Australia Australia - Marion Barter - Missing After Trip to UK - June 1997 #22

[KiwiNZ]

I am now in this camp. I was a "Marion Returned-er" all this time, but now-- due to his methods with the other women-- I'm with you @mishy66. But I also believe He may have had the means to withdraw money with no woman by his side given the documents he had and the erroneous driver's license. This is based on how he swindled the other women and the means he had.

but who flew back as Marion / Florabella ? The old wife was home with the kids

 

[mishy66]

From the inquest he flew in on the 31st under one of his aliases - he did 10 OS trips on this alias EVEN though he has changed his name to deH in 1992 -
In October 1997 while using the deed poll name change of Westbury he had listed himself in his local phone directory as FdeH - The directory was for the following year - so he was ALWAYS one step ahead

Edit - I think Marion knew him as RLW which is why he changed his name late 1997 in the phone book for the following year

RICHARD LLOYD WESTBURY

1999 - 2 years after Marion went missing

January - FdeH responds to letter from the Clerk of the North Sydney Court relating to Apprehended Violence Order lodged by GBB
That same year, under a new ID of coin collector Richard West, gets a job at Status International sorting and posting items to customers whereby valuable coin collections go missing.

July 27 - Opens safety deposit box at Ballina Commonwealth Bank
Getting ready for another sting -
October 20 - legally changes name to Rich Richard
October 27 - passport application is made for Rich Richard
November - Passport is issued under the name Rich Richard.

A passport under the name Richard Lloyd Westbury is cancelled the same day


This same year he starts a relationship with JO and wants her to work for him in a coin business in Ballina
She knew him as Ric West but saw he also went by the name Richard Lloyd Westbury -
He changed his name to Rich Richard via deed poll - she started calling him Rich

Before leaving overseas, they both got new passports and he suggested she change her hair to blonde
He assisted her with her new passport and collected it for her.....

 

[mishy66]

... The old wife ...

love it

 

[KiwiNZ]

Re: passenger cards and MB’s passenger card. . .I remember filling them out on the plane and handing them in at passport check after landing. Correct? I also remember it wasn’t that big of a deal. I almost feel like you could hand in a random passenger card and say you found it on the floor, and they would have thrown it on the pile. They were just little scribbled cards. I also only remember filling one out when arriving in a foreign country, not in US where I lived.

I am no expert ( but gosh I wish we had an immigrations officer on here to pick their brain, show your shelf if you are one lol ) but I have always handed the card to customs, not immigration. Immigration checks the passport, customs check and take the card. Movements are tracked by your passport, ie when you check in a flag can be put on your passport by police etc... so someone had to have the passport to travel and have it recorded by immigration, not just the card ( happy to be corrected).

They know her flight came from Amsterdam, it's not on the passenger card because there was a stop over so last destination was entered on the card, so they must know by her passport movements that the flight originated from Amsterdam ( ? )

 

[mishy66]

That would be correct in that the passport flight originated in Amsterdam.

It was someone Listening to the podcast that contacted SL - someone who flew that airline at the time confirmed that flight left from Amsterdam.

 

[KiwiNZ]

Maybe the friendly 'Maz' who Marion met with 'the dentist' was being put in place to become Marion? Got to know her a little bit, debriefed her of a few things, flew back on the passenger card, went to the bank impersonating Marion whom she'd already met. Who could such a person be, if so? And how would RB have a handy criminal contact of this calibre?

My issue with this is if you come in on a passport you have to leave on the same one, otherwise the passport you try to use would flag as never entering. My mother had this issue in the 80's in Aus, entering on a NZ passport and trying to leave on a UK one, her UK one didn't show she had entered Aus.

If the person was coming here for good it might work, or looking for an illegal way to get here to stay

But it would have served RB better if they had left again on it

 

[Brown Alleycat]

but who flew back as Marion / Florabella ? The old wife was home with the kids

I am also in the camp of MB not returning to Australia as Mishy has outlined. I just don't see her coming home and not contacting any of her family especially after sending numerous postcards home from UK about her trip.
Has it been established that the old wife was home at the time of this supposed flight home by MB? I am highly suspicious of the Dutch dentist & "Maz".

