The Mysterious Disappearance of Marion Barter

This episode covers the disappearance of Marion Barter, a 51-year-old woman who in 1997 embarked on an overseas adventure, only to seemingly drop off the face of the earth. 

We explore the perplexing sequence of events leading up to Marion's disappearance and discover there is one man at the centre of a web of lies and deceit.

NSW Coroner Teresa O’Sullivan will hand down her findings from the inquest into Marion's disappearance on a date yet to be announced (possibly late 2023).

Stay tuned for updates as the case continues to unfold and Marion's family wait for answers. 

For a full list of sources as well as background music please click here

To listen to The Lady Vanishes Podcast click here 

Chapters

• 0:00 The Disappearance of Marion Barter
• 16:45 Investigating the Disappearance of Marion Barter

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Marion Barter was an independent 51-year-old woman who was ready to start a new chapter in her life. She farewelled her adult children, sold her home and put her belongings in storage before setting off on an overseas adventure. She told her daughter, sally, that she'd be back in a year or so, but after a couple of postcards and a couple of phone calls there was no further contact. Marion had vanished. 26 years later we await the findings from a coronial inquest into Marion's disappearance. What has been uncovered while trying to locate her involves an intricate web of lies and deception, with one man at the centre. What does he know? Or perhaps the more pertinent question is what did he do To Marion? This episode contains content related to fraud, coercive control and homicide and is not suitable for children. Today I'm delving into the missing person's case of Marion Barter, last seen by a friend at a Gold Coast bus station on Sunday 22nd June 1997. Marion took the bus to the airport where she boarded a plane to the UK for an extended vacation. Sally suspected something was wrong when she didn't hear from her after a few months. But when her mother didn't get in contact with her brother Owen for his birthday, sally knew something was very wrong. When she started digging for answers, she was told Marion was voluntarily missing and she didn't want any contact with family. She was told Marion was alive and well, but, as we'll come to find out, she very likely wasn't. I'm Carla Morgan and this is Bolo, a podcast covering cold and active missing person's cases with the aim of helping families bring their loved ones home.

Speaker 1: 2:20

Marion Barter was a loved mother, friend, sister and daughter. She had purchased a home in Southport on the Gold Coast and she was working at one of the local schools nearby. She was teaching primary school, which she loved, and the children absolutely adored her. Just the year before she went missing, in 1996, marion had received an award of excellence for teaching. Marion was a romantic. She loved being in relationships and she loved being in love Around the time we pick up her story, she had been married and divorced three times Previously. In the 1960s she was married to Johnny Warren, a professional Australian soccer player. Then she married a man named Stuart Brown, who she had her two children, sally and Owen, with. And her last marriage was to a man called Ray Barter and they divorced in 1990. Marion was slim, with brown, wavy hair. She loved florals and had a very distinctive style. She had also acquired a number of antiques and collected expensive artworks.

Speaker 1: 3:35

In 1997, marion was planning an overseas trip. She was going first to the UK and then had plans to ride the Orient Express through Europe. She also thought she might get a teaching job in the UK if things worked out. She sold her home in April of 1997. It was a quick sale. She sold it for $15,000 less than she paid for it originally, and then in June she resigned from her teaching job In Australia. June is mid-year it's not the end of the school year so Sally did think it was unlike Marion not to see out the year with her students. This left her wondering whether something had happened at school that made her leave so abruptly. However, in Marion's resignation letter she stated her reasons for leaving as being vacationing overseas and teaching in the UK. She did also request that her teaching certificate be renewed for the following year, as it was getting close to the time she was due to leave.

Speaker 1: 4:45

There were two things that happened that Sally thought were a bit unusual or a bit out of character for her mum. One night Sally's partner, chris, was over at Marion's house helping her pack up the last few boxes of her things. Sally was at night classes so Chris was planning to pick her up afterwards, but as he was packing boxes for Marion, she abruptly asked him what the time was. He said 8.30. And then she told him he had to leave like right away. Chris thought this was odd and quite rude. It wasn't like Marion at all. But he got up and left and went to pick up Sally from TAFE. They were driving back home when they stopped in at McDonald's.

Speaker 1: 5:34

This mackers was located inside a petrol station and as Sally and Chris were eating, chris noticed Marion pull up at the fuel pumps just outside. Sally turned around to look and waved at her mum to try to catch her attention. She also clocked a very tall man sitting in the passenger seat in her mum's car. Who was this guy? She thought it wasn't someone she knew or recognised, but it was also hard to see in the dark. When Marion set eyes on Sally, she looked taken aback and she quickly put the petrol pump down without getting any fuel, jumped back in the car and sped off. Sally thought Aha, mum busted, you've got a guy that you're keeping a secret. And when she asked her mum about it a few days later, marion brushed it off, saying he's just a friend who wanted to take her out for a drink before she left. Sally thought this was odd. First she kicked Chris out of the house, then she's caught secreting a man around in her car, and also Marion didn't drink. So who was he and what were they doing that night?

