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

[TootsieFootsie]

I left a word out of the post above.

The sentence should be "she sat on their friends sons bed just watching him.

 

[Itsapuzzle]

The first report from the inquest - from Luke Costin, AAP

Things to note:

- Detective Senior Constable Gary Sheehan was a witness today.

- Commonwealth Bank transaction records for the withdrawals made from Marion’s account no longer exist.

- Marion’s RACQ membership and policy was cancelled on 7 August 1997. It would have required a phone call or in person visit to branch.

- Marion’s Medicare card used on 13 August 1997 at Grafton Shoppingworld was not a doctor visit but an OPTOMETRIST and WILL be a witness during the inquest.

- The inquest will remain in Sydney until Friday, before continuing in Byron Bay and BALLINA!

They're going to Ballina What's in Ballina? Monsieur MF Remakel's phone and PO Box were from Ballina/Lennox Head, anything else?

Oh. Some on this thread mentioned there were reports of bones found in Ballina and they were likely going to try to see if DNA from Marion's ballet slippers matched I was prepared for a lot of things, but I am not prepared for bones, to be honest.

That's pretty interesting, - "Marion’s RACQ membership and policy was cancelled on 7 August 1997. It would have required a phone call or in person visit to branch"!
And the visit to an optometrist - this is all new to us. How very curious.

 

[Estelle]

That's pretty interesting, - "Marion’s RACQ membership and policy was cancelled on 7 August 1997. It would have required a phone call or in person visit to branch"!
And the visit to an optometrist - this is all new to us. How very curious.

Has she sold her car before she went overseas?

 

[TootsieFootsie]

She left that to Sally to do, I think.

Has she sold her car before she went overseas?

 

[TootsieFootsie]

Australia - Australia - Marion Barter, 51, missing after trip to UK, June 1997 #2

In one of the earlier episodes, Sally said the plan was to sell Marion's car (Honda Civic) and transfer the money but that Sally had decided to keep the Civic and sell her own Daihatsu and put the money for that sale into the bank.


More discussion here re the car in the link above.

 

[Deleted member 249471]

After all this time, would people be able to identify Marion as the person they saw, like the optometrist.

However, if I worked at a bank, I would definitely remember a customer coming in every day for 3.5 weeks to withdraw $5000 cash, and draining an account of about $100,000. That would stay with me. Forever.

Bank staff are trained to notice unusual behaviour and potential fraud. Even if everything checked out as you processed the payment (such as ID and signature), I would still remember that encounter 100 years later.

I actually still remember weird customer behaviours, theft, shoplifting and attempts at fraud from when I worked in retail as a youngster.

It's unusual that no-one from the CBA Byron Bay has spoken up yet. That rings alarm bells for me.

 

[sunnybree]

There’s been lots of speculation about the doctor’s appointment and what it was for, and it seems all along it was an optometrist appointment. It’s pretty common for someone of Marion’s age to need to have glasses and need to see someone to get a new pair/get a pair mended.

I have been on the line of thinking that something has interrupted Marion’s plan to fully assume her new identity. She came back to Australia, she retrieved her money (in cash) but didn’t take the necessary steps to fully assume her identity of Florabella Remakel. She had what was needed to open new accounts in Florabella’s name, get a new driver’s license, change over her Medicare card, and so on but she didn’t. Why? If she planned to go back overseas (which I think may be possible), then she should have needed to set up a new account as Florabella in such a way she could access the money overseas using her passport. It’s not like her plan could have been to sew $80 000 cash into her coat lining and get on the plane. She must have been planning something with that money. If she didn’t open an account anywhere as Florabella, it suggests she gave the money to someone else to put in their account.

Alternatively, she might have been planning to go off grid and live off her cash. But if that’s what she was planning, why bother with a legal name change. That’s just made things harder. If you are “off grid” call yourself what ever you want, you don’t need to go to deed poll. Living off grid is generally not glamorous or not in any real life story I’ve ever heard. In the stories I’m familiar with, people off grid live in tents in the bush and if someone found you sleeping on a pile of cash they’d probably murder you in your sleep and make off with it. What in Marion’s life suggests she would want to live off grid without her nice things, like showers, bathrooms, lamps, paintings, and tea sets. However Marion has undertaken reinventions of sorts before - in the form of new relationships and moving to different places.

Re: the storage unit. I could be totally wrong here but if they can’t find a storage unit/shipping container under the name of Marion or Florabella, but her stuff (of which there was a lot) is gone, that suggests to me the involvement of another person. Marion put her stuff in a storage unit that actually was in the name of the (unknown) person with whom she was potentially travelling with?

just speculation, can’t wait to find out how wrong I am! I hope Sally finds some measure of resolution in these proceedings.

