and murder of Marion Barter.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Absolutely, And I assume that through your travels and
Speaker 2: different people that you've come across, that this type of
Speaker 2: person would come up a bit in what you've seen
Speaker 2: that profile. Am I correct in saying that.
Speaker 4: The characteristics and his pattern of behavior, Yes, And unfortunately
Speaker 4: I see it more often than what people would think.
Speaker 4: And the ability to be cameleonesque and be whatever the
Speaker 4: women want him to be, and be a very good
Speaker 4: storyteller and present in a very plausible way, and be
Speaker 4: able to think on his feet because we're talking about
Speaker 4: intelligent women too, who he gas lit, and he had
Speaker 4: the ability when they challenged him to think on his
Speaker 4: feet and always give a different and plausible story for
Speaker 4: explaining away certain things that he did. And I think
Speaker 4: that again because very often people can say, oh, with
Speaker 4: the women were naive, that they were gullible, or it's
Speaker 4: on them, But actually it's much more about how manipulative
Speaker 4: someone like Rick Blum can be, and it's much more
Speaker 4: about how he exploits and he's learned to trade craft
Speaker 4: and I do think some of that looking back into
Speaker 4: his history, the fact that he was in the gendarmes,
Speaker 4: the fact that he worked as a police officer, means
Speaker 4: that he learned the system. And he's not just exploiting
Speaker 4: the women, he's exploiting systems and processes, including immigration. So
Speaker 4: he's all about his own needs and what he wants.
Speaker 4: And the lack of empathy and remorse is I want
Speaker 4: to say, quite staggering in his case, but I've seen
Speaker 4: it many times, and he appears to have no remorse,
Speaker 4: no empathy, and no shame about what he's done. His
Speaker 4: answer is that it's legal to change your name thirteen times.
Speaker 4: Why would you need to change your name so many times?
Speaker 4: Why would you keep getting new passports and driving licenses
Speaker 4: and so on? And having worked in the police. Most
Speaker 4: often times when people do that, it's because they're a criminal.
Speaker 4: They're committing crime, and they want to fly under the radar.
Speaker 4: And I believe that's exactly what he's been doing. And
Speaker 4: what we know about is most likely just tip of
Speaker 4: the iceberg.
Speaker 2: How hard are these sorts of people to catch, in
Speaker 2: the sense go to jail. I mean, he's been to
Speaker 2: jail for fraud, obviously, but in something like this where
Speaker 2: it's already been proven he's a compulsive liar and it
Speaker 2: seems like he would never tell the truth. So how
Speaker 2: do you deal with people like this?
Speaker 4: Well, I believe he's a pathological liar, and so you're right,
Speaker 4: is he ever going to tell the truth? I mean,
Speaker 4: he may if and when it suits him, But it's
Speaker 4: much more than him being a con artist or a
Speaker 4: con man, And I think that is a barrier when
Speaker 4: understanding the dangerousness of someone like Rick Blum, that you
Speaker 4: could put it down to while it's fraud or it's
Speaker 4: just money, it's a few gullible victims, but it's much
Speaker 4: more than that. And it's much more than that, because
Speaker 4: it's about power and control and him enjoying that power
Speaker 4: and control, and the more he does it, the more
Speaker 4: he needs to do it. And I would say that
Speaker 4: if someone were to assess him using the Psychopathy checklist,
Speaker 4: they would probably find lots of characteristics that he scores
Speaker 4: highly on, like being a pathological liar, like charm and
Speaker 4: zero empathy and remorse and responsibility taking that he would
Speaker 4: probably score quite high on the psychopathy checklist. So this
Speaker 4: isn't just about taking money. It's much more than that,
Speaker 4: and it could of course well involve harm and murder
Speaker 4: and their serious crimes and their serious allegations. And I
Speaker 4: think the barriers are always that somebody could just say, oh,
Speaker 4: he's a con artist, which makes it seem like something
Speaker 4: much lesser. But I would like to see professionals taking
Speaker 4: men like Rick Blum very seriously, because they tell us
Speaker 4: who they are in their actions and their behavior, and
Speaker 4: their ability to manipulate, and his level of manipulation and
Speaker 4: deviousness he scores very highly, and just having an indirect
Speaker 4: assessment of him, because I do indirectly assess people using
Speaker 4: the Psychopathy Checklist, listening to people who know him the best,
Speaker 4: there are some clear traits there, and therefore I believe Monique,
Speaker 4: who knew him much better than I do from a distance,
Speaker 4: and we can't rely on him to tell the truth.
