Australia Australia - Marion Barter, 51, missing after trip to UK, June 1997 #7

[Deleted member 249471]

Here's my speculative analysis...

He has a long history of changing his name.
He also started that fake company in 1968 with the three partners, who are all his aliases.
So, he needed to create a story that 'de Hedervary' has meaning.
He changed his name not to deceive or hide his record, but due to nostalgia.
The poor man lost his parents in the war.
And the company wasn't fake, they're his relatives. It's a family business.

I can't wait to hear the reasons he gives for all his other name changes

This guy will have a story for everything. It's how he lured his prey, and he's attempting his biggest con yet.

 

[StrangerDanger]

It’s not very smart of him to leave a trail of names though. None of us are expert detectives (right?) but we pretty easily found many of his names and were able to link them together. That company registration alone was a pretty dumb thing to do for a conman- putting 3 of his aliases together to show they have a connection. I don’t want to give the guy too much credit, I don’t think his scams are that complex or ingenious. He got a large sum of money from GGB and some jewellery and identity documents from JO, so the scams paid off I guess, but he’s not a mastermind.

 

[Belleandsebastian]

Interesting watching bits back from this morning. My take of DW/DdH is that she’s not too dissimilar from JO. Both women don’t seem to ask a lot of questions of RB, they seem content to just take what he says on face value. Even G (sorry forget her surname) didn’t challenge RB on many things even though in hindsight she says she questioned it in her mind (Eg. What was his true nationality).

In my opinion she's very evasive and comes across as dodgy. I think she's a good actor.

It’s not very smart of him to leave a trail of names though. None of us are expert detectives (right?) but we pretty easily found many of his names and were able to link them together. That company registration alone was a pretty dumb thing to do for a conman- putting 3 of his aliases together to show they have a connection. I don’t want to give the guy too much credit, I don’t think his scams are that complex or ingenious. He got a large sum of money from GGB and some jewellery and identity documents from JO, so the scams paid off I guess, but he’s not a mastermind.

Hmm... you’re right. There must be more victims. So he got $30,000 from Ginette, $80,000-$120,000 from Marion (or maybe more?). The paintings and antiques could have earned him a lot more. He would have got a bit from pawning some of JO’s jewellery. We know there was at least one more woman who has since passed away. When you consider that he was only in each of their lives for a few months it’s not too bad... I have a feeling his web is much much bigger.

 

[Carovb5]

Oké, found a bit of time to search about Belgian man joining the army.

Dienstplicht

In short:
From 1909 on obligated for 1 son per family.
From 1913 on obligated for every man. BUT in the years thereafter there were new rules: you shouldn’t go when a lot of your brothers already went or if you went to college or higher education.
After WW2 you could be send to Germany, but then your ‘dienstplicht’ was shortened by a few months.

I think that the info from later on isn’t that interesting in this case.

Maybe our Belgian members can tell us what this uniform is? Was it common for Belgians to join military back then , like it's compulsory in Switzerland these days. This profile photo of Willy wonkers

 

[Belleandsebastian]

7 news story just posted.

 

[Lokii]

Good evening Sleuthers!
I’ve finally been able to sit down and watch todays events and I’m now wondering who the hell spends more than half of their life with a man, finds out only a few months ago that he was unfaithful and is being questioned over someone’s disappearance, then finds out today that there was probably more women, and she isn’t in the slightest bit upset?!
She’s either a good liar or she just doesn’t care much for anything or anyone - and I don’t think either scenario is going to help this case.
I’d be needing a tissue if I was in her position in the witness box, not only because he’s a cheating pr!ck but also because his dishonest ways caused her to be getting questioned like that at her age, live streamed for the world to see. SMH.

 

[Nnbee]

7 news story just posted.

Seeing Sally and RB so close to each other is weird. I don’t know how she could keep so composed. It must be such a trying time. I can’t even begin to imagine what it would be like to come face to face with the man who allegedly ruined her mother’s life.

( also edited to include - notice he isn’t shaking at the start but when the reporter starts talking he is shaking quite a lot. Nerves or ?

 

[Belleandsebastian]

7 news story just posted.

Did anyone notice how his arms are still when he's not aware that he's being recorded, then he starts shaking his arms? A bit suss.

