Speaker 1: This is the case of Marion Barter, a mother, teacher,
Speaker 1: friend missing for twenty six years.
Speaker 2: You know, no sign that she was going to vanish.
Speaker 3: That's for sure.
Speaker 1: The bizarre circumstances surrounding her disappearance.
Speaker 3: I'm not sure if it was intentional or there's something
Speaker 3: more foul afoot.
Speaker 4: If you could imagine a teacher coming straight from say
Speaker 4: little house on the prairie to the eighties, that was
Speaker 4: Marian Barter.
Speaker 2: What I say, whether you find Marian Barter dead or alive,
Speaker 2: I honestly believe somebody has that key piece of information.
Speaker 1: And the relentless quest of a daughter to find her mum.
Speaker 5: Something had happened, Something has happened to make her leave.
Speaker 3: I am one hundred percent sure, one hundred percent sure
Speaker 3: that somebody knows something.
Speaker 1: The lady vanishes, Episode fifty. I'm Alison Sandy.
Speaker 6: And I'm Brian Seymour. The coronial Inquest into the disappearance
Speaker 6: of Marion Barter has completed public hearings, leaving millions of
Speaker 6: people around the world waiting to learn what findings Coroner
Speaker 6: Teresa O'Sullivan will hand down at a date yet to
Speaker 6: be determined. None more so than Marian's daughter, Sally Laden
Speaker 6: with whom we embarked on this quest for justice and truth.
Speaker 6: Four and a half years ago. We caught up with
Speaker 6: Sally and you will shortly hear her reactions to the
Speaker 6: last few days of hearings and some fascinating new information. First,
Speaker 6: we want to share something noticed by one of our listeners.
Speaker 6: On the final day of hearings, Rick Bloom gave evidence
Speaker 6: for about an hour via video here. Sally's lawyer, Bradley
Speaker 6: Smith asked him a question about his banking in two
Speaker 6: thousand and six.
Speaker 1: And did you open a safety deposit box at the
Speaker 1: Commonwealth Bank six days later on the twenty eighth of
Speaker 1: September two thousand and six.
Speaker 4: I can't remember the date. At the common Worst Bank,
Speaker 4: I had an envelope with because there were lots of like,
Speaker 4: there were lots of people stating things, and I have
Speaker 4: an envelope which with the title of the house, the
Speaker 4: sojurary of my family and a few mementos, and an
Speaker 4: envelope that was about twelve to fifteen centimeters wide and
Speaker 4: probably twenty centimeters long. You can't put a lot of
Speaker 4: things in. And because I had that envelope and later
Speaker 4: on a security box or or whatever you call it
Speaker 4: become available and I was given to me.
Speaker 6: We are particularly interested in this part of his answer.
Speaker 4: And I haven't ended up which with the title of
Speaker 4: the house.
Speaker 6: The problem is that Rick Bloom was in two thousand
Speaker 6: and six living in rented accommodation. So what title to
Speaker 6: property did he have to store in the safe deposit
Speaker 6: envelope at the Commonwealth Bank. Perhaps this is yet another
Speaker 6: slip revealing more uncomfortable truths about Rick Bloom. Shortly, I'll
Speaker 6: talk to Sally Leyden about a few other slips mister
Speaker 6: Bloom made while on the stand.
Speaker 1: But first, another member of the public has reached out
Speaker 1: with an intriguing account of something that happened more than
Speaker 1: twenty years ago, which may suggest that mister Blum's amorous
Speaker 1: adventures lying to women about being single and looking for
Speaker 1: romance whilst he was married may have continued uninterrupted through
Speaker 1: the early two thousands, involving more women than the seven
Speaker 1: we have so far identified. Hello, Hello, Lean there, it's
Speaker 1: Alison Sandy.
Speaker 3: How are you. I'm good, How are you I'm well?
Speaker 1: Thank you, thank you so much for allowing me to
Speaker 1: call you. But I just thought you know, every little
Speaker 1: bit helps with this thought.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I mean it's just as I said, it's
Speaker 2: just a very small thing with not a lot of
Speaker 2: interaction on my part, But just the name really stood out,
Speaker 2: and I just thought that given the time that had occurred,
Speaker 2: there was bound toby other people that would have had
Speaker 2: interactions at the same time, and I just thought, because
Speaker 2: the name is so unusual, possible that it could in
Speaker 2: fact be related. I was just trying to remember exactly
Speaker 2: the timing, and it would have been I think around
Speaker 2: middle of two thousand and two. And the reason that
Speaker 2: I know that it would have been that time is
Speaker 2: that I was not single for a very long time.
Speaker 2: I was my current partner I had broken up, and
Speaker 2: so you know, I was in Sydney, I didn't.
Speaker 3: Know a lot of people, and like a lot of people.
Speaker 2: At that time, thought i'd try RSVP dating and you know,
Speaker 2: I had a few dates. But the reason that this
Speaker 2: sort of sticks out is that i'd with that whole service.
Speaker 2: I don't know whether you remember it, but basically you
Speaker 2: can reach out to people or people reach out to you,
Speaker 2: and I had pretty much not reached out to anyone being,
Speaker 2: you know, sort of old fashioned I'd waited for people
Speaker 2: to contact me, but there was a profile on there
Speaker 2: that was in hindsight like kind of immediately after what happened,
Speaker 2: I realized it must have been fake. And it was
Speaker 2: a really attractive French sounding person who I think they
Speaker 2: identified as French as in really.
Speaker 3: Attractive model kind of like that I never would.
Speaker 2: Have reached out to because I thought, you know, it
Speaker 2: was kind of way out of my league. But you know,
Speaker 2: I probably had a few drinks one night and sort
Speaker 2: of sent a message.
Speaker 3: Now a message came back to me pretty quickly that.
Speaker 2: Was something like that this particular person that I'd reached
Speaker 2: out to was in a relationship or something like that,
Speaker 2: but that.
Speaker 3: He had then or whoever it.
Speaker 2: Was had reached out had then basically either linked me
Speaker 2: with another profile or the contact had come from this
Speaker 2: other profile on RSVP. And this name of the other
Speaker 2: person was Bernard DuPont, much older than the person that
Speaker 2: the profile that I'd reached out to, and had a
Speaker 2: really kind of unusual kind of description of that.
Speaker 1: You might recall that Bernard DuPont is one of the
Speaker 1: fifty plus aliases. Rick Blum has used this one in
Speaker 1: the nineteen seventies. In episode thirty six, he told the
Speaker 1: coroner that mister DuPont was a real person, the manager
Speaker 1: at the Bank Nacionale de Paris in Sydney, which was
Speaker 1: next door to the pension office he frequently visited, but
Speaker 1: he could offer no explanation as to why he assumed
Speaker 1: his identity. Now. Linda says in two thousand and two
Speaker 1: she was dealing with someone using the same name.
Speaker 3: He was a French businessman, and.
Speaker 2: The photo looked a bit like a younger version of
Speaker 2: one of the photos that you showed of Rick Bloom.
Speaker 3: I remember he had dark hair, but much older than me.
Speaker 3: I was in my mid thirties.
Speaker 2: And the whole thing just instantly sounded to me like
Speaker 2: it was a big scam, like there was you know,
Speaker 2: that the first person probably wasn't even real, and the
Speaker 2: second person, that Bernard DuPont, just sounded for fake. Like
Speaker 2: I didn't even I don't think I even responded, because
Speaker 2: I just thought the whole thing sounded just so weird,
Speaker 2: you know, I just thought that the first one had
Speaker 2: clearly been set as a scam for whoever this other
Speaker 2: person was, And that.
Speaker 3: Was the kind of entirety of my interaction with.
Speaker 2: It, and just the reason that stuck in my mind
Speaker 2: was just that it was so odd and yeah, so
Speaker 2: that was kind of it.
Speaker 1: I really appreciate you letting me know because it's it's
Speaker 1: just obviously the tendacles.
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2: And you know, as I said, given the timing that
Speaker 2: it was in the in the early two thousands, because
Speaker 2: I was trying to think, this is the only other
Speaker 2: time that I was sort of single in Sydney was
Speaker 2: in nineteen ninety seven, but I absolutely believed that it
Speaker 2: was on RSVP, which wasn't until a bit later in
Speaker 2: the early two thousands, So I'm pretty sure that it was.
