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, I'm.
Speaker 4: Not sure if it was intentional or if there's something
Speaker 4: more foul afoot.
Speaker 5: If you could imagine a teacher coming straight from say
Speaker 5: little house on the prairie to the eighties, that was
Speaker 5: Marian Barter.
Speaker 6: What I say, whether you find Marian Barter dead or alive,
Speaker 6: I honestly believe somebody has that key piece of information.
Speaker 1: And the relentless quest of a daughter to find her mum.
Speaker 1: Something had happened, Something has happened to make her leave.
Speaker 4: I am one hundred percent sure, one hundred percent sure
Speaker 4: that somebody knows something.
Speaker 1: The lady vanishes, episode fifty two. I'm Alison Sandy and
Speaker 1: I'm Brian Seymour. Evelyn and the Spotlight crew are at
Speaker 1: the Park to Brussels, right in the heart of the
Speaker 1: capital city. Flemish folk tunes crafted by campanologists or bell
Speaker 1: ringers flood the regally Landscape square every hour. The old
Speaker 1: fashioned park is lined with classical statues, trees and fountains,
Speaker 1: and provides views of the Royal Palace and Palais Delaination,
Speaker 1: also known as the Belgian Federal Parliament. Unusual, taking pride
Speaker 1: of place at the front is an imposing statue of
Speaker 1: King Albert, who reigned in Belgium from nineteen oh nine
Speaker 1: to nineteen thirty four, when his country was occupied by
Speaker 1: German soldiers during World War I, before overseeing Belgium's postwar recovery.
Speaker 1: His achieved hero status after rejecting a German ultimatum demanding
Speaker 1: free passage of their troops to access French borders. Belgium
Speaker 1: was invaded two days later. The former monarch credited with
Speaker 1: introducing universal male suffrage, giving all men the equal right
Speaker 1: to vote, regardless of wealth or station. Though Belgium was
Speaker 1: one of the last European countries to give women equal
Speaker 1: voting rights in nineteen forty eight, Belgium remains a very
Speaker 1: patriarchal society. They elected their first female prime minister in
Speaker 1: twenty nineteen. In spite of this, or perhaps because of it,
Speaker 1: Belgium women are a formidable and strong force in their
Speaker 1: families and society. Case in point, Gulaye Ganois, whose daughter
Speaker 1: in law Alexandra offered us the use of her Brussels
Speaker 1: inner city home to interview her with Glaine is Laurent
Speaker 1: or Larry. Dressed in smart dark slacks, a patterned black
Speaker 1: and white shirt and red blazer, the fourth right octogenarian
Speaker 1: tells us exactly what she's prepared to do in this interview.
Speaker 7: You you call another as a mattress.
Speaker 3: All right, So Gilaine, thank you, thank you so much
Speaker 3: for doing this with pleasure. It's lovely to be able
Speaker 3: to talk to you, even through Larry, and just to
Speaker 3: have you here. So we we appreciate it very much.
Speaker 8: You know why, because I will help the person who
Speaker 8: lose the mother that I is my reason.
Speaker 3: Sally and the other one yes, yes, yes, the name.
Speaker 3: So let's go back to the beginning. Okay, when you
Speaker 3: first met Rick Blom what was his name to you?
Speaker 9: Frederic?
Speaker 3: He used Frederic the A A Y.
Speaker 9: Yes, but he.
Speaker 8: Don't say that immediately the first time he signed Frederic.
Speaker 3: And did he introduce himself to you as Frederic? Yes?
Speaker 3: So the whole time you knew him, you knew him
Speaker 3: as Frederick.
Speaker 9: Yes?
Speaker 3: How did you come to meet him?
Speaker 9: Basic game me?
Speaker 5: I had placed an ad in a very popular newspaper
Speaker 5: in Belgium. And he answered, and he wrote a letter
Speaker 5: to me, was written in perfect French, a very nice letter.
Speaker 3: At you placed the ad in the paper? Why because
Speaker 3: you were lonely?
Speaker 9: No, because persic.
Speaker 5: At the time, I got very depressed. I had spent
Speaker 5: some time in France helping a friend who had lost everything.
Speaker 5: The house had burned down, the car had burned. I
Speaker 5: spent a lot of time. I stayed a lot of
Speaker 5: time in France helping that person for paperwork, getting the
Speaker 5: idea again, and all kinds of official papers. But I
Speaker 5: got tired of that situation. But I couldn't at the time,
Speaker 5: I wasn't able to tell my kids because they would
Speaker 5: have told me that it was stupid to spend my
Speaker 5: time and energy doing that.
Speaker 9: We should dear me Cete and mephis.
Speaker 5: That person was actually not a friend. That person was
Speaker 5: one of my sons. My other sons would have thought
Speaker 5: that I was doing too much for that one son.
Speaker 8: It's impossible. I must do that for my children. They
Speaker 8: lose their father, then I stay alone to help all
Speaker 8: the children. And this one was over head thirty times.
Speaker 3: You were just at that stage of your life where
Speaker 3: you needed someone for you well exactly, and when he
Speaker 3: presented to you, you say, he wrote a beautiful letter.
Speaker 3: What about when you met him, what did he tell
Speaker 3: you about himself? What did he tell you? He did nothing?
Speaker 9: Nothing, It don't speak from him.
Speaker 3: So he kept the information very close to his chest. Yes, yes,
Speaker 3: so you were in effect giving him all of your
Speaker 3: information and looking back, he was he was not giving
Speaker 3: you anything cool exactly, very clever. Yes. But when you
Speaker 3: spent some time with him, Galaan, what did he tell
Speaker 3: you that he did back in Australia? Did he say
Speaker 3: he was a professional man or what did he say
Speaker 3: he did?