Speaker 4: So the women and the people who are in his
Speaker 4: life are the ones who can give us a much
Speaker 4: better understanding of who he is. And she and other
Speaker 4: women say he's very dangerous, and he even claimed that
Speaker 4: he killed with his bare hands. Again, that's a very
Speaker 4: serious allegation. Why would he just drop that into the
Speaker 4: conversation that's for purpose, and I would be taking those
Speaker 4: things that he discloses very seriously.
Speaker 2: That seems to be the problem here, that he's not
Speaker 2: really being taken too seriously. The other issue is that
Speaker 2: he's eighty three years old, so they're thinking there seems
Speaker 2: to be this whole well for what purpose?
Speaker 4: Yes, I think, having worked a lot of these cases,
Speaker 4: when you see someone like Rick Blum arriving at court
Speaker 4: and he's got a walker and he looks frail, the
Speaker 4: inclination is to think that he's old and he's frail,
Speaker 4: and therefore there's no point in a prosecution. But I
Speaker 4: disagree with that. You can still be a risk when
Speaker 4: you are over seventy to the people that are in
Speaker 4: your life. You can still be abusive, and therefore, I
Speaker 4: think for the women it's very important that they get justice,
Speaker 4: but also for Marion's family, for her son and her
Speaker 4: daughter and the grandchildren, I think it's really important that
Speaker 4: he is investigated. And like I said, I've seen some
Speaker 4: very dangerous men who are seventy plus who are still
Speaker 4: a risk and are still a danger. And I don't
Speaker 4: buy into it when people say after seventy you're no
Speaker 4: longer a risk of offending. I've seen men continue to
Speaker 4: offend you right up until the day they die, and
Speaker 4: that's why it should be taken seriously. And I don't
Speaker 4: believe in closure, by the way, so I'm not even
Speaker 4: going to use that word that there should be closure
Speaker 4: to this case because for the families there never is.
Speaker 4: But I think what they need are answers. And you've
Speaker 4: taken it very far in terms of there wasn't even
Speaker 4: investigation to start. It was just believe that Marian took
Speaker 4: herself off. But I do believe that police need to
Speaker 4: step up now and investigate him and look at his
Speaker 4: timeline and interview the people that have been in his life,
Speaker 4: look at his actions and his behavior and the aliases
Speaker 4: that he has used, and follow the money and listen
Speaker 4: to the women, and you get a very clear picture
Speaker 4: emerge about who he is and the level of fraud
Speaker 4: and exploitation and if women are being moved around, is
Speaker 4: there a human trafficking part to this? Because he's exploiting women,
Speaker 4: there could be other serious offenses, and therefore it should
Speaker 4: be taken seriously. It doesn't matter how old someone is.
Speaker 4: The truth will out eventually. But for Sally, this has
Speaker 4: been a very long time coming. And I think from
Speaker 4: just listening to Monique, she says that in a way
Speaker 4: she doesn't want to go back to that place. But
Speaker 4: I can hear the fear in her voice. I can
Speaker 4: hear the upset and the anxiety that he has caused,
Speaker 4: not just to her but to many women, and I
Speaker 4: think their voices need to be her.
Speaker 2: And we saw what happened with Chris Dawson too, I
Speaker 2: mean there was nobody. We still don't know what happened
Speaker 2: to Lynn, Like you know, we know that she's dead,
Speaker 2: but it just goes to show that he was seventy.
Speaker 2: I guess that's the difference.