Speaker 2: If it wasn't two thousand and two, it would have
Speaker 2: been sort of late two thousand and one. But I'm
Speaker 2: pretty sure it was two thousand and two, and I
Speaker 2: just remember that profile then kind of was popping up
Speaker 2: all the time, so that that profile was active for
Speaker 2: a long time on rs VP, or at least the
Speaker 2: time that I was that I was viewing RSVP backing
Speaker 2: in that year. So you know, there's bound to be
Speaker 2: other people who would have had contact with that particular
Speaker 2: profile at that time.
Speaker 1: Absolutely there would have been and I know it's hard
Speaker 1: for people to come out, and we've actually been really
Speaker 1: grateful to the people that have, including you, even though
Speaker 1: you know it's just to tell us this, because it's
Speaker 1: just it's so important, every little bit, and we always
Speaker 1: say that no, nothing is too minor, but this is
Speaker 1: this is quite significant anyway because it shows, you know,
Speaker 1: even the dating apps as well.
Speaker 3: Exactly.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Now, and as I said, I forgot kind of
Speaker 2: failing new to you to your podcast.
Speaker 3: It was someone that I work with.
Speaker 2: Very recently said I used to listen to this and
Speaker 2: then when I was going through all the alienses, it just.
Speaker 3: Kind of jumped out and going, I remember that name.
Speaker 2: That's that's weird. So and look, it might be completely
Speaker 2: unrelated as well, but it might also be that I
Speaker 2: just remember it because it was an unusual and good
Speaker 2: French thing, and that it just seemed instantly to me
Speaker 2: like it was there was something odd about it that
Speaker 2: it was not genuine.
Speaker 1: It sounds like Linda may have had a lucky escape.
Speaker 1: We are in our fifth year of investigating Marian's disappearance,
Speaker 1: and we are still finding new clues and information as
Speaker 1: well as creating an ever expanding picture of who Marian
Speaker 1: was now Another friend of Marian's has agreed to talk
Speaker 1: with us. Kerry Hubal was a childhood friend, and like Marian,
Speaker 1: she too became a teacher. She has fond recollections of
Speaker 1: Marian Wilson as she first knew her, and some strong
Speaker 1: opinions about what has happened to her. Okay, Alison, Sandy,
Speaker 1: how are you.
Speaker 3: I'm pretty good. How are you?
Speaker 1: I'm well? I mean, like I think the last time
Speaker 1: we actually spoke in person was the first when the
Speaker 1: inquest started two years ago into Marion Barta. Do you
Speaker 1: remember that in Sydney?
Speaker 3: Yes, I do so, I certainly do so.
Speaker 1: I mean, this must be really remarkable for you can
Speaker 1: first of all, I guess, because obviously our listeners will
Speaker 1: want to know how you actually know Marian. Can you
Speaker 1: can you tell us.
Speaker 3: About Yes, we went to the same school for taking Hi,
Speaker 3: we're in the same year. She was in the AH
Speaker 3: stream and I was in the B stream. But we
Speaker 3: became friends, and she had several friends, not just me,
Speaker 3: And eventually I went to stay with my father who
Speaker 3: lived somewhere else, and she came with me on holidays
Speaker 3: and we became very firm friends. For a while there
Speaker 3: so it is.
Speaker 1: Can you tell me what you remember about Marian because
Speaker 1: I mean, we've been doing this now for five years
Speaker 1: and a lot of people have been listening. But sometimes
Speaker 1: people forget. I mean they you know, they see her
Speaker 1: picture and everything, but you know, she was a living,
Speaker 1: breathing person with a personality. Can you tell me what
Speaker 1: you remember about her?
Speaker 3: Yes, Marian, Well, I would never have called her shy,
Speaker 3: but I would call her had She had a reserve
Speaker 3: about her. I read somewhere that people thought she was naive.
Speaker 3: She was never naive as a young person. She was reserved.
Speaker 3: She was friendly. The boys certainly loved Mary, and she
Speaker 3: was a very attractive girl. I wouldn't have called her intellectual,
Speaker 3: but I would have called her very smart, very intelligent.
Speaker 3: And it was just this reserve about her. She was
Speaker 3: able to well, would you say she was able to
Speaker 3: live her life without other people intruding upon it. I
Speaker 3: would have said. We went to stay with my father
Speaker 3: and we shared a room. We went out together, we
Speaker 3: went to the beach. The boys loved her. I was
Speaker 3: sort of tinkering after boys, but she didn't particularly want to,
Speaker 3: but they loved her. Might have been that cool exterior
Speaker 3: that she had. Yeah, we discovered lipsticks together. We bought
Speaker 3: matching outfits in different colors. When we went away. She
Speaker 3: was that's as I said, she was going through the
Speaker 3: a stream, which when she was quite smart.
Speaker 1: When you say matching outfits, I'm curious because this had
Speaker 1: been the sixties, right, what do you remember what the
Speaker 1: outfits were and.
Speaker 3: Might have been the late fifties ideas I can remember
Speaker 3: we had. We both were were sure. I mean, things
Speaker 3: weren't as stylised then as they are now. We bought
Speaker 3: matching sun hats, great big sub hats, huge sun's. In fact,
Speaker 3: she ordered them for us. One was she had blue,
Speaker 3: I had yellow. We had shorts that were similar. We
Speaker 3: were different body shapes, so mine didn't look quite as
Speaker 3: good on me as they did on her. I was
Speaker 3: actually told by my stepmother Neves to wear them again,
Speaker 3: but she looked great in them. What else we had
Speaker 3: matching lipsticks that we went and bought together, and things
Speaker 3: like that.
Speaker 1: So it was a fun, easy going, you know, just
Speaker 1: just a really enjoyable time. I suppose quite innocent. I
Speaker 1: suppose in.
Speaker 3: The oh, very definitely, yes, I mean we were. She's
Speaker 3: three months older than me, you know, three months is
Speaker 3: a lot more when you're young than when you reached
Speaker 3: this age, so that I did see Marian as perhaps
Speaker 3: a bit of a slightly older than me and therefore
Speaker 3: knew more than me. But yeah, no, no, she was
Speaker 3: great to be with. We got along very well for what.
Speaker 3: We separated in different directions a little bit later in
Speaker 3: high school because although we stay friends, I left and
Speaker 3: she continued on and then went on to Balmain Teachers
Speaker 3: College to be a study to study.
Speaker 1: As a teacher, did the teaching as well.
Speaker 3: I am a teacher, but I didn't do teaching. Then
Speaker 3: I left school early. I left school at fifteen. I
Speaker 3: hated school. I just hated it so much. I just
Speaker 3: wanted to get away because I learned learned later the
Speaker 3: value of school and went back and did my HSC.
Speaker 3: But at the time I didn't like school at all.
Speaker 3: Marion loved it, and I hope she was very popular.
Speaker 3: A lot of people liked Marian.
Speaker 1: She always. I mean, when I look at the photo,
Speaker 1: she was so sophisticated, I wouldn't.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I guess that's that's how you would interpret I
Speaker 3: never saw her as sophisticated. I saw her as fairly
Speaker 3: self contained.
Speaker 1: Didn't you need other people's approval necessarily, Is that what
Speaker 1: you're trying to mean?
Speaker 3: Or to a large extent, I mean, I remember well,
Speaker 3: whilst we were on holidays up at Kendall, we walked
Speaker 3: down the street and the boys would all call out
Speaker 3: to Marian and she just ignored them. And I furiously
Speaker 3: waved because I was young and you know, unaware of
Speaker 3: the games people play, and I'd wave and they'd all
Speaker 3: turn away. Then they'd call out to Marian again, and
Speaker 3: she used to say to me, just ignore, just ignore them.
Speaker 1: So around this time, you would have been maybe thirteen.
Speaker 1: I was fourteen, fourteen, so at that stage not quite
Speaker 1: having having boyfriends, but just you know, I guess getting
Speaker 1: their attention.
Speaker 3: Now. I think Maryon had a few admirers. There's no
Speaker 3: doubt there's a touch of boys that really liked Marian.
Speaker 3: I was a lot more gauky than than Marian. She was.
Speaker 3: She had a nice body and nice, lovely tan skin,
Speaker 3: great smile, but she had a few guys that she'd
Speaker 3: had her eye on at different times. But certainly we
Speaker 3: weren't pursuing any serious relationships or anything like that at
Speaker 3: this point. We did go out with guys together. We
Speaker 3: went out ass but going to the movies and back
Speaker 3: home again. No, I have no idea what I thought.
Speaker 3: I didn'tink I was watching all the time.