 

[mishy66]

My issue with this is if you come in on a passport you have to leave on the same one, otherwise the passport you try to use would flag as never entering. My mother had this issue in the 80's in Aus, entering on a NZ passport and trying to leave on a UK one, her UK one didn't show she had entered Aus.

If the person was coming here for good it might work, or looking for an illegal way to get here to stay

But it would have served RB better if they had left again on it

I hear what you are saying.
My theory is the person entering Aust was an illegal immigrant - Aust border control was very lax for decades


"In 1997–98, the immigration Department began a major restructure to align policy and operational areas and strengthen its border management functions. Many of the functions under the new structure were outsourced to the private sector. The increased focus on border integrity was in response to the number of unauthorised arrivals and visa over-stayers apprehended by the Department. In 1996–97, airport staff intercepted 626 passengers of concern outside Australia..."

Also remember Marion only had a one way ticket at the time she left - as stated by many victims he held all the "important documents" - Marion wouldn't have seen her prefilled incoming passenger card or passport again once they met up in the UK IMO

 

[tiffwatkins84]

Thats right if you were a normal person with morals - but he is a criminal and no morals
It was said at inquest he got victims and his wife to fill out cards or he filled them out and held onto them. it was also noted that in the case of MB passenger card - some details were changed and that perhaps it was customs who made those changes.....HOW to prove that would be difficult - it could have been him
AH KNEW a lot of criminals and associates, having someone use a prefilled card with a passport to match is an easy task for him, knowing he has manipulated dozens of passports in his lifetime. Someone gets a cheap / free flight into a new country and walks.

From the inquest he flew in on the 31st under one of his aliases - he did 10 OS trips on this alias EVEN though he has changed his name to deH in 1992 -
In October 1997 while using the deed poll name change of Westbury he had listed himself in his local phone directory as FdeH - The directory was for the following year - so he was ALWAYS one step ahead

Edit - I think Marion knew him as RLW which is why he changed his name late 1997 in the phone book for the following year

I cant help but think how did Marion 'chose' the name Florabella Natalia Marion Remakel? Did she know Mr AKA as FR and once he suggested they get married she changed it? Or if she did know him as RLW as suggested- then why would she agree to change her name to something as bizarre as Florabella Remakel? I often think of this and it eats me. None of the other women - as far as i can remember? - changed their names or had the suggestion they change their name?

 

[mishy66]

I cant help but think how did Marion 'chose' the name Florabella Natalia Marion Remakel? Did she know Mr AKA as FR and once he suggested they get married she changed it? Or if she did know him as RLW as suggested- then why would she agree to change her name to something as bizarre as Florabella Remakel? I often think of this and it eats me. None of the other women - as far as i can remember? - changed their names or had the suggestion they change their name?

Yes we haven't heard of anyone else changing their names as yet have we.
I wouldn't be surprised if he had used this before on victims we have not heard about

IMO - MB wouldn't have had a clue about why HE chose those initials for her - He would have never talked about FR to Marion. He is a criminal - and a very sophisticated one as Laura says. He was setting up a big sting and Marion was the pawn.

IMO - HE used those initials for a future sting on the real FR but it all went to sh****t.

IMO - that name was going to be used in a money scam to help his old friend MC - although she says she had nothing to do with him when she found out he was married.....she DOES mention that AFTER she eavesdropped on his phone call (at an airport I think it was), to Diane and realised then he was married, ( oh please give me a break - of course she knew before that!..... "I looked after a little boy that looked just like him " ) THEY both then went to a cafe.......
fast forward to the y1990's and he is still writing love letters to her from Tasmania!

MUCH more to this story and we will probably never know - I have always said it is a stalemate with those two. No one is going to implicate the other because they were in the thick of something big - JMO MOO IMO

 

[mishy66]

Sorry I cant reply to a post in the last thread but for those that think they would not have a property portfolio...

March 1989 was the last day he OWNED property in Australia
From that point on the properties were in Dianes name only

 

[intrepid.emma]

I am no expert ( but gosh I wish we had an immigrations officer on here to pick their brain, show your shelf if you are one lol ) but I have always handed the card to customs, not immigration. Immigration checks the passport, customs check and take the card. Movements are tracked by your passport, ie when you check in a flag can be put on your passport by police etc... so someone had to have the passport to travel and have it recorded by immigration, not just the card ( happy to be corrected).

