Speaker 1: This is the case of Marion Barter, a mother, teacher, friend,
Speaker 1: 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 4: I'm not sure if it was intentional or there's something
Speaker 4: 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.
Speaker 5: What I say, whether.
Speaker 4: You find Marian Barter dead or alive, I honestly believe
Speaker 4: somebody has that key piece of information.
Speaker 1: And the relentless quest of a daughter to find her mum.
Speaker 6: Something had happened, Something has happened to make her leave.
Speaker 4: I am one hundred percent sure, one hundred percent sure
Speaker 4: that somebody knows something.
Speaker 1: The Lady Vanishers episode fifty one, I'm Alison Sandy.
Speaker 2: And I'm Brian Seymour.
Speaker 1: On the eighteenth of January nineteen seventy a baby girl,
Speaker 1: a loner. Evelyn Jacqueline Wooters was born a King George
Speaker 1: the Fifth Hospital now known as Royal Prince Alfred Hospital
Speaker 1: in Sydney. Her twenty three year old Hungarian born mother
Speaker 1: was a loner Wooters knie Kinsel. Her father was thirty
Speaker 1: years old and listed as a Belgian born photographer named
Speaker 1: Willie Wooters, just one of the dozens of names he'd
Speaker 1: be known by throughout the course of his life. The
Speaker 1: couple had married only a year prior, and much of
Speaker 1: the child's early life would be spent with her grandmother
Speaker 1: in Brussels, Belgium. Everyone called her Evelyn. Old photos of
Speaker 1: Evelyn as a toddler show her smiling warmly with dark
Speaker 1: eyes and a shock of golden curls. Another has a
Speaker 1: beaming cheekily as her young mum pulls her in tightly
Speaker 1: for a hug. But troubled times lay ahead for this
Speaker 1: little girl, triggered by the premature death of her mother.
Speaker 1: At the age of just thirty one, Elona Reed was
Speaker 1: found slumped in the driver's seat of her stationary car
Speaker 1: in Melbourne at five point fifteen pm on July thirteenth,
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy seven. She had apparently divorced Willie Wooters by
Speaker 1: this stage and married Michael Reid. Alona hadn't been involved
Speaker 1: in a crash. There were no marks on her body.
Speaker 1: An autopsy found nothing wrong with most of her organs.
Speaker 1: At the time, it was put down to a heart attack.
Speaker 1: Her death certificate, registered in the Australian state of Victoria,
Speaker 1: lists the cause of death as myocardial ischemia, which occurs
Speaker 1: when blood flow to the heart is obstructed by a
Speaker 1: build up of plaques, which can happen slowly over time
Speaker 1: or quite rapidly if a blood clot forms or there
Speaker 1: is a spasm in an artery. Tissue samples were taken
Speaker 1: from a body to be tested for toxicity, the evidence
Speaker 1: of poison or other substances. The coroner's report reveals there
Speaker 1: was a gruel light material in the stomach and there
Speaker 1: were no drugs, medicines or poisons present. However, a paper
Speaker 1: trail over several months shows chronic delays to the testing,
Speaker 1: especially to the third type of chemical tests the analyzes
Speaker 1: for poisons, so that even by March the following year,
Speaker 1: some eight months later, the death certificate still had not
Speaker 1: been issued. There was a major backlog in the government
Speaker 1: pathology laboratories. A complaint regarding the delay was made to
Speaker 1: the Ombardsman by law firm Morris Blackburn because Alona Kinsell's
Speaker 1: case was connected to a worker's compensation claim. The beneficiaries
Speaker 1: of this claim were listed as her dependence. The Ombudsman
Speaker 1: states that it was quote an alleged unreasonable failure on
Speaker 1: the part of the government pathologists and others to complete
Speaker 1: the necessary tests to determine the cause of death of
Speaker 1: the late missus Reed. Alona was a hairdresser who worked
Speaker 1: for the Edward Bill Salon. The claim is significant and
Speaker 1: we would discuss it more in a future episode. Alona
Speaker 1: was buried in an unmarked grave. Not only did Evelyn
Speaker 1: lose her mother in nineteen seventy seven, she also lost
Speaker 1: her maternal grandmother, and not long after a loner's brother,
Speaker 1: Evelyn's uncle, also passed away. At just seven years old.
Speaker 1: The age of innocence was over for Evelyn, who became
Speaker 1: subjected to ongoing abuse, neglect, an abandonment of which she
Speaker 1: would spend the rest of her life trying to overcome.
Speaker 1: When we first found out about Evelyn a few years ago,
Speaker 1: I rang her several times and left messages. I heard
Speaker 1: nothing back. Earlier this year, I reached out again, and
Speaker 1: this time Evelyn picked up the phone. We started talking,
Speaker 1: and weeks later she agreed to talk to us publicly
Speaker 1: about her father, her life, and even meet with Marion's
Speaker 1: daughter Sally. Hello, Hi, I'm Sally. Hi.
Speaker 7: Amazed too.
Speaker 5: I feel a bit shaky too, so I'm not quite
Speaker 5: sure what to say.
Speaker 8: That's okay, that's okay.
Speaker 6: We can just stay here and just yeah, We've got
Speaker 6: a lot, a lot to talk about.
Speaker 8: I'm very sad about your mom. Like, yeah, I'm sorry, Yeah,
Speaker 8: I'm I've just been sad.
Speaker 6: For your mom for a long time and I had
Speaker 6: to I knew something wasn't right, and I just needed
Speaker 6: to find you, and I just needed to That's what
Speaker 6: I felt like anyway, So I'm glad I found you, perfective.
Speaker 4: It's amazing to me. Thank you so much for acknowledging
Speaker 4: that I've always been so I don't know, just felt
Speaker 4: a bit crazy for thinking that anything terrible had happened
Speaker 4: to my mum.
Speaker 6: I'm sure it's I'm the same. Like, it's hard to
Speaker 6: sort of put it into a clear perspective.
Speaker 8: So yeah, yeah, our moms. That's hard in itself, isn't
Speaker 8: it not.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Yeah, it's been a hard journey not having a
Speaker 4: mother growing up.
Speaker 2: Evelyn and Sally's meeting was filmed for a special episode
Speaker 2: Channel seven's Spotlight series with reporter Liam Bartlett, this.
Speaker 8: Islamus to me.
Speaker 2: It was nerve racking for both of them, but especially Evelyn,
Speaker 2: who has never been on television before or spoken publicly
Speaker 2: about her difficult and traumatic upbringing.
Speaker 4: I'll be right, how am I? Yeah, there's a plaza
Speaker 4: than chess my starts running.
Speaker 2: Evelyn and Sally share many similarities. Both have lost their
Speaker 2: mothers in suspicious circumstances. Both worry and wonder about the
Speaker 2: events surrounding their mother's deaths, assuming that Marian is indeed deceased,
Speaker 2: which is what both Sally and the News Arthwall's police
Speaker 2: have said they believe. In addition, both Sally and Evelyn
Speaker 2: know that their mothers were involved with the same man
Speaker 2: before they died, a man using different names.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I mean, I just always felt like something had happened
Speaker 4: to my mother, but there's just no way to get
Speaker 4: anywhere with it. Just the fact that I felt that
Speaker 4: something had happened to her, and I had an instinct
Speaker 4: that whatever it was was nefarious and dark. That that
Speaker 4: alone is what made all the people in my realm
Speaker 4: treat me like I was pretty crazy. So that was
Speaker 4: really my experience growing up with it.
Speaker 3: But you still have those thoughts. You still think that.
Speaker 4: I still have those thoughts now, but it's different because
Speaker 4: it caused so much pained me to be treated that
Speaker 4: way by everyone around me that eventually I had to
Speaker 4: go through a process where I had to let it
Speaker 4: go so that I could live my life, because otherwise
Speaker 4: I was probably going to die myself. There's no way
Speaker 4: to live with that amount of sort of trauma and
Speaker 4: the dysfunction of relating to people from a place of
Speaker 4: that much trauma. So that was sort of my journey,
Speaker 4: and it was a long journey and a challenging journey.
Speaker 3: Can I ask, I mean, this is a if I
Speaker 3: might say, I mean, it's a difficult mix, though, isn't it?
Speaker 3: Because he is still your biological father.
Speaker 5: That's right.
Speaker 2: It's worth noting here before Evelyn answers Limb's question that
Speaker 2: she has been estranged from Rick Bloom for most of
Speaker 2: her life and didn't even know of his existence until
Speaker 2: she was in her teens.
Speaker 4: Although I don't see him as my father, he din't, no,
Speaker 4: I mean, I do understand, and in my thirties year,
Speaker 4: the last time that I met with him, and you know,
Speaker 4: I was left in a way that was very scarring
Speaker 4: to me, where again I thought something terrible was happening.
Speaker 4: I thought that maybe this person was trying to hurt
Speaker 4: me in a bad way.
Speaker 5: And on the other hand, he's my biological father.
Speaker 4: So the combination of those two things was just it
Speaker 4: left me scarred, and I have completely disassociated myself from
Speaker 4: him as a relative of.