Speaker 1: 6:47

On the last day they saw each other. Sally and Marion hugged and Sally said she'd see her for her wedding, which was booked in for the next year. Sally was happy for her mum to have this adventure and Marion was excited as well. So on the 22nd of June Marion had a friend drive her to the bus station on the Gold Coast, where she then took a bus to the airport and boarded a plane to England.

Speaker 1: 7:17

In July and August family and friends received postcards and letters from Marion, postmarked from Kent, sussex and London. On the 31st of July Marion called Sally to check in. She called her again on the 1st of August saying she was at a pay phone in Tumbridge Wells, which is in the UK. She also said in this phone call that she was going to stay longer there in England and postpone her ticket that she had booked on the Orient Express. That was the last time Sally spoke to or heard from her mum and, as I mentioned at the start of the episode, when Owen's 23rd birthday came around in October and Marion didn't call or write to him, sally knew something was very wrong.

Speaker 1: 8:13

So Sally called Marion's bank to check if there had been any activity on her account. She told the bank teller that she was very worried as her mum was alone overseas and they hadn't heard from her for a few months. The bank teller informed Sally that due to privacy reasons, she couldn't reveal any information. But as she was talking to Sally, she noticed some concerning activity on Marion's account and she ended up divulging the following information over the phone. She said Someone had withdrawn $5,000 a day every day for three and a half weeks from August through to September.

Speaker 1: 8:57

The transactions had occurred in Byron Bay, three hours south of the Gold Coast where Sally was living. Some of those withdrawals had also been made in Burley heads, which is closer to Byron Bay, but in between Byron Bay and the Gold Coast. $5,000 was likely the maximum amount you could withdraw in a day at the time, but not from an ATM. The daily limit from an ATM would have been much less at the time. So in total, over $80,000 had been drained from her bank account, likely from over-the-counter transactions, in the space of three and a half weeks.

Speaker 1: 9:37

Was it Marion? If it was, why didn't she withdraw the money in one transaction? Or was it someone pretending to be Marion, trying to go under the radar by withdrawing small amounts? The very next day, sally jumped in her car and headed down to Byron Bay. She had a photograph of Marion and she canvassed the shops asking if anyone had seen her. She also went to the bank and was told that they couldn't help her. So she ended up at the police station where she made a missing persons report.

Speaker 1: 10:10

Just one week later, sally received a call from police. They said her mother was not missing, that she just did not want to be contacted. Sally was naturally confused and shocked, but without any further help from the police. What was she going to do? So for a few years she left it, but she couldn't let it go completely. She was uneasy. This was her mother and she was missing. So many milestones Sally's wedding, sally having her babies, and also Marion missed the funerals of her father and her son, as, sadly, owen took his own life when he was just 27.

Speaker 1: 10:57

In 2003, sally asked the Salvation Army Family Tracing Service to start searching for her mother. In 2007, she approached the Australian Federal Police Missing Persons Unit. She wanted answers. She told police. I want proof that my mum is alive or I want her listed as a missing person. This was when Sally found out some alarming information about Marion. It was also the very first time that Marion was put on the NSW Missing Persons Register, 10 years after she had left Australia for the trip of a lifetime. Here's what we now know happened. This information was uncovered in the 2007 investigation.

Speaker 1: 11:49

One month before Marion left Australia, she changed her name by deed poll to Flora Bella, natalia Marion Remichel. She then obtained a passport in this name but didn't tell anyone, not friends nor family, about this name change. Her outgoing passenger card stated that she was divorced and intending to live in Luxembourg. Remember she called Sally on the 1st of August, saying she was in the UK. Well, her passport was recorded returning to Australia on Saturday 2nd of August 1997. It was the Flora Bella passport that was used again, but this time her incoming passenger card stated that she was living in Luxembourg and was married. If she was in the UK on the 1st when she called Sally, there's no way, with the time difference and flight times, that she could have made it back to Australia by the 2nd, which is when her passport said she returned. So either it wasn't Marion who returned to Australia on that plane or Marion was not in the UK on the 1st when she called Sally. Sally now believes that this is the more likely scenario. Marion was calling her from an airport in Hong Kong where her flight would have stopped over on the way back to Australia. We also find out that Marion's Medicare card was used on the 13th of August at a doctor's office in Grafton, new South Wales. This is about a two-hour drive south of Byron Bay. Not her passport nor her Medicare card have ever been used again. When Sally learned about this information about her mother's name change, her passport returning her Medicare card being used, she was shocked. Marion had been here in Australia since the beginning of August 1997. She really hadn't made contact.