Speaker 9: Ah? I never asked that.
Speaker 8: But now because you ask me that thing, I understand
Speaker 8: that he has to say something to me. But I
Speaker 8: did not ask him, Adelie Jean.
Speaker 5: Yeah, he was so intelligent and so and he would
Speaker 5: say nothing, probably because he understood that I was not
Speaker 5: going to ask anything.
Speaker 9: He causes more, Delia.
Speaker 3: Did he give you the impression that he was a
Speaker 3: successful man, a wealthy man? What did you think?
Speaker 9: I believe? Stupidly? I believe or what he said?
Speaker 3: So you believed his story?
Speaker 1: Yes?
Speaker 8: Always always, and after that, when I think about that,
Speaker 8: I can understand.
Speaker 9: Because I am not like that.
Speaker 8: For instance, in France, I am no approximatively fifty years
Speaker 8: in sounds of France, I know. Let me say fifteen persons,
Speaker 8: no more, no more, and don't give my.
Speaker 9: Something from me.
Speaker 3: But you have been a successful woman. You have been
Speaker 3: a business woman.
Speaker 9: Yes, yes it was.
Speaker 3: And you are you. You are very competent, and you've
Speaker 3: been very smart.
Speaker 9: I have more than five hundred.
Speaker 3: Clients, five hundred insurance clients. Yes, so even now you
Speaker 3: are you are essentially you are beating yourself up as
Speaker 3: to why was I so stupid? Why couldn't I see
Speaker 3: his lives? That's that's why, Yes, you are? You are
Speaker 3: so torn by this?
Speaker 5: Of course, yes, I'm beating myself up. Yes, there's a
Speaker 5: reason why I was late today, because it's been twenty
Speaker 5: years she passed. I think about this every day, basically.
Speaker 8: Particularly during night, because first I am alone, the second
Speaker 8: I can't.
Speaker 3: Sleep even after all this time.
Speaker 8: Yes, yes, because it took all my money. So every
Speaker 8: day I have to tell my money because he asked
Speaker 8: my money, but for a reason for my.
Speaker 3: Children, Gilein, can I ask you, yes, how much has
Speaker 3: this cost? How many dollars.
Speaker 9: Dollars I can say. I can't just say roughly roughly yes.
Speaker 8: In let me say if I sell all it's more No, No,
Speaker 8: because I move, you know, I'm moving soon self house
Speaker 8: because I sell my home in Bend.
Speaker 9: So I had to to follow.
Speaker 3: And did he get that money?
Speaker 9: No, he does not have that money.
Speaker 8: No, because at the moment he understood that we did
Speaker 8: not give it, because I gathered it to buy a
Speaker 8: home in France, because the sin had help before.
Speaker 9: He needed that.
Speaker 8: And when Frederic understood that he was away.
Speaker 3: Ah, So when he realized that he could not get
Speaker 3: that last bit of money from you, that's when he left.
Speaker 1: Yes.
Speaker 9: Absolutely, do you.
Speaker 3: Not want to give the figure? I mean, can you say?
Speaker 3: Are we talking a lot of money?
Speaker 9: Do you fit?
Speaker 5: On top of the money he took me had to
Speaker 5: move and then I bought that house in France, and
Speaker 5: on top of the price of the house, I had
Speaker 5: to put money to renovate that house, and altogether it
Speaker 5: went to two hundred or three hundred thousand euros a seasons.
Speaker 5: On top of everything else. Then I had to find
Speaker 5: me a place to stay when I visit my family
Speaker 5: in Belgium. But I didn't have enough money anymore to
Speaker 5: buy to buy an apartment directly. So I bought per
Speaker 5: life annuity and I'm still paying today after all these years. Nowadays,
Speaker 5: I paid nine hundred and eighteen euros every month for
Speaker 5: a place where I cannot stay.
Speaker 3: So what he has done has had a domino effect.
Speaker 9: Exact more exact, more exactly.
Speaker 3: But fair as I it has cost you around at
Speaker 3: least three hundred thousand euros.
Speaker 8: It may it may be more, maybe more, because well
Speaker 8: it took the money to.
Speaker 9: Nuvoirs.
Speaker 5: He also left with the bunny that he's he said
Speaker 5: he would he would put in a bank for when
Speaker 5: my kids would visit, and that's around seventy thousand euros Pluse.
Speaker 5: He went away with two trunks of full of objects
Speaker 5: and things that I wanted for me in Australia, do Maloni.
Speaker 3: So he took valuables from you as well, and you've
Speaker 3: never seen them again never. Plus he took advantage of
Speaker 3: the legacy that you had for your sons. Well, you know,
Speaker 3: that's an awful lot of money. I mean, that's that's
Speaker 3: a lot of money. No wonder that you it's to
Speaker 3: keeps you awake. After seventeen years, I needed that moning. No,
Speaker 3: I understand this.
Speaker 8: I perceived from one of my friends. This also the
Speaker 8: shoes I buy myself.
Speaker 3: This also this a gift from your friends, A gift. Yes,
Speaker 3: it's still very nice you look. Thank you, Jelene. Apart
Speaker 3: from the financial cost, as significant as the money is,
Speaker 3: what about the other cost, the emotional cost? How has
Speaker 3: this changed your life?
Speaker 5: At the time, I was financially at ease, had that
Speaker 5: little pension. I got that little pension because my husband
Speaker 5: had died. He died young, he was actually older than me,
Speaker 5: and then I was making money from my own business.
Speaker 5: I used to work from seven am the morning until midnight.
