{"id":16336,"date":"2024-03-03T00:47:29","date_gmt":"2024-03-03T00:47:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/2024\/03\/03\/the-conman-his-lovers-and-the-mother-who-vanished\/"},"modified":"2024-03-03T00:47:29","modified_gmt":"2024-03-03T00:47:29","slug":"the-conman-his-lovers-and-the-mother-who-vanished","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/2024\/03\/03\/the-conman-his-lovers-and-the-mother-who-vanished\/","title":{"rendered":"The conman, his lovers and the mother who vanished"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

For more than two decades, no one listened to Sally Leydon as she begged for help to find her mother who mysteriously vanished during a trip abroad in 1997. <\/p>\n

At the time, Australian police dismissed her concerns, insisting that her mother, Marion Barter, had disappeared by choice, and wanted nothing to do with her family. <\/p>\n

It was a story Leydon refused to accept, and on Thursday her efforts to find her mother led to a crowded courtroom in western Sydney, where a coroner handed down her findings in an inquest spanning almost three years. <\/p>\n

For many, the final inquest hearing offered the ultimate live update of \u201cThe Lady Vanishes,\u201d an Australian podcast that has meticulously pieced together evidence in the case since the first episode aired in March 2019. <\/p>\n

On Thursday morning, Leydon\u2019s most loyal Australian supporters crammed into the courtroom, wearing green, Barter\u2019s favorite color, as the podcast\u2019s followers in the United States, Canada, New Zealand, Europe, the United Kingdom and beyond tuned into a live YouTube feed as Magistrate Teresa O\u2019Sullivan delivered her findings. <\/p>\n

\u201cMarion Barter is deceased, and died some unknown time after October 15, 1997,\u201d said O\u2019Sullivan from the bench. Barter\u2019s body has never been found. <\/p>\n

Leydon didn\u2019t need a coroner to confirm her mother\u2019s death \u2013 she has long accepted that painful truth in the absence of any evidence otherwise. <\/p>\n

But the coroner\u2019s words confirmed what she\u2019d suspected for years \u2013 that the early police investigation into her mother\u2019s disappearance was botched, and that Ric Blum \u2013 a convicted conman now in his 80s, who admitted having an affair with Barter in the months before she vanished \u2013 had lied repeatedly on the stand and knew more about her mother\u2019s disappearance than he was letting on. <\/p>\n

A mother vanishes<\/h2>\n

In 1997, Marion Barter was ready for a change, and on June 22, she boarded a plane from Brisbane, Australia to the United Kingdom with plans for a holiday and perhaps a fresh start. <\/p>\n

In rather dramatic fashion, the 51-year-old teacher had quit her job halfway through the school year, sold her house, and put her beloved antiques into storage on the understanding that one day she\u2019d come home to get them, or have them shipped to her, if she settled in the UK. <\/p>\n

As far as anyone knew, she was traveling alone. <\/p>\n

On August 1, Barter phoned Leydon purportedly from a payphone in Tunbridge Wells in Kent, England. <\/p>\n

Leydon, then 24 years old, told the podcast she had just finished telling her mother about the wedding dress she\u2019d bought when the payphone ran out of credit. She never heard from her mother again. <\/p>\n

At first Leydon didn\u2019t dwell on the silence, but on October 18, when Barter didn\u2019t phone her son, Leydon\u2019s brother Owen, for his birthday, she started to worry. <\/p>\n

One of the first calls Leydon made was to Barter\u2019s bank to see if her mother was using her account. Regular amounts were coming out, a bank worker told her, but not from the UK. <\/p>\n

Someone in Australia had been using her mother\u2019s identification to withdraw 5,000 Australian dollars ($3,450.00) every day for three weeks over the counter in Byron Bay and the Gold Coast, where Barter used to live. <\/p>\n

A shocked Leydon was sure it wasn\u2019t her mother and reported it to the police. <\/p>\n

Then came the response that set Leydon on a course that\u2019s consumed most of her adult life. <\/p>\n

Police told her that the bank confirmed that her mother had withdrawn her money and wanted nothing to do with her family. <\/p>\n