Speaker 3: Mine for a good reason.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 6: Well, someone said to me once and it was kind
Speaker 6: of fitting at the time because we just had Ella
Speaker 6: and someone a friend of Chris has said, you know,
Speaker 6: anyone can be a father, but it takes a lot
Speaker 6: to be a dad, And I think that resonates with
Speaker 6: me with this as well, Like he can be your father,
Speaker 6: but he's not your dad.
Speaker 5: No, he's not my dad.
Speaker 3: That's very sad. But the reality, if I might say, Sally,
Speaker 3: it's fair, isn't it to say from your position that
Speaker 3: you think evilence biological father has had something to do
Speaker 3: with your mum's disappearance something.
Speaker 6: Look, it's hard because I can't say that he definitely has.
Speaker 8: But if I look at all the facts, and I'm
Speaker 8: a pretty.
Speaker 6: Level headed human, I'm not someone who jumps through into craziness.
Speaker 8: And if I look at all the statistics.
Speaker 6: And all of the facts and all of the modus
Speaker 6: operandi that I've been presented, it's pretty fair to say
Speaker 6: that he's probably knows something that he's not telling me.
Speaker 3: You haven't reached the definitive conclusion because you can't.
Speaker 8: I can't yet, And it's hard for people to understand.
Speaker 6: Like everyone looks at the facts and goes, oh, well,
Speaker 6: you know, we think he didn't like I can't say
Speaker 6: that yet, but.
Speaker 3: You think on the balance of probability that he's had
Speaker 3: something to do with your mum. I have to disappearing.
Speaker 6: I have to consider that my mum changed her name
Speaker 6: to his name. She went overseas the same time as him,
Speaker 6: she came back the same time as him, and all
Speaker 6: of her know and whereabouts and money coming out of
Speaker 6: her bank account and being in that location were where
Speaker 6: he was living.
Speaker 8: And he's still living today.
Speaker 6: So I cannot not think that there is some connection
Speaker 6: somehow to rip Blum. And he admits to having an
Speaker 6: affair with my mum and a relationship with her. And
Speaker 6: if you look at all the other ladies that have
Speaker 6: come forward for no reason of their own, they've just
Speaker 6: come forward and said, hey, this happened to me as well,
Speaker 6: and you can imagine how compacting that is. Like, I
Speaker 6: just felt like every time something happened, I would just
Speaker 6: be and throw me back ten meters and that I'd
Speaker 6: have to keep coming forward.
Speaker 3: So, Evelyn, how do you process that connection with Sally?
Speaker 3: You've lost to your mum tragically very young age. There's
Speaker 3: that connection. You both lost your mother's but your father
Speaker 3: may or may not have been involved. How do you
Speaker 3: work that out in your mind now in front of Sally?
Speaker 5: Well, I personally feel that my connection to Sally is
Speaker 5: based on the fact that both of us lost our mother.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and I feel that way too, nothing to do
Speaker 4: with any connection to Rick Bloom the man, but rather
Speaker 4: what we both went through for losing our mums. And
Speaker 4: even though you know it seems to me that he
Speaker 4: is guilty of something, I also have to pinch myself
Speaker 4: to realize that he potentially did these terrible things. But
Speaker 4: what terrible things did he do? We none of us
Speaker 4: really know. We have to hopefully find out. Maybe he'll
Speaker 4: tell us.
Speaker 3: Have you been thinking about this meeting for a while.
Speaker 4: I didn't know it was ever going to get to
Speaker 4: meet Sally, and I didn't know if Sally would want
Speaker 4: to meet me.
Speaker 5: I didn't know whether.
Speaker 4: People would in some way try to put me in
Speaker 4: some context with him as a relative, which I was
Speaker 4: very frightened of. But I, after only recently becoming aware
Speaker 4: of Sally's story long story, I just wanted to give
Speaker 4: you're a hug.
Speaker 5: That's it, he too.
Speaker 6: As soon as I found out about you. I need
Speaker 6: to I need to find ever learn, and I just
Speaker 6: want to give her a big hug because I know
Speaker 6: what the feeling is like to lose your mum. I mean,
Speaker 6: you were obviously a lot younger than me, but I
Speaker 6: think even if you take all that away, you still
Speaker 6: have things in life that you have to try and
Speaker 6: cope with as a daughter of someone who's no longer
Speaker 6: there to help you and not knowing what's actually happened
Speaker 6: to your mum, Like that, you're the same position as me.
Speaker 8: I mean, I know you were young. How are we
Speaker 8: seven seven and I.
Speaker 6: Was twenty four, So there is that age difference between
Speaker 6: the two of us. And I feel lucky that I
Speaker 6: got to see my mom, you know, and grow up
Speaker 6: with her through my teenage years. But I just had
Speaker 6: this overwhelming want to meet Evelyn and just give her
Speaker 6: a hug and just tell her I'm here for her,
Speaker 6: and I am someone who understands and is grappling with
Speaker 6: the enormity of what this is and the craziness of
Speaker 6: what it is.
Speaker 3: And you know, on the positive side, the long fight
Speaker 3: that Sally has been waging and all the study and
Speaker 3: the research in the background that she's been doing may
Speaker 3: in fact help you.
Speaker 5: Yeah, amazing.
Speaker 4: It's so encouraging after what I've been through that there's
Speaker 4: people out there, none of the people that were meant
Speaker 4: to support me through life, but people complete strangers out
Speaker 4: there believe that, yeah, something's gone on, and discovering what
Speaker 4: that something is is something important as well. So and
Speaker 4: hopefully if I can get a few answers, that would
Speaker 4: be amazing. But at the same time, my mother is
Speaker 4: dead and it'd be good to know what happened to
Speaker 4: sell his mum.
Speaker 3: So, yeah, it's tragically sad your mum at thirty one
Speaker 3: of them, it's just sad thirty one years old. Well,
Speaker 3: what does the death certificate say?
Speaker 5: I actually can't remember the medical word for it.
Speaker 4: Her heart stopped. I did look it up in a
Speaker 4: medical book. It said that it was overload of toxins,
Speaker 4: but it's actually overload of toxins, overload of topic the
Speaker 4: heart's inability. I think, you know, to sort of like
Speaker 4: deal with toxins in the blood as it pumps it around.
Speaker 4: But it's a very common cause of death. It's up
Speaker 4: there with cardiac arrest. It's the environmental toxins. A lot
Speaker 4: of people their heart can't cope. So there's no way
Speaker 4: to really pin pointed as a as any.
Speaker 3: Thirty one, she must have had a lot of toxin
Speaker 3: in her body.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Well, and when I grew up, I got told things
Speaker 4: like she had fever when she was a child and
Speaker 4: had a weak heart, or she died of a broken heart.
Speaker 4: There were some welfare papers where my stepfather had reported
Speaker 4: that she died from suicide on those documents. So I
Speaker 4: didn't really ever get a clear answer about it, and
Speaker 4: I think that maybe I would have accepted it if
Speaker 4: it wasn't for the fact that my grandmother died the
Speaker 4: same year.
Speaker 1: Evelyn says her uncle Attila also died around this time.
Speaker 4: My uncle being only somewhere in his twenties, so much
Speaker 4: younger than my mother, apparently of a stroke. I mean,
Speaker 4: it's unheard of the first time when I was in
Speaker 4: my twenties, and I thought, maybe this really happened. Maybe
Speaker 4: I'm just, you know, having invented all this stuff in
Speaker 4: my head because I can't deal with the trauma of
Speaker 4: losing my mother. So I took myself off to the
Speaker 4: doctor and I thought, if that's the case, I'd better
Speaker 4: go and get checked out.
Speaker 5: Yeah, So I went to the doctor, told him.
Speaker 4: The history, you know, of the young age of the
Speaker 4: you know, and the doctor was horrified. Round heaps of
Speaker 4: tests on me came back everything was normal, So, you know,
Speaker 4: I just it was just confusing growing up trying to
Speaker 4: get answers.
Speaker 6: But I haven't had a chance to talk to Evelyn
Speaker 6: about what we found either, And I hope it's okay
Speaker 6: to tell you, but we actually have her autopsy report
Speaker 6: and her heart is normal.
Speaker 5: Okay, times I worry telling that man normal.
Speaker 6: Well, they ticked her heart was functioning normally and there
Speaker 6: was no damage to the heart. So on her death
Speaker 6: certificate it said she'd had a heart attack and that
Speaker 6: was at the hospital, and then the autopsy report came
Speaker 6: back that the heart was normal.
Speaker 4: Why would a hospital put say one thing on a
Speaker 4: certificate and an autopsy say something different?
Speaker 5: How would met.
Speaker 8: Another question in the abyss that we're trying to grapple with.
Speaker 3: That's amazing, But you didn't know this?
Speaker 5: No, how could I know something like that?
Speaker 8: Yeah, well no one.
Speaker 6: You know, it's come through archives, That's how that information's
Speaker 6: come about.
Speaker 3: So if the autopsy report four evidence, Muma's saying that
Speaker 3: her heart was normal, but what her body's full of toxin?
Speaker 3: But to still die in those circumstances at thirty one,
Speaker 3: and now, knowing all that we know about Rick Blum's background,
Speaker 3: have the police interviewed you, Evely?
Speaker 5: They did call me, I had a phone call.
