Australia Australia - Marion Barter, 51, missing after trip to UK, Jun 1997 #4

[TootsieFootsie]

I think maybe she was trying to reinvent herself.
Maybe to disappear from the old life she had, where she felt rejected by a man she was keen on. The pilot.

"I'll show them, I'll be living a life of luxury in Luxembourg"

But somehow she couldn't resist keeping a part of her old self, in including Marion in her new name.

Maybe she chose the new names due to what their meaning was.
Or maybe Natalia from the Orient Express. Maybe Florabella from a fine china collection

 

[Loxoli]

It certainly looks that way, or at least someone who told her his last name was Remakel. She might have liked to have her marriage certificates with her new name on it, perhaps? I’m still finding it hard to explain the first and middle name changes though.

Actually that does make a lot of sense. Perhaps she did it before some of her subsequent marriages to make sure that her ex-husbands’ surnames weren’t on her new marriage certificates or mentioned during her wedding ceremony. Just speculation.

 

[TootsieFootsie]

The article made it seem that she changed to Barter the same way.

 

[Mjjj14]

It certainly looks that way, or at least someone who told her his last name was Remakel. She might have liked to have her marriage certificates with her new name on it, perhaps? I’m still finding it hard to explain the first and middle name changes though.

I have said this before on this forum but the total name change and the fact she writes on her passenger card that she is from Luxembourg reminds me so much of the Cornelia Rau case. The case does have a couple of similarities to this one but one of the most striking similarities is that Cornelia told authorities that she was a German tourist and that her name was something entirely different to Cornelia (note: Cornelia Rau was part German but she was not a tourist in Australia). Cornelia Rau did have a history of mental health issues and in Marion's case, we haven't ever been given any information about her mental health as far as I know. In any case, I'm not a psychologist or doctor so I can't really comment on mental health anyway but I wanted to mention the similarities to Cornelia Rau again because to me, a mental health event could explain some of the unexplainable behaviour that Marion seems to undertake in this case (in the event that it actually was her that returned to Australia and in the event that it was her that attended the banks and filled out the incoming passenger card).

 

[Mjjj14]

The article made it seem that she changed to Barter the same way.

That is definitely what I thought after reading it.

 

[Mjjj14]

AHA

https://www.reddit.com/r/Luxembourg/comments/ckopm5/name_change_after_marriage/

So basically, OP of this reddit post was getting married to his fiancée. He was making enquires with the government as to how she would change her surname to his surname and he was told that in Luxembourg it’s always

‘Mme “maiden name” épouse “husband’s name”’

This was confirmed by the people in the comment section.

So this would potentially answer the question as to why Marion might want to change her name BEFORE marriage (assuming that she got married and was married to a citizen of Luxembourg and provided we disregard the fact that Marion had previously changed her name before marriage).

I’m not sure if this was the reason that the previous poster a long time ago cited or not but it’s a fairly good reason.

Sorry for my 99 posts today, at least I’m filling in my time in lockdown!!

 

[JLZ]

AHA

https://www.reddit.com/r/Luxembourg/comments/ckopm5/name_change_after_marriage/

So basically, OP of this reddit post was getting married to his fiancée. He was making enquires with the government as to how she would change her surname to his surname and he was told that in Luxembourg it’s always

‘Mme “maiden name” épouse “husband’s name”’

This was confirmed by the people in the comment section.

So this would potentially answer the question as to why Marion might want to change her name BEFORE marriage (assuming that she got married and was married to a citizen of Luxembourg and provided we disregard the fact that Marion had previously changed her name before marriage).

I’m not sure if this was the reason that the previous poster a long time ago cited or not but it’s a fairly good reason.

Sorry for my 99 posts today, at least I’m filling in my time in lockdown!!

Literally, a maiden name is the name one had as a virgin, not the name one had immediately before a marriage. So, if Luxembourg convention incorporates the maiden name into the married name, intermediate names would be discarded. (I don't know if it works that way in practice.)

 

[Estelle]

I like this too however one must ask, how were they to know ( or assume) the reader of Le Courier ad would have money or access to money