 

[Estelle]

There’s been lots of speculation about the doctor’s appointment and what it was for, and it seems all along it was an optometrist appointment. It’s pretty common for someone of Marion’s age to need to have glasses and need to see someone to get a new pair/get a pair mended.

I have been on the line of thinking that something has interrupted Marion’s plan to fully assume her new identity. She came back to Australia, she retrieved her money (in cash) but didn’t take the necessary steps to fully assume her identity of Florabella Remakel. She had what was needed to open new accounts in Florabella’s name, get a new driver’s license, change over her Medicare card, and so on but she didn’t. Why? If she planned to go back overseas (which I think may be possible), then she should have needed to set up a new account as Florabella in such a way she could access the money overseas using her passport. It’s not like her plan could have been to sew $80 000 cash into her coat lining and get on the plane. She must have been planning something with that money. If she didn’t open an account anywhere as Florabella, it suggests she gave the money to someone else to put in their account.

Alternatively, she might have been planning to go off grid and live off her cash. But if that’s what she was planning, why bother with a legal name change. That’s just made things harder. If you are “off grid” call yourself what ever you want, you don’t need to go to deed poll. Living off grid is generally not glamorous or not in any real life story I’ve ever heard. In the stories I’m familiar with, people off grid live in tents in the bush and if someone found you sleeping on a pile of cash they’d probably murder you in your sleep and make off with it. What in Marion’s life suggests she would want to live off grid without her nice things, like showers, bathrooms, lamps, paintings, and tea sets. However Marion has undertaken reinventions of sorts before - in the form of new relationships and moving to different places.

Re: the storage unit. I could be totally wrong here but if they can’t find a storage unit/shipping container under the name of Marion or Florabella, but her stuff (of which there was a lot) is gone, that suggests to me the involvement of another person. Marion put her stuff in a storage unit that actually was in the name of the (unknown) person with whom she was potentially travelling with?

just speculation, can’t wait to find out how wrong I am! I hope Sally finds some measure of resolution in these proceedings.

In most scenarios, including those you have mentioned, it suggests the involvement of another person who got her money and her storage items. Why would Marion willingly give access to these things to another person? Was she being controlled or in fear of her life? Did she have a nervous breakdown? Did she suicide? Was she murdered? If so, where is the body?

 

[Deleted member 249471]

Yes, I agree about the shipping container not being found meaning someone else was involved. And the money. You just can't carry it onto a plane.

This is so silly, but it is one theory I am currently entertaining... I think Marion's money was funnelled into timeshare/retirement property investments. It might explain why Marion said she was considering downsizing her home to buy something closer to the beach (she was already seduced into the scam). And also why:

• a 'Remakel' worked at Trenwest (a timeshare company) between 2001 and 2004
• a random Remakel family from Luxembourg allegedly has endless international property investment companies with potential links to the Panama Papers
• some people surrounding the case also ended up working in timeshare/retirement property investment
• some locals (Graham Patrick Higgins) were convicted for defrauding people out of their timeshare/retirement property payments
• several high profile fraudsters (Paul Joseph McMahon, Goran Markovic) were around there at similar times
• a foreign man living in the area would be compelled to place an ad in the paper, 'seeking stylish and classy woman with view to marriage'.

If you were interested in scamming an Australian in 1997, the mid east coast was the place to be. It was a hotbed of fraudulent activity.

If you want to know more about the Panama Papers (and the world of financial fraud), check out the movie The Laundromat with Meryl Streep.

However, I still think Marion was miserable and compromised at school, and whatever was going on there pushed her into an even worse situation. They may or may not be linked. But both can be true at the same time.

 

[TootsieFootsie]

Marion only gave four days notice that she was leaving the school.

 

[Loxoli]

Marion only gave four days notice that she was leaving the school.

Wow, I didn’t know it was only 4 days. That seems very unusual and sudden.

 

[TootsieFootsie]

I did a search of our earlier discussions and she resigned in the last week of term.
Even though she'd been making plans to go overseas for quite awhile.

She left it til right at the end to resign and some members here thought she may have done that because she was angry about things at the school.

Wow, I didn’t know it was only 4 days. That seems very unusual and sudden.

 

[TootsieFootsie]

Inquest into missing teacher begins 24 years after her disappearance

Some photos I hadn't seen before.

 

[TootsieFootsie]

burgerIcon


A detective who investigated the baffling disappearance of a mother-of-three believes she executed an elaborate ruse to start a new life.

Behind a paywall. More pics I hadn't seen before.

 

[Deleted member 249471]

So true Tootsie. Something really rotten was going on at The Southport School.

Marion resigned on Monday 16 June 1997 and her final day was on Friday 20th. Her colleagues said Marion was 'frantic' at that time of her resignation. Luke Glover claims he had to stop Marion from stealing school property. However, Sally thinks Marion just took all the items and furniture she bought for her class out of her own money. She often paid for things herself and actually kept all the teaching items and furniture she bought at Chris’ parent’s house.