Speaker 4: Well, it depends whether you think justice is a waste
Speaker 4: of time and justice and accountability is a waste of time,
Speaker 4: and that there's a time limit on it. For murder,
Speaker 4: there's no statute of limitation, and the prosecution don't have
Speaker 4: to prove how someone died. They don't have to establish
Speaker 4: exactly what happened and what happened with Lynette Dawson's case,
Speaker 4: And it's one that I followed in great detail and
Speaker 4: spoke to Headley Thomas many times about the compelling and
Speaker 4: overwhelming evidence, as even the judge said, pointed in one
Speaker 4: direction and one direction only, and that was to her husband,
Speaker 4: who the judge said, there was no evidence that the
Speaker 4: net ever left the house, not one piece of evidence
Speaker 4: to show that she had left under her own esteem
Speaker 4: and that anybody had seen her elsewhere, and everything led
Speaker 4: back to Chris Dawson. So I don't believe that there
Speaker 4: should ever be a time code or a statute of
Speaker 4: time placed on murder, and in fact, in most countries
Speaker 4: there isn't. And for families that accountability and seeing justice,
Speaker 4: seeing the wheels in motion, and having their loved one
Speaker 4: be put at the center of an investigation as they
Speaker 4: should quite rightly be, and seeing someone held accountable is
Speaker 4: a really important part for them. And it should matter
Speaker 4: to other professionals that Marion has been completely lost in
Speaker 4: all of this and ensuring that we may not understand
Speaker 4: the detail of what happened. But every piece of evidence
Speaker 4: that we have thus far and that you've uncovered points
Speaker 4: in one direction, and that's to Rick Blum.
Speaker 2: Absolutely it does. It's overwhelming. The other thing I would say, though,
Speaker 2: it seems like his wife, His wife would know a lot,
Speaker 2: and she's sticking by him. They're being married for I
Speaker 2: think more than forty years now. She was nineteen when
Speaker 2: she met him. There is you know, people obviously quite
Speaker 2: critical in relation to that, but there is probably a
Speaker 2: good chance she's a victim of coercive control too, right.
Speaker 4: I have no doubt that she if she met him
Speaker 4: young and he was older, that she's been manipulated. And
Speaker 4: it's very hard for you to if you've met someone
Speaker 4: young and you've been with them all your life and
Speaker 4: you are being controlled, it's very hard for you to
Speaker 4: see through the fog. And let's face it, the bottom
Speaker 4: line is he hasn't respected her. He's disrespected her in
Speaker 4: every way by placing ads and meeting women and exploiting
Speaker 4: them and pretending to be someone who's not. But I
Speaker 4: don't hold her to account for that. It's his behavior
Speaker 4: that should be under the microscope and not hers.
Speaker 2: It's a sad situation. And his kids obviously, who haven't
Speaker 2: spo broken out at this stage, but maybe they're the
Speaker 2: key to it. But I guess it would be hard
Speaker 2: to make people talk under these circumstances.
Speaker 4: Well, time and distance changes things, and when new information
Speaker 4: comes to light and that's put into the public domain.
Speaker 4: I have no doubt, as I've worked many other cases,
Speaker 4: that his wife will be thinking about all of that too,
Speaker 4: and will make her own decisions and will speak publicly
Speaker 4: when she feels that's right, if the time comes. But
Speaker 4: we must take great care not to blame another woman
Speaker 4: for a man's behavior, and not to shift that focus
Speaker 4: because we may not hear from her, But that doesn't
Speaker 4: absolve him. It's his actions, it's his behavior. He chose
Speaker 4: to do these things, and he chose to do these
Speaker 4: things to all these women irrespected of Marian. If you
Speaker 4: look at the women who have spoken out about him,
Speaker 4: he has done great harm and he deserves to be
Speaker 4: held accountable for that. And he disrespected his wife and
Speaker 4: his children by pretending to not be married, and therefore
Speaker 4: he doesn't have any decency about him because he's caused
Speaker 4: all this harm to them too. And I'm sure at
Speaker 4: some stage his wife and the children will make their
Speaker 4: own assessment, whether that's private or whether that's public. But
Speaker 4: he must be held accountable and he must be questioned.
Speaker 4: And even when he was questioned about whether he killed Marion,
Speaker 4: his answer was very interesting because he answered the question
Speaker 4: with a question, which is a sign of deception, and
Speaker 4: he bought time. And then he said no, no, which
Speaker 4: is a fading fact, not a declarative. No, I didn't.
