Australia Australia - Marion Barter - Missing After Trip to UK - June 1997 #19

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There is more than a suggestion that he uses fear, intimidation and blackmail to threaten his victims and the total lack of empathy and victim blaming could also suggest psychopathic tendencies.

The fact Marion seems to disappear off the face of the earth after the final cash payment was withdrawn in Oct 97 suggests to me he no longer had any use for her.

With his other Australian victims that we know of he failed to rob them of everything but in Marion’s case he did and there was every likelihood she would have gone to the Police. He couldn’t take that risk.
Exactly! Well said! This makes absolute perfect sense and also ties in with other known facts.
 
I wish that the forensic units that are supposed to be investigating remains found so far, here in Australia, would get theIr skates on.

You hear about cases all the time in the US being finalised but never seem to hear about any progress here.
I know that Australia now has connections with Othram and I thought there might be progress made on some of our cases.

I know in the US that they use crowd funding for some cases, but I'm not sure that would work here, due to we have a much smaller population of possible donors.

I know that Covid slowed things down, plus the mess in Queensland, the DNA labs.
 
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I know in the US that they use crowd funding for some cases, but I'm not sure that would work here, due to we have a much smaller population of possible donors.

Some of the USA podcast that have the subscription option donate some of that money towards specific cases for private DNA testing - crime weekly is one, I think it's a great idea
 
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It’s possible

She was clearly vulnerable, and had been targeted & defrauded by this piece of rubbish. Even if she got away from him, there may have been too much shame to go back to her old life - or she may not have had much interest in returning to it.

I don’t think it’s _likely_, but it’s possible.
Maybe suicide and murder by AKA aren’t the only two options?
 
Regarding the bank manager and Bali, remember she was married to a policeman at the time.

Remember the inquest did question whether there was an improper exchange of information between employees of Byron bank and Byron police that might've started THE rumour that stopped the investigation… that Marion was found and willingly wanted to start a new life overseas, away from her family.

The question is where did the rumour start, at the bank or police? Or perhaps at the home shared by the bank manager and policeman?

Here are two COPS entries that were allegedly taken after Byron police spoke to Byron bank:
22 Oct 1997 1:15pm: “Last transaction from Byron. Transfer $80,000 from account to another account 15 October 1997.”
22 Oct 1997 2:37pm: “She is a 3 times divorced woman in her 50’s and one possible scenario for her behaviour is that she returned to Australia with a companion and has transferred the funds to England to purchase a property there with the view to move to England.”

Which is very odd considering the bank manager’s sudden memory in 2022 that it was definitely a tanned Marion with a flower in her hair who withdrew the money with the intention of going to Bali to find herself. She also believes she saw Marion years later at a ‘return to work course’ in Australia.

Essentially, the bank manager gave evidence that Marion was in Australia and still alive in the 2000s. Which is convenient for NSW police who pulled Marion's AFP Missing Person campaign in 2007, saying Marion wasn't missing because police had recently contacted her again and she was still alive. We learned this from the emails obtained by freedom of information.

Frankly, none of it adds up. I don't believe the bank manager told the truth.

I think we need to find the car.
 
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Maybe suicide and murder by AKA aren’t the only two options?
Other options are that she chose to disappear.
She died accidentally
Someone else murdered her.
She was kidnapped and is alive or dead somewhere

Any I left out ? I'm absolutely ruling out that anything supernatural happened to her.
 
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The most telling thing for me is his sudden announcement, when proceedings appeared to be finalising 'I think she's still alive' ! It came completely out of the blue. After years of distancing himself and saying I saw her 3 or 4 times, I didn't see her ever again. Why would I know, I don't remember etc, etc.

He injects himself absolutely back into the whole case again! Then 'she said she didn't want to have anything to do with her family ' - well we clearly know that this is totally untrue. Marion has been in touch with the family, Sally especially. His aim is to warn Sally off again, imply that all her efforts to find her mother are pointless because Marion never cared about her..

If he had said 'I hope she is still alive for the sake of Sally and her family ' we would have been much more comfortable and unsure about Marion's demise.

Listen to his words. He is guilty IMO, and he is the one who has illustrated it all along in his own statements over all this time. It's absolutely shocking, he really does give himself away time and time again.

Think about all the things he DOESN'T say, things that we all know an innocent person WOULD say.
 
Other options are that she chose to disappear.
She died accidentally
Someone else murdered her.
She was kidnapped and is alive or dead somewhere

Any I left out ? I'm absolutely ruling out that anything supernatural happened to her.
DBM
 
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I wish to sign a petition that Mr. Ric Blum be kept away from older vulnerable women, particularly those in any of the Uniting Church retirement villages. In my opinion he is still a danger to society and his pattern of fraud has been well-established legally.
WHAT?! Is RB in one of the Uniting Church retirement villages??!