Speaker 1: 14:30

It was also during this police investigation that an area of bushland near Armadale, nsw, was searched in 2010 with a cadaver dog. They were acting off a tip given in 2002 to crime stoppers saying Marion had been murdered and was buried there. The investigation was then suspended as police again believed that Marion was indeed voluntarily missing and they removed her from the NSW missing persons register in 2011. That same year, sally received a Facebook message from an unknown person calling themselves Clark Hunter. The message said Natalia is alive, but you never see her again. It was not her intention to disappear, she was forced. This tip was passed on, but we're not sure if it was ever followed up on.

Speaker 1: 15:36

In July 2019, a formal review of the case was conducted by police and the homicide squad established a strike force to reinvestigate Marion's disappearance. Marion was put on the Australian Federal Police missing persons register for the first time. It was also revealed that Marion had never been physically sighted by police. So, other than her passport returning in August of 1997, her money being drained from her bank accounts and her Medicare card being used once, there were no other signs that Marion was here and was alive and well. There was also $80,000 left in unclaimed funds that Marion had put into an account to transfer over to a UK branch for her trip. It was never transferred and it's never been touched, so no one had actually seen her since 1997 and neither one of her passports has ever been used to leave the country again.

Speaker 1: 16:46

Sally went to the media in 2019 and this is when Channel 7 started the investigative podcast the Lady Vanishes with Alison Sandy and Brian Seymour. The podcast at the time of this recording is ongoing and is following the case in real time. It has propelled the investigation forward and the first major breakthrough came when one of the listeners dug deeper into the name Flora Bella, natalia Marion Ramacal. This listener found that in 1994 a personal ad had been placed in a French-English newspaper in Sydney. The ad stated that a tall single man who was cultured and intelligent, warm and welcoming, was seeking a single woman looking for a permanent relationship or marriage. This advert was posted with a phone number and post office box in Lenox Head, a 20 minute drive from Byron Bay, and the name on the bottom of the ad was Mr F Ramacal. They called the number but they could never get through to a person. It was just an answering service. So they continued searching for men by the name F Ramacal who would have been the correct age to place such an ad. Ramacal is a very rare name in Australia. They found no one here. They did find a man who would be the correct age, living in Luxembourg. Luxembourg was where Marion's incoming passenger card said she was living and the name Ramacal surely wasn't just a coincidence.

Speaker 1: 18:40

The investigative journalist and Sally flew to Luxembourg, found this Fernand Ramacal and asked him what he knew about Marion Barter or about Flora Bella. He was quite taken aback and on the defence immediately, but he adamantly denied knowing anything at all and he really just wanted them to go away. His English was good but not great, so they did mostly use an interpreter, which will become important soon. When they could get no further information from Fernand Ramacal in Luxembourg, they went back to the phone number on the advert and tried to trace it to a person here in Australia, to no avail. Then an anonymous tipster contacted the podcast to say that she had had a relationship with a man called Fernand Ramacal. She said he came from a wealthy family, he spoke fluent English, so not the same guy as the Fernand Ramacal in Luxembourg. She said they didn't know each other for long before they got into a relationship. He used his charms to manipulate people and that he had used her in such a way. This information was passed on to New South Wales Police, but it wasn't until the inquest began in June of 2021 that it was revealed who the person was who placed the ad and how he was connected to the Fernand Ramacal in Luxembourg and how he was connected to Marion.

Speaker 1: 20:36

A man by the name of Rick Blum was called as a key witness in the inquest. He had many aliases, one of which was Fernand Ramacal. Rick Blum is now in his 80s and is currently living in the area around Byron Bay, new South Wales. He's originally from Belgium and emigrated here in 1976. He was imprisoned in France for fraud in the 1970s and was convicted here in Australia in the 1960s for traffic violations and falsifying documents. As I mentioned, he has a long list of aliases. He's changed his name here in Australia at least 13 times. One of these aliases was Fernand Ramekelle. It's believed that he stole this identity from the Fernand Ramekelle in Luxembourg as he had had a relationship with Fernand's wife at some point.

