Australia Australia - Marion Barter, 51, missing after trip to UK, June 1997 #8

[Isabelle-Australia]

For those reading from work. RB is losing control of the situation. The questions are getting tough. RB can't keep a story straight. He rambles and backtracks. He keeps providing excuses and info that wasn't asked for. I detect panic. IMO.

I’m detecting a bit of panic too. Casseldon is doing a good job. I’m afraid RB might feign a medical event or something.

 

[Willowpea]

Kind of disappointing that he likely took Marion’s life and money, deprived Sally and her family of answers for all these years just to live with his daughter while collecting a disability pension. He just needs to come clean.

 

[mishy66]

Quick summation of my favorite parts:

He claimed that he put the ad in the paper at the behest of someone who used to frequent the cafe he worked at… twenty years prior…

Continues the claim that the Ramekel ID was done for no particular reason. Also didn’t renew it a few months after Marions death for no particular reason. Also, is absolutely positive he did not take that ID to the UK in ‘97.

Had serious money issues, being a disabled pensioner and all that. Funded two PO boxes, leased a room that he didn’t use that had a phone line that he also didn’t use. Claims this room was part of a business that never actually did business. Also claims he/his would help an auctioneer friend with coins as a favor.

Sold a mystery house for 80k

After waxing poetically about Kipling’s Mill yesterday said he’d never visited it.

Shipped a container filled with coin literature back to Australia (while also saying money was tight.)

Offered twice to take a polygraph.

Claims he received an inheritance that was set up as a coupon book. Would cash those coupons overseas and convert the money to Australian dollars. And would then put them in a safe in his home because he didn’t trust Australian banks (despite having the bank account for his pension.)

Did I miss anything?

Just the part where he is about to crumble !

 

[Passingthru]

the polygraph I almost fell of chair with the giggles hilarious

They could probably pull the “polygraph” scam with this guy. Wrap a few cords around his chest, put a colander on his head and press the copy button on a page that says “LIE”. He doesn’t come across as particularly tech savvy.

 

[Knitmesocks]

I think it’ll be Steve Carrell displaying his dramatic side.

I thought Steve Carrell too! Meryl Streep for Kim?

 

[caitlincurious]

It's interesting isn't it.
Seems today he's lost the "fight" in him that he had yesterday.
Maybe it's because Casselden is being more direct, maybe he's mentally fatigued. Maybe last night his daughter blasted him and he's realised he's just flushed his life down the toilet.

And because D divorced him last night

 

[Knitmesocks]

I think it’ll be Steve Carrell displaying his dramatic side.

I thought Steve Carrell too! Meryl Streep for Kim?

 

[MrsEmmaPeel]

As for the fellow in the cafe who he placed the ad for. . . I thought the fellow he referred to was the man he went to in order to place the ad [newspaper person] and that this somehow segued into a time when he [Blum] worked in a cafe. My point is -- not one thing he's said is easy to follow or not above confusion! Except the fact that he absolutely knows he did not take the FR license to Europe in the late 1990's because he looked in his wallet and it was not there. FWIW, it's not his accent that makes understanding him difficult, it's his out-of-context and stream-of-consciousness replies.

 

[mishy66]

I thought Steve Carrell too! Meryl Streep for Kim?

no way that role has to go to Judi Dench!

 

[MrsEmmaPeel]

To follow on my prior comment, the Trust he mentioned, I heard as a Trust set up by him for the benefit of his wife and children. A tax maneuver, not an Inheritance. But I could be totally wrong!

 

[Knitmesocks]

no way that role has to go to Judi Dench!

Oh yes I see that and agree

 

[Passingthru]

To follow on my prior comment, the Trust he mentioned, I heard as a Trust set up by him for the benefit of his wife and children. A tax maneuver, not an Inheritance. But I could be totally wrong!

I think it was less “tax maneuver” and more “sketchy way to defraud the Australian/Belgian governments for their three pensions.

 

[Deleted member 249471]

Can someone explain the room he was paying for? I missed it. Where? What timeframe? Is there a possibility he was hiding Marion in it?

 

[caitlincurious]

Gahhh I timed my lunch break with the inquest and now they're in closed session!

 

[TootsieFootsie]

sitting in closed session

 

[Passingthru]

Can someone explain the room he was paying for? I missed it.

Nope, because he couldn’t.
But I think the gist of it was “a place his wife didn’t know about with a phone line that was traced to the advert”

 

[TootsieFootsie]

Maybe he's produced another document.

 

[Deleted member 249471]

Nope, because he couldn’t. But I think the gist of it was “a place his wife didn’t know about with a phone line that was traced to the advert”

Ohhhhh. I see. Thank you.

 

[TootsieFootsie]

Open

 

[TootsieFootsie]

He's correcting his evidence.