Speaker 1: It was just the time when, yes, when, okay, So
Speaker 1: when you make out in the theaters of times.
Speaker 3: Exactly, and you'd start begging out and the front row
Speaker 3: would start whistling and carrying on. So to stop.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, that sounds like exciting times. So when did
Speaker 1: you find out about what had happened that Marian was missing?
Speaker 3: Look, I have no I a lot of thought on
Speaker 3: Marian through the years and wondered what she was doing.
Speaker 3: I knew she married Johnny Warren because she used to
Speaker 3: come in and tell me to where I was working.
Speaker 3: She'd come in on her way to I think it
Speaker 3: was the James station and tell me what was going on.
Speaker 3: And she told me once she's getting married on Saturday,
Speaker 3: And I said, I knew she was dating Johnny Warren
Speaker 3: and I said, oh great. She came in the following
Speaker 3: week and she said we didn't get married, And I
Speaker 3: said what happened? And she said, I changed my mind,
Speaker 3: but we are going to get married. We'll get We
Speaker 3: just put it off for a while I need to
Speaker 3: think about things. That's what she told me. I didn't
Speaker 3: know how true it was. I didn't really wasn't that concerned.
Speaker 3: We had another mutual friend that I was spending more
Speaker 3: time with, Tammy, and Tammy was seeing much more Marian
Speaker 3: than I was at the time I heard she got married.
Speaker 3: I think she told me she got married, and really
Speaker 3: we then slipped out of the picture. We just didn't
Speaker 3: see each other anymore. I realized once I discovered that
Speaker 3: Marian was missing, that she had moved at some point
Speaker 3: to Queensland, and I didn't know. I do remember that
Speaker 3: she had she was one of four girls, and that
Speaker 3: a mother and father lived not far from where I did.
Speaker 3: So I often wondered, because you know, we had been
Speaker 3: good friends, but friends move on. So how did I discover?
Speaker 3: Probably through your podcasts. I had heard about them, and
Speaker 3: then I saw a picture. I thought, that's my friend
Speaker 3: Marian Wilson. So I think I contacted you and said
Speaker 3: I know her, but she's not Marian Barter, She's Marian Wilson.
Speaker 3: And you said Marion Bart's her last married name, and
Speaker 3: that's why it all came to my attention.
Speaker 1: So reading about her and what happened in her life
Speaker 1: and everything. You know, I guess she had three husbands,
Speaker 1: and then I guess the latest with with her having
Speaker 1: changed her name and disappeared. I mean, what were you thinking?
Speaker 1: Was this something? Was this the Marian that you remembered
Speaker 1: or No.
Speaker 3: No, I would never have called a secretive. I would
Speaker 3: have called a reserve. But I would never have called
Speaker 3: a secretive when she was younger. Anyway, who knows what
Speaker 3: life tosses you in it between. No, I, I was
Speaker 3: quite shocked. Honesty was an important thing for Marian. Do
Speaker 3: you remember we've discussed it. We talked about another person's
Speaker 3: behavior and had discussed honesty and it was very important
Speaker 3: to her. So I read this and I was quite surprised.
Speaker 3: She wasn't consistent with what I knew. She was very
Speaker 3: the reserved. She was very night to put it nicely
Speaker 3: up front, but not nasty. She would tell you if
Speaker 3: what you did concerned her.
Speaker 1: One of the things that we I mean you obviously,
Speaker 1: and I was a long time between knowing her, but
Speaker 1: you know, the foundations are set in a person by
Speaker 1: the time they're a teenager. If she had found out
Speaker 1: that she was being taken for a ride, or that
Speaker 1: someone was deceiving her and that they were already married.
Speaker 1: Do you think she's the sort of person that would
Speaker 1: confront them about it.
Speaker 3: Eventually? Yes, yes I do. She would never be aggressive
Speaker 3: about it. She was not an aggressive person, but I
Speaker 3: do think she would confront them. I think she'd think
Speaker 3: about it first. She wouldn't, She's not feel for a type.
Speaker 3: I would have also thought she'd have discussed it with
Speaker 3: somebody else first. Maybe she didn't have that opportunity. Yes,
Speaker 3: I do believe she would have confronted them, in believing,
Speaker 3: you know, one had to be fair and honest about
Speaker 3: these things.
Speaker 1: Well, particularly since she obviously had a firm belief about honesty.
Speaker 3: Absolutely. Look, I read quite a bit of the comments
Speaker 3: that particularly her daughter and one of her former husbands made,
Speaker 3: and there were clearly changes in her personality, the secretiveness. Look,
Speaker 3: I remember when we're we're probably about fifteen, she went
Speaker 3: to the movies with a guard, but instead of going
Speaker 3: to the movies, they drove down this two I think
Speaker 3: with Engerdein or heath Coat or something like that, and
Speaker 3: she told me how they shot in the current pasted
Speaker 3: as she put it, which meant that she had a
Speaker 3: nexting session with a guy and then came home and
Speaker 3: told her parents that it was a lovely movie. Now,
Speaker 3: that doesn't dely the fact that I think she's an
Speaker 3: honest person. I think she was just covering her tracks
Speaker 3: because she wasn't supposed to be out with the boy
Speaker 3: other than at the movies. We've all done that, and
Speaker 3: I wouldn't consider most people who do that kind of
Speaker 3: behavior are dishonest at all, although the action itself might
Speaker 3: be Yeah, Look, I just think she would have tried
Speaker 3: to deal with it, that's for sure, But that she
Speaker 3: went so far as to change her name is what
Speaker 3: I find remarkable. That was quite a surprise to me.
Speaker 3: That wasn't consistent with how I knew married at all.
Speaker 1: The inquest is now over and the coroner has to
Speaker 1: deliver her findings, which are most likely going to be
Speaker 1: consistent with the fact that she's no longer alive and
Speaker 1: that her disappearance.
Speaker 3: I don't think she is either. I don't know what happened,
Speaker 3: but one can only speculate. But she feels to me
Speaker 3: like she's not around.
Speaker 1: So I mean, Marian isn't someone who necessarily would you
Speaker 1: would have thought would give up on life.
Speaker 3: Oh no, that's right.
Speaker 5: She would not.
Speaker 3: If anything happened to her, she would put up a
Speaker 3: good fight.
Speaker 1: So I guess with all of this, you know, just
Speaker 1: you know, being for the past five years, been lingering
Speaker 1: and being quite present in the media as well. How
Speaker 1: do you feel now, I guess looking back at it all.
Speaker 3: Oh, how do I feel? As it's definitely for our
Speaker 3: play as far as I'm concerned, Marian's not the type
Speaker 3: that would take her own life through being badly treated
Speaker 3: or dishonestly treated. I felt that she possibly would have
Speaker 3: gone to the police. I think she would have used
Speaker 3: whatever access to support. The part that I find so
Speaker 3: interesting is the timing of purportedly when she was calling
Speaker 3: from England yet being in Australia at a time that
Speaker 3: would never have got her back to Australia in time.
Speaker 3: That to me, is where I believe a lot of
Speaker 3: the dilemma really starts in terms of them being missing.
Speaker 3: And that's where I think. I don't know, I don't
Speaker 3: know what the police are doing, but I would say
Speaker 3: that's really the area that tells where the story is,
Speaker 3: what's happened to her. It's just you know, she wasn't
Speaker 3: a liar, or clearly she wasn't being totally up either.
Speaker 3: She had reasons, I don't know what they were.
Speaker 1: I think the thing though, is, I mean everyone by
Speaker 1: this age has been in love.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 1: If she was in love or thought she was in love,
Speaker 1: you know, maybe she would have been coerced. I mean
Speaker 1: we look at all these other women who were coerced
Speaker 1: to do things, yes, certain way.
Speaker 3: Oh, I'd say there's an element of that. Obviously, there's
Speaker 3: clearly someone has attempted to coerce her. Undoubtedly she's form
Speaker 3: at least initially for it. I mean for these people
Speaker 3: who bet who were coerced none, so what should call stupid?
Speaker 3: And neither is Marion. So whoever would have coerced her
Speaker 3: would have been very skilled at it. I can see
Speaker 3: her realizing at some point, maybe a bit too late,
Speaker 3: but realizing and trying to find a way out and
Speaker 3: perhaps met with an unfortunate end along the way.
Speaker 1: Sally will be listening to this as well. Is there
Speaker 1: anything you'd like to tell you know, is a message
Speaker 1: you have a message for Sally?
Speaker 7: That?