Barter had returned to Australia, they said, and wanted to disappear. <\/p>\n

A new life, and a new name<\/h2>\n

Years went by with little information about what happened to Barter, until an intriguing clue emerged via a police investigation that belatedly began a decade later. <\/p>\n

Barter had changed her name in the weeks before she left and returned to Australia on August 2, 1997 \u2013 just one day after she last spoke with Leydon. <\/p>\n

Barter\u2019s new name was Florabella Natalia Marion Remakel, and her incoming passenger card listed her as a married resident of Luxembourg, according to the inquest. <\/p>\n

The name \u201cRemakel\u201d opened new doors that led police to Blum. <\/p>\n

In 1994, Blum placed an advertisement in an Australian-French newspaper, describing himself as a single, 47-year-old \u201ctall, dark, sober\u201d man, who was looking for a relationship with a view to marriage. <\/p>\n

The ad was signed \u201cMr. F. Remakel,\u201d but the phone number linked to a coin business in the New South Wales town of Ballina run by one of Blum\u2019s many aliases. <\/p>\n

The inquest heard Blum held at least 10 passports in different names that he used for international travel. <\/p>\n

He told the inquest he frequently adopted new aliases for \u201cfantasy \u2026 because it was legal.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t have a specific purpose,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

When asked what name he was given at birth, Blum replied, \u201cI don\u2019t really know. But on the record of my birth \u2026 I was declared Willy Coppenolle.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cThis marks the mysterious beginning of Mr. Blum\u2019s life,\u201d the coroner noted in her findings. <\/p>\n

A man of many names<\/h2>\n

Blum was born in July 1939 to unmarried parents in Tournai, Belgium, a picturesque city near the French border. He said he spent time in an orphanage before being returned to his mother and taking the name of her new husband \u2013 Wouters. <\/p>\n

Blum arrived in Australia as Willy Wouters in 1969 but left just a year later. His next destination was France, where he was imprisoned for \u201cfraud, forgery, confidence tricks, and giving a false identity,\u201d the inquest heard. <\/p>\n

After his release in 1974, he returned to Australia by boat, and in February 1976 became an Australian citizen under the name Frederick de Hedervary. <\/p>\n

Around the same time, Blum married his fourth wife \u2013 a 19-year-old woman he met in 1969 on the boat from the United Kingdom \u2013 to whom he is still married. <\/p>\n

Frederick and Diane de Hedervary settled into life in Australia before moving to Luxembourg, Belgium, and the UK for several years, and then returning to Australia in 1986.\u00a0 By then, they had two children. <\/p>\n

In 1997, the family was living in regional New South Wales, where Blum collected a disability pension and his wife received a carer\u2019s pension. When it was put to Blum in court that at that time \u201cmoney was tight,\u201d he agreed. <\/p>\n

Blum told the court he began an affair with Barter in February that year, though it\u2019s unclear how they met \u2013 it may have been through the personal advertisement that Blum placed in 1994, presenting himself as \u201cMr F. Remakel.\u201d <\/p>\n

He claimed he may have answered an ad placed by Barter, but the coroner could find no evidence of that. <\/p>\n

Blum said their affair ended in the weeks before she went overseas in June when he told her he couldn\u2019t see her anymore because he was married with children. <\/p>\n

He testified the last time he saw her was three weeks before she left for the UK, when she collected tea chests she\u2019d left at his house with a man in uniform, who he took \u201cto be a navy officer or a pilot.\u201d <\/p>\n

Deceived lovers<\/h2>\n

The real Mr. F. Remakel is the ex-husband of a woman Blum once knew, Monique Cornelius, who claimed they had an affair, which Blum denies. <\/p>\n

According to testimony read out in court in February 2022, Cornelius told police Blum was a serial liar who told her he worked as a special agent at the British Embassy in Luxembourg. <\/p>\n

She said he wrote her a letter in 1980 professing his love for her and suggesting he would buy a boat so they could sail away together. <\/p>\n

\u201cI am intimately persuaded that you will not regret your decision to leave with me and to start a new life,\u201d he wrote in the letter, which was read to the court. <\/p>\n

Their affair ended when she found out he was married and kicked him out, Cornelius told police. Blum told the court Cornelius had lied about their relationship, which was platonic, he said. <\/p>\n