Speaker 3: Surely they've taken a statement.
Speaker 4: No, no, nothing, nothing at all.
Speaker 3: They haven't asked you to to turn up as a
Speaker 3: witness to say something of the question.
Speaker 5: Nothing.
Speaker 3: Oh that's extraordinary. Do you think that's unusual?
Speaker 8: I have goose bumps.
Speaker 3: I mean, all this this is, you know, the and
Speaker 3: then these circumstances surrounding the death of Evelyn's mum surely
Speaker 3: are completely pertinent to the overall case the whole story.
Speaker 3: Would you agree?
Speaker 8: Well, I think it's very important.
Speaker 6: Evelyn is a very and a loner, very important part
Speaker 6: of this story, and hence.
Speaker 8: Why when we found out what we did, I was like,
Speaker 8: you know, I need to find you.
Speaker 6: I need to give you a hug, and I I
Speaker 6: was so sad to hear what happened to your mum
Speaker 6: and shocked at the same time. And just my gut
Speaker 6: feeling told me something wasn't right. And I have lived
Speaker 6: my whole life with my mum going something's not right,
Speaker 6: so I'm used to having a feeling of that, and
Speaker 6: then I just go on this tangent I need to
Speaker 6: find what's happened, and I need to look into it more.
Speaker 6: And sometimes it leads me down rabbit holes that are
Speaker 6: dead end, but sometimes I end up sitting next to
Speaker 6: the person that we've been looking for. And it wasn't
Speaker 6: like we were on a mission to find you either.
Speaker 6: But I'm glad we found you because I feel like
Speaker 6: I want to be able to I don't know, I
Speaker 6: feel like maybe being open and honest about what I've
Speaker 6: had to do and what we've found.
Speaker 8: And even with other people.
Speaker 6: Who have come forward, they've said to me, thank you
Speaker 6: for just letting me speak and letting me be heard,
Speaker 6: because like you said, you know, people thought they're crazy
Speaker 6: and don't be ridiculous, and that's why they haven't come forward.
Speaker 6: They've just sat back and gone, oh, people think I'm
Speaker 6: crazy if I say something. But it's important that we
Speaker 6: all you know. Strength in numbers is what I say
Speaker 6: to my girls, who helped me all the time, and
Speaker 6: we've got some amazing people like you said as well,
Speaker 6: Like I don't have any family supporting me.
Speaker 8: It's my husband and.
Speaker 6: My kids or my mum's sisters have thought that I'm
Speaker 6: crazy and that I should just leave it alone, and
Speaker 6: it's upsetting for them. It's upsetting for me too, but
Speaker 6: I feel like I have to do I have to
Speaker 6: do something.
Speaker 8: Yeah, so it's the whole thing makes me shake. So
Speaker 8: I'm so sorry.
Speaker 6: Oh it's fine, but I just yeah, I just want
Speaker 6: everyone needs to be looked after and cared for and
Speaker 6: treated with sensitivity and care.
Speaker 5: Right.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's a bit of a process. I'm sorry. I'm
Speaker 4: not trying to take you away from what you just said.
Speaker 4: I'm just struggling to understand how professionals can deliver something
Speaker 4: on one report and then people in a similar profession
Speaker 4: like put a different cause of death onto a death certificate.
Speaker 4: To that there's a conflict in what they're saying there,
Speaker 4: how does something like that even even happen?
Speaker 6: And if it's true, you're right, and it's happened to
Speaker 6: me as well, it's a great question. But on the
Speaker 6: same level, whereas they said to me that they'd spoken
Speaker 6: to my mum and she doesn't want anyone to know
Speaker 6: where she was or what she was doing, and that
Speaker 6: has proven to not be true. And then my brother
Speaker 6: committed suicide thinking my mom had left him again. So
Speaker 6: there's you know, we have spoken about this before, and
Speaker 6: it's just there's an ongoing effect when people get it wrong,
Speaker 6: or they say the wrong thing, or they document the
Speaker 6: wrong thing, or you know. There was a reference in
Speaker 6: documents that I found where a very high up police
Speaker 6: officer said that it seems that Sally's seeking a scapegoat
Speaker 6: for this situation. And I was like, you imagine reading
Speaker 6: that when I'm sitting there, going, I'm just a child
Speaker 6: who's looking for her mum. Yes I'm an adult, and
Speaker 6: yes I'm now nearly fifty, but I've been doing this
Speaker 6: my entire adult life, trying to find the answers. So
Speaker 6: I understand what you say by that. How does a
Speaker 6: document be so wrong? Like how something's not right there,
Speaker 6: so it needs to be more investigation.
Speaker 4: And if it's not right, then is there a known
Speaker 4: cause of death from my mother? If it's not her heart,
Speaker 4: you don't know.
Speaker 3: It paints a very different picture potentially of what happened.
Speaker 5: Potentially if we can find out what happened.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, don't get me wrong, great that you
Speaker 3: know finally that you have that information. But I completely
Speaker 3: concur I mean I can completely sympathize. I mean, well,
Speaker 3: you know, why would you have two different pieces of
Speaker 3: information and so far apart.
Speaker 4: I mean, if we can't rely on documents that are
Speaker 4: coming out of the medical profession, then how how to
Speaker 4: uncover the truth? If the police are saying such terrible
Speaker 4: things to you, how does the truth get found?
Speaker 3: Can I ask you both sort of individually, what is
Speaker 3: your hope for each other?
Speaker 6: Well, I hope we can become friends and we can
Speaker 6: actually be there as a support for each other.
Speaker 8: I think that's important for me.
Speaker 6: And it's kind of weird because we've just met, but
Speaker 6: I feel like I know you and I feel like
Speaker 6: I have a really deep love for you as a
Speaker 6: person and go you know, you've been through a lot
Speaker 6: and I am very I have a lot of empathy
Speaker 6: for you for what's happened to you and what you've
Speaker 6: had to deal with, and I'd just like you to
Speaker 6: know that I'm here someone if you ever want to
Speaker 6: have a coffee or catch up or go out for
Speaker 6: lunch or something, because that's, at the end of the day,
Speaker 6: that's what life is about.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 6: We're both in our fifties, and you've got to make
Speaker 6: the good out of the bad, you know, and these
Speaker 6: are good moments out of a bad situation.
Speaker 8: I think we will find the answers. I must say.
Speaker 6: When I heard about your grandma and Blona's brother again,
Speaker 6: and this is just me being someone who's been in
Speaker 6: an investigative mode now for half my life, I instantly
Speaker 6: just went something again not right there, Like what's happened
Speaker 6: to the grandmother and the brother and why did they
Speaker 6: all die in the same year? So I think that
Speaker 6: needs to be investigated a little bit more too.
Speaker 5: Yeah, that's pretty amazing, amazing.
Speaker 3: Were they all living together?
Speaker 4: My understanding, which is it's not that I don't remember
Speaker 4: what I was told. It's just that I've lived a
Speaker 4: life where what I've been told hasn't been reliable.
Speaker 5: But I do remember what I was told. So there
Speaker 5: was my grandmother was in.
Speaker 4: Brussels, she lived with her second husband, and Attila, her son,
Speaker 4: was staying there.
Speaker 5: He had a partner.
Speaker 4: They'd had a child, I think a girl, but I
Speaker 4: don't have any of those details. And my mother had
Speaker 4: been two Brussels to visit. Then she came back to
Speaker 4: Australia passed away, and then my grandmother who was over there,
Speaker 4: passed away, and then Attila, who lived in the house
Speaker 4: with her, passed away.
Speaker 9: And then so they all had been the three of
Speaker 9: them had been together together in the same house in Brussels,
Speaker 9: in Brussels, and they just happened to all die, and
Speaker 9: they all, yes, within how many months of each other.
Speaker 4: I'm not one hundred percent sure. I remember when I
Speaker 4: was seven. It's very difficult to put the time around it.
Speaker 4: It was a condensed sort of a time frame.
Speaker 3: Incredible coincidence. Is that a coincidence or is that a pattern?
Speaker 5: You know? I just don't. I don't know. I just
Speaker 5: don't know.
Speaker 3: It's amazing, as you say, I mean, because you know
Speaker 3: you were such a little girl when your mom died,
Speaker 3: that everything that you've been told essentially you know you've
Speaker 3: had to rely upon.
Speaker 5: Well, I haven't been able to rely upon it.
Speaker 3: You know what I mean. So you've had to rely
Speaker 3: upon it to be the truth when it may not be.
Speaker 5: Yeah, well, I've had to.
Speaker 4: Rely on my intuition, and then I've had to make
Speaker 4: a decision within myself that I'm not going to get answers,
Speaker 4: and therefore to try and let it go to some
Speaker 4: degree so that I can get on with living my life.
Speaker 4: And I don't think anywhere along my road, I don't
Speaker 4: think I've felt that I could rely very much for
Speaker 4: anything that's been said to me about my family, the
Speaker 4: history events and how they unfolded. So it's all been
Speaker 4: just a mystery to me, all of it. Who is
Speaker 4: this person, how did they interact with that person?
Speaker 5: Who was who? I've got even my brother's birth certificate.
Speaker 5: He's my stepbrother.