Speaker 5: But in any case, I have always preferred to be
Speaker 5: around older people because I enjoyed a conversation, the mindsets,
Speaker 5: and I didn't quite appreciate younger people. And all of
Speaker 5: this led to the situation afterwards.
Speaker 3: When you met him, when you knew him, did he
Speaker 3: ever tell you that he was married back in Australia? No, No,
Speaker 3: were you shocked when you found that out?
Speaker 9: I don't know pardicular.
Speaker 3: He never told me he was buried. Later, when you
Speaker 3: were told, what did you think?
Speaker 5: Well, hard to believe. I understood that he had lied.
Speaker 5: So what was the plan? What did he tell you?
Speaker 9: The plan was, uh, married in Bali.
Speaker 3: Married in Bali.
Speaker 9: Yes, he asked me, do you know what is his O? Yes?
Speaker 9: I know, don't.
Speaker 1: It?
Speaker 8: Don't do Balier it careers?
Speaker 3: Okay, so leave here, sell up, go to Australia via Bali,
Speaker 3: get married in Bali, and then get back to Australia
Speaker 3: and settle in Australia as husband and wife. Yes. Well
Speaker 3: that would have been difficult, wouldn't it because he was
Speaker 3: already married back in Australia. But I didn't know that.
Speaker 3: Incredible so so obviously everything he was telling you was
Speaker 3: a lie.
Speaker 8: Yes, at that moment when I understood what it happened, really,
Speaker 8: I understood immediately that he was lying for whole thing.
Speaker 3: To the whole thing.
Speaker 9: Yes, he does not love me.
Speaker 8: No, s to not because at the moment I say
Speaker 8: that I lose my first boy with an accident, yes,
Speaker 8: it don't do what it was necessary?
Speaker 9: And at that moment I think.
Speaker 3: You thought there's something funny there, there's something strange, Yes, yes,
Speaker 3: because there's no emotional connection.
Speaker 9: Well exactly, it.
Speaker 3: Must be very embarrassing for you to tell this story.
Speaker 3: Why are you doing it as brave and courageous as
Speaker 3: you are. Why are you doing it? What's the reason why?
Speaker 8: Maybe too well to receive help. I think because for me,
Speaker 8: the loose of that child, it was clearly the same
Speaker 8: face or figure lam la figure of us.
Speaker 9: The same face, there's the same face.
Speaker 8: It was exactly the same face, like my husband exactly.
Speaker 2: Juliane is referring to the trauma of losing her two
Speaker 2: year old son in an accident in the early nineteen sixties.
Speaker 2: It's something that haunts her still. She has three surviving
Speaker 2: sons and a daughter she adopted.
Speaker 8: So still now it's more than fifty years that it happened.
Speaker 9: That thing.
Speaker 8: Each day I think about that two or three times
Speaker 8: a day, and the night.
Speaker 9: You can imagine it.
Speaker 2: Juliane says when she told Bloom about the he seemed disinterested.
Speaker 2: It was then she knew he did not care for
Speaker 2: her at all.
Speaker 5: Deposit plant a la police a fire the complaint to
Speaker 5: the police.
Speaker 3: He was so smart when I went to the.
Speaker 5: Police, fire the complaint because I wanted to prevent him
Speaker 5: from harming other people. And actually a few well sometime
Speaker 5: before he left, he called me on the phone and
Speaker 5: he said, if I ever hear from you again, you'll
Speaker 5: see what happened.
Speaker 3: What will happen, Sissa. So he threatened you, and at
Speaker 3: that moment I replied.
Speaker 9: Oh, well, to Sutrich.
Speaker 5: Give me back everything you took from me, and he
Speaker 5: said I did not take anything.
Speaker 3: Did that threat scare you?
Speaker 9: No?
Speaker 3: No, because I can't be scared.
Speaker 5: I'm not the kind of woman that can be scared
Speaker 5: by this kind of threat coming from a swindler.
Speaker 3: Was he trying to intimidate you too?
Speaker 5: He even said that he would tell everything to one
Speaker 5: of my daughters in law. He said he had recorded everything.
Speaker 5: But of course I could not be scared of anything
Speaker 5: like that. But he went to the police, yes, and
Speaker 5: filed a report. And what did they do? Did they
Speaker 5: do anything? The first time I went to the police
Speaker 5: to file a report, I went there because I was
Speaker 5: afraid that something had happened to him. I was scared
Speaker 5: that he would have been attacked, because he said that
Speaker 5: he was running a risk of being attacked because well,
Speaker 5: first of all, he was over there with my money.
Speaker 5: But then the police told me that he was okay,
Speaker 5: that there was nothing to worry about because he had
Speaker 5: been cited at the customs between I Guesst, Belgium and Hull,
Speaker 5: and he was he was leaving to you know, to
Speaker 5: catch a plane. But then then, of course I understood
Speaker 5: at that moment that he was actually leaving me.
Speaker 3: So so in essence, the police could do nothing.
Speaker 9: No.
Speaker 3: No. When he was with you, did he ever talk
Speaker 3: about poison? He wanted you to have an examination in hospital,
Speaker 3: an examination of what of your liver? Yes, but Glaine,
Speaker 3: what was wrong with your liver? Nothing?
Speaker 9: Nothing?
Speaker 3: But did you say to him I've got a problem
Speaker 3: with my liver. No, no, no, but he just he
Speaker 3: brought that up. Yes, he actually told me to go
Speaker 3: to hospital for a test, to test my liver.
Speaker 5: So I went. I went to the hospital. They gave
Speaker 5: me an ultrasound for my liver and there was no problem.
Speaker 8: And the second because there's a new do some agency,
Speaker 8: but it soundly.