Speaker 1: 21:49

Here are the key points revealed during the inquest. Rick Blum admitted to police that he was the one who had placed the ad in the French English newspaper Around the same time as the ad was placed. He also had a driver's license in Australia in the name Fernand Ramekelle. In a previous police interview he admitted to having an affair with Marion that lasted four months. Despite initially telling them he knew nothing about her, he told police he had met Marion in Europe in the 1960s, when Marion was with her husband, johnny Warren, playing soccer in Switzerland, and that they had had a short affair there. He also admitted to having another fleeting relationship with her in the 1990s, just before she disappeared. He said they spent a few nights together while she was living in Southport. Then, when she sold her house and moved out, she asked him to store boxes at his house near Lismore. He said the boxes were delivered by a removalist and then one week later Marion collected them. According to Blum, she came to get the boxes with a man in his 50s who was dressed like a pilot and that Marion said she had plans to travel to Europe with this man. Blum claims this was the last time he ever saw Marion. So quick summary he tells police he doesn't know anything about Marion. Then he tells police he's had a four month long affair. He tells them he's had two affairs over his lifetime with Marion and then he says they spent a few nights together before she disappeared. So lots of conflicting information. I'll just add a note here to say that Sally says that many of Marion's belongings were stored at her ex-parents-in-law's house, but that some boxes were missing and have never been accounted for. Also important to note is that Rick Blum travelled from Australia to Japan, or via Japan, five days after Marion left Australia and he returned back here two days before her passport did or she did. He admitted to travelling to Europe around this time, but says he never went to the UK.

Speaker 1: 24:30

During the inquest, two women were called as witnesses because of their previous involvements with Blum. From the testimonies of these women, blum had a habit of meeting women who were middle-aged, vulnerable and or looking for love. He would then love, bomb them, sweep them off their feet, promising a holiday, a house, a joint business venture, a new start or a new life with him in an exotic location or overseas. One recurring theme was that he asked them to keep their new relationship and the move a secret from their families and children, at least initially, and that the women's assets homes, jewellery, coin collections or antiques would need to be either sold or put in storage or kept somewhere safe where he obviously knew about. The final piece of the scam was that he would then disappear, taking what profits he could, to never be seen again.

Speaker 1: 25:43

One of the women who gave evidence at the inquest was Janet Oldenburg. She had made a statement to police in 1999 saying that Blum had proposed they go into business together and move to the French Riviera. They had travelled to Europe together and Janet had given him the deed to her house and other personal documents for safekeeping. Janet then returned back to Australia and was contacted by Blum saying he'd been robbed and all her papers were lost. She then found him at a later date in her home in Australia attempting to steal documents and jewellery. Blum admits to having a relationship with Janet and travelling together, but denies any other claims. The second woman to give evidence was Jeanette Gaffney Bowen. Jeanette offered Blum a place to stay at her Sydney home and gave him $30,000 to start a business together buying and selling coins. The relationship soured and when Jeanette ended things, blum threatened violence, which she reported to police and she was granted an AVO Apprehended Violence Order in 1999. Blum says he doesn't remember her or staying at her house or receiving any money from her or the AVO.

Speaker 1: 27:11

There were two more women with very similar stories at the inquest Ghilain Danois Dubois and Marie Landroux. Marie had been married to Blum's cousin in Belgium and was widowed just seven months when Blum reached out to her in 2012. She claims Blum seduced her and she gave him 100,000 euro to buy a house in Bali for them to live together, but when they got there he disappeared and flew back to Australia while she was out getting a massage. Ghilain also told the inquest that she believed they were heading to Australia to start a new life. Before stopping over in Bali to get married, she gave him 70,000 euro. Blum denied her claims, but Ghilain was able to show the court their engagement announcement and a party invitation, which he also denied any knowledge of. All of these women have eerily similar allegations of seduction and the promise of a new life, only to have money, property or possessions fraudulently taken by Blum.

Speaker 1: 28:22

When questioned during the inquest about Marion, blum denied knowing her whereabouts and any wrongdoing Of the women who came forward with stories of being swindled by him. He claims all the stories are lies, but the fact remains that he could quite possibly be one of the last people to have seen Marion alive and he was romantically involved with her just prior to her leaving Australia, and she changed her name to the same name as his surname at the time. The coroner, teresa O'Sullivan, will hand down her findings on a date yet to be announced and I'll post updates as the case progresses. I've also included a link in the show notes to the Lady Vanishes podcast.

Speaker 1: 29:18

If you want a full, deep dive, there's a $500,000 reward for information which leads to the arrest and conviction of any person or persons responsible for Marion's suspicious disappearance. If you or anyone you know know anything at all, please contact Police Link on 131-444 or call Crime Stoppers on 1800-333-000. Thanks for listening to Bolo. If this episode has brought up feelings for you, please reach out to Lifeline on 1311-14 or RESPECT on 1800-RESPECT. You can connect with me on Insta or TikTok at Bolopod or email me Bolopod at iCloudcom. Until next week, stay safe and thanks for listening.