Speaker 5: Oh?
Speaker 3: Yeah, Sally. She was a great woman and I really
Speaker 3: wish all the best to you, Sally, Just to know
Speaker 3: that things didn't go the way she intended them to, clearly,
Speaker 3: And I'm sure wherever she is or whatever is happening
Speaker 3: to her now, she'd love to be with you.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Absolutely, I'm sure Marian would be proud of all
Speaker 1: the efforts that Sally has made too, because oh absolutely,
Speaker 1: she's obviously like Marion in the sense that you know,
Speaker 1: she's a fighter. Marion would have done the same thing.
Speaker 3: I'm sure, Yes, yes, I think I actually think Sally
Speaker 3: is more of a fighter than Marion. And I think Sally,
Speaker 3: by the way, must seems to have Marian's brains, because
Speaker 3: Marian was very intelligent. I think it was Sally that
Speaker 3: said Marian was naive. I never found her naive, but
Speaker 3: I I, well, who are to judge at that age.
Speaker 3: I found her to be not quick off the mark
Speaker 3: with making decisions, usually small, thoughtful about them, and perhaps
Speaker 3: that may have slowed down a little bit on a bit.
Speaker 1: The same way, she seemed very romantic, like you know,
Speaker 1: I think did said she loved to be loved, don't
Speaker 1: we all?
Speaker 3: Yes, clearly that from her history that would show she
Speaker 3: was loved at school. The boys loved her. She was
Speaker 3: the one that was managed to reserve you know, to
Speaker 3: kept them all at arms links, except the occasional one
Speaker 3: or two that you know, she fondly recalled. Her sisters
Speaker 3: would know her better. She had a very good relationship
Speaker 3: with her mother. I remember that, a very loving family.
Speaker 3: I know. I met the sisters. I went there for
Speaker 3: lunch several times with Marion to their house. It was
Speaker 3: a very loving, supportive family. I guess she's grown up
Speaker 3: around people who care and wanted to continue with that experience.
Speaker 3: It's not consistent. She's not as though she was lacking
Speaker 3: in love and concern in her life. She had a
Speaker 3: lot of people around her that loved and cared for
Speaker 3: her growing up.
Speaker 7: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I guess the only thing I can think of is
Speaker 1: the adoration of men. I mean, obviously, as you get
Speaker 1: older it probably subsides a bit, but she she always
Speaker 1: obviously enjoyed that, and so I think that's what's come
Speaker 1: to play in this scenario where she thought that it
Speaker 1: was the real deal and that would have been.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: The other thing about it is that I didn't see her.
Speaker 3: I saw her as keeping men at her at her
Speaker 3: arms distance, but you know, still having a little you
Speaker 3: might say, not around with one or two. Usually the
Speaker 3: guy that was considered the most popular around most of
Speaker 3: the women. They liked her, she liked them, but she
Speaker 3: move on and didn't keep it as a long time,
Speaker 3: steady relationship. But her behavior as a younger woman is
Speaker 3: not consistent with someone that needs a man around all
Speaker 3: the time. So I wouldn't like to speculate on how
Speaker 3: that happened. I mean, her sisters would know that better
Speaker 3: than me.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So, and you know, as you said, you went
Speaker 1: back to do teaching everything and made a very successful
Speaker 1: life of it. And I'm glad that you did go
Speaker 1: back to school.
Speaker 3: I went back and did the hsc AT and then
Speaker 3: went to went to university and put myself through linguistics.
Speaker 3: Oh wow, and then the teaching. I've been a feminist
Speaker 3: activist for a long time and though i've you might say,
Speaker 3: retired from it, I've never lost the commitment.
Speaker 1: Well, you know, so women that are coming together in
Speaker 1: there so much. I mean, obviously we've got men as well,
Speaker 1: but the overwhelming like the victims of this man like,
Speaker 1: it's just been a real solidarity movement.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah. It was good to read that they came
Speaker 3: out because a lot of women would not be will
Speaker 3: put it like this, there's a certain shame one would feel,
Speaker 3: but having been a victim, it's it's enormously strong of
Speaker 3: these women to come out and give their story. I
Speaker 3: just can't but admire them for what they've they're doing now,
Speaker 3: and particularly as they're they're older, they're so much older
Speaker 3: that all they want now is a quiet life probably
Speaker 3: and to be left alone. But they've come out out
Speaker 3: to find out what they can contribute to make this
Speaker 3: a better situation.
Speaker 1: It's amazing, I know, isn't it. It's just really it's
Speaker 1: so wonderful to be a part of and you're alone
Speaker 1: to carry. So thank you so much.
Speaker 3: Oh thanks thanks for calling me and talking to me,
Speaker 3: and I hope to see you soon.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, thank you. Carry keep in touch for you, Lesa
Speaker 1: bye bye.
Speaker 6: Thank you Carrie for sharing with us your memories and
Speaker 6: insights into one of the women at the heart of
Speaker 6: this story, the other, of course being her daughter Sally.
Speaker 6: I live in Sydney, Sally lives in Brisbane, so we
Speaker 6: don't get to catch up in person very often, but
Speaker 6: now it's time to check in with sal Via Zoom.
Speaker 5: Hi Sale, Hello, how are you good?
Speaker 7: Good? Good to hear you boys.
Speaker 6: Final three days of hearings at the inquest marked sixteen
Speaker 6: days of evidence plus one day of submissions. That has,
Speaker 6: over the past two and a half years turned this
Speaker 6: investigation on its head. Sally has had time to reflect
Speaker 6: on what we've just heard.
Speaker 7: Did you have a chance to tune into the inquest
Speaker 7: last week?
Speaker 5: Yep, watched the lot.
Speaker 7: What was your reaction to those three extra days the
Speaker 7: public hearings.
Speaker 5: I think it was really important that those women had
Speaker 5: a chance to voice their story to everybody. You know,
Speaker 5: we're in a position where, yet again we've had women
Speaker 5: who have gone to the police and noted their concerns
Speaker 5: and seemingly they were just given the generic thanks for
Speaker 5: that information and sent on their way. Little did they
Speaker 5: know that, you know, they weren't the only ones. So
Speaker 5: I'm really happy that by doing all of this, we've
Speaker 5: given them an opportunity to actually have their voices heard
Speaker 5: as well. And you know, really grateful to you know,
Speaker 5: both of them, because they're elderly, you know, I mean,
Speaker 5: Gislaine stayed up until over one am to give her
Speaker 5: evidence and you know, God bless Andre, you know, sharp
Speaker 5: as attack, as opposed to what we were led to believe.
Speaker 5: So you know, I'm eternally grateful that they've given their
Speaker 5: voice because silence is my enemy and I need people
Speaker 5: to speak up and you know, help me find out
Speaker 5: what's happened to my mum. So them doing that is
Speaker 5: a step forward in potentially understanding a little bit more.
Speaker 7: Yeah, and you're right that the first point you made,
Speaker 7: Julane did go to the police in Belgium. Maybe if
Speaker 7: they'd acted or identified this guy contacted the authorities here,
Speaker 7: he wouldn't have been able to do what he did
Speaker 7: to Andrea and the other victim later.
Speaker 5: Well, that's been the the key grind for me, I
Speaker 5: think is you know, going right the way back and
Speaker 5: finding what we found and noting documentation back in the
Speaker 5: seventies and eighties where police and authorities who should be
Speaker 5: looking after that side of things made a note that
Speaker 5: it should be done and then put it in the
Speaker 5: wrong file and then obviously got lost. And you know,
Speaker 5: from where I sit, if that had actually transpired and
Speaker 5: there'd been action taken back then Rick Blum wouldn't have
Speaker 5: met my mum, that's for certain. So that puts us
Speaker 5: in a whole different ballgame.
Speaker 7: I noticed that again, Christina flew out all the way
Speaker 7: from England to this more Wales to be there to
Speaker 7: support you and to be there for this inquest the
Speaker 7: second you've done that. I mean, how would you describe
Speaker 7: the dedication that Christine and more broadly that the web
Speaker 7: slus have put into this investigation your story.
Speaker 5: Yeah, unbelieve. I have no words really except thank you
Speaker 5: from the bottom of my heart, because these people care.
