Australia Australia - Marion Barter, 51, missing after trip to UK, June 1997 #14

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Observe_dont_Absorb said:
Yes, I assume that posting something from the UK to Australia back in 1997 would have taken a while - a week or so? But had she have been intending to return, she would have brought it in person.

By the same logic, would Marion not have been looking for a special present for Owen from the UK, maybe something 'cool' from London and have got that in the post in plenty of good time. So, missing his birthday is one thing but then add on an extra, what, at least 7 days postal time she would have accounted for in the UK (if in the UK).

Also, all the shopping and all the luggage. If Marion DID return to Australia for a quick hop over to sort out her finances and RB also headed back, where is all the UK luggage and shopping?
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If MB's luggage was still in storage, for example at Heathrow, it would have been kept for a specified time, then sent to auction. People buy lost luggage at auction without seeing the contents, with the intention of making money from selling on the items.
 
BonnieB said:
I can understand Marion's initial non-disclosure about a man she randomly met in the coffee shop of the arts centre. If RB had spent enough time with Marion before she next caught up with Sally, his con would have already sucked Marion in; He tells her "no-one can know I am in Australia" for whatever important reason he invented.
That's how the con begins with the victim weighing up betraying a secret trust and being open with family. Then the love bombing begins.
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I understand that.. and I agree she was obviously advised to keep quiet about the relationship.

but by changing her name and not telling her family it meant even if Marion was fine and dandy having a ball in UK (regardless of RB) unless she contacted her family they would never ever be able to locate her.. and I’m just starting to feel that the last phone call was because she knew she was disappearing whether by force or choice..

almost like she knew something was wrong..

I suppose I’m just a crazy ridiculously open book I hide nothing, I omit nothing because my moral compass won’t let me … and this is why I struggle with MB’s secrecy.
 
BonnieB said:
I can understand Marion's initial non-disclosure about a man she randomly met in the coffee shop of the arts centre. If RB had spent enough time with Marion before she next caught up with Sally, his con would have already sucked Marion in; He tells her "no-one can know I am in Australia" for whatever important reason he invented.
That's how the con begins with the victim weighing up betraying a secret trust and being open with family. Then the love bombing begins.
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H'mm, I'm thinking some kind of blackmailing saga, craftiness at the hands of RB to make it look like it's coming from another party, per chance, from TSS? There was something she wanted to tell her mother, we heard this from Bronwen, but apparently she didn't end up telling her. What on earth was it? All roads lead to RB as far as I can tell, and Taskforce Jurunga will figure it out, they'll get there in the end and more power to 'em, hey.
 
Eyespywithmylittleeye said:
I understand that.. and I agree she was obviously advised to keep quiet about the relationship.

but by changing her name and not telling her family it meant even if Marion was fine and dandy having a ball in UK (regardless of RB) unless she contacted her family they would never ever be able to locate her.. and I’m just starting to feel that the last phone call was because she knew she was disappearing whether by force or choice..

almost like she knew something was wrong..

I suppose I’m just a crazy ridiculously open book I hide nothing, I omit nothing because my moral compass won’t let me … and this is why I struggle with MB’s secrecy.
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It appears to be due to coercive control or gas lighting or blatant fabrications or similiar. By a career crim
 
Bagpus said:
And, it would appear, under great pressure in regards to money.
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KateM said:
In regards to Marion noticing that Sally hadn't put the money into her account re the sale of the car, that's fairly good evidence that Marion did in fact return to Australia, is it not?
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I think Sally explained that Marion being upset about the money for the car is a red herring.

I can't remember exact details, but I think it was on the podcast during the time of the first or second part of the inquest. She thought her grandfather introduced the idea of it being a problem and it was then recorded and became fact.

I don't know if anyone else remembers this.
 