Speaker 4: I can't believe you were even asking me this. No
Speaker 4: is a declarative. It never happened. And if you didn't
Speaker 4: do it, that's all you have to say. But two
Speaker 4: things tell me that he lied under oath on that
Speaker 4: day when he was asked that question, and that should
Speaker 4: be ground for further investigation. Well, I think the key
Speaker 4: thing here is that whatever is known about now, it
Speaker 4: is tip of the iceberg. And when you do go
Speaker 4: looking for things, you find even more, and I think
Speaker 4: even from other women's accounts, building up a picture of
Speaker 4: who he is and what he's done that also is
Speaker 4: evidentially significant and circumstantial evidence counts for a lot, and
Speaker 4: it mustn't be lost sight of that. That's what happened
Speaker 4: in Lynette Dawson's case forty years on, largely owed to
Speaker 4: a podcaster Headley Thomas, who reinvestigated the case of things
Speaker 4: that weren't taken seriously from the start. And I believe
Speaker 4: that with this case, it's a very similar situation. And
Speaker 4: if you build the picture, if you look at the timeline.
Speaker 4: If you are investigating a case, then you would want
Speaker 4: to do all of that and significant witnesses and people
Speaker 4: who can do the time date stamp of where he was,
Speaker 4: what he did, what he said. The money movement really important,
Speaker 4: and I think the fact that he was even in
Speaker 4: Australia and managed to get citizenship must be reviewed. The
Speaker 4: fact that he cheated the system and he's there illegally.
Speaker 4: He had a criminal history, so how was it that
Speaker 4: he managed to get his citizenship, Because I think the
Speaker 4: question is if he was denied, he wouldn't have been
Speaker 4: in Australia and therefore Marion Barter might be alive today.
Speaker 4: And that's a very serious issue that the government must
Speaker 4: look at as to how he managed to cheat the
Speaker 4: system and why is he still there. That's a problem.
Speaker 4: And the fact that he's got so many passports and
Speaker 4: illegal names and he's doing that for nefarious reasons. That's
Speaker 4: why people repeatedly change their name. So all the red
Speaker 4: warning flags are there for his behavior. And it takes
Speaker 4: one good investigator, just what happened with Lynette Dawson, to
Speaker 4: put all these pieces together, who should not be deterred
Speaker 4: by his age, because justice has no age, and I
Speaker 4: think there are many people and I'm included in that,
Speaker 4: who do want to see justice in this case and accountability.
Speaker 4: Why should he get away with it? Because right now
Speaker 4: he's laughing at everybody. Why should he get away with that?
Speaker 4: Why can one man do so much damage and not
Speaker 4: be held to account. That's what professionals should be asking
Speaker 4: and it shouldn't be allowed and it must be looked
Speaker 4: at seriously. And coerse of control. New South Wales and
Speaker 4: Queensland are criminalizing coerse of control. This would be a
Speaker 4: clear case where he could have been put before the
Speaker 4: courts for his course and controlling behaviors of multiple women,
Speaker 4: and that shouldn't be lost because there's always an opportunity
Speaker 4: for early identification, intervention and prevention. And as I always say,
Speaker 4: course of control correlates significantly with femicide. Here we have
Speaker 4: a disappearance and a potential femicide and nobody's going to
Speaker 4: do anything about that. And also all those intervention opportunities
Speaker 4: where something could have been done. There's learning here for
Speaker 4: other cases too. That's the whole point of why I
Speaker 4: brought the law into England and Wells is to ensure
Speaker 4: that we identify those coursive controllers who are using that
Speaker 4: behavior because it does correlate with femicide and we want
Speaker 4: to stop what I call murders in slow motion before
Speaker 4: they happen and hold these men to account.
Speaker 2: Yes, And I guess that's the thing, isn't it. But
Speaker 2: it's an in quest staged. Still, the inquest findings will delay,
Speaker 2: so the coroner will have a decision. She can ask
Speaker 2: the police to do further investigation and could lead to
Speaker 2: a tribal murder.