Speaker 5: They care about my mum for like I think, first
Speaker 5: and foremost, and then they care about me, and they
Speaker 5: care about my children, who are you know, the grandchildren
Speaker 5: of my missing mum. And you know, I think we've
Speaker 5: all been blown away by the reaction and the support
Speaker 5: that we've gained from the supporters and keeping the story
Speaker 5: alive and you know, and that to me again, I
Speaker 5: always say it is power of the people. Without them
Speaker 5: and without their push and without their support, we might
Speaker 5: not have got anywhere. You know. It's amazing what happens
Speaker 5: when there's a portion and a shove. And unfortunately I've
Speaker 5: been in a position where I've had to do that
Speaker 5: to get the answers, so not something I've liked doing,
Speaker 5: but you know, having all those people supporting, you know,
Speaker 5: and Christine has been there with me from the start
Speaker 5: of the podcast. And you know we've we've met numerous
Speaker 5: times and I caught up with her in Sydney on
Speaker 5: the weekend, took her out for breakfast and just you know,
Speaker 5: how to be hug and you know, she loves it
Speaker 5: over here and she loves coming back and hanging out
Speaker 5: with us. So you know, we've become like family. You know,
Speaker 5: her husband came over for work a few months ago
Speaker 5: and I know you went out with him, I think
Speaker 5: for a drink and then Chris and I took him
Speaker 5: out for dinner up here in Brisbane, and you know,
Speaker 5: so that's that's where this stems from. It's not just
Speaker 5: random people helping people who have become my family and
Speaker 5: my friends and people I trust and people who genuinely
Speaker 5: want to want to help me find the answers.
Speaker 7: Yeah, and I think it goes to the fact that
Speaker 7: your story resonates with so many people because it could
Speaker 7: be any one of us. Yeah, this could happen to
Speaker 7: what we now likely know has happened, could happen to
Speaker 7: any family. And I noticed that a man who Allison
Speaker 7: spotted at the inquiz turned out to be a man
Speaker 7: named John who was sitting at the back, seemingly just
Speaker 7: a random member of the public, but it turns out
Speaker 7: he's deed to his ex husband. John'll be surprised that
Speaker 7: he showed up.
Speaker 5: Well, that's his neck of the woods. He lives there,
Speaker 5: so you know, I guess kudo see him for showing
Speaker 5: up as a family member or ex family member. But
Speaker 5: I am a little miffed as to his comments that
Speaker 5: he made to Allison.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I wasn't here that of all the insights he
Speaker 7: could have offered us, that was probably the least relevant
Speaker 7: and least complimentary. So yeah, obviously not a helpful. Was
Speaker 7: the reason I raised it is because I just wanted
Speaker 7: to check in and ask you if or how the
Speaker 7: family now looks upon what has happened to your mum.
Speaker 7: Given what we've all, that we've learned and all these
Speaker 7: victims now, I mean a pretty clear picture is beginning
Speaker 7: to emerge. How are your aunts and the wider family
Speaker 7: now looking upon this case, this story.
Speaker 5: You'll have to ask m Bry because I have radio
Speaker 5: silence still, so I think they're all I would be surmising,
Speaker 5: but I would guess that they're probably all thinking what
Speaker 5: we're all thinking, but they choose to hide behind the door,
Speaker 5: which is pretty sad for me, Like I feel like,
Speaker 5: especially listening to John's comments and you know the fact
Speaker 5: that he rocks up and he's taking notes and you know,
Speaker 5: his phone's going off in the court and whatever else,
Speaker 5: I don't have a lot to say about him. I
Speaker 5: have not seen him since I was probably ten, so
Speaker 5: forty odd years ago, and he probably hasn't seen my
Speaker 5: mum much in that time either, to be fair, so
Speaker 5: I don't know that it has much to offer on
Speaker 5: Mum's personality as a human when she went missing. However,
Speaker 5: going back over how I feel about the family, and
Speaker 5: to be honest, I actually feel like I've just seen
Speaker 5: the Colosseum in real life myself, and I kind of
Speaker 5: felt like I was the one who was thrown out
Speaker 5: into the arena on my own. They shut the gates
Speaker 5: firmly behind me, and even a bit of poking, you know,
Speaker 5: with some of the comments that were made by people
Speaker 5: in court saying I dogged my mom for money and
Speaker 5: that you know, my mum didn't really like me, because
Speaker 5: that's what my grandmother had told somebody. And you know,
Speaker 5: I think Bron was very happy to sit there and
Speaker 5: tell everybody who was listening that I don't blame Marian
Speaker 5: for coming back. If it was me, I wouldn't have
Speaker 5: come back. Who says that kind of thing when you
Speaker 5: know I'm a victim here as well. I'm the daughter
Speaker 5: of someone who's been missing for twenty six years, and
Speaker 5: I honestly feel like I've been the one. They might
Speaker 5: all sit back and go, oh, we're supporting, we you know,
Speaker 5: we're thinking of you. Whatever stand with me, stands next
Speaker 5: to me in the courtroom when I'm facing all those people,
Speaker 5: I'm standing there with my twenty year old daughter, who
Speaker 5: shouldn't have to do that. But I need some support
Speaker 5: of some level. And it's Chris and the kids and
Speaker 5: you guys who have supported me. I should have family
Speaker 5: there standing there with me, and I haven't had that.
Speaker 5: And I'm not going to sit here and have be
Speaker 5: critical of them. People make their own choices and do
Speaker 5: what they want to do. But that's how I feel.
Speaker 5: I feel like I was thrown into the wolves and
Speaker 5: I wasn't given any support or care or concern. Like
Speaker 5: I lost my brother he died, I lost my mum,
Speaker 5: she's missing, and it was just like we're not interested.
Speaker 5: We would rather protect ourselves. We don't like the line
Speaker 5: light whatever the story is that they want to share.
Speaker 5: You know, your choice is. I'm not going to have
Speaker 5: an opinion on it, but I feel like that's how
Speaker 5: I feel in myself.
Speaker 7: Yeah, if I can just say it for yourself, you
Speaker 7: should have your family there for you one, especially now.
Speaker 7: And what I would just observe about that is that
Speaker 7: when we started, you know, your aunt's pretty much were
Speaker 7: proffering the view that Marian had definitely decided just to
Speaker 7: walk away and everyone should just put it behind them.
Speaker 7: It was a long time ago. You're making a fuss,
Speaker 7: You're causing a stir. It's unnecessary. We know what happened.
Speaker 7: Just accept it and move on. Well, now we know
Speaker 7: that that's and you always knew, and we very quickly
Speaker 7: knew too. But that's not what happened at all. Of course,
Speaker 7: it's not what happened. And now we're certain that's not
Speaker 7: what happened. So in the face of that certainty, I
Speaker 7: got to say that baffles me and probably a lot
Speaker 7: of our listeners that your family aren't there, unified, completely
Speaker 7: behind you, given the gantuan task you've undertaken and how
Speaker 7: much you've achieved, and how much we've learned about what's
Speaker 7: happened to this human being, your mum, their sister, you know.
Speaker 7: And all I would say is that to be gracious,
Speaker 7: you know, you never know what's going on in someone
Speaker 7: else's life. Maybe there are things that are particular to
Speaker 7: members of your family that we don't know about, or
Speaker 7: that there's struggling with. I hope they're all okay, but
Speaker 7: our concern continues to be you and finding out what
Speaker 7: happened to me, Marian and for mine two dollars worth.
Speaker 7: You absolutely deserve all the support from all of your family,
Speaker 7: and of course you've got it from all of us
Speaker 7: and everyone listening.
Speaker 1: I know.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I just want to move on to what else
Speaker 7: we learned in the hearings.
Speaker 5: Now.
Speaker 7: There's a couple of big kind of reveals in these
Speaker 7: final hearings that I wasn't expecting. And at one point
Speaker 7: Allison was actually called in by the police during the
Speaker 7: hearing to make a statement and provide them a document.
Speaker 7: It was a draft invitation to an engagement between Gelaine
Speaker 7: du Bois de Lois and Frederic de Headry aka Rick Bloom.
Speaker 7: How surprised were you to see that document emerge and
Speaker 7: what does that tell us about what he was really doing?
Speaker 5: Well, I thought it was a bit of a slam dunc.