Eyespywithmylittleeye said:
Sorry but IMO opinion if I were to hide a relationship, and change my name and not tell my children I would considering that as not being honest with my kids.. I am rather black or white with things like this.. open book always.. especially to my children…omitting.. is way to close to hiding truth JMO

hiding truth is close to dishonesty
Dishonesty is close to lying.

Fine fine line.

So IMO Marion lied to her family by not telling them she had changed her name.

based on behaviour leading up to going… I question if there’s truth in the postcards.. truth in the phone call.. all of it and that’s because of ‘omitting’ important information.. gawd it was a name change that’s huge way more than just omitting
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One other aspect that I forgot to include was that we have no idea whether MB intended to keep the name change from her family "for ever". We see it that way again in hindsight because she disappeared and everything we see is through that lens. Maybe MB intended it to be secret in the short run until she was officially married and settled? In that case her family would be none the wiser of the when it happened and that she had withheld things, and would not investigate to see whether she was being "dishonest". No one would have gone looking for her departure card and found out that it happened before she left. On the other hand maybe she did intend to disappear. There is so much conflicting evidence and as I said the tyranny of time and distance. I have a gut feeling though. I think that SL's words were very powerful in her final speech when she said her mum "did not always make good choices" but that it didn't change how much she loved her.

At the moment it doesn't matter whether we all here agree on everything or anything. In fact it's more useful that we don't. If we are all looking in the same direction, we might miss something elsewhere! It's not about being right (until all the evidence is in and something can be proved or likelihood determined) but it is more useful to have a full range of theories and possibilities and test them out against other people's perspectives to see how much they hold water. On the positive side our gut feelings about AKA are clearly supported by evidence, and we can hope there will at least be consequences for that.
 
Current MOO fantasy, Two Birds One Stone

RB steals FR identity between 1981-83.

He pulls off a risky but high paying con and puts the loot in a security box in EU.

He moves to Aus permanently with family and gets a DL made in the FNR name in 1988.

With that DL, he slowly brings the loot into Aus, bit by bit (now claiming it’s his inheritance).

He gets the FNR DL reissued in 1992 and continues conning and bringing over small amounts of the loot from the security box.

In 1994, the rules change to access the security box and his previous FNR DL is no longer sufficient. He needs to provide a current passport.

He can’t formally change his name to FNR in Aus and get a new passport as the previous cons are in the FNR name so it’s too risky to have it linked directly to his legal name.

He also owes scary people money due to a growing horse racing debt. He’s desperate and needs to get his hands on his security box overseas. So in 1994, he places an ad in Le Courrier to bait a victim under his FNR alias.

His plan is to con HER to get a passport in the FNR name, whisk her overseas, get her to bring back the remaining loot from the security box, and then steal HER assets too.

She won’t remain alive because she’ll know about the security box and can link the fake FNR to HIM, which no one has ever done before.

However, he doesn’t succeed with the ad. So he has to find the victim somewhere else. He knows people just like him - unethical who’ll do anything for money and power. In 1996, one of his acquaintances tips him off (in exchange for money) about Marion - a naïve and single woman with her own assets.
 
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In this moo fantasy, Marion was under coercive control from beginning to end.

By mid 1996, they’ve already met, he love bombs her and talks about going overseas together. In anticipation, she gets her MB passport renewed.

By November 1996, he tells her he’s a spy or businessman with bad men after him, so he needs her to get his money in order to ‘get out of the game’ and start a new life together. She changes her name to get the passport he desperately needs for ID for their new life together.

She can’t tell anyone about him as the bad men have eyes everywhere, including authorities. She especially can’t tell Sally who is interested in becoming an officer.

She needs to sell her house because the bad men have seen them there together and they should move somewhere else once they return from Europe. She makes a will in case they come after her. Before she leaves in June 1997, she tells a friend, ‘if anything happens to me, take care of Sally and Owen.”

