Australia Australia - Marion Barter, 51, missing after trip to UK, Jun 1997 #5

[vivienbee]

Can someone just clarify for me because I can't remember - was some of the money touched that was in Marion's UK account or was none of it accessed?

 

[Estelle]

Can someone just clarify for me because I can't remember - was some of the money touched that was in Marion's UK account or was none of it accessed?

I don't think she was even able to access it herself let alone a perpetrator. No it was not accessed. But there has been no mention of Sally accessing it either but I guess she has by now.

 

[Seriallyaddicted]

I honestly have no idea at all whether she came back or not.

I just thought that if Marion *just* wanted to get her money there were easier, less costly ways of doing it than flying back to Australia and visiting the branch daily to take out $5,000, but it might be the only way for a third party to actually get their hands on the cash.

What do you think happened?

There is overwhelming evidence that Marion came back to Australia so I follow the evidence on that. The bank representative at the inquest stated there was a reason for the $5k daily withdrawals due to the high interest account she had. So given that and the bank people at the time who said they saw her, I believe it was Marion taking the money out.

After this point I have no clue. We know she didn’t leave the country again or change her name via depol again. We know she didn’t touch the $14k Barklays bank money in England or her super.
I think given all the huge publicity on this case and none has come forward having said they saw her after the bank withdrawals, I think she probably died not long after that point - maybe weeks, maybe months but unlikely years after.
I’m very interested in the remakel connection given her surname change, the advert in the paper and the trendwest employee name - especially given how that name is so rare and that in Australia those are basically the only connections we know to that name and they are located so close to each other in location and time.
Whether someone murdered her (for money you would think) or she suicided, im not sure.
I certainly am very keen to see the police investigation into the remakel connection and am very happy the inquest has requested further investigation on this.

 

[poppypopcorn]

I very much agree with @PhilOlivettifan 's comment that there were a lot of issues with communication in Marion's family. Sisters weren't talking to each other, all the info was second hand through their mum.

Lots of families aren't close - and that's fine. Doesn't make them weird or dysfunctional. I can go months without speaking to my sister on the phone and don't know the ins and outs of her life either. Not all people have a close relationship with their siblings. Marion didn't appear to be close to hers, does anyone know what the age gaps are between them all? And it's clear that Sally has little to no relationships with her aunts.

The aunts seem convinced that Marion intended to leave and never return.

 

[FullMinder]

June 22nd
From Episode 24 (Inquest Part 5), Marion's sister, BW, testified that she had offered her a ride to the airport, but Marion declined because "she said she wanted to spend a couple of nights at the hotel in Brisbane and get her head together because everything had been so rushed.”

I wonder where this fits in the timeline i.e. months, weeks, or days ahead of her departure. I suppose it's probably irrelevant now because Marion didn't actually end up staying a few days at any hotel; the story, as Sally and police have stated, was that Lesley drove her to the bus station on the 22nd and that's the day Marion actually departed Australia. But it's interesting to hear that she was considering staying in a hotel in Australia for a few days prior to leaving for a year. It's also possible that it meant nothing -- that it's just something she said -- maybe even just to get BW off her back about dropping her off. (And by the way, BW is allowed to get "a bit peeved" at Marion for declining her offer because she likes bringing people to the airport, but Sally's not allowed to get concerned that she can't get in touch with her mother for anywhere from 3 months to 24 years?) *Gaslight City.*

Interesting to learn that Marion also thought things were very rushed.

Luxembourg Investigation
From the Dakota Spotlight interview with James Wolner, Alison Sandy said:

"I think there are limitations to what the police investigation could do, mostly due to covid, but also international jurisdictions like Luxembourg particularly, which has very big privacy laws that prevent information like this being...and because the connections are still relatively tenuous, it just hasn't...I mean, you'd think that there would be someone on that list from Luxembourg that could even clarify whether Marion was a resident there or was ever a resident or that there'd been any record of her flying into the country or things like that, but there doesn't seem to be, from what I've seen, anything that indicates that, which is a worry. So, I'm not quite sure. I mean, that's an area that needs to be looked into. And I think international relations and jurisdictions and what can be provided in a way like this, if it's not someone being sought because of a criminal history or something like that, there might be extra protections in a place like Luxembourg, which might've been the reason a person may choose to go there if they want to fall off the grid."

