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

[KiwiNZ]

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?

we have no proof there isn't more victims, dead people cant talk and we know he picks people whom have few contacts and alienates people from those that would seek them.

 

[vivienbee]

Oh thanks! That's good

I could never get a straight answer out of my Furby

Sorry, Tootsie, I went to bed or I wouldn't have left you hanging! I meant that your comment was hilarious.

 

[Lokii]

S


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

Widdle Willy’s toupee!

 

[vivienbee]

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.

This is true, but back when his cons started the internet probably didn't even exist in any real form, so it's not like he'd expect that years on a group of sleuths could digitally dig into his paper trails with a few keystrokes.

 

[LouLouSleuth]

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.

Yes we sure can…now. With the magic of the internet and shared web sleuthing. Never in the wildest dreams of anyone in 1960-70s would they have imagined the joint power we have now to join the dots across the world. It seems like he wasn’t very good at it now, but man, this guy seems like an international mastermind to me given the resources at the time! And also a total

 

[Belleandsebastian]

we have no proof there isn't more victims, dead people cant talk and we know he picks people whom have few contacts and alienates people from those that would seek them.

Yes, we know that Ginette heard of at least one other woman through a friend at church who was scammed but has since passed away.

 

[Bibno]

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.

I feel sure there are more female victims who will have been swindled by him. I think maybe Marion was more difficult than some of his others, and I really don't think she would have been as compliant as some of the others.

 

[Deleted member 249471]

We also don't know the extent of what he's done overseas. How many bodies were left behind as he slipped back into family life in Aus?

It's true though. Typically, con men aren't killers. Murderous behaviour is a whole other pathology. I suppose had he made JO disappear in the UK and returned alone to Aus, no-one would know and his plan would have succeeded!

I guess the question is, are there more victims that can't talk, or was Marion an anomaly? Did something go wrong?

 

[TootsieFootsie]

Phew vivienbee I thought I'd made you feel ill or something

Sorry, Tootsie, I went to bed or I wouldn't have left you hanging! I meant that your comment was hilarious.

 

[vivienbee]

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.

In my opinion, (and only my opinion at the present moment, this is subject to change if we see more today,) she did seem upset. Not everyone cries their eyes out when they are under stress and emotional distress. Her nerves to me go hand in hand with someone being under extreme circumstances and that's how some people respond to pressure and upset. For one thing, she'll have been briefed on many of these events beforehand by the police, her lawyer, and maybe even her husband. If she's been manipulated and lied to by him for years then that's a hard pill to swallow and a deep hole to get out of. We have no idea about their relationship or what might have been going on behind closed doors. This isn't someone she met last year who turned out to be a swindler, this is the man she's built both her own and her children's lives with. There are many, many reasons that she might come across as evasive and nervous.
I'm not saying that she had no clue about his schemes, nor that she was completely uninvolved (we don't have enough information about this yet,) but I think we should give people the benefit of the doubt and not start tarring people with a certain brush just because they don't respond in the way that we would or act in a way that we would act. This is her life. This is her children's lives. This is her livelihood. This is her partner of around 5 decades who she's potentially been with since she was 19. There's a huge leap between living under a rock and choosing to believe things that made your life easier at the time and not caring about the case or anything that's going on.
This isn't just directed at you because I think you had good intentions with this post, but I think we should all be a bit kinder to each other and wait for more info before making snap judgments on someone's character.

 

[Bibno]

I was interested to hear Diane say that they had spent time in England, and I wonder where they stayed, what they were doing and and whether they left much of a trace.

 

[Estelle]

This is true, but back when his cons started the internet probably didn't even exist in any real form, so it's not like he'd expect that years on a group of sleuths could digitally dig into his paper trails with a few keystrokes.

I was waiting for Casselden to ask her, "Do you know of websleuths?" No not really but I bet he and his children are reading here.

 

[Estelle]

What do you think are the chances of wife passing off as Marion? I saw quite a resemblance today.