Speaker 5: A problem that I actually had is that I was
Speaker 5: suffering from apnia. And then he was referring to some
Speaker 5: kind of pillow that you know, he was he would
Speaker 5: use in order to suffocate people. He's it's difficult to
Speaker 5: be very clear about it, but he made me feel
Speaker 5: that he would not want people to believe that he
Speaker 5: would have suffocated me with a pillow, and so it
Speaker 5: was kind of relieved that I was suffering from opnia,
Speaker 5: if you see what I mean.
Speaker 3: But he mentioned he talked about suffocation, Yes, and then
Speaker 3: getting you to go to the hospital for a test
Speaker 3: for something that you all day night. That's very strange behavior.
Speaker 8: And he said that he would came with me.
Speaker 9: During the night. He stayed in my home.
Speaker 3: Very strange.
Speaker 8: Yes, And then I find it it's.
Speaker 9: Something danger that it's not normal.
Speaker 8: But it is not normal that at that moment that
Speaker 8: I find that it is not normal, Why does does
Speaker 8: it put him out my home?
Speaker 9: I can understand. I cannot understand.
Speaker 3: What do you make of him as a man? How
Speaker 3: do you describe him?
Speaker 9: Bizarre?
Speaker 8: Bizarre, bizarre persic It was, it was bizarre.
Speaker 5: We would have breakfast together, but then he would be
Speaker 5: away for lunch away in the afternoon, and then we
Speaker 5: would gather again in the evening. He was very interested
Speaker 5: in old coins, and one one day we went together
Speaker 5: to a cafe in Russells and in the back room
Speaker 5: there was an event there and some people were selling
Speaker 5: old coins, and he took to one of the vendors there,
Speaker 5: and that man, the vendor found it very difficult to
Speaker 5: say that the name the heder vari And then some
Speaker 5: minutes later he told me that, yes, that he let
Speaker 5: that man speak and he said stupid things, but he
Speaker 5: didn't want to contradict him. And then following that event
Speaker 5: we went to Actually there was another event. One day
Speaker 5: he came back with an old rusted coin and he
Speaker 5: with that coin on the side of the pillow. And
Speaker 5: then another occasion we were we were somewhere and then
Speaker 5: in front of a shop selling old coins, and he
Speaker 5: insisted that I would go inside a shop to buy
Speaker 5: a catalog. I said, well, why don't you go yourself?
Speaker 5: He said, no, please do it for me. But you know, Gilin,
Speaker 5: when you look at it now, when you look back, clearly,
Speaker 5: at one stage you thought you loved him. But now
Speaker 5: today what do you think of him?
Speaker 9: Huh?
Speaker 5: Plan to show a lot of negative words from the beginning.
Speaker 5: His one and only idea was to take as much
Speaker 5: money as possible from me.
Speaker 3: But of course he never loved me, that's clear, Jammy, never, Jammy.
Speaker 5: It's a difficult story, and it's very difficult to explain.
Speaker 5: I had a friend and her husband was a very
Speaker 5: successful collector. He had a lot of money. He was
Speaker 5: a very important person. He was the director of a
Speaker 5: university institution in Rome. I don't really remember which one.
Speaker 5: But actually Frederick really insisted that he wanted to meet
Speaker 5: that friend. But at the same time that friend, that
Speaker 5: the woman my friend. I knew that she loved men
Speaker 5: a lot, and I didn't want her to meet him.
Speaker 5: And also I didn't want Frederick to be in contact
Speaker 5: because it would have been risky that Frederick would take
Speaker 5: contact with such a man.
Speaker 3: We can agree, I think that he's been very cruel,
Speaker 3: But do you think he could be dangerous? Oh?
Speaker 8: You certainly, certainly, because at once during the nine.
Speaker 5: Camp, I had a cramp in my leg and he
Speaker 5: wanted to take care of me, just something, but also
Speaker 5: I felt danger and I said no, forget.
Speaker 10: I refused elast but then he insisted it was just something.
Speaker 10: But I was kid, we just something. I was feeling danger.
Speaker 10: You felt you felt it was a dangerous way situation.
Speaker 5: And once again I don't understand why I didn't simply
Speaker 5: kick him out.
Speaker 3: Then I don't understand should it's a good question, why
Speaker 3: didn't you just get rid of it?
Speaker 5: Because that's not me. I'm not that kind of person.
Speaker 5: It's not my personality.
Speaker 9: Should three pack them up?
Speaker 3: You know there are and you know this now because
Speaker 3: people have given you the information. There are many women
Speaker 3: who are now telling us the same story, the same
Speaker 3: sort of story that you're telling us your story. Does
Speaker 3: that make you feel better or worse?
Speaker 8: My complaint to the police, because I should like to
Speaker 8: never hell something like that.
Speaker 9: But I know that it is because.
Speaker 5: I was invited by the police in because he had
Speaker 5: that accent from the region of Tourney, just like my
Speaker 5: husband had, and I was confused about that. Samable, there's
Speaker 5: another victim in Tournay. That's the reason why the police
Speaker 5: off Tournay called me. I went there to to talk
Speaker 5: to one police inspector and he he he well, actually
Speaker 5: I I told my my story and then he called
Speaker 5: the head of the station there and he said that
Speaker 5: he was happy to see that I had got over it.
Speaker 5: I had gotten over it because that other woman was
Speaker 5: at the time, she was still down and destroyed. Because
Speaker 5: that other woman in Tourney, he had hair changed the
Speaker 5: colover hair. He took all her money. Then he made
Speaker 5: sure that she broke all contacts with the family. They
Speaker 5: went to Bali together. He abandoned her in Bali. She
Speaker 5: could not speak a word of English. She had no money.
Speaker 5: Then she called the family and the family send her
Speaker 5: money so that she could come back to Tourney.