Speaker 4: Well, it must. I don't think any coroner can hear
Speaker 4: the accounts that have been heard and not reach that determination.
Speaker 4: It's not my determination to make, but it is an
Speaker 4: important one in the round of hearing all of this
Speaker 4: and new information. And by his own admission, he was
Speaker 4: the person who had that significant relationship with her beforehand,
Speaker 4: that piece of the puzzle that we were searching for,
Speaker 4: and through his own admission leakage, I would say that
Speaker 4: was and even the fact that he gave information in
Speaker 4: his own words, there are very clear indicators of deception
Speaker 4: and so I hope the coroner does pay attention to that.
Speaker 4: So I hope that that is the only decision that
Speaker 4: the coroner takes. Having listened to all the evidence and testimony,
Speaker 4: Rick Blum must be further investigated, and within that investigation
Speaker 4: they should be looking at his culpability in terms of murder.
Speaker 4: Did he play a role in disappearing Marion Barter? The
Speaker 4: money that transferred from her aunt, where did that end up?
Speaker 4: He opened safety deposit boxes, he closed safety deposit boxes.
Speaker 4: The timing is very similar. So when you put things
Speaker 4: on a timeline, it's not just her victimology, it's the timeline,
Speaker 4: and it's the timing of that relationship. It's her changing
Speaker 4: her name using the name that he was using. It's
Speaker 4: the Luxembourg connection. There are so many pieces of evidence,
Speaker 4: circumstantial evidence that point to him, So yes, he must
Speaker 4: be investigated by the police. And there sounds to me
Speaker 4: to be good and significant grounds for there to be
Speaker 4: a case against him and a charge made for murder
Speaker 4: given this circumstantial evidence that has been uncovered that points
Speaker 4: in his direction and nowhere else. That's the other significant thing.
Speaker 4: Who else may have done this? The means motive and opportunity,
Speaker 4: There is nobody else other than Rick Blum, and that's
Speaker 4: also significant.
Speaker 2: That's right. He has means he has motive. He has
Speaker 2: opportunity that is proven, So thank you so much. It's
Speaker 2: really good to get that clarity and just have it articulated.
Speaker 2: So well, is it anything else you'd like to say?
Speaker 4: I think that's it, you know. I think these developments
Speaker 4: are very significant, and I just want to thank you
Speaker 4: for keep digging and keep asking questions, and I will
Speaker 4: be cheering on from the sidelines. And there should be
Speaker 4: experts like me who talk to course of control at
Speaker 4: trials like this, so that juries and judges and people
Speaker 4: really do understand the serious and insidious nature of coercive
Speaker 4: control and the manipulative perpetrators who use those tactics to
Speaker 4: deliberately ensnare and trap and exploit and dominate vulnerable women.
Speaker 4: That's not okay, and you do need experts to educate
Speaker 4: the court. And I think there's an overwhelming pattern here
Speaker 4: of his behavior and overwhelming circumstantial evidence regarding Marion specifically,
Speaker 4: So good luck and I will be watching and listening
Speaker 4: and keep me posted as to how events unfold. But
Speaker 4: I hope the coroner reaches the right decision in this case.
Speaker 2: Yes, thank you so much, and keep up the good fight.
Speaker 4: Thank you, and you too, take good care.
Speaker 1: Please see our show notes for links to Laura's webpage
Speaker 1: and YouTube channel. Following on from her insightful observations, let's
Speaker 1: further discuss Rick Bloom's motive, method and opportunity in relation
Speaker 1: to Marian. There is a good basis to believe from
Speaker 1: his pattern of behavior with Janet Oldenburg, Jeanette Gafney, Bowen,
Speaker 1: Monique Cornelius, Gulaine, Dubois, den Loy and Charlotte that he
Speaker 1: was using a similar romantic scam on Marion. Remember the
Speaker 1: mysterious man spotted in Marion's car by Sally and Chris.