Speaker 5: Actually I had a bit of a smile on my
Speaker 5: face when he saw that, because I don't think he
Speaker 5: was expecting that to appear. So kudo to Glaine for
Speaker 5: keeping things like that, you know, because I have seen
Speaker 5: it had scribble all over it, and you know, things
Speaker 5: that my mum would typically do too. My mum is
Speaker 5: one of those people who she'd have a birthday card
Speaker 5: sitting on the bench, for example, and then she'd keep
Speaker 5: it and she'd file it into her repidex that she
Speaker 5: used to have with all the phone numbers in it,
Speaker 5: and then she'd start scribbling. And I've got recipes from
Speaker 5: people friends that she's obviously spoken on the phone or
Speaker 5: something like that, and they're telling her what their Christmas
Speaker 5: cake recipe was. So when I saw Gallaen's or I
Speaker 5: saw the document that had the invitation on it and
Speaker 5: she'd written a few little bits and pieces around, kind
Speaker 5: of reminded me of mum. But yeah, slam dunk for
Speaker 5: you know. When the question was asked, were you intending
Speaker 5: to marry her? And he declined and said no, that
Speaker 5: was a lie, and then that was produced. Yeah, I
Speaker 5: hadn't seen that either, like everybody else, I was first
Speaker 5: i'd heard about that or seen that. So yeah, good job.
Speaker 7: And it goes to we know that Rick has repeatedly lied.
Speaker 7: He's admitted lying on there was occasion, so there's no
Speaker 7: surprise there. But in particular with this the pattern of
Speaker 7: promising multiple women a new life and marriage. Now your
Speaker 7: mum claimed on the incoming passenger card that she was
Speaker 7: married and now did home duties in Luxembourg. How much
Speaker 7: does this bolster the notion that he was either trying
Speaker 7: to or affecting some kind of union, civil union or
Speaker 7: marriage with your mum, given that he's one hundred percent
Speaker 7: tried it with Julaye nine years after your mum disappeared.
Speaker 5: I think Gulayne's evidence is extremely vital because I remember
Speaker 5: when I first read her statement and I was just
Speaker 5: absolutely spun out by things like the tea chess reference,
Speaker 5: the liver function of reference, and I know Kim Burke
Speaker 5: stood up and she said, you know, I object, your honor.
Speaker 5: I don't think there's any connection between a liver function
Speaker 5: scan and a liver function test and I'm sitting there going,
Speaker 5: I think you're missing the point here. The point is
Speaker 5: liver being the key word. Whether it's a scan, a test, whatever,
Speaker 5: there's still a connection there between this woman and my
Speaker 5: mum who had a relationship with this man. So I
Speaker 5: was blown away by those things. I was also you know,
Speaker 5: the comment that she made that he wanted her to
Speaker 5: keep it a secret from her children. And you know,
Speaker 5: I can completely agree that my mum if he'd said
Speaker 5: that to her, she would have, you know, gone with
Speaker 5: his wishes and gone not yet okay, And she probably
Speaker 5: thought it was fanciful or what have you like he claimed.
Speaker 5: And I can see knowing my mum's personality and looking
Speaker 5: at those situations and I see I see Mom and
Speaker 5: Galline in reverse. And the difference is Laying handed him
Speaker 5: over the money allegedly.
Speaker 7: And your mum didn't.
Speaker 5: Well, she came back to Australia and then all the
Speaker 5: money starts coming out of her bank account. So let's
Speaker 5: say my opinion is that she didn't have the money
Speaker 5: to give him overseas. Is this my thought process? And
Speaker 5: the reaction was, oh, let's quickly go back to Australia
Speaker 5: and grab that money. Maybe to buy school.
Speaker 7: Yeah, yeah, interesting.
Speaker 5: Yeah, this is just my personal opinion of course.
Speaker 7: Yeah. Now, another big potential slip of the tongue came
Speaker 7: on the final day when he was asked about the
Speaker 7: Queensland driver's license in the name of Fernande Nocholis Remichel.
Speaker 7: And here's here's the question from your lawyer, the lawyer
Speaker 7: acting for you, Brad Smith. He said, at the time
Speaker 7: she did that, in nineteen ninety seven, you had a
Speaker 7: Queensland driver's license in the name of Fante Nocholis Remickel. Correct.
Speaker 7: Rick Bloom says, yes, I had for a certain time
Speaker 7: until it disappeared. It was stolen from me or I
Speaker 7: lost it. I don't know because in the previous time
Speaker 7: I can't remember if it's in Ballina or Byron Bay.
Speaker 7: I repeat the question, please, he says Barron Bay and
Speaker 7: he stops dead in his tracks. What was your reaction
Speaker 7: when you heard that.
Speaker 5: I've had a lot of reactions, Brian like, yeah, it
Speaker 5: was quite telling. Probably the best word I can use
Speaker 5: to describe how I felt when I heard that.
Speaker 7: Well, I've checked. I can't find him mentioning Barron Bay ever,
Speaker 7: or that mention on the stand, and I don't know
Speaker 7: if it's a slip of the tongue or a mistake,
Speaker 7: or he's revealed something crucial that he has been to
Speaker 7: Barren Bay and he was mentioning it in the context
Speaker 7: of Marion and his false identity at the time of
Speaker 7: her disappearance. To me, it just seems like he's lowered
Speaker 7: the he's lowered the shield just momentarily. We even mentioned that.
Speaker 5: I think Adam Casselton said a similar thing, didn't he. Yeah,
Speaker 5: at the end with the other comments that he started saying,
Speaker 5: and yeah, it will unravel. It's just a matter of
Speaker 5: time and patience, which I think I've had a lot of.
Speaker 5: You know, I'm glad that we've been able to be
Speaker 5: in this position and have the inquest and you know,
Speaker 5: ask these questions and get some clarity.
Speaker 3: Well.
Speaker 7: Then the other big thing sale is that all of
Speaker 7: a sudden, towards the end of the second day of
Speaker 7: his giving evidence, mister Bloom for the first time reveals
Speaker 7: that he had a conversation with your mum in which
Speaker 7: she declared that she wanted to abandon her family out
Speaker 7: of nowhere. How stunned were you to hear that? My
Speaker 7: head was spinning when I heard that.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I was probably more angry actually at the first instance,
Speaker 5: and then you know the second on the third day,
Speaker 5: when Adam Cassilden started questioning him on that. Again, my
Speaker 5: brain was just going a million miles an hour trying
Speaker 5: to process what in actual fact he was talking about,
Speaker 5: trying to work exactly that out. I mean, I have
Speaker 5: my own opinions on it, but let us keep them
Speaker 5: to myself for the time being. But yeah, it was
Speaker 5: quite damning for him, I think.
Speaker 7: Well. Mister Cassildon pursued him the next day. He was
Speaker 7: on the stand, this time appearing by video link, so
Speaker 7: it wasn't in the court, but he remembered saying that,
Speaker 7: and what he said was he answered, I myself believed
Speaker 7: that she's still alive. That's what I believe. But I
Speaker 7: don't know anything about what she did or whereabouts, nothing
Speaker 7: at all. I can't tell you exactly when. But in
Speaker 7: a conversation before she went to England, she said she
Speaker 7: wants to separate from her family. She didn't want anything
Speaker 7: to do with any member of her family. She was
Speaker 7: a bit of a strange person. Now, the point was
Speaker 7: then made by mister Calsidon that he never descended. He
Speaker 7: is the word descended into that level of detail before
Speaker 7: about Marion's motives, she vanished and why was he suddenly
Speaker 7: volunteering at now? But what I found even more interesting
Speaker 7: was the point made by Adam Cassiden, the counsel assisting
Speaker 7: the coroner and your lawyer in the inquest Bradley Smith,
Speaker 7: was that he had multiple opportunities to tell that to
Speaker 7: police when he was first question in his first interview,
Speaker 7: and multiple times during his now I think eight days
Speaker 7: of giving evidence on the witness stand across three different
Speaker 7: appearances over two years, he's never mentioned this once. And
Speaker 7: this is like a this is motive. This is the
Speaker 7: key explainer for why she supposedly did what he claims,
Speaker 7: which is the banish of her own court. Yeah, I
Speaker 7: mean in his neck of the woods exactly. I mean
Speaker 7: for him to now reveal this at this late stage
Speaker 7: without you conjecturing on his truthfulness or lack of what
Speaker 7: does it actually say about where this case has gone?
Speaker 7: I mean, if we hadn't got to this sixteenth day
Speaker 7: of evidence in an inquest, we wouldn't have heard him
Speaker 7: say that. I mean, what does it say about the
Speaker 7: need to go through a process like this to even
Speaker 7: scratch the surface of the truth.
Speaker 5: Well, I've been screaming it for a long time, right,
Speaker 5: So since I met you, it was like, I need
Speaker 5: to get it to an inquest because I need to
Speaker 5: know that the police are doing their job properly and
Speaker 5: looking at every ounce of information to uncover the truth
Speaker 5: as to what has happened. People just don't go missing.