Speaker 2: Julane is referring to Bloom's cousin's wife, whom he also
Speaker 2: swindled back in twenty twelve. We discussed this incident earlier
Speaker 2: in the podcast after she spoke to our colleague Tom Rudell,
Speaker 2: who works for the Luxembourg Word newspaper. They referred to
Speaker 2: her as Christine, not her real name, as she feels
Speaker 2: such deep shame and embarrassment. We have not been able
Speaker 2: to speak with her directly, but we understand she has
Speaker 2: been contacted by authorities in Australia.
Speaker 9: In County Little Simoe.
Speaker 5: When he was living at my place, he paid for
Speaker 5: nothing and one day he had bought six polo shirts
Speaker 5: and he insisted that.
Speaker 3: I would them all because that's worth. That's how he was.
Speaker 5: He didn't want to wear anything without washing anything new,
Speaker 5: without washing the clothes before he would wear them.
Speaker 3: Gila, just finally, you've been very patient. No no, no,
Speaker 3: so thank you. Is there anything you could say? Simple message?
Speaker 3: Do you know the story of one of the women
Speaker 3: that we are talking to Sally, whose mother she can't find,
Speaker 3: who tells a very you know, it's a very similar story,
Speaker 3: but she's still missing after all these years.
Speaker 9: Met.
Speaker 3: Everything I've done since the beginning, I've done for.
Speaker 9: This is just to help that person, Nickma, don't record
Speaker 9: it to.
Speaker 8: Scuse your faith for this only as.
Speaker 5: I really wanted to tell my story to the reporters
Speaker 5: in Luxembourg to you now, everything I've done is for her,
Speaker 5: only for her, For Sally, more deficile for me. This
Speaker 5: is really really deficial. It's really complicated, but I must do.
Speaker 9: This is in normally no of it.
Speaker 3: I got a lot of help from my daughter in
Speaker 3: law who's here with us.
Speaker 9: Me prefer.
Speaker 3: She did better than what I could have done. She
Speaker 3: helped me a lot.
Speaker 5: Did do you think she'll ever find her mom? He
Speaker 5: was a man that was capable of anything. I'm not
Speaker 5: confident and I'm scared of what that man can still do.
Speaker 5: I remember at the time in the courthouse in Leuven,
Speaker 5: I had access to the file and I saw that
Speaker 5: he'd been that rig Gloom had been to prison fourteen
Speaker 5: or seventeen times, I don't remember, for different kinds of embezzlements,
Speaker 5: stealing money and so on and so forth.
Speaker 3: What I know is that.
Speaker 5: Victims will always remain victims. The police is on the
Speaker 5: side of wrongdoers. They go to prison, but then you
Speaker 5: never see your money back. And that's the reason why
Speaker 5: I'm say I'm not confident and I'm scared of what
Speaker 5: such a man can still do.
Speaker 2: Just stopping here for a second, we suspect July and
Speaker 2: actually meant fourteen to seventeen charges rather than the number
Speaker 2: of times Bloom went to prison.
Speaker 9: Kille Marie.
Speaker 3: I even saw that he was married or had been
Speaker 3: married to.
Speaker 9: Catch some men epicky his own divorce.
Speaker 3: Three to four weeks. Then they got a divorce.
Speaker 9: I don't said person that deposit plant called.
Speaker 5: And that woman also filed the report against that man,
Speaker 5: because of course he went with all the money.
Speaker 3: A long record. It's an amazing past. In Australia, we
Speaker 3: would call that a colorful history.
Speaker 9: We may be not on the pasc.
Speaker 3: He meant no, of course, this is not the word
Speaker 3: I would have used at that moment. I bet you
Speaker 3: would not. We may, but it's not laughing matter.
Speaker 9: A complete marchan.
Speaker 4: He met no.
Speaker 5: Bafo because the impact on my life was too negative,
Speaker 5: and now my children have to help me, although I
Speaker 5: wanted to help them always because of that guy.
Speaker 3: I understand. Yeah, I'm very sorry for you.
Speaker 9: I am still living.
Speaker 1: And I.
Speaker 8: Saw my grandchildren and oh so beautiful, really really and
Speaker 8: is some madeable kupersmedi It helps me.
Speaker 3: Well, you have survived the experience, which is great.
Speaker 9: Exact, more exact, more exact.
Speaker 2: It's clear that this has been a difficult ordeal for July,
Speaker 2: having to tell her story yet again. Were living the
Speaker 2: pain and trauma imposed on her by Rick Bloom. We
Speaker 2: don't take this lightly. We know that to all this
Speaker 2: takes on brave women like Julaine and Evelyn, who opened
Speaker 2: their hearts to us. Julaine is a proud woman. She
Speaker 2: goes on to talk about how her husband was in
Speaker 2: the Belgian resistance during World War Two.
Speaker 9: Lads cash.
Speaker 3: And he had to hide for two years in a nattic.
Speaker 9: I don't la complete man.
Speaker 5: That's when he changed personality, hiding two years in anatic.
Speaker 5: And then when we went for our honeymoon. I remember
Speaker 5: we were in a restaurant somewhere in France and then
Speaker 5: he said, madus, why did you marry me?
Speaker 3: Mons?
Speaker 9: I said, Jillie, Cristomatic.
Speaker 5: Not that you speak. I wrote it on a napkin
Speaker 5: in order to make you happy. Then he put it
Speaker 5: in his pocket.
Speaker 2: When her husband died, Gulaine hoped to find love again
Speaker 2: with Frederic. He kind of reminded her of him.
Speaker 5: Frederic, and I thought Frederic could be able to to
Speaker 5: cheer me up, console me, to give me some consolation,
Speaker 5: to give me.