I am intimately persuaded that you will not regret your decision to leave with me and to start a new life.\u201d <\/p>\n

Ric Blum\u2019s alleged words in a letter to Monique Cornelius <\/p>\n

Other women told the inquest of their encounters with the man now known as Blum. Some were romantic, others not. But all involved allegations of deceit. <\/p>\n

Ginette Gaffney-Bowan\u202ftold the court that she placed an advertisement in a newspaper in the late-1990s that was answered by Blum, who she knew as\u202fFrederick De Hedervary. <\/p>\n

She said at that time, she was \u201cextremely lonely\u201d and working long hours in her childcare business. <\/p>\n

Gaffney-Bowan said Blum told her he had lost his home, so she said he could stay in the studio apartment at her property in Sydney during his frequent trips to the city. <\/p>\n

\n

Blum: The allegations <\/h3>\n

\n<\/p>

Monique Cornelius<\/strong>: Met Blum in the 1980s, he wrote her a letter asking her to \u201cstart a new life\u201d with him<\/span>
\nMarion Barter:<\/strong> Had relationship with Blum in 1997, sold her house, changed her name, traveled to the UK and disappeared<\/span>
\nGinette Gaffney-Bowan:<\/strong> Met Blum in the late 1990s, alleges he wanted her to sell her house and buy an apartment in Paris, took 30,000 Australian dollars ($19,500)<\/span>
\nJanet Oldenburg: <\/strong>Met Blum in the late 1990s, alleges he offered her \u201ca new life\u201d in the French Riviera, abandoned her in the UK, stole documents and jewelry<\/span>
\nGhislaine Danlois-Dubois:<\/strong> Met Blum in 2006, accuses him of encouraging her to sell her house and travel to Bali before disappearing with 60,000 euros ($65,000)<\/span>
\nAndree Flamme: <\/strong>Met Blum in 2010, says he stayed with her before disappearing with her late husband\u2019s coin collection<\/span>
\nMarie Landrieu: <\/strong>Met Blum in 2012, alleges he proposed buying a house with her in Bali but after traveling there he disappeared with her money<\/span>
\nRic Blum denies all allegations, accuses the women of lying<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

She said their relationship wasn\u2019t sexual, and instead he proposed a business partnership, dealing in coins. With dreams of closing her stressful childcare business, she gave him 30,000 Australian dollars ($19,500) in start-up funding. Soon after, he proposed that she sell her house so he could buy her what he called a \u201cbeautiful and spacious\u201d apartment in Paris, she said. She refused. <\/p>\n

Gaffney-Bowan told the court Blum belittled her and tried to drive a wedge between her and her daughters over the sale of her house.\u00a0While Blum didn\u2019t physically hurt her, she told the court he tried to blackmail her with nude photos he had taken of her. She said she became scared of him, went to the police and was granted an apprehended violence order in early 1999. <\/p>\n

Blum told the court that Gaffney-Bowan had \u201cdragged me into a bed\u201d and asked him to take \u201csalacious\u201d photos of her, which he didn\u2019t have developed. He denied taking her money. <\/p>\n

Another lonely divorcee, Janet Oldenburg told the court she met Blum, who she knew as \u201cRick\u201d or \u201cRich\u201d in 1996 through her husband\u2019s coin-collecting circles where they both lived in New South Wales. They reconnected in 1999 when she was 51 years old and had just finalized her divorce, she said. <\/p>\n

Blum had offered her a job, but before she\u2019d started, she said he urged her to move with him to the French Riviera \u201cto start a new life.\u201d <\/p>\n

Blum denied ever telling Oldenburg he had feelings for her and said he had bought her a one-way ticket to Europe because she wanted to find an agent and start a new career as a belly dancer. <\/p>\n

Oldenburg claimed that Blum abandoned her in England during their travels after inventing a story that he\u2019d been attacked at a train station while taking a side business trip to Lille, France. <\/p>\n

Blum admitted in court that he\u2019d abandoned her in England because he no longer wanted anything to do with her. \u201cMy life was with my wife and kids in Australia,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

He denied her claims he\u2019d stolen jewelry and the title deeds to her house. <\/p>\n