Speaker 4: He was born in Brussels, so it's in French, but
Speaker 4: I had someone read it out to me. It's is
Speaker 4: on there very clear that Willie Waters is his father,
Speaker 4: which is the current Bloom. However, when I confronted Bloom
Speaker 4: with that document, he denied that Chris was his son.
Speaker 4: And when I confronted Michael with that document. He said, no,
Speaker 4: Chris is absolutely my son. So both men agreed, but
Speaker 4: he is a birth certificate saying something completely different. And
Speaker 4: I think the explanation I was given for that particular
Speaker 4: scenario was that my mother was still married to Willie
Speaker 4: Waters when she came to Australia then married Michael.
Speaker 5: So she committed I can't remember the word biggery.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and so because Chris was then born in Brussels,
Speaker 4: they couldn't put the correct details on the birth certificate
Speaker 4: because they thought she.
Speaker 5: Was still married.
Speaker 4: Now I've been able to uncover since then. What a nightma.
Speaker 4: This is just one document, one example. I've been able
Speaker 4: to uncover since then. She was in fact divorced from
Speaker 4: Willy Waters at the time that Chris was born, and
Speaker 4: was in fact married to Michael Reid. So again, you know,
Speaker 4: there's this document and yet everyone you know, I mean,
Speaker 4: this has been my life has been like that.
Speaker 6: And it's the same with me, Like I don't think
Speaker 6: my mum is alive, but it's something I have to
Speaker 6: endure to find a peace, you know, healing. So I'm
Speaker 6: still broken by what's happened. So I and I think
Speaker 6: he probably are too. So we need to heal that,
Speaker 6: and I think knowing knowledge is power, right, and information
Speaker 6: helps you. For me anyway, just to know is enough
Speaker 6: for me.
Speaker 3: Well, you're both very much on the same bus, aren't you,
Speaker 3: which is really terrific because you know, ever, if Sally
Speaker 3: can solve her mystery of her mum, that will surely
Speaker 3: help you solve your mystery too.
Speaker 4: I mean, I hope so. But the reason that I've
Speaker 4: come out is because I want to help you. And
Speaker 4: whether I find answers or not, I've got a story
Speaker 4: and my story might help get answers for what you're
Speaker 4: going through. That's what That's what I hope for. I
Speaker 4: feel really like.
Speaker 5: A for want of better.
Speaker 4: It's a care of duty to help in any way
Speaker 4: that I can. It's really important. I may not get
Speaker 4: the answers. I may get some, but I may not
Speaker 4: get them on this journey, but the things that I
Speaker 4: know and the things that I've been through might somehow help.
Speaker 4: I don't know how, but hopefully they'll they'll help uncover more.
Speaker 8: Yeah, I'm very grateful.
Speaker 6: I know it's tough to rehash it all again and
Speaker 6: bring it out, but I think there's a good purpose
Speaker 6: in that for both of us.
Speaker 8: Yeah, to help each other.
Speaker 3: It's lovely, right, it's nice.
Speaker 5: That's good, so nice to meet.
Speaker 8: Finally, it's a weird feeling.
Speaker 5: It is weird.
Speaker 3: Well done, ladies, girl power.
Speaker 2: Girl power. Indeed, when the Lady Vanish's team launched our
Speaker 2: investigation into the disappearance of Marion Barter more than four
Speaker 2: years ago, nobody could have foreseen how many people, mostly brave,
Speaker 2: courageous and strong women, would join us, not only those
Speaker 2: who were directly affected and impacted by knowing Rick Bloom,
Speaker 2: also the many concerned listeners wanting to help in any
Speaker 2: way they can. And now, nearly twenty six years after
Speaker 2: Marion disappeared, and one week after Evelyn and Sally's meeting,
Speaker 2: we are returning to where we now believe this incredible
Speaker 2: story actually started. Evelyn and Alison are boarding a plane
Speaker 2: bound for Belgium, such a friend Tabler. There we continue
Speaker 2: our investigation into the life and lies of Rick Bloom.
Speaker 5: And I don't cry very easily, and that's because I
Speaker 5: will and truly run up the well.
Speaker 1: To get from Brisbane to Brussels, we take four flights.
Speaker 1: The first to Sydney is only one hour, then a
Speaker 1: seven hour flight to Singapore, fourteen hours to London and
Speaker 1: finally one hour to Brussels in the afternoon. Upon arriving,
Speaker 1: we take a taxi to the hotel and marvel at
Speaker 1: the sights of Brussels on the way.
Speaker 4: So pretty, it's what I remember, cobble Stone streets, the
Speaker 4: spell of the bakeries, the war falls in.
Speaker 10: Particular, and just the old buildings, because we don't have
Speaker 10: this in Australia, like you know, really old like this,
Speaker 10: so it to us it's it's like a fairy tale city.
Speaker 1: Evelyn reminisces about her brief time here when she was
Speaker 1: a child.
Speaker 5: It's hard to.
Speaker 4: Really explain, how co have youful the familiarity, how it
Speaker 4: feels even though I'm so different and far away from
Speaker 4: all these I can't even speak the language.
Speaker 1: During our time in Brussels, we get a bit of
Speaker 1: a history lesson on Belgium, discussion of the divide between
Speaker 1: the Flemish who speak Dutch and the French speaking Belgians,
Speaker 1: how expensive the country's rural family is, and which places
Speaker 1: we needed to avoid accidentally wandering into at night. It's
Speaker 1: the rivalry between Belgians with Flemish and French origins, seems
Speaker 1: to have resulted in almost all of them being fluent
Speaker 1: in English.
Speaker 11: Sue architect of that speaking. It was in the end
Speaker 11: of the nineteenth century.
Speaker 1: With a population of more than two and a half
Speaker 1: million people. Brussels is the headquarters of the European Union
Speaker 1: and NATO. It's also famous for its waffles, chocolate and
Speaker 1: various types of beer. Needless to say, when we reach
Speaker 1: the hotel, we're exhausted and enjoy a good night's sleep
Speaker 1: before meeting again for breakfast the next morning. I greet
Speaker 1: Evelyn enthusiastically, who looks refreshed and ready for the day's challenges,
Speaker 1: including being interviewed by me.
Speaker 5: It's good to see you too. I've been looking forward
Speaker 5: to catching up and going through this with you.
Speaker 1: It's like just when we went and obviously went and
Speaker 1: into it a bit on the plane and it wasn't
Speaker 1: ready for it. Where the pictures of you as a child,
Speaker 1: knowing what you know with your mum and knowing what
Speaker 1: was ahead of you.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it was.
Speaker 1: Heartbreaking.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, I guess I don't look at those
Speaker 4: photos very often, but when I do, I see a
Speaker 4: little girl as well, and I always feeling does I
Speaker 4: feeling in my heart, like I want to talk to her.
Speaker 4: I just think that poor little thing, she had no
Speaker 4: idea what was coming down the road in front of her.
Speaker 5: So you know, I just often I just want to
Speaker 5: grab her and give her a little hug.
Speaker 1: For me too, Me too, As I said too, I
Speaker 1: wish I got to raise her. I wish that I
Speaker 1: was there for you at seven. It's kind of strange
Speaker 1: hearing Evelyn talking about herself as a child and the
Speaker 1: third person. But when you hear her story, you understand
Speaker 1: Evelyn is not that little girl. She's had to reinvent herself.
Speaker 1: While she's happy to be back in Brussels, her personal
Speaker 1: journey is like the road we drove in on, very bumpy.
Speaker 1: Not far from where we stay is the Grand Place,
Speaker 1: the city's primary architectural tourist attraction. In the center of
Speaker 1: Old Town. The square is decorated by seventeenth century buildings,
Speaker 1: including the town Hall, the King's House, and the Brussels
Speaker 1: City Museum.
Speaker 10: Oh here we are in.
Speaker 1: That square of Brussels. If I can do it justice.
Speaker 1: But it looks amazing.
Speaker 6: What are you.
Speaker 1: Thinking, Evelyn? Being here?
Speaker 5: It's amazing.
Speaker 4: There's gold came from everything.
Speaker 1: And it's incredible and so I don't think there's anything
Speaker 1: more Brussels than this. We're actually gonna have to find
Speaker 1: out what all of this is.
Speaker 8: But it is beautiful.
Speaker 1: It is amagazine, and everyone has been so friendly. Who
Speaker 1: could have been here. We've had no trouble with people
Speaker 1: speaking English to us, have we.
Speaker 10: Everyone's been so helpful.
Speaker 1: It's lots of people, beautiful cafes, and it's just remarkable
Speaker 1: with everything that we're doing, and you know, it's all
Speaker 1: very serious what the purpose of being here is. We're
Speaker 1: still just blown away by the beauty and the coldness.
Speaker 1: Her day, it was so cold here.
Speaker 8: Cold.
Speaker 1: Yeah it is cold and it's gray, but it's beautiful.