 

[vivienbee]

I don't think she was even able to access it herself let alone a perpetrator. No it was not accessed. But there has been no mention of Sally accessing it either but I guess she has by now.

Thank you for clearing that up for me!
I think this makes the possibility that Marion returned to Aus because she needed to access her accounts in some fashion more plausible. If she couldn't access her accounts, it would be difficult to sustain her stay in England financially as I highly doubt she was carrying a lot of cash on her?
And if this was an oversight on her part, name change wise, it would be *very* tricky to explain to her friends and family her reasons for returning without alerting them to her name change.
No theory beyond that explaining the massive cash withdrawals, just a thought on her initial plan for return.

 

[Estelle]

Thank you for clearing that up for me!
I think this makes the possibility that Marion returned to Aus because she needed to access her accounts in some fashion more plausible. If she couldn't access her accounts, it would be difficult to sustain her stay in England financially as I highly doubt she was carrying a lot of cash on her?
And if this was an oversight on her part, name change wise, it would be *very* tricky to explain to her friends and family her reasons for returning without alerting them to her name change.
No theory beyond that explaining the massive cash withdrawals, just a thought on her initial plan for return.

BUT, on the other hand, maybe the possible scammers were either not aware of it or could not access it either.

 

[Estelle]

Did Marion buy a return ticket open to returning any time or did she simply buy a one-way fare?

 

[Lord Peter Flimsy]

Just to let you all know Episode 6 of the podcast has dropped and available to listen. No spoilers from me this time! Give time for those down under to have a listen before I post any views.

 

[SaintGertrude]

I am still thinking about the red squirrels mention in one of Marion's postcards. Red squirrels are often spotted all around the Windemere area. (Note to all sleuths without making this a spoiler to see if you can spot the mention of Windemere in the Episode 6 podcast)

 

[Itsapuzzle]

I am still thinking about the red squirrels mention in one of Marion's postcards. Red squirrels are often spotted all around the Windemere area. (Note to all sleuths without making this a spoiler to see if you can spot the mention of Windemere in the Episode 6 podcast)

Do you have the postcard that mentions red squirrels, I can't find that one, only the "rabbits and squirrels" one. Good sleuthing about the different squirrels in different areas, I would have no idea about that. Oooh, sounds interesting about the Windemere mention .... will listen again, totally missed that. Thanks Gertie

 

[KiwiNZ]

 

[PhilOlivettifan]

Did Marion buy a return ticket open to returning any time or did she simply buy a one-way fare?

I think this is a great question (and one not yet answered). If her return to Australia only a little over a month after departure was pre-planned or last minute is important information.

 

[KiwiNZ]

I think this is a great question (and one not yet answered). If her return to Australia only a little over a month after departure was pre-planned or last minute is important information.

My personal opinion is that the return ticket wasn't purchased at the same time as her outbound one, as generally a round ticket is purchased as it is cheaper but it's the same airline for the full travel, unless the dates don't work for you then you might use a different airline for the return but at a higher cost, so most people change their plans slightly rather than pay more for a airline ticket . She left on a different airline to which she returned as far as I remember.

 

[KiwiNZ]

It would be interesting to know if there was a scheduled Cathay Pacific flight from Brisbane airport 8 days after Marion's return back to Hong Kong as it was likely she had paid for a round trip (same airline) if she really planned to depart on that day.

 

[KiwiNZ]

Her resignation letter is interesting she resigned in April 1997, the resignation letter we knew of, a few days before she departed, was not in her work file and as the Principle pointed out not addressed to anyone.

so it wasn't as sudden as we thought ? and possible not as sudden as Sally thought ?