Several years later, Ghislaine Danlois-Dubois met Blum in 2006 through an advertisement she posted in a newspaper seeking companionship.\u00a0 Via video link from Brussels, she told the court she knew him as Frederick de Hedervary. <\/p>\n

At the time, Danlois-Dubois was a 72-year-old widow looking for a distraction, and quickly fell in love with the stranger, who told her he was a bank manager from Australia with an interest in coins, she said. <\/p>\n

Danlois-Dubois told the court that after a whirlwind romance, de Hedervary suggested they get married on the Indonesian island of Bali, and that she should sell her house and give him the proceeds so he could open bank accounts for her children, so they had ready cash when they came to visit them in Australia. <\/p>\n

She said she refused his requests to keep their impending marriage secret from her children, and he disappeared with her money, some 60,000 euros ($65,000). <\/p>\n

Blum denied the allegations and told the court Danlois-Dubois \u201cdidn\u2019t give him a penny.\u201d <\/p>\n

Four years later, Blum crossed paths with Andree Flamme, an elderly woman he says was confined to a wheelchair, living with dementia and who \u201ccouldn\u2019t put two words together.\u201d <\/p>\n

When that was put to Flamme, who gave evidence to the inquest via a live link from Portugal last year, the then 92-year-old laughed. She denied ever needing a wheelchair while he stayed with her, and, yes, she said with a smile, she could put two words together. <\/p>\n

He left a little piece of paper to say he was leaving, and he\u2019d be back \u2026 but I never saw him again.\u201d <\/p>\n

Andree Flamme, alleged victim <\/p>\n

Flamme told the court the man she knew as Frederick de Hedervary stayed with her for several weeks in May and June 2010. While there, she said he asked to inspect her late husband\u2019s coin collection, then disappeared with them one day when she left the house for an errand. <\/p>\n

\u201cHe left a little piece of paper to say he was leaving, and he\u2019d be back \u2026 but I never saw him again,\u201d Flamme said through a translator. Blum has denied the allegations. <\/p>\n

A sixth woman, Marie Landrieu, submitted a statement to the inquiry alleging that she\u2019d been fooled out of cash in 2012 by a man she knew as \u201cWilly,\u201d who was the cousin of her late husband. <\/p>\n

She said Blum had proposed they buy a house together in Bali, so she gave him 100,000 euros ($108,000). But after they traveled to Indonesia, he said he needed to leave on urgent business. <\/p>\n

She never saw him \u2013 or her money \u2013 again. <\/p>\n

Blum told the court Landrieu gave him 50,000 euros ($54,000) in cash that he considered was owed to him from an inheritance from his mother. <\/p>\n

He denied trying to seduce her, and said they went to the tropical island because she was \u201cinterested in seeing Bali,\u201d according to the inquest findings. <\/p>\n

Where is Marion?<\/h2>\n

In her findings, Coroner O\u2019Sullivan said she accepted the testimony of the women, which showed Blum had a history of mispresenting himself to single, vulnerable women for financial gain. <\/p>\n

She found that Blum \u201cexploited\u201d Barter, in the same way he later exploited other women who gave evidence against him. O\u2019Sullivan said she \u201cdid not accept as accurate anything Mr. Blum has said\u201d in the absence of corroborating evidence. <\/p>\n

As to Blum\u2019s role in Barter\u2019s disappearance, she drew attention to an \u201cextraordinary\u201d claim by Blum on the final day of the inquest, one he made for the first time despite hours of questioning since his first police interview in 2021. <\/p>\n

Blum, an elderly man with a full white beard, was asked in the witness box once again if he had any information on the whereabouts of Marion Barter. <\/p>\n

\u201cI myself believe she is alive, that\u2019s what I believe. But I don\u2019t know anything about what, what she did or not, nothing. I don\u2019t know,\u201d he stammered. <\/p>\n

I myself believe she is alive, that\u2019s what I believe.\u201d <\/p>\n

Ric Blum <\/p>\n

O\u2019Sullivan interjected with a question: \u201cWhy do you believe Marion is still alive?\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cShe said that she wanted to separate from her family, she didn\u2019t want anything to do with any member of her family,\u201d Blum said. \u201cShe was a bit of a strange person.\u201d <\/p>\n