Speaker 7: Some really normal in the constantly, if he had loved me,
Speaker 7: he would have helped me. But he did not love me.
Speaker 3: Helene. It's not a crime to have a broken heart.
Speaker 3: You can't keep kicking yourself. You know what, You have
Speaker 3: three beautiful boys and they obviously everyone loves you. You
Speaker 3: have your your daughter in law has been helping you certainly,
Speaker 3: so it's great, wonderful. You have to unfortunately, as tragic
Speaker 3: as that is, you have to move forward and grab
Speaker 3: the positives, don't you.
Speaker 9: It's difficult each day, each name.
Speaker 3: It's a challenge. But there are some good things. There
Speaker 3: are some good things. Well, thank you again, clearly with pleasure.
Speaker 9: I owe the best for Sally.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so do I so do I. But you know,
Speaker 3: as I said to you, I mean there are a
Speaker 3: lot of women. The story is, you know, his what
Speaker 3: we would call m o modus operandi, the way he
Speaker 3: operates very similar, very similar to all these different women
Speaker 3: across so many different years. He's very calculating and conniving,
Speaker 3: despicable to the bone. May piner exact exact exact.
Speaker 1: Indeed, Delaine has formed the firm opinion that mister Blum
Speaker 1: does not have a conscience, does not care about what
Speaker 1: he's done to these women to whom he's promised so much.
Speaker 1: Hearing Elaine's story firsthand hits Evelyn hard. She has only
Speaker 1: heard bits and pieces about her father, and meeting Elaine
Speaker 1: has been confronting. Gilaine's daughter in law, Alexandra, continues helping us,
Speaker 1: escorting Evelyn to the Belgian suburb where she spent her
Speaker 1: earliest years. Like Alexandra's home, it's nestled in the inner
Speaker 1: city amidst the hustle and bustle of urban life. Evelyn
Speaker 1: reflects on why we're here.
Speaker 4: And there's someone out there in the closure.
Speaker 1: This is so important for us, and the women are uniting.
Speaker 1: I feel in this whole battle right that we're all
Speaker 1: working together. This man who clearly hated women, he did
Speaker 1: there's no doubt about it. And you know we've just
Speaker 1: discovered obviously the four million frank debt that he he's
Speaker 1: given his daughter. You know who's just come over here
Speaker 1: to find that out, and.
Speaker 4: Who is unbelievable.
Speaker 1: But not surprising.
Speaker 6: Yeah, no, I'm not surprised.
Speaker 1: But it's amazing these brave women like yourself and Elaine
Speaker 1: and Tina Monique when we go to Luxembourg and Alexandra,
Speaker 1: you just join the course like you are. Thank you
Speaker 1: so much, like seriously, like just giving up your time
Speaker 1: like this and vurrying us around. It's just it's just
Speaker 1: I just feel like this is solidarity, like we was saying, solidarity.
Speaker 1: I'm so proud of us, so thank you ladies.
Speaker 2: Allison is talking about some documents Evelyn bought over here,
Speaker 2: written in French, which Alexandra earlier helped to translate. The
Speaker 2: documents came from Rick Bloom and was signed in front
Speaker 2: of a notary, a lawyer who can authenticate a signature
Speaker 2: as genuine. What they learned from these documents was startling,
Speaker 2: if not surprising, given who was involved.
Speaker 4: Inheritance.
Speaker 11: Inheritance sure, he explains that your father refused the inheritance
Speaker 11: of his brother and your father. I said, I don't
Speaker 11: want the inheritance of my brother.
Speaker 9: I don't want I refuse to say what it.
Speaker 3: Is that reper.
Speaker 11: Renounced to the inheritance of his brother.
Speaker 1: Of his brother doesn't say what the inheritance.
Speaker 11: Is though, no, no, you have to sign a document
Speaker 11: to say, okay, I don't want their inheritance.
Speaker 2: Things so called inheritance or debt amounts to four million
Speaker 2: francs or one hundred thousand euros. Allison explains that you
Speaker 2: can't inherit debt in Australia, but in Belgium you can.
Speaker 11: So this is the list of the people who could
Speaker 11: receive their inheritance, so his wife, his two children who
Speaker 11: were not who were to be minors at that time,
Speaker 11: his mother, and his brother not Evelyn.
Speaker 3: Though.
Speaker 2: The confusion here is whether the debt is actually Freddie,
Speaker 2: David's Loom's late brother or his own, as that was
Speaker 2: one of the names he used as an alias.
Speaker 1: Because one of these seasons, one of these fake names
Speaker 1: was Freddy.
Speaker 12: I know that was it.
Speaker 11: But when when she met he met Gila, he well,
Speaker 11: he explained that he was good visiting David because it
Speaker 11: was the name of his brother who saw him.
Speaker 1: His purpose was.
Speaker 11: To try to make a confusion between the names and said,
Speaker 11: is my brother not me?
Speaker 3: So when you see that he's there, but this.
Speaker 9: Is too too kink.
Speaker 11: He was dead himself, you know. Yeah, yeah, I think
Speaker 11: you understand why I don't.
Speaker 6: Okay, So what's happened is he's inherited his death and
Speaker 6: he's saying under give fake name which he took on
Speaker 6: Freddy David, it's a safe name, and he said he's dead,
Speaker 6: I can't be mine and as a result, I'm not
Speaker 6: going to pay iron to here.
Speaker 11: The notary context contacts you and say I think you
Speaker 11: have a link with the dead guy with pediavis but
Speaker 11: of course the father is not dead.
Speaker 3: To understand.