They know her flight came from Amsterdam, it's not on the passenger card because there was a stop over so last destination was entered on the card, so they must know by her passport movements that the flight originated from Amsterdam ( ? )

Hi all, I am a Flight Attendant, (and no, never directly worked with M sadly). You hand in your IPC (the passenger card) to quarantine after you have collected your baggage from the carousels. Baggage collection takes place after you have passed through customs/border protection. Quarantine do not check the passport matches the card either, as you have already just passed through customs. I hope that makes sense?

 

[KinseyFan]

I know I am in the minority with her NOT returning to Australia but one of the reasons is because in this very complicated and twisted case, there have been many discrepancies with dates and times and information until of course more facts are revealed in the case.

The timing of calls home and flights with layovers just do not add up to me - she would have had only hours to organise flights, payment of flights and packing for her "8 days", cancelling her accommodation and trying to organise travel to Amsterdam for the flight back to Aust .... - between him leaving - what time did he actually fly out ?? to arrive back into Aust on 31st July ........and her card travelling back would only be hours -- if she was suspicious and following him home.

I keep going back to Marion calling Sally about the Thredbo disaster on 1st August, the day before her passenger card arrives into Australia and the 2 postcards with postmarks 7th and 30th August - both from Tunbridge Wells

Marion telling Sally about having tea with little old ladies and not sounding at all concerned about anything.
She is about to head to Amsterdam - "“EAGERLY LOOKING FORWARD TO VAN GOGH SUNFLOWERS REVISIT HOLLAND”
( he has made up some BS to keep her in UK and a trip to Amsterdam and the Orient is carrot IMO) and is having the time of her life >


The strand, Winchelsea postcard sent from Tunbridge Wells 7 August 1997
(she is back in Tunbridge Wells where she started, now without him so is having to do things on her own - IMO)

To her sister: .......hope you and the family are well. I’m having a ball. England is so beautiful and so much to see, do, explore, learn, eat and op shops galore. I say to myself ...? Good bargains too. It's sad because I can’t possibly buy one more thing. Talk about shop till you drop. I’m totally in my element. Beautiful gardens, weather been fine, Wearing shorts. Delayed my Orient trip till late August, first available rebooking due to earlier rain and floods in Germany. I don’t want to leave The UK just yet. Heaps of private schools. Could’ve had a job at a local village school, relief but not ready yet. Lovely families in old oast houses I’ve stayed with and b&bs.
Meet a Dutch dentist and a lady called Maz. Love you heaps M

To me she has delayed her trip on the Orient because HE TOLD HER there were floods = it gave him room to move and head back to Australia the week before without her questioning him.

Last card posted from Tunbridge Wells dated 30 August 1997 to family - 4 weeks after passenger card arrives back
This was from Marion's fathers notes, sent to the Salvation Army family tracing service.
Inquest confirms that postcards were dated after passport returned.

IMO MB never came back into Australia. She had NO idea what he was doing and was on his way back to Australia.

I know many sleuths believe these PCards were sent by hotel etc a week or two later and that was why they had the postmarks after her passenger card came in BUT I believe it was Marion herself, keeping herself occupied with sight seeing and continuing her correspondence with her loved ones, NOT knowing what he was doing.

I also believe he came back to the UK and threatened her and/or her family as a way to keep her quiet and met her demise by him much much later.

sounds so plausible after everything we now know. Do we know the date of when aka flew back to Europe? Or could there be aliases that flew back, aliases we don’t know about (yet)

 

[Lord Peter Flimsy]

Yes we haven't heard of anyone else changing their names as yet have we.
I wouldn't be surprised if he had used this before on victims we have not heard about

IMO - MB wouldn't have had a clue about why HE chose those initials for her - He would have never talked about FR to Marion. He is a criminal - and a very sophisticated one as Laura says. He was setting up a big sting and Marion was the pawn.

IMO - HE used those initials for a future sting on the real FR but it all went to sh****t.

IMO - that name was going to be used in a money scam to help his old friend MC - although she says she had nothing to do with him when she found out he was married.....she DOES mention that AFTER she eavesdropped on his phone call (at an airport I think it was), to Diane and realised then he was married, ( oh please give me a break - of course she knew before that!..... "I looked after a little boy that looked just like him " ) THEY both then went to a cafe.......
fast forward to the y1990's and he is still writing love letters to her from Tasmania!