 

[TootsieFootsie]

Excellent post. I agree with everything you said.

but I think we should all be a bit kinder to each other and wait for more info before making snap judgments on someone's character.

 

[LouLouSleuth]

In the last ep of the poddy I was been reminded of the police saying a few times they had located Marion and she was ok. That they’d spoken to her (not sighted her). I was SURE that they (DW &RB) were working together. But today…looking at this lady, I think she is under his thumb/control but is she the slick crim I was imagining? Not at all.

 

[Lokii]

In my opinion, (and only my opinion at the present moment, this is subject to change if we see more today,) she did seem upset. Not everyone cries their eyes out when they are under stress and emotional distress. Her nerves to me go hand in hand with someone being under extreme circumstances and that's how some people respond to pressure and upset. For one thing, she'll have been briefed on many of these events beforehand by the police, her lawyer, and maybe even her husband. If she's been manipulated and lied to by him for years then that's a hard pill to swallow and a deep hole to get out of. We have no idea about their relationship or what might have been going on behind closed doors. This isn't someone she met last year who turned out to be a swindler, this is the man she's built both her own and her children's lives with. There are many, many reasons that she might come across as evasive and nervous.
I'm not saying that she had no clue about his schemes, nor that she was completely uninvolved (we don't have enough information about this yet,) but I think we should give people the benefit of the doubt and not start tarring people with a certain brush just because they don't respond in the way that we would or act in a way that we would act. This is her life. This is her children's lives. This is her livelihood. This is her partner of around 5 decades who she's potentially been with since she was 19. There's a huge leap between living under a rock and choosing to believe things that made your life easier at the time and not caring about the case or anything that's going on.
This isn't just directed at you because I think you had good intentions with this post, but I think we should all be a bit kinder to each other and wait for more info before making snap judgments on someone's character.

Yes, everyone reacts differently, we shouldn’t make assumptions, things aren’t always as they seem, I was quite blunt.. But I’m having a hard time feeling any sympathy for her. And that’s my opinion.

 

[mishy66]

This is true, but back when his cons started the internet probably didn't even exist in any real form, so it's not like he'd expect that years on a group of sleuths could digitally dig into his paper trails with a few keystrokes.

exactly!!
Pre internet they could get away with anything !

 

[Deleted member 249471]

I couldn't stop wondering if she very hastily dyed her hair so as not to even remotely appear blonde? She is not tall. And ya'll know I've been waiting to see who the short blonde accomplice who picks up the luggage is.

 

[sunnybree]

Regarding Diane, it’s easy to say “why won’t she leave” but the reality is, she has to go home with him. Based on GGB’s testimony, this is a scary man. Based upon his appearance at inquest, which is all about a woman linked to him who has since disappeared, he is a scary man. It’s hard to imagine that he is only scary to the women he is not legally married to but nice to the woman who’s been stuck with him for so many years. If anyone is under his control it’s the woman who’s been in a relationship with since she was a teenager. Going back to the original question, when is a woman most likely to be killed by her abuser? When she LEAVES. For us this is an interesting case to follow, but for this woman it may be survival. We don’t know. (And as a side note, did Marion try to leave?) I’m interested in what RB has to say but I expect it will be lies. I’m more interested in finding out what they’ve got on him that has resulted in his admission that he knew Marion and had had an affair with her. It’s been speculated on the thread that he had to admit to the personal add because the number linked to him, but not clear yet on the connection they’ve been able to draw to Marion. Or have I missed something?

 

[Deleted member 249471]

Someone asked earlier about possible Jewish roots, due to his alias Chaim F D Dehedervary.

No idea if he's actually Jewish. But I'd say he got that alias from adapting his daughter's middle name. In the NAA papers, I saw people scribbling Chusan, and it actually looked like Chaim. As we know, RB takes every opportunity to take documents that already exist and doctor them.

Why did he do it though? Maybe to scam rich widowed Jewish women? Or he was hiding as a Jewish man because no one was looking for that.

I also noticed he used Dehedervary with that alias so if you did a search, it would be harder to find. Just thoughts.