Speaker 1: As we know, Marion left for Europe on the twenty
Speaker 1: second of June nineteen ninety seven for the trip of
Speaker 1: a lifetime, but something happened which caused her to alter
Speaker 1: her plans so that she returned to Australia early. But
Speaker 1: all evidence suggests that the con was still on when
Speaker 1: she came back. Her incoming passenger card dated the second
Speaker 1: of August nineteen ninety seven had her listed as a
Speaker 1: Luxembourg housewife and there was a big tick in the
Speaker 1: married box. This is in contrast to the normal size
Speaker 1: tick she put in the divorced box of the outgoing
Speaker 1: passenger card on the way over. With the choice of
Speaker 1: name Flora Bella Natalia Marion Remichel. It is apparent that
Speaker 1: she believed herself to be married to Fernand Remichel, one
Speaker 1: of the names Rick Bloemith thought to have been using
Speaker 1: at the time. While there has been no firm confirmation
Speaker 1: the handwriting belonged to marry, it looks very similar and
Speaker 1: we believe it was Marion who came back to Australia.
Speaker 1: It's fair to say that she was not aware of
Speaker 1: the reality of the situation. Upon her return. Marian's incoming
Speaker 1: passenger cards said she would only be back in Australia
Speaker 1: for eight days. Presumably she thought that would be all
Speaker 1: the time she needed to tie up some loose ends
Speaker 1: and collect more money. Perhaps Marian also intended to use
Speaker 1: that time to say goodbye to her family and tell
Speaker 1: them of her plans to build a new life overseas.
Speaker 1: Remember Rick Bloom told Charlotte that he needed cash to
Speaker 1: purchase their house for a new life in Bali, and
Speaker 1: Julaane the same for their future home in Australia. He
Speaker 1: also encouraged Janet to sell her home to fund a
Speaker 1: new life in the French Riviera, and wanted to buy
Speaker 1: an apartment in Paris for Jeannette Gaffney Bowen, But Marian
Speaker 1: did not leave a stra after eight days. Indeed, she
Speaker 1: never left Australia again. In August nineteen ninety seven, her
Speaker 1: Medicare card was used for the last time at an
Speaker 1: optometrist in Grafton. Between August and October nineteen ninety seven,
Speaker 1: her bank accounts were drained, although we cannot be sure
Speaker 1: it was Marian doing this or someone pretending to be her.
Speaker 1: Her last withdrawal, a very large one eighty thousand dollars,
Speaker 1: was made on October fifteen, nineteen ninety seven, and then nothing.
Speaker 1: What happened next remains a mystery. It is reasonable to
Speaker 1: conclude that Marian was no longer alive on October the eighteenth,
Speaker 1: her son Owen's birthday, because, as Sally has always insisted,
Speaker 1: Marian never would have forgotten or neglected to call Owen
Speaker 1: on that day unless she was somehow prevented from doing so.
Speaker 1: It is possible that at some stage after returning, Marian
Speaker 1: realized that Rick Bloom had lied to her that there
Speaker 1: was no exotic new life, that he'd simply scammed her
Speaker 1: of her money, or maybe Marian discovered that he had
Speaker 1: a family. Presumably she would have felt upset, angry, betrayed,
Speaker 1: and from what Sally has told us about Marian's personality,
Speaker 1: she would likely have confronted him about it, or perhaps
Speaker 1: having taken the money he wanted from Marian, Rick Bloom
Speaker 1: was now sick of having to keep up the charade
Speaker 1: for her. He wanted to get back to his normal life,
Speaker 1: and that meant she somehow must disappear. The assumption that
Speaker 1: Marian decided to change her life, turn her back on
Speaker 1: her family, and disappear is a familiar one. That's what
Speaker 1: Chris Dawson said happened with his wife Lynett Dawson in
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty two in Sydney. There were even supposed sightings
Speaker 1: of Lynn after she vanished, just like Marion was supposedly
Speaker 1: cited by a bank manager. In both cases, no body
Speaker 1: was ever found, so there was no physical evidence of
Speaker 1: a crime. But after three coronial inquests and a.
Speaker 2: Trial, Christopher Michael Dawson on the charge little of about
Speaker 2: eight January nineteen eighty.
Speaker 1: Two, forty years after Lynn vanished, her husband Chris was
Speaker 1: found guilty of her murder and jailed for life.
Speaker 2: I find you guilty.