The next day, Blum was recalled via video to explain why he hadn\u2019t offered this information to police or the inquest at any time in the previous three years. <\/p>\n

He told the court he didn\u2019t tell police when he was interviewed in June 2021 \u201cbecause they never asked.\u201d When pushed, he said, \u201cI had no idea of the importance of it. It was just talking. What can I say?\u201d <\/p>\n

O\u2019Sullivan said in her findings, \u201cThis evidence, along with his lies and deception throughout the inquest has convinced me that he does indeed know more than he is saying.\u201d <\/p>\n

She found Blum formed a relationship with Barter in 1997, while posing as Fernand Remakel and \u201cencouraged her to start a new life with him\u201d in Luxembourg. <\/p>\n

The coroner found Blum \u201cpersuaded or otherwise encouraged\u201d Barter to sell her house before they left, and evidence suggested they spent some time together in England. <\/p>\n

During the trip Barter wrote to her daughter Leydon on notepaper branded \u201cHotel Nikko Narita\u201d \u2013 the same hotel Blum stayed in on his way to Europe. Barter traveled via South Korea, according to her passenger card. <\/p>\n

The coroner found that Blum likely gave the hotel notepaper to Barter after they met in England. On her return to Australia, the coroner also found that Barter withdrew money from her accounts in August and October 1997 \u201con the encouragement of Mr. Blum.\u201d <\/p>\n

The day before Barter transferred 80,000 Australian dollars ($52,000) from her bank account, on October 15, 1997, the court heard Blum opened a safety deposit envelope, but the coroner found no evidence that he received the proceeds. <\/p>\n

O\u2019Sullivan found that Barter spent some months living in the community undetected, between August and October that year \u2013 and that during that time, Blum was in contact with her. <\/p>\n

She said Blum\u2019s claim that he last saw Barter when she retrieved the tea chests from his house with a man in uniform in June were \u201cimplausible.\u201d And while she determined that Barter was dead, she said there was no evidence to suggest how, why or when she died. <\/p>\n

The coroner explained that it wasn\u2019t in her power to assign blame for Barter\u2019s death. But she referred the matter to the NSW Police Commissioner for investigation as an unsolved homicide. <\/p>\n

Despite submissions from Leydon\u2019s legal team that Blum should be referred to the director of public prosecutions for alleged perjury and making false statements during the inquest, O\u2019Sullivan said that was best left to police as part of the investigation. <\/p>\n

The coroner was scathing in her assessment of the initial police response, which she said was \u201cinadequate\u201d and led to the loss of information that could have determined far earlier what happened to Barter. She also praised Leydon\u2019s \u201cunwavering commitment\u201d to finding her mother. <\/p>\n

No remains have yet been located, but Leydon\u2019s DNA has been added to the New South Wales and national DNA registries, the coroner said. <\/p>\n

\u201cThis means that the DNA profile of Sally [Leydon] will remain on the NSW and National DNA databases and will be searched against all unidentified deceased profiles every day,\u201d O\u2019Sullivan said. <\/p>\n

O\u2019Sullivan concluded by reading Leydon\u2019s own words about her mother, Marion Barter, read from her submission. <\/p>\n

\u201c[She was] a kind, caring soul with a wicked laugh. She was intelligent, she was cultured, and she had so many friends who loved and miss her still. She would always bring you flowers or a cake. She was a very generous human.\u201d <\/p>\n

Blum\u2019s believed to be living freely in northern New South Wales and has not faced any charges relating to Barter or any of the other women who gave evidence against him. <\/p>\n

\u201cHe and his family request that all media respect their privacy,\u201d White said. <\/p>\n\n

This post appeared first on cnn.com<\/div>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For more than two decades, no one listened to Sally Leydon as she begged for help to find her mother who mysteriously vanished during a trip abroad in 1997. At the time, Australian police dismissed her concerns, insisting that her mother, Marion Barter, had disappeared by choice, and wanted nothing to do with her family. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":16337,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-16336","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16336","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16336"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16336\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16337"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16336"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16336"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16336"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}