I've been divorced since 1987 and have tried various ways to meet a new man for marriage. I've met many men since for first dates or relationships but I'm still single. I began, as Marion did, quite naive, and assumed all the men were genuine and honest. But few were even honest about their height or age, used old photos, about their assets and professions too, whether they were single or not and about where they actually were living. I have many stories I could tell. I learnt to do checks on google or Linked-in once they gave me their real name. I learnt that some were bankrupt but were posing as a Director of a company. I learnt to say little about myself. But I gave up meeting men as there were few I could trust. Now I play scrabble on line. I could not count the number of men who have tried to befriend me on the messenger attached. It must be over a hundred by now since July 2019. I now mute them or refuse their request when their average scores are low because all they want to do is get your email or talk on some Chat thing or Hang out. When you refuse or don't reply, they end the game so your average score goes down. So sometimes, I've got caught and said hullo, then they they ask simple questions about where do you live so I play games with them. Quite early they want to know whether I am married, how many children and what I do for a living. I told the last one that I was unemployed and looking for a rich man. He soon resigned from the game. This is where most scammers are these days. There are websites about this warning women. Many of these guys apparently live in Africa, work as a team, trained to be very good at Scrabble but pretend they live in the US or are a doctor working for the United Nations somewhere. They seem to use a script. I am not suggesting that Marion's scammers were from Africa but my guess is that they were living in either England or somewhere in Europe such as Luxembourg.

I have watched several U-tube videos showing women who have been scammed out of thousands of dollars through Love Scams. They fall in love with their scammers and send them more and more money. They are too proud to tell their family or friends.

These naive women are in a fantasy world where they choose to believe everything their scammer tells them but they also reveal things about whether they own a house and so on as they want to think this scammer really loves them as they are so lonely. So if they find out the woman is very poor or not willing to send them money, they just move on. They play a numbers game and soon they have a potential victim.

I would not be at all surprised if Marion could have had a type of breakdown due to the scandal at the school and her mental health suffered as a result so she was vulnerable to scammers and escaping from that environment to have a man to look after her in marriage. But she would have been too ashamed to tell family or friends about this man - hence her secrecy and irrational behaviour. IMO this is a love scam. BTW Marion could have met this man through that ad or at the Arts Centre as someone suggested. But the name Remakel must be a clue or simply used by the scammer to impress Marion.

 

[KiwiNZ]

Here is some more information from Episode 4. Taken.

Voice Actor reading Jack's notes: Departed Brisbane 23 June 1997, re-entry 2 August 1997. The last card posted from Tunbridge England was dated 30 August 1997.

If correct then Marion spent almost 2 months in the Tunbridge Wells area, That is a lot of time to spend in a relatively small and insignificant part of the country in a Hotel ?

If she had found a more permeant lodging then she would have contacted Sally ?

I don't buy it was her sending the post cards, I cant see any "tourist" staying in that spot for that long, unless you had a friends or someone to stay with

hummmm

 

[Itsapuzzle]

Spontaneous thought .... I wonder if the inquest is going to fill us in on the old magazine that a listener came across in a library in Los Angeles that Bryan told us all "it's an extraordinary clue" about what may have happened to Marion, and he says "I doubt this publication exists anywhere in Australia" .... hope we can finally find out what this was all about, I'm ever so curious still.

 

[PhilOlivettifan]

Why would Marion care about the car if she never intended to return to her old life?

It was the money she wanted and was referring to in the supposed call, she had left Sally the car to sell, or for Sally to sell hers car and keep Marion's and deposit the money into her account

OK but how much are we talking about here?

She left $14,000 behind, didn't touch her UK account nor her superannuation. It looks like whomever was draining the accounts just wanted to get as much as possible in a short amount of time as possible all the while drawing as little attention as possible.

Unless the car was a special car of some kind, worth a lot then I find it a stretch to think this would be top of Marion's mind as she went about liquidating assets.

It's just another thing about this case that makes little sense.

 

[Mjjj14]

Literally, a maiden name is the name one had as a virgin, not the name one had immediately before a marriage. So, if Luxembourg convention incorporates the maiden name into the married name, intermediate names would be discarded. (I don't know if it works that way in practice.)

Apparently, the laws in Luxembourg are really, really strict in terms of name changes. You can’t change your first name without some sort of extremely good reason (I can’t read Luxembourgish so I can’t work out what these reasons are) and the same applies for a surname. Marriage is not a good enough reason to allow a name change and their custom is as stated upthread. Because of those Luxembourgish customs and laws, I guess you could assume that someone might think changing their name overseas before coming to Luxembourg is a good way to avoid the custom/law altogether.

I feel like if a foreigner came to Luxembourg and got married they would use whatever name they had on their legal documents in place of their maiden name but who knows! If anyone on this thread is from Luxembourg, please help!

 

[Mjjj14]

Spontaneous thought .... I wonder if the inquest is going to fill us in on the old magazine that a listener came across in a library in Los Angeles that Bryan told us all "it's an extraordinary clue" about what may have happened to Marion, and he says "I doubt this publication exists anywhere in Australia" .... hope we can finally find out what this was all about, I'm ever so curious still.

I wondered this too! Speaking of which, I might’ve missed this but does anyone what’s happened to Bryan and why the other lady is replacing him?