Speaker 11: So for the notary it's not clear because he don't yes,
Speaker 11: but maybe he made something to make people believe that
Speaker 11: he said as editor didn't head. Of course he had
Speaker 11: problems with the police at that time. If he said no,
Speaker 11: no other problem from and he explained that he took
Speaker 11: the furniture because it was the rented apartment, so he
Speaker 11: put the furniture some somewhere.
Speaker 3: Okay, the not a real because the the apartment was rented.
Speaker 11: So there is a debt four million francs of debt
Speaker 11: to the States. Access to the States four millions really neutral.
Speaker 4: So potentially that was my father's debt.
Speaker 11: Wow, I better get on with renouncing that. Renounce as
Speaker 11: soon as removed.
Speaker 3: Don't sign this documents.
Speaker 11: The family is not closed for maybe they are waiting
Speaker 11: for this body.
Speaker 9: Wow.
Speaker 2: So just to confirm, Evelyn has a one hundred thousand
Speaker 2: euro debt her father has effectively bequeathed to her, which
Speaker 2: she now has to renounce. We don't know if it
Speaker 2: was a debt of his own making or the real
Speaker 2: Freddy David, as there are rumors Freddy had a gambling problem.
Speaker 2: That isn't all though. Evelyn reveals another document relating to
Speaker 2: the estate of her grandmother, who also died in nineteen
Speaker 2: seventy seven, not long after a loaner.
Speaker 4: Private agreement in place and we're trying.
Speaker 2: Evelyn and Allison visit a notary named Jerome Otto in Brussels,
Speaker 2: whose mother apparently witnessed the signing of the document basically
Speaker 2: at his office. They discussed further, immediately realizing Rick Bloom's
Speaker 2: own claims again formed the proof of his lives.
Speaker 1: Willie Wooters aka Frederic DEHEEVERI when he was in Torney prison,
Speaker 1: made an agreement on your angel brother Chris's behalf, that
Speaker 1: the settlement of your grandmother's estate, which is bizarre, right
Speaker 1: because he told you that he didn't know you existed,
Speaker 1: remember that's right.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, he did tell me that. He Yeah, when
Speaker 4: I first met him.
Speaker 1: Which was twenty years later, so yeah, he said that he.
Speaker 4: You know, when I asked him, why hadn't he come
Speaker 4: to try to find me as my father, first question
Speaker 4: really that I wanted to know and to have answered,
Speaker 4: and he said that because he didn't know I existed.
Speaker 4: So that until the Belgium Consulate in Australia contacted him
Speaker 4: to let him know that I was looking for him.
Speaker 4: He didn't even know until that moment that my mother
Speaker 4: had passed away, soies, I was in my twenties by
Speaker 4: that stage, which I now know all of that that's
Speaker 4: a lie. But this the state of my grandmother has
Speaker 4: has I'm not sure about the authenticity of the inheritance
Speaker 4: document itself, but the document that that I got that
Speaker 4: came to me through the Belgium Consulate in Australia, it
Speaker 4: was translated and in that translation it said that he
Speaker 4: had made a private arrangement with the doctor of law
Speaker 4: in nineteen seventy eight. We've got a document that I
Speaker 4: was even that was meant to represent I think that
Speaker 4: the will of my grandmother, which was translated. I don't
Speaker 4: have the document anymore at the only time it was
Speaker 4: in my twenties of skin in this document. Why is
Speaker 4: his name even in her estate, I'm not sure why.
Speaker 4: Why is the fact that he's made a private agreement
Speaker 4: on your being by behalf and your brother my brothers
Speaker 4: while he's in prison. I'm not quite sure what all
Speaker 4: that means. So we're just trying to get to the
Speaker 4: bottom of that.
Speaker 1: And this is the other thing that's interesting with that,
Speaker 1: because when you raised that about the settlement with him,
Speaker 1: which we discussed earlier, he said, well, obviously he acted
Speaker 1: like he knew nothing about it.
Speaker 4: If he acted like he knew nothing about it, and
Speaker 4: he said that he would be making a trip to
Speaker 4: Belgium and that he may know relative or a friend
Speaker 4: of a relative of my mother's that he may be
Speaker 4: able to contact and find some information out for me,
Speaker 4: and that on his return he let me know if
Speaker 4: he discovered anything. So he obviously his story was that
Speaker 4: he didn't know anything about me. So the fact that
Speaker 4: he was involved in making legal agreements on my behalf,
Speaker 4: you know, not something that he was forthcoming about at all.
Speaker 4: But we don't know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we don't know the details. So that's what we're
Speaker 1: here for. Because Jerome, this is the firm Jerome.
Speaker 4: It's because this is a legacy business through his families.
Speaker 3: It was his.
Speaker 4: I think it was his mother, Jerome's witness witness. That's
Speaker 4: a private arrangement that was put together between Willie Waters and.
Speaker 9: Doctor of law.
Speaker 4: So might they just that he has appointed that doctor
Speaker 4: of law to act as some type of a proper
Speaker 4: attorney or proxy on behalf of my brother and I
Speaker 4: and that this notary signed that private agreement off and
Speaker 4: then we would have to go then to that power
Speaker 4: of attorney to find out then how that power of
Speaker 4: attorney got used.
Speaker 1: And that was in ninety in seventy, and.
Speaker 4: So really not sure, but anyone who's going to uncover.
Speaker 1: But yes, then after that they can look accepting at
Speaker 1: the file. But also we can see if we can
Speaker 1: obtain some documents from the consulate, from the consulate and
Speaker 1: maybe they might be able to help us to So
Speaker 1: what documents do we want in the consulate.
Speaker 4: From the consulate, we're looking for my grandmother's will. We're
Speaker 4: looking for any translated copies of that that they may
Speaker 4: have and when for the power of attorney documents that
Speaker 4: they that they had us sign, my brother and I sign.
