Australia Australia - Marion Barter, 51, missing after trip to UK, Jun 1997

[natural sagacity]

Its just such and odd way to remake your life. The whole change of name by deed poll is odd. You only need to do this to get documentation. She could join a commune and run away with another man and call herself whatever she wanted. Why bother to change it a month before going on holiday via deed poll? It seems to me the motivation of this is to get alternate documents. Why get the alternate documents? Its not like you can hide the fact you changed your name, you look it up in 5 seconds. It makes me think the new documents were for a very explicit purpose. They provided a way for someone to pose as Marion and get in and out of Australia with the money. They have never been used since. If Marion wanted a new life why not just go on holiday and stay over there on Marion Barter passport. Why not just request an international money transfer to another account. Going in to a bank every day for 2 weeks to draw money is not the type of behaviour for someone who wants to disappear.[/QUOTE/

other than the police, no one actually can confirm if Marion actually did withdraw the money the way it has been reported by the podcast. It has only just been revealed that it was that the bank was the Colonial bank, not the CBA. Infact most things reported in the podcast have been supposition and hear say Marions name change may be part of her wanting to alienate herself from her previous life.

 

[Intriguedbyintrigue]

I think it is a bit late to be worrying about Marion's privacy. Her whole private life has be made public for the world to share.

Yes it has. I feel like the push for an inquest is to circumvent the privacy act and override Marion's specific instruction not to share information with her family. At an inquest the police will have to state their case and in the process everything they have found out about Marion will have to be presented.

 

[Intriguedbyintrigue]

Its just such and odd way to remake your life. The whole change of name by deed poll is odd. You only need to do this to get documentation. She could join a commune and run away with another man and call herself whatever she wanted. Why bother to change it a month before going on holiday via deed poll? It seems to me the motivation of this is to get alternate documents. Why get the alternate documents? Its not like you can hide the fact you changed your name, you look it up in 5 seconds. It makes me think the new documents were for a very explicit purpose. They provided a way for someone to pose as Marion and get in and out of Australia with the money. They have never been used since. If Marion wanted a new life why not just go on holiday and stay over there on Marion Barter passport. Why not just request an international money transfer to another account. Going in to a bank every day for 2 weeks to draw money is not the type of behaviour for someone who wants to disappear.

A change of name document along with the passport it would enable her to open Bank accounts, get a rental agreement and even a tax file number. All the things you need for a new life. Marion's intention probably wasnt to disappear entirely - she wanted to disassociate from her past and didnt want her family to be able to find her.

She tells family she is going for a year, initially sends lots of loving contact but then says shes going to be quiet for a while and returns after a month away under a new name and drains the bank accounts in the old name. The 5k cash increments make the transactions difficult to track (no record of funds destination). Very much the behaviour of someone wanting to disappear.

 

[poppypopcorn]

I have been listening to this podcast from the start. I'm in the UK.

My theory is that the person who placed the advert in the paper may not have been the person they found in Luxembourg. You can see the train of thought - I'm in Australia on business, want to hook up with a woman or three, don't really want to use my real name because the french speaking Australian community is small, so I'll place an add using the name of my friend / colleague / someone I was at school with.

I've also thought from the start that if you want to disappear and start over, you'd choose something like Marion Smith, Karen Jones, Anne Brown. Names which you share with thousands of other people. Not something unique like Florabella Remakel.

I think the witness protection and cult are dead ends, not plausible in the slightest. Not convinced that she ever returned from the UK, certainly not a day after speaking to her daughter. Although I have read there is confusion around the return date and it may be into a Brisbane airport in September. In the 90s there were no passport checks leaving the UK though so she could easily have gone elsewhere in Europe, something happened to her and then someone else returned to Australia on her passport. This person then used their own passport to return to Europe.

 

[Itsapuzzle]

I have been listening to this podcast from the start. I'm in the UK.