Speaker 1: Back at the hotel, Evelyn shares with me her expectations
Speaker 1: of this trip and her hopes of finding answers to
Speaker 1: the mysteries surrounding her family. So, first of all, this
Speaker 1: whole thing before we left, right, you were kind of
Speaker 1: you know, you had a headache the night before and
Speaker 1: you got at four am to pack, right, So what
Speaker 1: happened then? You just sort of and because you just
Speaker 1: move house, so in storage, you just kind of went
Speaker 1: through and grabbed whatever you thought might be might be
Speaker 1: useful in tracking down I guess. I guess the whole
Speaker 1: purpose of this is to find out a little bit
Speaker 1: more about your Belgian history, a little bit more about
Speaker 1: what happened with your grandmother's estate, and of course what
Speaker 1: Rick Blum did while he was here, and his involvement.
Speaker 5: His involvement definitely.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Yeah, it's kind of startling.
Speaker 5: Kind of startling.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's a little bit diabolical to me. And I mean,
Speaker 4: it's just so clear to me that he lies, that
Speaker 4: he lies about all sorts of things.
Speaker 5: But he's definitely has.
Speaker 4: Lied about whether he knows me or not, and his
Speaker 4: involvement with my family. So I'm pretty keen to get
Speaker 4: to the bottom of that.
Speaker 1: Evelyn and I are joined by the Spotlight producer, Dwayne Heavily,
Speaker 1: and I show him some of the photos that Evelyn
Speaker 1: brought with her, including remarkable images of her parents' wedding
Speaker 1: and candid shots of them when they were courting. Some
Speaker 1: of these other photos are the happiness, the love that
Speaker 1: seems to be shown and he he's got such a
Speaker 1: bored grin on his space. There is laughing with your mum,
Speaker 1: and he looks so happy.
Speaker 5: They look incredibly happy.
Speaker 10: They do.
Speaker 1: And there the way they're looking at each other, it's
Speaker 1: just true love by the looks of it, you know,
Speaker 1: like it's just Yeah.
Speaker 4: You can imagine when I was quite young and I
Speaker 4: got my hands on these photos, and it wasn't long
Speaker 4: after I found out that my stepfather wasn't my father.
Speaker 5: I didn't know I had another.
Speaker 4: Father out there, and I got my hands on these photos,
Speaker 4: and I I thought that, you know, I would find this.
Speaker 5: Man out there that would be a father to me.
Speaker 5: They would love me.
Speaker 4: And look after me and care for me, because they
Speaker 4: do look so incredibly in love. I never imagined for
Speaker 4: a second after seeing these photos there'd be someone out
Speaker 4: there who was more like a monster that I don't
Speaker 4: want to have anything to do with.
Speaker 5: Wells looks like such a loving person. Yeah, so happy.
Speaker 5: She looks happy. And I've got these photos. I don't
Speaker 5: have the originals.
Speaker 3: Mm.
Speaker 4: The Gelgium Consulate actually had the originals of these and
Speaker 4: pave me photocopies of things. And these were their arrivals.
Speaker 4: Came to Australia. Her nine yeah, so they must be
Speaker 4: was eleventh of September sixty nine and hers eighteenth sixty
Speaker 4: nine September. The same month, and they've both referred to
Speaker 4: each other as each other's spouses.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I'm there.
Speaker 1: So sixty nine they were definitely married. But if we're
Speaker 1: talking so, she would have only been in her early
Speaker 1: twenties and then you know, maybe she met him about
Speaker 1: nineteen or yeah, something like that. But yeah, she's very young.
Speaker 1: Like that picture is just wow, and they really are
Speaker 1: of the era. Oh yeah, this one as well, So
Speaker 1: that's their wedding day. She looks beautiful. She's got this
Speaker 1: it's almost like a daisy dress. Yeah, a daisy dress.
Speaker 1: And her hair is just immaculate. It's just up in
Speaker 1: all these rolls at the back, and she's got a
Speaker 1: little Oh my god, she just look out.
Speaker 5: How picky looks wedding day to her.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it looks like a genuine marriage.
Speaker 4: So she would have been pregnant with me when she
Speaker 4: traveled out here in September sixty nine if I was
Speaker 4: born January seventeenth.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and then this one is of.
Speaker 5: Yeah, that's my grandmother.
Speaker 4: That's her second husband, Joseph Bireau okay, and that's my mother.
Speaker 1: Okay. Joseph Birerou allegedly sexually assaulted Aloner as a teenager.
Speaker 1: When Evelyn's grandmother died, he married his stepdaughter's best friend.
Speaker 1: As mentioned earlier, not long after Alner's brother, Evelyn's uncle, Attila,
Speaker 1: also died.
Speaker 4: I'm not one hundred percent certain because I haven't been
Speaker 4: able to find any relative that can really share any
Speaker 4: information with me about Attila.
Speaker 5: But he somehow suspiciously.
Speaker 4: I say suspiciously because it's suspicious to me that a
Speaker 4: healthy twenty four to twenty five year old young man
Speaker 4: just suddenly drops stead in the street from stroke. I thought,
Speaker 4: and had always been there to believe that it was
Speaker 4: nineteen seventy seven that they all died. But I'm not
Speaker 4: one hundred percent certain anymore that Attila didn't die maybe
Speaker 4: a couple of years after my grandmother and my mother.
Speaker 4: I'm not sure, just because I've been reading some other
Speaker 4: documents in the past few days, particularly the one was
Speaker 4: it Alexanders.
Speaker 1: Alexander Evelyn is referring to Alexandra Piriboom, who we planned
Speaker 1: to meet up with later in the day. Alexandra is
Speaker 1: the daughter in law of Guilaine danois another victim of
Speaker 1: Rick Blum, who alleges he stole seventy thousand euros from
Speaker 1: her in two thousand and six, after she answered a
Speaker 1: personal app in particularly, she also claims that Blum had
Speaker 1: a morbid fascination with poisons.
Speaker 4: Said that she had found it may be him with
Speaker 4: a deceased state of nineteen eighty one. Okay, so, which
Speaker 4: would be making about twenty four to twenty five.
Speaker 5: Akay, I think.
Speaker 1: So we've got that situation we're not quite sure of.
Speaker 1: But then we've also got the situation that we want
Speaker 1: to resolve to try to find out what happened to
Speaker 1: your grandmother's estate because he was involved. Rick Blum was involved.
Speaker 5: Yeah, somehow he was somehow involved.
Speaker 1: Were you in communication with him at this time, you
Speaker 1: wouldn't have been with you. You didn't know about him,
Speaker 1: is that right.
Speaker 4: We've got documents saying that he's made a private arrangement
Speaker 4: with a lawyer around nineteen seventy eight. I didn't find
Speaker 4: out that my stepfather wasn't my own natural father until
Speaker 4: I was around the age of fifteen or sixteen, So no,
Speaker 4: I had no idea to hear about him at all.
Speaker 1: He just did this on his behalf, saying that you
Speaker 1: and Chris and Chris your brother were his, and he
Speaker 1: just made he just made applications.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it is on that basis.
Speaker 4: It appears as though he's done something I'm not clear what,
Speaker 4: but made some sort of a private arrangement in relation
Speaker 4: to what the documents say.
Speaker 5: Are both his children.
Speaker 4: Myself and my brother Chris in nineteen seventy eight, and
Speaker 4: it would be great to find out what those private
Speaker 4: arrangements were.
Speaker 1: Well, that's what we partially while we're here, So we're
Speaker 1: going to do that and hopefully that Alexandra's help. Can
Speaker 1: you tell me about when you got in contact with him?
Speaker 7: You reached out to him, right, I reached out to him.
Speaker 7: It was I think around in nineteen ninety four.
Speaker 5: Ninety five, and they.
Speaker 4: Belgium Consulate in Melbourne helped me to locate him under
Speaker 4: the name Frederick Uh.
Speaker 5: They were familiar with who he.
Speaker 4: Was because he was regularly getting his international on Belgium
Speaker 4: houseport updated with them for trouble, so they contacted him
Speaker 4: formed They just called him.
Speaker 5: They just went straight into their files, called.
Speaker 12: Him and asked him if he was agreeable to meeting me,
Speaker 12: and he said yes, and so they gave me a
Speaker 12: phone number and said that he was happy to hear
Speaker 12: from me.
Speaker 4: So that's how it was set up. I called him.
Speaker 4: He said he was.
Speaker 5: Going to be in Melbourne sometime soon, he'd let me
Speaker 5: know when, and then he came. I met him at
Speaker 5: the hotel and we went out for a for dinner.
Speaker 5: And that was my first meeting with him.
Speaker 1: So what happened there, like what happened at the dinner?
Speaker 1: Do you remember anything or when you when you started
Speaker 1: to discuss ditch Eurasia Mom.
Speaker 5: But yeah, we didn't. The first dinner, we didn't really
Speaker 5: talk too much about anything.
Speaker 4: I was just so excited. I couldn't believe it. I'd
Speaker 4: found my father. So I was just giddy with excitement
Speaker 4: about that. We had dinner, had a briefcase with him,
Speaker 4: and he told me over dinner that it was full
Speaker 4: of cash because he just got back from overseas where
Speaker 4: he had sold coins. He told me he was a
Speaker 4: coin collect a dealer. I guess I was sort of
Speaker 4: excited about that too. Being a single mother at the time,
Speaker 4: I thought, oh, that's great, m he might.
Speaker 5: Help me pay the electricity bill. But uh, that was
Speaker 5: that wash.
