After two years, the investigation into Marion Barter’s disappearance has been completed.
Sparked by the internationally acclaimed 7NEWS podcast, The Lady Vanishes, which launched in 2019, the investigation began in Sydney in June 2021 before concluding in Lismore on Thursday.
Listen to The Lady Vanishes Here or on your favorite podcast platform.
New South Wales State Coroner Teresa O’Sullivan has not yet announced a date for the submission of her findings.
Her options include escalating the matter to the Chief Public Prosecutor if she believes that someone known to her has committed a criminal offense.
Marion Barter embarked on the journey of a lifetime to the UK and Europe in 1997.
She never saw her family again and her daughter Sally Leydon has been searching for answers ever since.
Barter was last seen on June 22, 1997 in Surfers Paradise by her friend Lesley Loveday, who dropped her off at a bus stop from where she drove to the airport to fly to the UK.
A four-year investigation into the Barter case, the subject of The Lady Vanishes, has uncovered countless counts of fraud and manipulation, linking multiple women – including Barter – to the same man: Ric Blum.
Blum, a convicted fraudster who left a complicated trail of fraud, false names and angry ex-partners across Europe and Australia, is said to have formed a relationship with Barter shortly before her disappearance.
When Blum met Barter, he posed as Fernand Remakel. The couple began a turbulent romance and Marion changed her name to Florabella Natalia Marion Remakel.
That prompted O’Sullivan to postpone her findings on the case late last year, as new witnesses came forward suggesting Blum had a tendency to have dishonest relationships with vulnerable middle-aged women.
On Thursday, Blum told the Lismore Inquiry that he believed Barter was still alive.
“She said she wanted nothing to do with her family,” he told pro-inquiry lawyer Adam Casselden SC, referring to a conversation he allegedly had with Barter before she left for England in 1997 .
The hearing of the commission of inquiry began on Wednesday with testimonies by the Belgian Ghislaine Danlois-Dubois, 92, via video transmission from Brussels. Danlois-Dubois said she knew Blum by the name Frederick De Hedervary.
Credit: 7NEWS
When Casselden showed Danlois-Dubois photos of Blum, she immediately recognized him as “Frederick”.
Casselden then walked her through several questions designed to retrace her relationship with Blum and their demise. Danlois-Dubois testified that they were in love, that he cheated her out of considerable sums of money and even asked her to marry him in Bali.
Blum also admitted at the inquest that he was known to Danlois-Dubois as Frederick De Hedervary and admitted that he had stayed briefly at their residence.
But he insisted he had never had a romantic relationship with her, had never proposed to her, and had never cheated on her.
“It’s just lies,” he said in court. “She never gave me a dime. They have my travel documents… I was long gone when she sold her house.”
When asked by Casselden why Danlois-Dubois would lie, Blum said, “I think people made their decision after listening to the millions of podcasts that have been broadcast across all media.”
Casselden replied: “I want to tell you that when Madame Danlois went to the Belgian police to complain about you, there was no podcast about Marion Barter.”
Danlois-Dubois’ testimony was corroborated by Andre Flamme, a widow in the ’90s who knew Blum by the same pseudonym.
Flamme told the inquest that she had been a widow for about a year when she met De Hedervary. He stayed at her home for several weeks after her son-in-law introduced her by saying that De Hedervary “needed somewhere to stay”.
Flamme’s late husband, Jacques, was an avid coin collector – and his collection of rare coins was still at home.
Flamme told the commission of inquiry De Hedervary stole it and left, never to return.
“He left a message that he was leaving but might come back the next day, but I never saw him again,” she added.
Flamme reported the incident to the Belgian police, but De Hedervary was never charged.
When asked about the eyewitness accounts, Blum contradicted himself on a number of occasions — notably when he pushed for his cousin’s wife, 7NEWS exclusively revealed.
His cousin’s wife, who asked 7NEWS to call her “Charlotte,” filed a statement in the NSW Coroner’s Court alleging that Willy David Coppenolle – aka Blum – stole her money on the pretext that he want to buy a house in Bali together.
Charlotte’s husband, who was Blum’s distant cousin, died in 2011. A few months after his death, in February 2012, she agreed to meet Blum in London after he made contact.
She said that while they were together he mentioned various properties he owned and suggested they fly to Bali to buy a home in Seminyak together.
“I didn’t talk her into anything, she already had five properties out of six,” Blum said at the inquest.
In her statement, Charlotte said she had given Blum €100,000 in cash and paid for the plane tickets herself before leaving for Bali. She said Blum told her on March 29, 2012 he had a business meeting and never came back.
On her return to Belgium, Charlotte also found that jewelry worth €25,000 had been stolen from a box in her husband’s office.
When asked about the money, Blum told the coroner Charlotte gave him a letter with half that sum, adding, “But it wasn’t about buying a property.”
Since then, he has presented three different reports on what the money was intended for. When Blum returned to Australia in 2012, he initially explained that he had received the money for prostate surgery from relatives.
Then, on April 29, 2022, he referred to the sum as “the last part of my inheritance” – while saying at the final session of the inquiry his cousin owed him the money.
And what about the money now? Blum said it was stolen from him at the Pacific Fair shopping center in the Gold Coast, just days after he returned to Australia.
For more, listen The lady disappears Podcast, available on all platforms.
Leave us a tip below theladyvanishes.org and check out the award-winning stories we submitted as part of the four-year investigation: facebook.com/7NEWSTheLadyVanishes/
For more information, see The Lady Vanishes podcast, available on all platforms.
If you have any information regarding the disappearance of Marion Barter or information about Florabella Natalia Marion Remakel, you can find us at theladyvanishes.org and view the award-winning stories we have submitted as part of four years of investigations: facebook.com/7NEWSTheLadyVanishes/