If she was planning to permanently disappear, why keep it all? Why not just leave it for the kids and the next teacher? In her resignation letter, she also said she had a desire to travel and find teaching work in England. The letter also made a request to renew her teacher's certification for the following year, 1998.

Also remember that Marion initially got on well with Luke Glover and babysat his kids on occasion. But something radically changed by early 1997 to the point Marion was no longer herself, and was stressed, exhausted and in tears.

Luke Glover won’t be a witness as he is deceased.
The principal at the time was Greg Wain.
There’s also Greg Edwards who was (and still is) the school’s groundskeeper who Marion was in a relationship with for a while.

Source for the above is: The Lady Vanishes podcast, Bonus: Conversations 16

By doing a google search, MANY people have reported several TSS teachers to Queensland Police for alleged child molestation and abuse, but have never been taken seriously and the claims never investigated

 

[Deleted member 249471]

Regarding The Pilot.

Marion used to babysit The Pilot's son on occasion. He was her student in 1996. Whenever the boy arrived at school, Marion would run out to the car and chat with his dad, sometimes for 30 to 45 mins.

One day, the boy pointed to another student’s mother and said “my dad’s going to marry her” and Marion ran out of the classroom crying.

The Pilot was 11 years younger than Marion, about 39 to Marion’s 51. Might Marion have been infatuated with The Pilot but he might not have been so interested in her? Or perhaps he was leading her on? Or was it something else?

The Pilot (who is no longer a pilot) lived in Hong Kong and used to work for Cathay Pacific

Marion returned to Australia 2 August 1997, on a Cathay Pacific flight from Hong Kong. We don’t know how and when she got to HK.



*Earlier I said the podcast mentioned The Pilot might not be a real pilot, just liked to dress like one, I can't find the episode right now but I'm pretty sure they weren't talking about The Pilot, but Goran Markovic who was a scammer who was known to impersonate being pilot as part of his fraud.*

 

[TootsieFootsie]

PressReader.com - Your favorite newspapers and magazines.

One of the boys in her class had a single father who was a pilot. Marion’s assistant, Barbara, told Sally that when the little boy would turn up to class, “she would run out to the car to see the dad, and they would go across to the residence. It would take her a while to come back to class.

She was keen on this guy.” One day, Sally says, the little boy pointed to another single mother and said, ‘my daddy is going to marry her’. Mum just kind of collapsed and walked out of the classroom.

She wasn’t her normal self, she wasn’t coming to class as much. When she did, she was distant. It was like she had a nervous breakdown.”

 

[Deleted member 249471]

"At a goodbye dinner with one friend, she sat on their friend's bed for a long time just watching him. And then asked her friend to stand under a light post "so I can remember you".

"She said a similar thing to me" says Sally. "She wanted to come to dinner so she could remember me in my house"

Similarly, the day before she left the country, Marion called her best friend Angela and said something along the lines of, “if anything happens to me, please take care of Sally and Owen”.

These snippets of conversations and behaviours are ominous. She was going away hurried and in a shroud of secrecy. She was worried but hoping she would come back? It's very interesting that she disappeared once she returned to Australia and not overseas. Gah.

 

[Deleted member 249471]

I know this has been said before, so just reiterating:

Florabella Natalia Marion Remakel
Fernand Nicolas Marie Ernest Remakel

Initials are the same, except for the E.

And I just can’t get over that Flora Bella = Luxembourg China.
Which is essentially her route back home.
Could Natalia = Orient Express route London to Europe?

So is this Marion leaving directions in case she went missing:
FNM Remakel + Marion go from London to Europe then Luxembourg to China

I am losing the plot.

 

[sunnybree]

Regarding her teacher’s registration, this is another thing that makes me wonder. Having changed her name by deed poll, Marion didn’t take any steps we are aware of to having her details updated for her teacher’s registration. She was only 51 years old. How was she intending to support herself without working. Having said that she had quite a bit of cash stored up so maybe I’m over thinking it. (Although an expensive holiday to Europe would chew a fair bit of that up.) She might not have had an intention to go back to teaching. The environment at TSS sounds toxic, it would have to be given the sexual abuse also occurring at the school. Something like that can only flourish in a toxic environment. Maybe Marion was just so over it she never thought of going back to teaching. Or, she believed she didn’t have to because she was going to be married to a man with means. Like I said, I just can’t see Marion living well and truly off the grid, so if there was no man, then I would think she would have planned to well and truly take on the Florabella identity via all the legal avenues which would have enabled her to buy a house and property, work, access Medicare more easily (not sure what would have happened long-term with the two identities) and access her super and the aged pension (big red flags for me if she is still in Australia as Florabella, at 71 she is still living off her cash?) But something has gone awry.