Speaker 5: We've had the conversation before about suicide and things like that.
Speaker 5: You don't hide your body. If you kill yourself, you're
Speaker 5: there and someone has to come and take you away.
Speaker 5: You know. You if you jump off a cliff, you
Speaker 5: wash up on the beach, or part of you potentially
Speaker 5: will at some point in time. So horrendous to think,
Speaker 5: but that's just reality, right, And I have to process
Speaker 5: those things. But we have been down this route one
Speaker 5: hundred times as to what's actually going on and needing
Speaker 5: to have a full investigation. I mean, if we wind
Speaker 5: it right back, and I was only thinking about this yesterday,
Speaker 5: we sort of seen. The focus now is all on
Speaker 5: where we're at right this second. But you know, we
Speaker 5: can't forget, and I don't want people to forget what
Speaker 5: I dealt with the police when they were telling me
Speaker 5: their hands were tired and they couldn't do the job
Speaker 5: that they needed to do to find the answers here.
Speaker 5: Sorry to say, but you know, we have found the
Speaker 5: answers to a lot of these questions by doing big
Speaker 5: deep dives and searches and walking into archives. We all
Speaker 5: know too well that, you know, places like inter Poll.
Speaker 5: I know myself. I've contacted them and they like, you know, oh,
Speaker 5: they only to keep records for seven years. You've contacted
Speaker 5: them that said the same thing. You don't go to
Speaker 5: the agencies anymore. You have to go to archives to
Speaker 5: get the information. That's where it's all stored and held.
Speaker 5: They delete it off their system, but it still sits there.
Speaker 5: So it's just a matter of doing the hard yards.
Speaker 5: Like Joanie drove down to Camber on a holiday with
Speaker 5: her husband and child and you know, she spent a
Speaker 5: day at the archives in Canberra herself, and she said
Speaker 5: it was just absolutely imperative that I did that because
Speaker 5: without going in there physically and sitting down there and
Speaker 5: going through and searching, you don't find anything. You've done
Speaker 5: it as well. You've sat there and done MICROFISHI in Sydney.
Speaker 5: You know, we've got people up in Ballina going to
Speaker 5: the local library, finding you know, the phone number in
Speaker 5: the paper, linking it to Ballina Coin Investments. So it's
Speaker 5: the hard work and the deep dives that actually help
Speaker 5: with this information and coming forward. And you know, I
Speaker 5: work full time. I don't have all the time in
Speaker 5: the world. I'm a mother of three. I'm busy, and
Speaker 5: you know, this has consumed my life, particularly since we
Speaker 5: started the podcast, you know, four and a half years ago.
Speaker 5: It's I've had two jobs. This is one job, and
Speaker 5: I've got my other job as well, and you know,
Speaker 5: I'm grappling at every second to try and gain a
Speaker 5: little bit more understanding, a little bit more information. And
Speaker 5: you know, I'm happy to share it with everybody because
Speaker 5: it's a story that's a live investigation still today twenty
Speaker 5: six years later, and it's.
Speaker 7: No longer you know, just about your mum. It's about
Speaker 7: a lot of women, and it's about the issue of
Speaker 7: coercive control, and it's about the issue of hidden homicides.
Speaker 7: I just want to read you what Adam Casslin was
Speaker 7: saying to Rick on that about that revelation he made
Speaker 7: that Marian had told him randomly just before she vanished
Speaker 7: that she wanted to abandon her family. He says, could
Speaker 7: the reason you disclosed that information, mister Bloom only yesterday
Speaker 7: be because you know more about the disappearance of Marion
Speaker 7: Barter than you have previous let on and you let
Speaker 7: your guard down yesterday. No, I suggest to you that
Speaker 7: you do know more than you are letting on about
Speaker 7: the whereabouts of Maryon Barter. No, sir, No, I want
Speaker 7: to suggest to you, mister Bloom, that you know more
Speaker 7: about the whereabouts of Marying Barter than you have been
Speaker 7: letting onto her honor throughout the course of her honor's
Speaker 7: inquest Do you accept that? No, sir, No, I don't.
Speaker 7: I don't know anything anything about Marion Barter. What's it
Speaker 7: like hearing him repeatedly we asked these questions and just
Speaker 7: give a flat denial.
Speaker 5: Well, I have learned sitting there watching a lot of
Speaker 5: that conversation happen over time, and I've picked up on
Speaker 5: certain things where mister Blum says certain things and certain
Speaker 5: reactions to certain questions. So, not being an expert or
Speaker 5: I kind of get the vibe. He has a certain
Speaker 5: tone when he's answering a question in a certain way.
Speaker 5: And that's become quite apparent to me. I'm sure people
Speaker 5: like Laura Richard's would probably pick up on it as well,
Speaker 5: And anybody who's been around and listened to these sorts
Speaker 5: of things happen with other investigations before, you'd probably pick
Speaker 5: up on it as well. So yeah, just it made
Speaker 5: me angry because it was just an addition that he
Speaker 5: could have openly come forward and said, oh, yes, I
Speaker 5: knew Marion Barter. I had an affair with her back
Speaker 5: in nineteen ninety seven, but she told me that she
Speaker 5: wanted to leave her family. He could have done that.
Speaker 5: What he did do was he was interviewed by police
Speaker 5: and he denied knowing my mum at the very first instance.
Speaker 5: He went home and had to think about it, and
Speaker 5: then went back the next day and said, actually, I
Speaker 5: did know her and I had an affair with her.
Speaker 5: That always plays with my mind as well as to
Speaker 5: why you just wouldn't be upfront and honest about it
Speaker 5: in the very first instance.
Speaker 7: Well, that's the thing, Sal. He did a couple of
Speaker 7: other things. He we know he invented and encountered with
Speaker 7: your mom, supposedly in Switzerland and Liscern. He's initially said
Speaker 7: in nineteen sixty eight sixty eight, when Marian's first husband,
Speaker 7: Johnny Warren was there at a soccer training camp. So
Speaker 7: we've confirmed that that encounter couldn't have happened. So he's
Speaker 7: fabricated that. It appears he's fabricated that. And then of
Speaker 7: course he did give reasons for your mum wanting to
Speaker 7: go to England. He volunteered things like she was going
Speaker 7: to buy a school. So for him not to mention
Speaker 7: the overwhelming motive, believe me, until just a few days ago,
Speaker 7: years later, to me, it just seems beyond belief.
Speaker 5: Yeah, well, and things like the school comment. None of
Speaker 5: us well, I certainly hadn't heard anything about buying a school.
Speaker 5: But since then, I've had a lady who has been
Speaker 5: listening to the podcast and following, and her mom was
Speaker 5: a good friend of my mom's, and my mum actually
Speaker 5: wrote her a postcard as well, So they keep coming
Speaker 5: out of the woodwork, which is amazing. And I'll tell
Speaker 5: you all that Mum wrote to her and said something
Speaker 5: along the lines of now this woman's a school teacher
Speaker 5: as well, so understanding the why she might be bringing
Speaker 5: this up with her. But she turned around and she said,
Speaker 5: oh my god, did you know you can buy a
Speaker 5: school over here? You only need don't quote because I
Speaker 5: can't remember, but I think it says eighty thousand to
Speaker 5: one hundred and sixty five thousand dollars exclamation exclamation exclamation
Speaker 5: in a postcard from England to her teaching friend, which
Speaker 5: for me that hadn't been in evidence or no one
Speaker 5: had talked about that before. Mister Blumt told the world
Speaker 5: that my mum had talked about buying a school over
Speaker 5: in the UK, but she needed money to do that.
Speaker 7: Yeah, And then you know that's contemporaneous after an effect,
Speaker 7: she left Australia.
Speaker 5: She was already overseas.
Speaker 7: How would he even know about that if he wasn't
Speaker 7: with her?
Speaker 5: And the way it's written is like she's just found
Speaker 5: out is the tone? Yeah, I mean, oh my gosh,
Speaker 5: you know, did you know you could buy a school
Speaker 5: over here?
Speaker 7: Because I think she.
