MYSTERY OF MISSING MUM! SHOCK NEW TESTIMONY COULD LEAD TO BREAKTHROUGH
MARION BARTER’S DAUGHTER, SALLY, HAS BEEN ON A DESPERATE SEARCH SINCE SHE VANISHED
Sally Leydon, the woman whose hunt for her mother, Marion Barter, is at the centre of the popular podcast The Lady Vanishes, is finally one step closer to discovering the truth about why and how her mum went missing 25 years ago.
Recently, shocking revelations at the final stage of the coronial inquest into Marion’s disappearance at the hands of her former lover, Ric Blum – who was involved with the Gold Coast school teacher before she vanished in 1997 – have turned the investigation on its head.
Now, Sally hopes Blum’s detailed testimony – about the nature of his relationship and his time with Marion before she went missing – could prove to be the breakthrough she’s been waiting for.
“I believe we’re the closest we’ve ever been to finding out what happened to Mum,” Sally, 49, told 7News.
It is a sentiment that is shared by Alison
Sandy, the executive producer of The Lady Vanishes.
“The information coming out now just blows your mind, and I feel we’re closer than ever to finding out,” Alison tells New Idea.
“The evidence he [Blum] has given has been fascinating. I think there’s more information that he has about her disappearance, so now it’s just a matter of wait and see.”
Marion Barter, then aged 51, left her life in Australia behind in June 1997, when she suddenly announced that she was going to go on a long holiday to Europe. After flying out, she was never seen again by her family and friends.
Marion had previously been married three times, including to soccer great Johnny Warren.
When Sally, Marion’s daughter from her second marriage, later tried to contact her mother, she was told by police and other authorities that Marion had moved away to start a new life, and had changed her name to Florabella
Natalia Marion Remakel.
The police also said Marion did not want to be contacted. Unconvinced, Sally has been on a mission ever since to discover what really happened to her mum.
The success of The Lady Vanishes presented so much credible evidence that the case was taken over by the Unsolved Homicide Squad and the NSW Coroner announced an inquest into Marion’s disappearance.
The inquest began in June 2021 and continued in February this year. So much new evidence was presented that a third hearing was held in April.
When Blum was
questioned, a significant breakthrough emerged into Marion’s last-known movements.
Belgian-born Blum, now aged 83 and living in northern NSW, confessed to having two fleeting relationships with Marion – once in the 1960s, and again before she left for Europe in 1997.
What makes Blum’s revelations about the timing of his relationship with Marion such an important development in the case is that just five weeks after she left Australia, on August 2, 1997, Marion returned on a passport with her new name – Florabella Remakel. Blum, a conman with a list of criminal convictions, had previously used the alias ‘Fernand Remakel’.
According to evidence at the inquest, his travel movements also appeared similar to Marion’s at that time. He had flown out of Australia five days before Marion, and then returned only two days before she did.
Blum claimed he ended the relationship with Marion and had no further interaction with her after she left for Europe in 1997, due to his guilt over cheating on his wife, Diane, and their two children.
Marion, under the name of Florabella, listed herself on her customs card as a married Luxembourg housewife, but the passport never left Australia again despite her card stating she intended only to be back for eight days.
‘THIS ENTIRE CASE HAS BEEN ONE GIANT JIGSAW PUZZLE’
In a further twist, either Marion or someone using her identity withdrew $80,000 from an account in her name at a bank in Byron Bay, NSW.
Blum insists he has no idea what happened to Marion after he last saw her.
“This entire case has been one giant jigsaw puzzle, and all these different things just did not make any sense until we met him,” Alison says.
In 2021, NSW Police announced a $250,000 reward for information that leads to the arrest and conviction of any person responsible for Marion’s disappearance. That amount was doubled this year to half a million dollars.
“I hope this time Sally will get the answers she’s spent 25 years searching for,” Alison says.
Sally, a married mother of three who lives in Brisbane, hopes Blum might offer key information that will finally solve the mystery.
“The end game for me is to find out what happened to my mum,” Sally said. “That’s my hope and prayers … I just want to find her.”
The coroner is due to hand down the findings of the case by November this year.