Speaker 1: You may sit down. The circumstantial case against him included
Speaker 1: these four compelling elements. Chris Dawson was infatuated with a
Speaker 1: female school student who moved in with him shortly after
Speaker 1: Lynn vanished. Lynn was a doting mother whom family said
Speaker 1: would never abandon her young children. The sightings of Lynn
Speaker 1: were uncorroborated and unlikely, And Chris Dawson was a habitual liar.
Speaker 1: Now consider the circumstantial case against Rick Bloom. Rick Bloom
Speaker 1: is a liar almost beyond compare the catalog of mistruths, fictions,
Speaker 1: and lies filled the episodes of this podcast. He is
Speaker 1: the most prolific fantasist that any of us have seen
Speaker 1: in our combined century of journalistic encounters. He has used
Speaker 1: at least thirty eight aliases and has spent years in
Speaker 1: jail for crimes of fraud and deceit. Mister Bloom lied
Speaker 1: to gain citizenship to Australia. During his six days of
Speaker 1: evidence at the coronial inquest, mister Bloom admitted to lying
Speaker 1: on multiple occasions, changed his evidence, and appeared to commit
Speaker 1: perjury repeatedly. In addition, he has lied to his family
Speaker 1: and at least seven women we know to conduct clandestine affairs.
Speaker 1: He has expressed an interest in poisons, specifically how to
Speaker 1: poison someone fatally without detection, to at least two women.
Speaker 1: His third wife, Ilona, died behind the wheel of her car,
Speaker 1: not from a crash, but from an unspecified heart related incident.
Speaker 1: Mister Bloom has a long admitted history of luring single,
Speaker 1: vulnerable women with cash and assets away from their families
Speaker 1: and in some cases overseas. We know for a fact
Speaker 1: he did travel to and from Europe at the same
Speaker 1: time as Marion Barter. He denies traveling with her, but
Speaker 1: cannot provide an alibi that can be corroborated. He stole
Speaker 1: the identity of Fernand Remichel, a unique name chosen by Marian,
Speaker 1: as her new identity. After meeting Rick Bloom, he asked
Speaker 1: Marion and another woman to have liver test done prior
Speaker 1: to travel, and he convinced one woman to dye her
Speaker 1: hair and asked another to do the same, which may
Speaker 1: relate to both the administration and detection of poisons. After
Speaker 1: meeting Rick Bloom, Marion and all her money vanished. One
Speaker 1: of his victims, Monique Cornelius claims that Rick Blum told
Speaker 1: her in person that he had killed before. All of
Speaker 1: his victims say they were terrified of him, some fearing
Speaker 1: for their lives, some still do. The circumstantial case against
Speaker 1: Rick Bloom is the most compelling we have seen, and,
Speaker 1: like Laura Richards says, it's one that needs to be
Speaker 1: heard by a judge as there is absolutely no doubt
Speaker 1: whatsoever that his life of lies is inextricably linked with
Speaker 1: the disappearance of Marion Barter.
Speaker 3: Well, missus Antony, who believe me?
Speaker 6: Now?
Speaker 3: Perhaps you'd like to see these things cost woman's lave,
Speaker 3: the costumes something too.
Speaker 1: If you knew Marion or have any information about her
Speaker 1: or her whereabouts, we'd love to hear from you. Our
Speaker 1: website is sevennews dot com dot au, slash news slash
Speaker 1: The Lady Vanishers, and you can also message us here.
Speaker 1: You can also send us an anonymous tip at The
Speaker 1: Lady Vanishes dot org. If you like what you're hearing,
Speaker 1: don't forget to subscribe. Please rate and review our series.
Speaker 1: It helps new listeners find us. Presenter and executive producer
Speaker 1: Alison Sandy, investigative journalist Brian Seymour, producer and writer Sally Eels.
Speaker 1: Sound design Mark Wright graphics Jason Blandford, transcripts and translation
Speaker 1: Estelle Sanchez. The theme and much of the music by
Speaker 1: Nicholas Gasparini atth Darkpiano dot com. Thanks again to the
Speaker 1: Alliance Francis. This is a seven News production.