My theory is that the person who placed the advert in the paper may not have been the person they found in Luxembourg. You can see the train of thought - I'm in Australia on business, want to hook up with a woman or three, don't really want to use my real name because the french speaking Australian community is small, so I'll place an add using the name of my friend / colleague / someone I was at school with.

I've also thought from the start that if you want to disappear and start over, you'd choose something like Marion Smith, Karen Jones, Anne Brown. Names which you share with thousands of other people. Not something unique like Florabella Remakel.

I think the witness protection and cult are dead ends, not plausible in the slightest. Not convinced that she ever returned from the UK, certainly not a day after speaking to her daughter. Although I have read there is confusion around the return date and it may be into a Brisbane airport in September. In the 90s there were no passport checks leaving the UK though so she could easily have gone elsewhere in Europe, something happened to her and then someone else returned to Australia on her passport. This person then used their own passport to return to Europe.

Good theory Poppy, I like it ..... the only thing I have trouble with is the passport, how would you enter Australia on one passport and leave on another .... you would have to prove your arrival into the country, wouldn't you, it would ring alarm bells if no stamp there, how could you explain it? I know you can use two passports but I'm pretty sure you have to use the same passport to enter and leave a country. Or maybe if you have two you'd need to show your arrival stamp on another passport? Would be interested to know. Maybe things were different back then ....

 

[Meligator]

I have been listening to this podcast from the start. I'm in the UK.

My theory is that the person who placed the advert in the paper may not have been the person they found in Luxembourg. You can see the train of thought - I'm in Australia on business, want to hook up with a woman or three, don't really want to use my real name because the french speaking Australian community is small, so I'll place an add using the name of my friend / colleague / someone I was at school with.

I've also thought from the start that if you want to disappear and start over, you'd choose something like Marion Smith, Karen Jones, Anne Brown. Names which you share with thousands of other people. Not something unique like Florabella Remakel.

I think the witness protection and cult are dead ends, not plausible in the slightest. Not convinced that she ever returned from the UK, certainly not a day after speaking to her daughter. Although I have read there is confusion around the return date and it may be into a Brisbane airport in September. In the 90s there were no passport checks leaving the UK though so she could easily have gone elsewhere in Europe, something happened to her and then someone else returned to Australia on her passport. This person then used their own passport to return to Europe.

 

[Meligator]

Check This Very Weird Find!
Was searching for info on Remakel in Luxembourg & found business permits for company named Fernand Nicolas Marie Ernest Remakel (image attached). Dates from 1975 & 1980, but the name is so eerily similar to the initials Marion chose. Could that possibly be just a coincidence? I think there has to be some connection.

 

[Jroamcleveland]

I have been listening to this podcast from the start. I'm in the UK.

My theory is that the person who placed the advert in the paper may not have been the person they found in Luxembourg. You can see the train of thought - I'm in Australia on business, want to hook up with a woman or three, don't really want to use my real name because the french speaking Australian community is small, so I'll place an add using the name of my friend / colleague / someone I was at school with.

I've also thought from the start that if you want to disappear and start over, you'd choose something like Marion Smith, Karen Jones, Anne Brown. Names which you share with thousands of other people. Not something unique like Florabella Remakel.

I think the witness protection and cult are dead ends, not plausible in the slightest. Not convinced that she ever returned from the UK, certainly not a day after speaking to her daughter. Although I have read there is confusion around the return date and it may be into a Brisbane airport in September. In the 90s there were no passport checks leaving the UK though so she could easily have gone elsewhere in Europe, something happened to her and then someone else returned to Australia on her passport. This person then used their own passport to return to Europe.

I agree with this theory. Perhaps the Remakel name is just made up and pulled from obscurity by the parties planning the fraud. It seems odd though to have the Luxembourg connection on the entry card.

One thing that i can't get my head around is that as I understand if you change your name and request a new passport they will invalidate the old passport and number and issue a new one. So by that rationale she would not be able to leave Australia on the Barter passport. Yet from what we understand from the podcast she did. Does that mean the name change and passport approval happened while she was overseas?