Speaker 4: We just had a a nice dinner, smiling at each
Speaker 4: other a lot. I'd never had the experience before of
Speaker 4: looking at somebody else's face and being able to see
Speaker 4: some of the characteristics of my own face in their face.
Speaker 4: Obviously I didn't grow up with that cause I didn't
Speaker 4: have my mum there, and so that was like a
Speaker 4: first time experience for me when I met him.
Speaker 1: Is that when he gave you this picture of your
Speaker 1: half brother and sister.
Speaker 4: Not that day, no that, I think that might have
Speaker 4: been the next time that he came. So after that meeting,
Speaker 4: the memories are a bit clouded because it's so long ago,
Speaker 4: and I do want to have to say anything that's
Speaker 4: not accurate. But as I as I sort of as
Speaker 4: my recall is, I think he was going overseas again.
Speaker 4: He sounded like a big troubler and we had that
Speaker 4: dinner like it was just constantly back and forth and
Speaker 4: selling coins and collecting coins. He sounded very impressive, and
Speaker 4: that when he got back, which would be some months
Speaker 4: down the road, he would contact me again, come visit
Speaker 4: next time at home.
Speaker 5: So that's sort of what happened.
Speaker 4: The next time he came to the house where I
Speaker 4: was renting in the Fountain Gate, and that's when he
Speaker 4: gave me the picture of his children born here in
Speaker 4: Australia and said to me, he's also got more family,
Speaker 4: got another brother.
Speaker 5: And sister, and here they are beautiful picture. He was
Speaker 5: very proud of them.
Speaker 4: He spoke very highly of them swimming in Commonwealth Games.
Speaker 1: Were they were in the nationals. I don't know, has
Speaker 1: no idea they might have got for the Wealth Games,
Speaker 1: but they were definitely in the nationals. They were really
Speaker 1: good swimmers. Mite and David.
Speaker 4: He was very proud. He talked about them a lot.
Speaker 4: He spent all of his spare time at the swimming pool.
Speaker 4: He personally coached his daughter into swimming. He was side
Speaker 4: by side with his kids all the way through this.
Speaker 4: He was very proud.
Speaker 5: I was a little bit jealous.
Speaker 4: He said that he and he said, I haven't told
Speaker 4: them about you. Yeah, I can't remember. Maybe his wife
Speaker 4: wasn't comfortable or something like that.
Speaker 1: I'm sure you were a struggling single mom at this time, right.
Speaker 1: Did he say anything about your mom?
Speaker 4: Well, yes, he told me he said terrible things about
Speaker 4: my mother. First of all, My main question for him was,
Speaker 4: you know, why didn't you come and find me.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean I was sort of out here in
Speaker 5: the world on my own. He told me that.
Speaker 4: He didn't know I existed, and that he didn't even
Speaker 4: know that my mother had died, and only when the
Speaker 4: consulate contacted him that that was the first time he
Speaker 4: had ever heard of me.
Speaker 5: And ever knew that my mother had passed away.
Speaker 1: Well that's a lie. We already know that right away, yes,
Speaker 1: straight away.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Well, but I didn't know that straight away when
Speaker 4: he said that to me. I mean, I was obviously
Speaker 4: perplexed by the answer, but I was really young, and
Speaker 4: I was I was a victim of a lot of trauma,
Speaker 4: and I hadn't unpacked all that trauma when I was
Speaker 4: at that stage, so I didn't really have the the
Speaker 4: common sense or the ability to unpack the things that
Speaker 4: he said that made me feel uncomfortable, or to even
Speaker 4: necessarily question them further. Because I was so fearful of rejection.
Speaker 4: I really wanted a family, So yeah, I didn't question
Speaker 4: him too much into that.
Speaker 5: But he said, s that's what he said to me.
Speaker 4: I remember feeling perplexed by his answer, But then he
Speaker 4: went on to t to tell me that my mother
Speaker 4: was a slut. What justification did he have for saying
Speaker 4: that she wasn't she wasn't that good? She would go
Speaker 4: out to nightclubs, she enjoyed partying too often.
Speaker 5: Really, she was just a slut. It just came. I don't,
Speaker 5: I don't.
Speaker 4: I mean, it's not like we were having any conversation
Speaker 4: that I recall that would lead a person to say
Speaker 4: something like that. I was just a young woman wanting
Speaker 4: to know about his relationship with my mother, which I
Speaker 4: thought was a person that he loved, So it wasn't
Speaker 4: something I expected to hear. I didn't answer to him
Speaker 4: when he said that, but I remember thinking to myself,
Speaker 4: you know, how can you speak like that about somebody,
Speaker 4: my m my mother, your ex wife. How can you
Speaker 4: say those things about someone and.
Speaker 5: She's not even alive to defend herself.
Speaker 4: Like I remember thinking, I'm a pretty mixed up person,
Speaker 4: but even I wouldn't speak about somebody that's not there
Speaker 4: to defend themselves.
Speaker 5: In that way. I thought it was really inappropriate.
Speaker 1: You're being stopped deprecating. I've been through a lot, So
Speaker 1: tell me you did reach out to him for help, right,
Speaker 1: And what he said when you did that because she
Speaker 1: told him that you were struggling and that he couldn't
Speaker 1: you know you needed help financially?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I actually I don't remember the question directly or
Speaker 4: his direct.
Speaker 5: Response to it, but the conversation.
Speaker 4: Went to I, I think you know he's he couldn't
Speaker 4: help me, was the answer that I got, but I
Speaker 4: don't remember how that got said to me at all.
Speaker 4: And then I moved on and asked him whether or
Speaker 4: not he knew anything about what had happened to my
Speaker 4: grandmother's estate, and he said that he was going to
Speaker 4: be going to Belgium against sometime soon.
Speaker 5: He had a trip planned.
Speaker 4: And that while he was there he he may know
Speaker 4: a relative or a friend of a relative of my
Speaker 4: mother's that he can get in contact with, and that
Speaker 4: he should be able to find something out for me,
Speaker 4: and then when he comes back he would let me know.
Speaker 4: And then when he returned he gave me the news.
Speaker 4: That's when I decided that I never wanted to expect
Speaker 4: him again. He said to me that there's an extended
Speaker 4: family in Belgium that knew that alone had two children,
Speaker 4: that those children were in Australia, and that the rumor
Speaker 4: that people had heard was that a private arrangement had
Speaker 4: been made whereby Joseph Verro would have the rights to
Speaker 4: keep the majority of the finances from my grandmother's estate
Speaker 4: and Michael could keep the daughter.
Speaker 5: That's what he came back and said to me. So, yeah,
Speaker 5: he left, he left.
Speaker 4: My house, and my boyfriend at the time came home
Speaker 4: and sort of found me sitting on the floor trying
Speaker 4: to trying to I couldn't. I couldn't actually repeat what
Speaker 4: had been said to me, like my brain was unable
Speaker 4: to accept that I had heard what I had just heard.
Speaker 1: Just to clarify here, the Michael Evelyn is referring to
Speaker 1: is Michael read alone as widower and her stepfather.
Speaker 4: After that incident, I never wanted to speak to him again.
Speaker 4: And then, you know, fast forward a decade or so later,
Speaker 4: and another boyfriend and who thought it'd been really good
Speaker 4: for you, you know, to get in contact with your dad.
Speaker 1: This is your lawyer one.
Speaker 4: The lawyer one, Yeah, it'd be really good for you.
Speaker 4: And I said, you know, without telling him all of
Speaker 4: the sort of the gory details of it. I did
Speaker 4: tell him, you know, I didn't want to have anything
Speaker 4: to do with him because he had said these terrible
Speaker 4: things to me and that he'd called my mother a slut.
Speaker 4: And my boyfriend at the time was just convinced that.
Speaker 5: I was.
Speaker 4: Maybe overdramatizing it, maybe even embellishing it a little bit,
Speaker 4: and that if I wanted to heal from my past,
Speaker 4: then I should go back there, reconnect with this man
Speaker 4: and try and form a relationship with him and give
Speaker 4: him a chance.
Speaker 5: And it's not that I wanted to, It was just
Speaker 5: that I sort.
Speaker 4: Of the irony is is that I ended up thinking,
Speaker 4: you know, he'll get off my back and it'll probably
Speaker 4: help my boyfriend if I just contact him, and then
Speaker 4: he can see what sort of a guy this person is,
Speaker 4: and then you know, we'll be done with this sort
Speaker 4: of ongoing.
Speaker 5: Input. And so that's what I did.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I don't remember whether I still had his phone number,
Speaker 4: whether I contacted the consulate and got an updated number.
Speaker 4: I don't remember how it all went down, but I
Speaker 4: found him, called him and he was really cold on
Speaker 4: the phone. And the thing is I decided never to
Speaker 4: speak to him again. But it's not like in that
Speaker 4: decade I overheard from him again either after he had
Speaker 4: said those things to me. So there was I guess
Speaker 4: some sort of a mutual feeling of not wanting to
Speaker 4: have anything to do with each other, which I can't
Speaker 4: ex explain. I don't have an explanation for that.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 4: So he was cold on the telephone, and I said,
Speaker 4: I asked him. I said, oh, you know, like I
Speaker 4: haven't heard from you and it's been a long time.