Remember the Byron policeman who took Sally's report? The one who had been a policeman 20 years but claims he never managed a missing persons case before and didn't know the procedure? Well, he retired from the police force 5 years after Marion disappeared and went on to work in sales for retirement village / resort property investment companies. Including that one.
 
To extend this more into speculation that does fit the pattern (and evidence?) though:

AKA abandons MB somewhere in Europe (or another “dream” location). MB is unaware because he has provided a reason for a temporary separation (meeting, business…take your pick!) = PATTERN

MB continues her trip solo, pottering around…unaware. Sends postcards, makes phone call to SL. = EVIDENCE. Something happens to MB in Europe (or other dream location not Oz).

BUT conflicting EVIDENCE shows MB’s passport returning and cash being withdrawn from her account and visiting optometrist in Grafton. All seemingly provides “proof of life” of MB back in Australia. A Smoke and mirrors trick in other words And made possible if the POI is a known document falsifier, fraud and immigration dodger and has the capacity to cover his travel tracks (at the time!). Plus, he is aware (and no one else apart from MB is) of MB’s name change and thus provides another diversionary advantage for him. Should MB be reporting missing at the time and LE go looking for her in the UK, she has been travelling as FNMR. If they look for her in Oz, they can see proof of life as MB. Smoke and Mirrors!
If Marion was the first romance victim (?), the pattern was not yet established. IMO the scam could have still been running when MB returned to Australia and withdrew the money, driving around in the car that RB bought and waiting for him to finalise whatever was required for the next chapter in their new life together. The lump sum withdrawal/transfer I feel marked the end of it..did MB discover the scam then or was that actioned by someone else? If there was an altercation/accident at that point, I feel it was unlikely that anyone present would have gone to the police..particularly if a person was a career criminal. All MOO
 
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WHAT?! Is RB in one of the Uniting Church retirement villages??!

Remember the Byron policeman who took Sally's report? The one who had been a policeman 20 years but claims he never managed a missing persons case before and didn't know the procedure? Well, he retired from the police force 5 years after Marion disappeared and went on to work in sales for retirement village / resort property investment companies. Including that one.
AKA is in respite care in Bangalow. I don’t think anyone in MSM has specified which one.
 
IMO the scam could have still been running when MB returned to Australia and withdrew the money, driving around in the car that RB bought and waiting for him to finalise whatever was required for the next chapter in their new life together. The lump sum withdrawal/transfer I feel marked the end of it..did MB discover the scam then or was that actioned by someone else? If there was an altercation/accident at that point, I feel it was unlikely that anyone present would have gone to the police..particularly if a person was a career criminal. All MOO
This is the bit where I am not convinced that AKA’s pattern is one of high risk…and allowing MB to get so close to his home base is high risk for him. (the “Not fouling the nest“ of the previous post)
 
Le Courier ad in 1994 indicates he is working the scam pre MB. We only have AKA’s word at the moment that no one else responded to that ad.

if his pattern of convincing women not to tell of the relationship to their family then they too could have disappeared and the family's would have no clue to link their disappearance to this case .. which is a horrible thought.
 
If I found that this man once lived where I am now, I'd be wanting to dig up the whole place!
Who knows what you may find. Tubes of jewels or money.

What if he used that method not only to trick people, but also to hide his ill-gotten gains.

Perhaps they contain some of his victims things, things that could be identified.
 
The most telling thing for me is his sudden announcement, when proceedings appeared to be finalising 'I think she's still alive' ! It came completely out of the blue. After years of distancing himself and saying I saw her 3 or 4 times, I didn't see her ever again. Why would I know, I don't remember etc, etc.

He injects himself absolutely back into the whole case again! Then 'she said she didn't want to have anything to do with her family ' - well we clearly know that this is totally untrue. Marion has been in touch with the family, Sally especially. His aim is to warn Sally off again, imply that all her efforts to find her mother are pointless because Marion never cared about her..

I wonder if there is less to these particular statements than meets the eye, or at least it's just more of the same.

As he seems to have done before, he may just be parroting evidence or stories he has heard in the podcast or the media, retrofitting it into his story for his own benefit. He did it with the pilot, with Marion's style being a bit "Little House on the Prairie", and now this. Marion being still alive and wanting no contact with her family was the assumption for a long time, via the police and the bank, and seems to be still the view of her sisters (although they appear not to give two sh*ts either way). I can see him doing a very poorly thought out call back to that.

Still a big mistake on his part, but I can sort of see how it happened in his warped brain, given his previous. He did seem genuinely astonished that the court was all over it like a rash when he appeared to assume this info was nothing new.
 
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