Also how long does it take to get a passport. I just did it a while back and it took about 4-6 weeks. If she only changes her name 1 month before leaving I cant see how she gets the docs? Perhaps it only took a couple of weeks back then and she leaves as soon as she gets the docs?

 

[Itsapuzzle]

Check This Very Weird Find!
Was searching for info on Remakel in Luxembourg & found business permits for company named Fernand Nicolas Marie Ernest Remakel (image attached). Dates from 1975 & 1980, but the name is so eerily similar to the initials Marion chose. Could that possibly be just a coincidence? I think there has to be some connection.

That is weird and interesting!!
And has anyone noticed Mr F Remakel had this patent filed in 1997. Filed in July, but a lot of work goes into it beforehand. Sounds like he had his hands full working on this invention at the time, you wouldn't think he'd be hangin' out in NSW making friends with Marion in 1997 ..... but I guess anything's possible.
Other languages: German, French
Inventor
Fernand Remakel
Current Assignee
Apparatur Verfahren SA
Worldwide applications
1997 EP
Application EP19970630046 events
1997-07-25

 

[Kelliepat]

I think it is a bit late to be worrying about Marion's privacy. Her whole private life has be made public for the world to share.
I will be surprised if there is an inquest and if there is it will most likely be an open finding based on the facts the police have that made them make the decision that she chose to disappear.
I think the fact Marion has a lot of money in superannuation is Sally's motive for pushing for a inquest.

I think Sally's motive is finding out what happened to her Mum, so she can stop searching.

 

[Kelliepat]

I think Sally's motive is finding out what happened to her Mum, so she can stop searching.

 

[Itsapuzzle]

I think Sally's motive is finding out what happened to her Mum, so she can stop searching.

Wholeheartedly agree with you there.

 

[poppypopcorn]

Let's assume that someone else entered Australia on Marion's "Florabella" passport and completed the entry form. Then left again using another passport. If that other passport was an Australian one, it wouldn't be stamped on leaving, would it? Using my UK passport I only get it stamped when entering another country, not when leaving the UK or entering it again. So you'd see that "Florabella" had entered Australia and a month later, some other Australian had left. The two couldn't be connected.

I think the key to all this is the airline records. I'm not convinced Marion travelled to the UK alone. Or if she did, she had plans to meet someone in the UK, travel on the Orient Express with him/her. I'm sure they mentioned that they wanted seating plans and flight records but that these couldn't be supplied without requests from the police.

 

[Mel 1303]

A few questions/thoughts.

How did Sally's friend find out when Marions passport had re entered the country, if it was now Florabella's passport? With a different name? Would the friend have searched by passport number? If so, wouldn't the different name have caused confusion? When she changed her name on her passport, a new passport would have been issued, right? So would she have been able to use both documents? The older Marion Barter document, and the newer Florabella Remakel? How stringent were the checks then? Did she travel with her previous husband? Could there be Marion Brown, Marion Warren and/or Marion Wilson passports?

Garry Sheehan has confirmed that the passport never left Australia again. In the most recent podcast, there was discussion around the ability to travel between Australia and New Zealand at the time without a passport. Could the Florabella passport have left New Zealand?

Alison pointed out an error in the police statement- that it said that Sally was living in Byron Bay. Did everyone else hear it that way? I thought it was saying the Marion was living in Byron Bay. I sat up at that one- I thought it meant the police at the time had an address from the bank.

Early on in the podcast, it was stated that Marion withdrew money from the commonwealth bank in Byron and Burleigh Heads, and the Colonial State bank in Ashmore. So Sally has forgotten that it was the colonial bank she contacted, not the commonwealth, even when the podcast talked of a colonial state bank in Ashmore?