 

[sunnybree]

So much time has passed, it is difficult to know whether many of the little details are being interpreted correctly. It seems difficult to come up with a plausible scenario that fits all the facts. I still lean towards a man being mixed up in all of it. There seemed a theme emerged about Marion placing a high value on being in a relationship and she may have tended to value such a relationship above other obligations. I think it was Deirdre who gave as an example Marion’s decision to send Owen to live with his father, a decision she believed was attributable to Ray Barter’s influence. If Marion met a man who offered her what she felt she needed, and that man wanted to keep the relationship a secret or wanted her to not return to her family, then she might be inclined to go along with it, even though she would not have done that under normal circumstances.

The main reason I think there was a man involved was that she recorded herself as “married” and a resident of Luxembourg on the incoming passenger card and I don’t know why Marion/Florabella would feel a need to lie to the Department of Immigration about something like that. I also think Marion’s reason to return could very likely be to retrieve her money as she did not have the ID sufficient to withdraw her money in the UK. But then something went wrong.

A third-party involvement might explain the few odd things like Marion being seen with a man at the McDonalds and why she declined offers to take her to the airport despite the inconvenience with the luggage.

One thing I wondered about was Lesley Loveday’s statement about continuing to receive Marion’s mail which was redirected to her address. Lesley said she eventually opened one letter, saw it was a cheque, and contacted Sally. She then assumed Sally would have taken care of the mail redirection as she did not receive further mail but I wonder about that. Would Sally have had the authority to do that? Did Marion herself reorganise the mail redirection to elsewhere when she returned to Australia, with the timing being coincidental? I wonder if Australia Post keeps records of mail redirection? Or have I misunderstood something here?

I think more investigation needs to be done in the UK and in Luxembourg, and more exposure in those places. It feels to me like there could be more information in those places. I’m not convinced of FR’s involvement as there is nothing known that puts him in Australia or in contact with anyone in Australia but Florabella wrote Luxembourg on the incoming passenger card and I think that is significant. However I think she died in Australia. I also think that if she was concealing her identity and location from her family at the behest of someone, that someone most likely returned to Australia with her as these controlling types always keep their victims close.

 

[vivienbee]

*Potential spoiler* (but I think it was mentioned earlier in the podcast and I just forgot about it until now) -
Does anyone have any idea what the cheques sent to LL's house for Marion are likely to have been? If they were her wages from TSS (I know sometimes they get paid in instalments spread over the year), surely Marion would have made mention of that and asked someone to cash them for her? I find it really weird that there were just cheques being sent to her (Marion) that weren't being deposited. LL only opened one, from the sounds of it, but there is also an implication that the others that she sent back (to where?) seemed to come from the same source and were probably in the same vein.

 

[vivienbee]

One thing I wondered about was Lesley Loveday’s statement about continuing to receive Marion’s mail which was redirected to her address. Lesley said she eventually opened one letter, saw it was a cheque, and contacted Sally. She then assumed Sally would have taken care of the mail redirection as she did not receive further mail but I wonder about that. Would Sally have had the authority to do that? Did Marion herself reorganise the mail redirection to elsewhere when she returned to Australia, with the timing being coincidental? I wonder if Australia Post keeps records of mail redirection? Or have I misunderstood something here?

I must have been writing my post when you wrote this, sorry for the repeated question!

 

[brjakj]

*Potential spoiler* (but I think it was mentioned earlier in the podcast and I just forgot about it until now) -
Does anyone have any idea what the cheques sent to LL's house for Marion are likely to have been? If they were her wages from TSS (I know sometimes they get paid in instalments spread over the year), surely Marion would have made mention of that and asked someone to cash them for her? I find it really weird that there were just cheques being sent to her (Marion) that weren't being deposited. LL only opened one, from the sounds of it, but there is also an implication that the others that she sent back (to where?) seemed to come from the same source and were probably in the same vein.

Maybe it was a refund cheque from cancelling the racq?