Speaker 5: Probably would have had that comp with them before she left,
Speaker 5: if it was something that was on her radar or
Speaker 5: she had information or knowledge about. And to me, that
Speaker 5: can lead potentially, if you think about it, to the
Speaker 5: idea of having to come back to Australia to get
Speaker 5: that eighty thousand dollars to pull it transfer and if
Speaker 5: you look at the police report, it says it was
Speaker 5: electronically transferred to an overseas account. That's what it says
Speaker 5: on Graham Child's statement, the very first statement we've ever
Speaker 5: had about mum's case on the Cops event, and it
Speaker 5: says assuming to buy a new house with a new partner.
Speaker 5: That's what it says on his statement. So it didn't
Speaker 5: do the right thing back then to see where that
Speaker 5: eighty thousand dollars went. And that's a very frustrating point
Speaker 5: of this exercise for me, because that was transferred on
Speaker 5: the fifteenth of October. I went to the police the
Speaker 5: following week. That information was very readily available at that time,
Speaker 5: and no one got the records and no one put
Speaker 5: it on her file.
Speaker 7: Well I know. And also the assumption is kind of
Speaker 7: breathtaking that you were just assumed money to buy a
Speaker 7: house with a new partner. What's he basically.
Speaker 5: Makes assumptions like that is my biggest gripe with its
Speaker 5: whole entire cases. Do not assume, please still today, don't assume.
Speaker 7: Oh you think that actually has assumptions for a police
Speaker 7: officer would be, well, someone stolen that money.
Speaker 5: The first assumption would be that she's a single woman.
Speaker 5: This isn't right. She's supposed to be overseas. Something's not
Speaker 5: right here.
Speaker 7: Just to touch on what we're talking about motive. The
Speaker 7: only other motive I can recall mister Bloom offering was
Speaker 7: Janet Oldenburg wanting to start a career as a belly
Speaker 7: dartzer across Europe, and that was supposedly to explain why
Speaker 7: he went to travel to Europe with her. I mean,
Speaker 7: as much as I'm not shocked anymore by what comes
Speaker 7: out of mister Bloom's mouth, I'm just staggered at the
Speaker 7: way his mind must work to come up with some
Speaker 7: of this stuff. And on that point, you know, we
Speaker 7: heard a lot of medical evidence. The coroner said, no, no,
Speaker 7: you have to come into the court. I've looked at
Speaker 7: the medical evidence. You're coming into the court, which he
Speaker 7: did on the first day. The second day he was
Speaker 7: allowed to appear by a video link, but he cognitively
Speaker 7: was with it. That was my impression. He understood everything.
Speaker 7: He was able to follow everything and offer more and
Speaker 7: more answers. What was your impression of his physical performance?
Speaker 5: Well, I hang on every word, because every word is
Speaker 5: absolutely vital, and what the things that I picked up
Speaker 5: on when he's sitting there, going, my brain doesn't work
Speaker 5: like yours, mister Smith. He was very quick to be
Speaker 5: able to tell you what airline he flew on back
Speaker 5: in nineteen eighty five. So I'm very sorry, but that
Speaker 5: does not compute with my brain. That someone who says
Speaker 5: that they have problems remembering things, but then at this
Speaker 5: drop of a hat, it's like saying where he stayed
Speaker 5: he went to when he went to Japan. He was
Speaker 5: just asked a very casual question, Oh, you went to
Speaker 5: Japan on that trip. What hotel did you stay in?
Speaker 5: Hotel Nico and Narta off, just bang, straight off. There
Speaker 5: was no time delay for him to think about where
Speaker 5: he knew straight off the bat, so buy it sorry.
Speaker 7: And to that point, he also was able to remember
Speaker 7: things he said yesterday the day before when mister Cawston
Speaker 7: ran him through his evidence, do you remember saying this?
Speaker 7: He absolutely remembered. So he's remembering things that he's just
Speaker 7: said that have just happened, and things that he said
Speaker 7: or happened decades ago. So it's hard to see where
Speaker 7: the cognitive impairment is at all. Even his starter, which
Speaker 7: was very pronounced the start. As the day wore on
Speaker 7: on that first day, at times it disappeared completely. I'm
Speaker 7: not sure medically that's typical of a started coming and going,
Speaker 7: but it certainly did with mister Bloom on the stand.
Speaker 5: Shaking like that, didn't I sort of saw that come
Speaker 5: in a little bit, but definitely not what it was
Speaker 5: a year ago when we saw him in court in
Speaker 5: Byron and Balano. So I can't kind of work that out.
Speaker 7: The hearings are over. The court was adjourned on Friday
Speaker 7: at around about an hour into proceedings, so now the
Speaker 7: weight begins for the coroner's findings. So what what hopes
Speaker 7: do you have for these findings?
Speaker 5: Oh? I would like to see justice served. I've got
Speaker 5: to be careful because I'm still before the coroner, very
Speaker 5: grateful for them all, hating to sit there and endure
Speaker 5: what I also have endured in my family, and that
Speaker 5: hasn't been easy, and it's been quite was listening to
Speaker 5: evidence take you five minutes to answer a question that
Speaker 5: is tough, and it's mentally tough, and I'm sure that's
Speaker 5: why it was done. But yeah, there are. There are
Speaker 5: certain things that are a slam dunk in this case,
Speaker 5: not so much pertaining to my mum, but pertaining to
Speaker 5: other things that can be acted upon, and I really
Speaker 5: will seek justice is served for those things. That's what
Speaker 5: I'm wanting to see done, and then at that point
Speaker 5: we can move on to the next level. I think
Speaker 5: this is a stage by stage process. It's not like
Speaker 5: a level. This is bang, this is what's going to happen.
Speaker 5: But I'm not stopping. So for those that think that,
Speaker 5: you know, oh well, she got her answer and she
Speaker 5: will go away. Now, I still don't know where my
Speaker 5: mum is. And at the end of the day, that's
Speaker 5: the wholesal purpose of this exercise. Yeah, she's safe well,
Speaker 5: and you guys have not been able to prove that
Speaker 5: to me. And I don't know where she is, so
Speaker 5: still until such time as we have clarity on that
Speaker 5: or have a better understanding on that, and yeah, I'm
Speaker 5: still here.
Speaker 7: Yeah, and we're here with yoursel As you've always said
Speaker 7: right from the start, someone somewhere knows something and you
Speaker 7: know the answer is out there and we're going to
Speaker 7: find it.
Speaker 5: Yep, We're close. And thank you to everybody for still
Speaker 5: coming forward with little bits of information like like that postcard.
Speaker 5: You know, it just shows again and that my mum
Speaker 5: was in contact and in touch with her friends and
Speaker 5: family right up until she vanished. So to me, not
Speaker 5: the makings of somebody who never wanted to see her
Speaker 5: family and friends ever again.
Speaker 7: No calling you the day before, Yeah, no, definitely not
Speaker 7: the actions of someone abandoned her daughter and her family.
Speaker 7: So thanks so much for this catch up and hopefully
Speaker 7: I'll see you soon and good luck for the findings
Speaker 7: and what comes next. We'll be right there with.
Speaker 5: You, fingers crossed. It doesn't take too long, and we.
Speaker 6: Know all of you are crossing your fingers that Sally
Speaker 6: will finally get justice and find out what happened to
Speaker 6: her mother. Coming up a special treat for new episodes,
Speaker 6: taking you across the world the.
Speaker 5: Local time here, I'll puck to you in the afternoon.
Speaker 6: We reveal incredible new information.
Speaker 1: But fair to say it is cost you around at
Speaker 1: least three hundred thousand euros.
Speaker 5: It may be more.
Speaker 6: And we take you into uncharted territory.
Speaker 8: It was obviously through food, the mechanism for turning food
Speaker 8: into poison. Pcing quite proud boastful emen.
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 seven news dot com dot au forward slash
Speaker 1: news forward slash The Lady Vanishers and you can also
Speaker 1: message us here. You can also send us at anonymous
Speaker 1: tip at www dot The Lady Vanishers dot org. If
Speaker 1: you like what you're hearing, don't forget to subscribe. Please
Speaker 1: rate and review our series. It helps new listeners find us.
Speaker 1: Presenter and executive producer Alison Sandy, investigative journalist Brian Seymour,
Speaker 1: writer and producer Sally Eels. Sound design Mark Wright, Graphics
Speaker 1: Jason Blamford, translation and transcripts a Stelle Sanchez, Voice actors
Speaker 1: or Willian Ritter, Veronique Durcell and the Brisbane Newsroom. The
Speaker 1: theme and much of the music by Nicholas Gasparini at
Speaker 1: the Darkpiano dot com. Thanks again to Alliance Franseille. This
Speaker 1: is a seven News production.