Speaker 4: And he responded saying something like, why would I speak
Speaker 4: to you. I put ten thousand dollars in your bank
Speaker 4: account to help you, and you never even called me
Speaker 4: to say thank you.
Speaker 5: Excuse me.
Speaker 1: Then I'll be so you said, well, I didn't receive
Speaker 1: ten thousand dollars.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and he said, well, I'm going to go to
Speaker 4: the bank and check what happened to that and find
Speaker 4: out from my end, because I definitely paid you ten
Speaker 4: thousand dollars. And then he called back and he said, oh,
Speaker 4: somehow there was a mistake and that the transaction had
Speaker 4: been lost, and now he was sort of a bit
Speaker 4: friendly towards me.
Speaker 5: So straightway, it was a mistake.
Speaker 4: It was just that I had the pressure of a
Speaker 4: partner at that time that really wanted me to just
Speaker 4: sort of, I guess, try to connect with him and
Speaker 4: to give him the benefit of the doubt, and so
Speaker 4: I was trying to do that, even though the very
Speaker 4: opening conversation was just a lie and an act and
Speaker 4: an untrue accusation. It was a lot of things. So
Speaker 4: we organized to meet. We definitely met three times. There
Speaker 4: may have been four, maybe even five times over the
Speaker 4: next few months.
Speaker 5: I think it was after that phone call.
Speaker 4: The last three times I met with him were the
Speaker 4: three times that I remember the most. He was at
Speaker 4: my home, my children were there. He met my children,
Speaker 4: and he and I were sitting on the couch chatting.
Speaker 4: He wanted to know the contact details of my stepfather
Speaker 4: and said that I should provide them to him so
Speaker 4: that he can rightfully seek revenge as my fathers.
Speaker 5: As it's what a father should do. And I think
Speaker 5: I just exc I don't quite remember how.
Speaker 4: I just excused myself to the bathroom or toilet or
Speaker 4: something the kitchen. I just said, oh, I don't really,
Speaker 4: I don't really, I don't really do that, something like that.
Speaker 4: And then he said, well, the least I can do
Speaker 4: for you, then is teach you how you can poison
Speaker 4: people so you can protect yourself if anyone tries to
Speaker 4: hurt you. And so then he went through a I
Speaker 4: guess a procedure for poisoning people. I'm not comfortable repeating it,
Speaker 4: but I remember it the.
Speaker 5: The details of it vividly.
Speaker 4: It's etched in like in Hindi when they say a
Speaker 4: sam scar, it's like a scar on your psyche. I
Speaker 4: can remember every single word of that procedure. And what
Speaker 4: he said was that if I was ever in need
Speaker 4: of doing that, that the person would develop flu like symptoms,
Speaker 4: maybe a cold, and then within a week or two
Speaker 4: they would be dead, and that they would be a
Speaker 4: trace of what had been done to them.
Speaker 2: Pause for just a moment. Here in the paper trayal
Speaker 2: of documents that we have access to that are connected
Speaker 2: to Ilona Kinzil's death, there is a note that Elona
Speaker 2: had attended a doctor Zigo just six days before her
Speaker 2: death because of her tonsils. Whether that's referring to tonsilitis
Speaker 2: or a sore throat, we're not sure. Anyway, back to
Speaker 2: Evelyn and what she was told about poisons by Rick Bloom.
Speaker 4: It was obviously through food, a mechanism for turning food
Speaker 4: into poison.
Speaker 5: He seemed quite proud, boastful even that he used to bury.
Speaker 4: People alive when he was growing up. That one of
Speaker 4: the things that he liked to do in the village.
Speaker 4: Him and some of his friends. Someone had harmed one
Speaker 4: of the girls in the village, so they got the
Speaker 4: guy and they buried him alone with hungry cats. And
Speaker 4: that this is, you know, how they used to take
Speaker 4: care of the people.
Speaker 2: Just to clarify, Evelyn is not saying any of this
Speaker 2: actually happened, just that Bloom told her these stories and
Speaker 2: that she felt he was trying to scare her.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I was pretty scared.
Speaker 4: I'd had a pretty colorful life myself and had managed
Speaker 4: to always surround myself with some pretty dubos characters, and
Speaker 4: I was very conscious of never hearing anything that I
Speaker 4: thought would put me in danger or seeing anything that
Speaker 4: I thought would put me in danger. I always had
Speaker 4: that self protective sort of street wise. I grew up
Speaker 4: on the streets. I was thirteen on the streets, so
Speaker 4: I guess I had that street wiseness. And I think
Speaker 4: that when he started sharing things like that with me,
Speaker 4: inside my brain, I was just thinking, oh no, stop, stop,
Speaker 4: stop talking, stop talking, because I felt like by him
Speaker 4: sharing those things with me, it was putting me in danger.
Speaker 4: So yeah, I felt like I was in danger I
Speaker 4: just from hearing those confessions.
Speaker 5: But I was unsure whether they were real or whether
Speaker 5: he was.
Speaker 4: Just trying to brag and that was his way of
Speaker 4: impressing me or impressing people.
Speaker 5: I couldn't tell. I couldn't tell whether he was real
Speaker 5: or not real with what he was saying. But yeah,
Speaker 5: I was scared.
Speaker 1: Is that when when he told you, you know, when
Speaker 1: you were talking about you know, basically, are you going
Speaker 1: to help me or not?
Speaker 10: Right?
Speaker 1: Is that sort of around that time?
Speaker 5: Or no, are you gonna help me?
Speaker 4: That was the first the first time I met him.
Speaker 4: I never went back to that conversation the second time
Speaker 4: I met him, after that meeting.
Speaker 5: At my house. I mean, he told me so many things.
Speaker 4: It's hard to recall all of them because it's just
Speaker 4: a it's a matter of when I hear things about him,
Speaker 4: then sometimes I think back and I think, oh, that's
Speaker 4: irrelevant to this thing that he said. Like I heard
Speaker 4: that he's told one woman that he he was sort
Speaker 4: of buried in some pit and torture it, and I
Speaker 4: thought that's interesting. I I heard something similar, only he
Speaker 4: used to do that to people.
Speaker 5: In the version he gave.
Speaker 4: Me, he told me that he he was a survivor
Speaker 4: at five years old, that he lost his mother and
Speaker 4: father and brothers and sisters all in Oswitch that he
Speaker 4: was Jewish but didn't believe in God anymore, cause you know,
Speaker 4: how could God do that to his family. I raised
Speaker 4: my children with his story, and you know, the whole
Speaker 4: identity is wrapped up in this idea that we are
Speaker 4: sort of generationally from victims of a Holocaust, and it's
Speaker 4: probably not even true. In fact, it's I don't think
Speaker 4: it is true, you know. So there's a lot of
Speaker 4: things that he just lie upon.
Speaker 5: Life on life.
Speaker 4: How do you ever get to the bottom of any
Speaker 4: of it to find out if there's truth there? But
Speaker 4: the second time around when we met, there was that
Speaker 4: third visit that was that was the po the poisoning ones.
Speaker 4: And then the next visit was he contacted me and
Speaker 4: said he was going to be in town and asked
Speaker 4: me to meet him in the city, and so I
Speaker 4: I did that.
Speaker 5: I went to meet him. He said that he had
Speaker 5: a proposition for me. He pre warned me that he
Speaker 5: had a a proposition.
Speaker 6: So.
Speaker 5: I was pretty scared. I didn't know because I'd had
Speaker 5: this one meeting.
Speaker 4: He was telling me about burying people alive and how
Speaker 4: to poison people, and then I had the this next
Speaker 4: meeting with a proposition. So I went to this meeting.
Speaker 5: This is where we.
Speaker 4: Were in a cafe and he was started to explain
Speaker 4: to me that in a very philosophical sort of a
Speaker 4: a framework that in in life we don't have a
Speaker 4: lot of options and nu if you n if you
Speaker 4: don't have creativity, which he said.
Speaker 5: Clearly I don't.
Speaker 4: Therefore I can't produce anything from my mind to be
Speaker 4: self supporting as a single mum. That then the only
Speaker 4: other way was to sell my body.
Speaker 2: Pausing again, Rick Bloom is telling his daughter her only
Speaker 2: option here is to prostitute herself. Then he suggests another option.
Speaker 4: He had an idea for me that might help, and
Speaker 4: it involved drawing up contracts regarding life insurance policies that
Speaker 4: would be effective on people in another country, and that
Speaker 4: I didn't need to worry about what was going to
Speaker 4: happen to the people. That was going to be something
Speaker 4: that he was going to take care of. He needed
Speaker 4: the contact details of my partner at the time because
Speaker 4: he was a barrister and he wanted help to draw
Speaker 4: up these contracts. So that's how it was communicated. It
Speaker 4: wasn't elaborated upon I didn't ask any questions at all.
Speaker 5: But you put him into I was I d I
Speaker 5: did not put him in contact with my partner.
Speaker 4: No, m This was just a more terrifying experience, and
Speaker 4: the one than the last meeting when he was explaining
Speaker 4: to me how to poison people. This was to me
Speaker 4: it had just gone, you know, dialed up a notch.
