Australia Australia - Marion Barter, 51, missing after trip to UK, June 1997 #10

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Thinking about the period between MB's return to Aust on 2/8/97 and the final withdrawal of funds on 15/10/97, I'm trying to make sense of that 10 week period. I suspect the following...
1. RB was thinking on his feet, this wasn't in his initial plan. He needed MB to be within easy commute for him to maintain control but not so close that his true identity might be revealed.
2. IMO The car was purchased for MB to allow her to travel to Byron for the withdrawals. I imagine he had convinced MB for the need of secrecy at this point and she was complicit. The small withdrawals prevented any red flags being raised that may cause unwanted attention.
3. I suspect MB was staying in an area easily accessed by bus for RB. It would be too risky for RB to be seen in Byron by DdH's sister and family. Also too risky around Ballina. But important that he maintain contact and control with MB.
4. When questioned about the local markets he attended looking for coins, there was one town he was quick to dismiss - BANGALOW - even though there was a large market held there at the showground. Bangalow is a half hour trip by bus from the highway intersection near his home at Wollongbar. Bangalow is a 15 minute drive to Byron. Should we be looking around Bangalow for a place MB could have stayed? Her car would be unknown to anyone (I suspect DdH was unaware of the car purchase at this stage also) After hearing his imaginative evidence, I'm sure he would have no trouble explaining periods of absence to both MB and DdH during this time. IMO.

In my humble opinion, I just cannot see that realistically happening with the personalities involved here - Willy Wonka prolific liar, con artist, manipulator of women, and Marion (someone with a weak area / blind spot / vulnerability for a romantic dream but otherwise together, very realistic, and law abiding).

I suggest that Wonka fathomed out a way to remove the money at the daily limit without having the police called, that he used another woman to front up, using whatsoever deceitful story or incentive necessary.

Anything else would be too far high risk for him - if it were Marion making withdrawals, one false move on her behalf such as asking a bank teller to lock her in the back room and call the police, and his entire life would come crashing down instantaneously. Wonka is not stupid and he is also a coward of the highest order, he assesses risk and likelihood. I imagine he would think nothing of sending a female mule into the bank on false pretences to make the daily withdrawals, happy in the knowledge that were she to be arrested, he couldn't be identified (someone he befriended using one of his fake personas) and she would be detained / imprisoned.

Horrible as it seems, I cannot believe that Marion came back to Australia and if she did, not for long, it certainly wasn't her making the withdrawals. MOO. I believe Wonka has all the hallmarks of a sociopathic extreme narcissist who could be easily capable of murder(s) if someone stood between him and his goal. Plus it would seem he literally despises women.

In terms of how such predatory abusers usually operate, the day that Marion said she would be 'going quiet' for a while is highly likely to have been her last day on this earth. Something dramatically changed that day. Were that to have happened, I fear she would by no means have been the first woman to have been 'dispatched'.

I suspect Wonka has a complicit female or maybe unwitting female partner in crime, could be someone he used and paid like a personal assistant sending on errands, possibly his wife, maybe not.
 
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