 

[Lokii]

7 news story just posted.

He sickens me.

 

[kbk]

We have no proof that any of the other women went missing or died of unnatural causes. What would cause a conman to escalate and then not escalate to that level again? Especially knowing he continued doing this to other women after Marion's disappearance?

 

[auntywithflowers]

We have no proof that any of the other women went missing or died of unnatural causes. What would cause a conman to escalate and then not escalate to that level again? Especially knowing he continued doing this to other women after Marion's disappearance?

 

[Estelle]

Seeing Sally and RB so close to each other is weird. I don’t know how she could keep so composed. It must be such a trying time. I can’t even begin to imagine what it would be like to come face to face with the man who allegedly ruined her mother’s life.

( also edited to include - notice he isn’t shaking at the start but when the reporter starts talking he is shaking quite a lot. Nerves or ?

Good spotting! I just came in here to report my observation of no hand shaking then when the reporter talks to him, he started to shake his hands! It was so obvious. It's not nerves IMO

 

[auntywithflowers]

We have no proof that any of the other women went missing or died of unnatural causes. What would cause a conman to escalate and then not escalate to that level again? Especially knowing he continued doing this to other women after Marion's disappearance?
.......quoted text above....
Greed and past history. Failing last time and making sure he gets Marion's money this time.
Not rocket science.

 

[mishy66]

7 news story just posted.

His chair looks brand new lol!

 

[Deleted member 249471]

We have no proof that any of the other women went missing or died of unnatural causes. What would cause a conman to escalate and then not escalate to that level again? Especially knowing he continued doing this to other women after Marion's disappearance?

Really good question.

We only heard of two women who escaped / survived to tell the tale.
There might be others like Marion who cannot speak up.

It could be as simple as Marion was getting feistier and he needed to deal with it.
Maybe he slapped her up to get her to cooperate but he went too far.
Or maybe he restrained her somewhere so he could withdraw the final funds and disappear, but left her there to perish. IDK

If a man is capable of preying on vulnerable women, including draining them of every penny, then I don't think it's much of a stretch to imagine other things he could do.

Also, the difference is that Marion knew his Remakel name. That might be significant somehow?

 

[Lokii]

His chair looks brand new lol!

And it says Hero lol. Coward more like it.

 

[ikarka]

We have no proof that any of the other women went missing or died of unnatural causes. What would cause a conman to escalate and then not escalate to that level again? Especially knowing he continued doing this to other women after Marion's disappearance?

I am not so sure. Both of the other women in the inquest appeared to disrupt the scheme before it went too far; the first lady when she refused to sell her home and the second when her cousin saw the red flags. Aside from that, we know of Ilona Kinczel, who died of a heart attack at 31 (unusual for a woman her age) and Marion Barter who disappeared. Not great odds. Plus, who knows how many others there are who may or may not be around to share their experience.

The reason I lean toward RB doing something to Marion is otherwise - what was his end game? How does the con end? He has a family in Ballina so it obviously can't go on forever. Marion knew enough to report him to authorities for his fraud. I can see him seeing the only way out of it being to harm Marion, sadly.

 

[Belleandsebastian]

We have no proof that any of the other women went missing or died of unnatural causes. What would cause a conman to escalate and then not escalate to that level again? Especially knowing he continued doing this to other women after Marion's disappearance?
.......quoted text above....
Greed and past history. Failing last time and making sure he gets Marion's money this time.
Not rocket science.

I’ve said it before, but I believe Marion could have struck him first and they got into an altercation. Once Marion cottoned on to the fact that he was fleecing her. My impression of Marion is that she was much less compliant and more switched on than the other ladies. Sally’s dad claims that Marion hit him and he also hit her on at least one occasion when they were married.

 

[Juicy mango]

This is probably a stupid question but can anyone just go and watch the inquest in person or is it not allowed because of covid? I know it’s live streamed but was wondering if you can actually go to the courthouse and see it, it would be such a weird experience i think… being so close to everyone and the tension being so high

 

[Lord Peter Flimsy]

S

He's got great hair for his age. I'll give him that.

You sure it’s not a syrup? Everything else is fake! Did they ask her about his blue bits?!