Speaker 4: And I was scared cause I I didn't know what
Speaker 4: that meant, what he was saying to me. It could
Speaker 4: have it could be stitched together to be something absolutely diabolical,
Speaker 4: which I'm starting to think it.
Speaker 5: Might have been, probably not starting pick me.
Speaker 4: But I've always wondered whether it is as bad as
Speaker 4: the worst possible way he could imagine something like that,
Speaker 4: or whether or not I was just hearing things, whether
Speaker 4: he was trying to say something to me that was
Speaker 4: normal but that I couldn't understand it, and I was
Speaker 4: turning into something in my own imagination that it wasn't.
Speaker 4: I just it's so unbelievable to think that someone could
Speaker 4: save something like that, and that it was as bad
Speaker 4: as it sounded. So I was so unable to process that.
Speaker 4: I left that meeting. I said, I told him I
Speaker 4: would think about what he was saying. I thought I
Speaker 4: was in grave danger, and I went out to my car.
Speaker 5: I barely made it to the car. I got a.
Speaker 4: Really sharp pain in my head and I started vomiting,
Speaker 4: and I don't know how I drove home. I had
Speaker 4: the worst migraine. I couldn't get out of bed for
Speaker 4: a day or so. I was unable to mentally unpack
Speaker 4: what had been said to me. I didn't know whether
Speaker 4: I was just had lost my mind, whether I.
Speaker 5: Was just loose completely. So that was that was the problem.
Speaker 4: And then there was the last meeting, and that's where
Speaker 4: he rang and said that he was coming to visit
Speaker 4: and he'd come for dinner again. He had a present
Speaker 4: for me, which I didn't like the sound off, and
Speaker 4: he asked me to pick him up from the airport
Speaker 4: drop him he had some business to attend.
Speaker 5: To drop him.
Speaker 4: Somewhere nearby, and then he'd catch a taxi back to
Speaker 4: my house for dinner. So then I went to the
Speaker 4: airport picked him up. He opened the boot of the car,
Speaker 4: pulled out a bottle of Bolinger.
Speaker 5: And said to me to take up I said, oh no, no,
Speaker 5: that's okay.
Speaker 4: I just I'll wait for you to come back, and
Speaker 4: he said, no, I know, take it, take it, take
Speaker 4: it home, put it on ice, and just wait for me.
Speaker 4: Do you drop me off and then I'll be back
Speaker 4: for dinner and we'll drink it together.
Speaker 5: And so.
Speaker 4: I drove him to I wish I remember where it was.
Speaker 4: It was around q Hawthorne that area. He got out
Speaker 4: of the car. He he was bragging, he was someone
Speaker 4: was giving him forty or fifty thousand dollars and all
Speaker 4: they had was a telephone number that he could just change.
Speaker 4: They'll never be able to find him. He jumped out
Speaker 4: of the car. I went home, put the champagne in
Speaker 4: the fridge, s set the table, sat there, waited, waited,
Speaker 4: and I never heard from him again.
Speaker 5: That was the last time.
Speaker 4: So and I did try and call a few days later,
Speaker 4: not because I uh, because I wanted to speak to him,
Speaker 4: but just because I was just I thought that I
Speaker 4: was losing my mind. That's what I thought this was
Speaker 4: happening at the time. I s I thought, I am
Speaker 4: literally I am losing my mind, like I think that,
Speaker 4: you know, l My intuition is that there's been a
Speaker 4: an a you know, an attempt on my life.
Speaker 5: Mate. That's my intuition because of the shampagne. That's because
Speaker 5: of the champagne.
Speaker 4: It was, there were little holes in the foil. But
Speaker 4: it was the combination of everything. Him telling me how
Speaker 4: to poison people, him bragging about how he had killed people,
Speaker 4: buried them alive, him trying to involve me in some
Speaker 4: scam that sounded like.
Speaker 1: It involved deceiving people.
Speaker 5: More than it sounded, you know.
Speaker 4: It was it was a scam that involved life insurance policies,
Speaker 4: and he said he was going to take care of
Speaker 4: the people.
Speaker 5: So I didn't know what that meant.
Speaker 4: Yeah, ba see Yeah, So it was a combination of
Speaker 4: all those things. I thought I was losing my mind,
Speaker 4: I thought, And I thought that's what the bottle of
Speaker 4: champagne was.
Speaker 5: I thought it was poison. So I tried to.
Speaker 4: Call him a few days later because I was trying
Speaker 4: to really just ascertain for myself how crazy I was,
Speaker 4: and he his mobile had been cut off.
Speaker 1: And is that when you rang his home and got
Speaker 1: Diane or was that another time?
Speaker 3: Oh?
Speaker 5: No, Diana.
Speaker 4: That was the first round of meetings the decades before,
Speaker 4: when I was sitting in Nari Warren.
Speaker 5: Mm.
Speaker 4: Yeah, because he he had said that he was gonna
Speaker 4: come back to visit after he got back from overseas,
Speaker 4: and months and months went past.
Speaker 5: I hadn't heard, and he had.
Speaker 4: He'd I don't know why he'd given me the home number,
Speaker 4: and so I called the home number and she answered,
Speaker 4: and I said, I asked for him. She said he
Speaker 4: wasn't there, and I said, oh, he you know, he
Speaker 4: said he was gonna help me with some things. And
Speaker 4: you know it's Evelyn, his daughter, because he had told
Speaker 4: me that she he had told her just they decided
Speaker 4: not to tell the children.
Speaker 5: I think it was. Yeah.
Speaker 4: So anyway, she just said, oh sure you are or
Speaker 4: oh sure he did something like that and hung up
Speaker 4: on me. It was very, very cold, so that was
Speaker 4: pretty much. That's pretty much it.
Speaker 2: Evelyn later took the bottle of champagne to her local
Speaker 2: police station, explaining her suspicions. We'll come back to this
Speaker 2: in a later episode. There is so much here to unpack.
Speaker 2: To start with, Evelyn claims her father outlined a very
Speaker 2: specific method of fatally poisoning people. She rightly doesn't want
Speaker 2: to outline in detail what he said, as she nor
Speaker 2: we want to give anyone a blueprint for murder. Specifically,
Speaker 2: She says the method Rick outlined would produce flu like
Speaker 2: symptoms and that the victim would die within one to
Speaker 2: two weeks and there would be no trace of the
Speaker 2: poison left in their system. Evelyn previously told us her
Speaker 2: father gifted her a bottle of champagne that she feared
Speaker 2: may have been tampered with due to tiny holes in
Speaker 2: the foil cap in an attempt to poison her. This
Speaker 2: adds to the evidence we have heard from Gulaine d'ar
Speaker 2: lois and her daughter in law Alexandra Piraboom, who says
Speaker 2: Rick was fascinated by a book about poisons and talked
Speaker 2: about his interest in poisons that can kill without leaving
Speaker 2: a trace. Julane also told us that she thinks Rick
Speaker 2: was planning to poison her, a suspicion that grew stronger
Speaker 2: after he insisted she have a liver function test. Medical
Speaker 2: records show that marrying Barter also had a liver function
Speaker 2: test during the time she and Rick were in a relationship.
Speaker 2: Then there's the story Evelyn just told of Rick, boasting
Speaker 2: that he used to bury people alive when he was
Speaker 2: growing up, including a man in his village who had
Speaker 2: harmed a girl who he then buried alive with hungry cats.
Speaker 2: As outrageous and unlikely as that sounds, it does at
Speaker 2: least give us more insight into how Rick Bloom's mind
Speaker 2: works and what he might be capable of. And you
Speaker 2: heard Evelyn recount how Rick came up with a proposition
Speaker 2: to draw up a contract regarding life insurance policies on
Speaker 2: individuals living overseas. Evelyn says Rick told her she would
Speaker 2: not have to worry how it would work or what
Speaker 2: would happen to the insured people, that he would take
Speaker 2: care of it. Was this another fanciful, twisted story or
Speaker 2: another avenue of investigation into this already massive and complicated saga,
Speaker 2: which is about to get even stranger next time Evelyn
Speaker 2: discovers her father has somehow implicated her in a family
Speaker 2: debt of millions of francs.
Speaker 11: So there is a debt of four million francs of
Speaker 11: debt to the to the States, access to the four millions.
Speaker 2: If you knew Marion or have any information about her
Speaker 2: or her whereabouts, we'd love to hear from you. Our
Speaker 2: website is sevennews dot com dot au slash news slash
Speaker 2: the Lady Vanishers, and you can also message us here.
Speaker 2: You can also send us an anonymous tip at the
Speaker 2: Lady Vanishes dot org. If you like what you're hearing,
Speaker 2: don't forget to subscribe. Please rate and review our series.
Speaker 2: It helps new listeners find us. Presenter and executive producer
Speaker 2: Alison Sandy, investigative journalist Brian Seymour, producer and writer Sally Eels.
Speaker 2: Sound design Mark Wright, graphics Jason Blandford, Transcripts and translation
Speaker 2: Estelle Sanchez. The theme and much of the music by
Speaker 2: Nicholas Gasperini at the Dark Piano dot com. Thanks again
Speaker 2: to the Alliance Francais. This is a Seven News auction