 

[KiwiNZ]

This may have been posted sorry - but I too though we knew about the postcard on the 30th of August but Alison Sandy has posted the below on the facebook page

Day 7 of the inquest - Marion’s former housemate Lesley Loveday will give evidence this morning, then Sally is back to continue her evidence. Monday was difficult for her particularly having to relive the last time she saw her mum and being blindsided by the new postcards.

 

[PhilOlivettifan]

I really don't get changing your name by deed poll IF you are planning to marry someone by that name.

Though someone way back, a member here, gave a reason why she may have done it that way.

In Luxembourg a woman does not have her name changed with marriage. She may have officially changed her name so that when she married Mr Remakel, she would have that same name and thus both are known by the same surname as she would have done in Australia (but unable to in Lux) -- that is a working theory on that anyway.

 

[Mjjj14]

This may have been posted sorry - but I too though we knew about the postcard on the 30th of August but Alison Sandy has posted the below on the facebook page

Day 7 of the inquest - Marion’s former housemate Lesley Loveday will give evidence this morning, then Sally is back to continue her evidence. Monday was difficult for her particularly having to relive the last time she saw her mum and being blindsided by the new postcards.

They 1000% knew about the 30 august postcard because it’s discussed in episode 4. I’m guessing that it’s the contents of the postcard/s that is the blindside or maybe they’re referring to a different postcard and not the 30 august postcard.

I must admit I was a bit irritated reading all the Facebook comments today that were saying they can’t believe it about the postcards and why would someone withhold this information because the podcast knew that at least one postcard arrived after 2 august and reported on it accordingly!

 

[KiwiNZ]

They 1000% knew about the 30 august postcard because it’s discussed in episode 4. I’m guessing that it’s the contents of the postcard/s that is the blindside or maybe they’re referring to a different postcard and not the 30 august postcard.

I must admit I was a bit irritated reading all the Facebook comments today that were saying they can’t believe it about the postcards and why would someone withhold this information because the podcast knew that at least one postcard arrived after 2 august and reported on it accordingly!

I agree I knew about the postcard but I don't recall that they knew what was written on it ? I was under the impression that either the sister lost it or the podcast team where keeping the information to themselves .... possible to stop speculation and supporters contacting every dentist and Mazz in the UK lol

The post says Postcards(s) so maybe more have turned up

I get frustrated as well that people whom are seemingly interested in the case don't really bother to listen to the podcast, I am sick of posting on the facebook page the episodes that answers the questions someone's asking lol

 

[TootsieFootsie]

Oh yes, that sort of fizzled out and was never mentioned again. Maybe it was looked into and was ruled out.

I'd love to know what it was that caught the listeners attention.

Spontaneous thought .... I wonder if the inquest is going to fill us in on the old magazine that a listener came across in a library in Los Angeles that Bryan told us all "it's an extraordinary clue" about what may have happened to Marion, and he says "I doubt this publication exists anywhere in Australia" .... hope we can finally find out what this was all about, I'm ever so curious still.

 

[sunnynz]

Spontaneous thought .... I wonder if the inquest is going to fill us in on the old magazine that a listener came across in a library in Los Angeles that Bryan told us all "it's an extraordinary clue" about what may have happened to Marion, and he says "I doubt this publication exists anywhere in Australia" .... hope we can finally find out what this was all about, I'm ever so curious still.

I kind of wish you hadn't mentioned this, I'd forgotten about this! It drove me craaaaazy pondering over it when he talked about it and now I won't be able to stop thinking about it again!

Thanks to everyone here doing such a great job summarising what's been happening at the inquest. I haven't been able to listen to this week's episodes but feel like I am fully up to date from this thread.

These later postcards first had me thinking that Marion never returned to Australia. And as someone mentioned upthread - Tunbridge Wells is an odd place to stay in as a tourist for such an extended period. I was thinking that either Marion was staying with someone who lived there (a love interest or other contact), or that she was deceased some time after the final phone call and the postcards were posted at later dates by the person involved in her demise. Particularly if there was one that simply had an address on it with no other written content. Marion may have pre-addressed some postcards planning to send them at some point and her killer/s took advantage of that to keep up the pretence that she was alive and well. I therefore believed it was someone impersonating Marion that flew back to Aus. BUT.... then the handwriting on the inflight cards on the return flight really make me think she did return. Plus, the stuff about being mad at Sally about the car....

So if Marion did fly back to Australia, why on earth were the postcards posted that much later. I just cannot think of a logical scenario around this.

 

[TootsieFootsie]

I read something about his Documentary on Scientology being pulled but that was late last year. Maybe he was busy making that.

I had a look on Twitter and it's said he deleted his account.

I wondered this too! Speaking of which, I might’ve missed this but does anyone what’s happened to Bryan and why the other lady is replacing him?