The agreed plan was to go overseas, empty his security box, quietly slip into Aus to safely deposit it, then quietly slip back into Europe for a year to hide/travel while they wait for the bad men to get off their back. Then they would decide to either settle in Aus or EU. Hence why Marion didn’t transfer all her money overseas, just enough to live off for a while.

He told her what to say on the passenger cards, in the postcards and in the phone call.

Marion returns to Aus and withdraws her own money. She places it in a safety envelope RB told her to. He buys a car when she is no longer needed. He retires the FNR name forever and doesn’t need to kill again.

RB pays off his gambling debts and is back to zero. He now needs a new victim to con in order to have money to gamble again. Enter GGB and JO.

I suspect the places he went to in Amsterdam with JO and UK with Marion have to do with him going to pick up money stored in security boxes at banks and/or post boxes where he checked to see if any new victims replied to his overseas ads.

Just a thought. It might be a completely different theory tomorrow.
 
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ruby925 said:
I haven't found a contemporary timetable yet, but this Cathay Pacific route map on Pinterest is stated as 1997. Flights from Hong Kong non stop to Brisbane and also via Cairns.
https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/362750944971542706/
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Yes, I'm still curious about her Cathay Pacific flight from HK, they Cathay Pacific pilot at school, and RB travelling JAL to Japan and Narita so frequently then suddenly stopping in Jul 1997. There's something to it IMO.
 
gymtonic said:
At the moment it doesn't matter whether we all here agree on everything or anything. In fact it's more useful that we don't. If we are all looking in the same direction, we might miss something elsewhere! It's not about being right (until all the evidence is in and something can be proved or likelihood determined) but it is more useful to have a full range of theories and possibilities and test them out against other people's perspectives to see how much they hold water. On the positive side our gut feelings about AKA are clearly supported by evidence, and we can hope there will at least be consequences for that.
Click to expand...
 
Peralta said:
Yes, I'm still curious about her Cathay Pacific flight from HK, they Cathay Pacific pilot at school, and RB travelling JAL to Japan and Narita so frequently then suddenly stopping in Jul 1997. There's something to it IMO.
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1 July 1997 also saw the transfer of sovereignty of Hong Kong from UK to PRC. Just some random info!
 
Peralta said:
Yes, I'm still curious about her Cathay Pacific flight from HK, they Cathay Pacific pilot at school, and RB travelling JAL to Japan and Narita so frequently then suddenly stopping in Jul 1997. There's something to it IMO.
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Another random thought on the JAL flights stopping in July 1997, do we absolutely know this? Could he have made other flights on that route after 1997 under different aliases that we don't know about? (yet!). In the timetable I have there is a big block of time back in 1982 - 1984 where there doesn't appear to be any movement on his known aliases but my gut is that he was travelling then. Maybe what we know about travel after 1997 is also just the tip of the iceberg.
 
gymtonic said:
Another random thought on the JAL flights stopping in July 1997, do we absolutely know this? Could he have made other flights on that route after 1997 under different aliases that we don't know about? (yet!). In the timetable I have there is a big block of time back in 1982 - 1984 where there doesn't appear to be any movement on his known aliases but my gut is that he was travelling then. Maybe what we know about travel after 1997 is also just the tip of the iceberg.
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Oh, you're right, of course!
 
gymtonic said:
Having refreshed myself with the postcards (and there is also a letter envelope that has the words AIR MAIL in capitals), the passenger card capitals look the same, I agree.
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I am not sure.
The A’s in some cases in the passenger cards seem a bit squared on top (not just curved or pointy)

The Q’s are relatively consistent yes

The B’s seem very different

The M’s and N’s seem much smaller and constrained and a different second swoosh on the passenger card.

Is it possible that someone took time to write out the info based on a sample - so focused on the writing & not context & ended up putting in “AUSTRALIAN” twice?

The postcards also seem to use a fine blue or black pen without too much pressure (light touch)

The passenger cards have been written in a thicker black liner with a bit more pressure (heavy touch)

IMO
 
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