Speaker 2: Unfortunately, the notary does not have a copy of the
Speaker 2: original private agreement that says he will make inquiries on
Speaker 2: Evelyn's behalf. You'll remember in the previous episode, Evelyn recounted
Speaker 2: how her father offered to find out what happened to
Speaker 2: her grandmother's inheritance as he was going to Belgium and
Speaker 2: he knew somebody you could maybe help.
Speaker 4: He said to me that I really wish I could
Speaker 4: remember the name of the person that he said that
Speaker 4: he had contact with.
Speaker 9: But what he said to me was he said.
Speaker 4: That there's an extended family in Belgium that knew that
Speaker 4: alone had two children, that those children were in Australia,
Speaker 4: and that the rumor that people had heard was that
Speaker 4: a private arrangement had been made between Joseph Birou, my
Speaker 4: grandmother's second husband, and my step father, whereby Joseph biro
Speaker 4: would have the rights to keep the majority of the
Speaker 4: finances from my grandmother's estate and Michael could keep the daughter.
Speaker 4: That's what he came back and said to me.
Speaker 2: This was devastating for Evelyn. We're still waiting to hear
Speaker 2: back from the Belgian notary about all of this, and
Speaker 2: rest assured we won't give up trying to find out
Speaker 2: more about Evelyn's lost legacy until we have answers. Thanks
Speaker 2: to Alexandra, however, we did discover the building that belonged
Speaker 2: to her grandmother was sold by Bureau and his new wife.
Speaker 2: He then moved to the country.
Speaker 4: It had a lot more life when I was young
Speaker 4: in this place, and I have fond, very fond memories.
Speaker 1: Yeah, up until you were seven, line, it was a
Speaker 1: pretty good life, right, it was pretty good. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: then everything came tumbling down because that's when she lived.
Speaker 1: That's when everyone lost her mum at seven years old.
Speaker 3: And so it's very young.
Speaker 4: It's a young yea. Here I was in Australia and
Speaker 4: I had left here to go to live in Australia
Speaker 4: permanently with my mother, and I had a husband, and
Speaker 4: I wasn't there long. Do you remember being told it
Speaker 4: happened at the school where I was in the office.
Speaker 4: I think.
Speaker 1: And how he told you.
Speaker 4: I think the principal of the school and my stepfather together.
Speaker 1: What do you remember about your mom?
Speaker 4: I remember her chasing me around the house with a
Speaker 4: wooden spoon quite frequently.
Speaker 1: I got the wooden spin growing up, did you Yeah.
Speaker 4: I've had a few of those broken.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, but it's so funny. I can't remember anything she said,
Speaker 4: but I can remember the sound of her voice in
Speaker 4: Hungarian and in French and always telling me, you know,
Speaker 4: not to do that, don't touch that.
Speaker 1: But she was so young too.
Speaker 4: She was thirty one when she died.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but so she yeah, she was in her twenties,
Speaker 1: early twenties, Yeah, because she had you do you remember
Speaker 1: your grandmother at all?
Speaker 4: I do remember my grandmother.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I remember my grandmother being sick and being in bed
Speaker 4: a lot. So you know, my grandmother was beautiful and
Speaker 4: she's to teach me how to knit and yeah, she
Speaker 4: taught me lots of And.
Speaker 3: Did you go to school.
Speaker 4: I went to school here as well, somewhere I don't
Speaker 4: know where, not for long. I was probably speaking English
Speaker 4: around five or six years old because I was going
Speaker 4: to Australia with my mother. So my English women have
Speaker 4: been very good, typic In and a five year old's
Speaker 4: fluent French isn't the same as adults French.
Speaker 1: Eveyln was telling me about how the Girl with the
Speaker 1: Dragon Tattoo she related to that girl that have you
Speaker 1: ever read the stick lasson Snip? Well, there's a lady.
Speaker 1: There's a girl in that and she's strong and she's
Speaker 1: she's tough, you know, but she has a lot of
Speaker 1: tattoos and the nose ring and all this sort of
Speaker 1: soul piercings and and ultimately the story leads her to
Speaker 1: her relatives. Yeah, do you remember?
Speaker 2: Evelyn is talking about Lisbet Solander, the hero of the
Speaker 2: Millennium trilogy of novels beginning with The Girl with the
Speaker 2: Dragon Tattoo. The author was Swedish journalist Steve Larsen, who
Speaker 2: died in two thousand and four just before his first
Speaker 2: book was published, topping bestseller charts and spawning multiple feature films.
Speaker 2: His original title for the first book was Men who
Speaker 2: Hate Women.
Speaker 4: Her father who tried to bury her and kill her.
Speaker 4: I remember that part of the story.
Speaker 1: I didn't get that far.
Speaker 12: Oh yeah, god, yeah, Like she has all these troubles,
Speaker 12: but eventually, as she slowly uncovers things.
Speaker 4: The troubles end up leading to her father, who who
Speaker 4: then tries.
Speaker 6: To kill her.
Speaker 2: Evelyn confesses to Allison she did used to have a
Speaker 2: lot of tattoos and piercings, most of which have now
Speaker 2: been removed.
Speaker 9: You have to no sign.
Speaker 2: Next time, the team travels to Luxembourg to catch up
Speaker 2: with an old friend. He says she bore witness to
Speaker 2: one of Rick Bloom's Frederick the Head's criminal ventures.
Speaker 9: If you come back once, I will imaged to go
Speaker 9: to I told you.
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 Gasparini at the Darkpiano dot com. Thanks again to
Speaker 2: the Alliance Francis. This is a seven News production.