I really do think it was Marion who returned to Australia, or someone she was working with. After writing prolifically, she rings Sally and specifically says "you wont be hearing from me". The very next day, she returns. The timing is too cooincidental. Not receiving postcards/ calls was specifically set up to not ring alarmbells. It sounds like she had some kind of a plan. From what Sally has said, it sounds like Marion was in a bad place- anxious, very stressed. It was during this time of stress she changed her name. Some of the things that happened, like withdrawing $5000 a day, might seem like a bad plan to us, but who knows how it seemed to Marion? Stress can do pretty bad things to your thought processes. The letter that Marions father received from the Salvos stated that she had withdrawn the balance of her account from the colonial bank in Ashmore on Oct 15 1990 and spoke of starting a new life. The podcast made a big deal of the 1990 date- but I really think it was a typo. I think this because in the phone call to Jack Wilson, he was told to tell Sally to stop looking in Byron, and that she was cranky about the car. The car sale was current, not in 1990.

Glad to hear that the podcast confirmed that Garry Sheehan did travel to the Gold Coast, interviewing staff at TSS as well as people such as Lesley as part of his investigation. His failure to come back for a formal statement was duly made, but yet again further evidence of his investigation was shared.

 

[Mel 1303]

Good theory Poppy, I like it ..... the only thing I have trouble with is the passport, how would you enter Australia on one passport and leave on another .... you would have to prove your arrival into the country, wouldn't you, it would ring alarm bells if no stamp there, how could you explain it? I know you can use two passports but I'm pretty sure you have to use the same passport to enter and leave a country. Or maybe if you have two you'd need to show your arrival stamp on another passport? Would be interested to know. Maybe things were different back then ....

If you had an Australian passport in a different name you probably wouldn't raise an alarm bell.

 

[Mel 1303]

A few more musings:

I have won two excellence in teaching awards. No one in my family came to the presentations. It just wasn't a big thing- I went with colleagues.

Over the years, I have taught many kids who have au pairs. Usually young girls travelling around Australia, who work with a family for up to 6 months before continuing their travels. TSS is a pretty exclusive school- I would imagine many of the kids there had au pairs. I wonder if any of the au pairs were from Luxembourg? It is often the au pair that I have day to day contact with at school, yet their details are not recorded on enrolment forms or anything. I have often had a good long chat with an au pair, and learnt lots about their travels and their life at home.

 

[Intriguedbyintrigue]

Garry Sheehan has confirmed that the passport never left Australia again. In the most recent podcast, there was discussion around the ability to travel between Australia and New Zealand at the time without a passport. Could the Florabella passport have left New Zealand?.

I looked this up and it changed late 80's. From memory the requirement to have a passport to travel between Aust and NZ came in 89.

 

[Mel 1303]

I looked this up and it changed late 80's. From memory the requirement to have a passport to travel between Aust and NZ came in 89.

I could find lots of info about when you needed a passport to come into Australia from NZ, but not for going into NZ. It seemed to be Australia pushing the point.

 

[Mel 1303]

More ramblings- in the information from the Salvation Army, it states that the security officer at the Colonial State bank in Ashmore had spoken to Marion and she spoke of starting a new life. She lived in Ashmore- this was her local branch. She wasn't a tourist at Byron here. If the security officer was asked "Are you sure it was her?", he may well have answered with "I have known her for a number of years- definitely her".

Also- the set up with Barclays bank, for her to be able to access funds while over seas- according to ep 13 it was never touched. So what did she do for funds during the time that we do know she was there?

 

[Intriguedbyintrigue]

A few more musings:

I have won two excellence in teaching awards. No one in my family came to the presentations. It just wasn't a big thing- I went with colleagues.

Congratulations Mel1303! That makes sense Marion probably did the same. I still think it's a bit unusual she didnt say anything about it to Sally (photos etc). It must have been fairly special to Marion because (according to her teacher-aide) she nominated herself.
Then again if she was arguing with TSS hierarchy about teaching methods (as the boyfriend thought) the award might have been to prove a point and perhaps it wasnt much of a talking point for her. Marion seems to have been highly selective about what she talked to Sally about, understandably of course as Sally was still fairly young at that point.

I think youre onto something with the au pairs.