MUCH more to this story and we will probably never know - I have always said it is a stalemate with those two. No one is going to implicate the other because they were in the thick of something big - JMO MOO IMO

An actress would always come in handy particularly if they had a strong resemblance to the victim. Problem was she was blonde.

MC mentioned that she met his criminal buddies but one wonders whether she has been so co-operative that she has given the names and descriptions of these guys to law enforcement in Luxembourg, Belgium or Australia?

It’s the story of ex-husbands FR stolen ID card that makes me feel there was a lot more to their relationship than she cares to let on.

Unfortunately for her she was dragged in to Marion’s case when he stupidly placed that advert under her ex-husbands name in 1994.

 

[mishy66]

sounds so plausible after everything we now know. Do we know the date of when aka flew back to Europe? Or could there be aliases that flew back, aliases we don’t know about (yet)

that is just IMO -
we know from the inquest he flew back and forth for years - over days, weeks and months - interesting in itself when you know they are both on pensions.......

 

[Lord Peter Flimsy]

I am also in the camp of MB not returning to Australia as Mishy has outlined. I just don't see her coming home and not contacting any of her family especially after sending numerous postcards home from UK about her trip.
Has it been established that the old wife was home at the time of this supposed flight home by MB? I am highly suspicious of the Dutch dentist & "Maz".

The Dutch connection really needs massive publicity in both the UK & Netherlands. Who were these 2 individuals? There must be someone who remembers a Dutch dentist going on holiday in the UK in June/July 1997 assuming they were genuine.

I did discover a Dutch family through a Google search who were travelling a very similar route to Marion at the same time. They posted numerous photos including in Tunbridge Wells but sadly it was unlikely to be who we are looking for.

 

[mishy66]

An actress would always come in handy particularly if they had a strong resemblance to the victim. Problem was she was blonde.

MC mentioned that she met his criminal buddies but one wonders whether she has been so co-operative that she has given the names and descriptions of these guys to law enforcement in Luxembourg, Belgium or Australia?

It’s the story of ex-husbands FR stolen ID card that makes me feel there was a lot more to their relationship than she cares to let on.

Unfortunately for her she was dragged in to Marion’s case when he stupidly placed that advert under her ex-husbands name in 1994.

yep.

And also remember in his letter he talks about her 'boys' when he is doing work with them.. " thank you for annettes address, I have already met her"........" I have done some trips with William and his team, you were right.....big toddlers are kings in small puddles -
and.... " in a separate shipment I have mailed you your blue skirt, the only thing in Luigi's bathroom box"

 

[KiwiNZ]

Hi all, I am a Flight Attendant, (and no, never directly worked with M sadly). You hand in your IPC (the passenger card) to quarantine after you have collected your baggage from the carousels. Baggage collection takes place after you have passed through customs/border protection. Quarantine do not check the passport matches the card either, as you have already just passed through customs. I hope that makes sense?

Thank you I was confusing customs with quarantine. The card is handed to quarantine

 

[mishy66]

I found this very interesting piece on his son.


(If you do a search of the Name of Papers it will all come up)

He did a PostGrad
15. de Hedervary, D. (1999). Does caffeine alter performance gains from creatine supplementation? Honours Student, SouthernCross University.

Then wrote a paper with 2 others:
53. Gill, N.D., de Hedervary, D.G., Weatherby, R. (2000). Does caffeine counteract the ergogenic effect of creatine supplementation? In Book of abstracts International Congress on Sports Science, Sports Medicine and Physical Education Pre-Olympic Congress, Brisbane, Australia. 7-12th September - pg 275


I searched for the papers :

2 being in Victoria
1 being in Institute of Sport Canberra

and 1 held at the OSC
if you want the address for that one it is:
The Olympic Studies Centre
Villa du Centenaire
Quai d’Ouchy 1
1006 Lausanne
Switzerland

Funny that!
WHY anyone believes his bs is beyond me!

Creatine consumption and liver disease manifestations in individuals aged 12 years and over

Despite the overwhelming safety evidence concerning creatine intake in various settings, there is still incomplete information whether dietary creatine affects liver health at the population level. The main aim of this cross‐sectional population‐based ...

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

...several preclinical studies and case reports suggest that exogenous creatine can adversely affect liver function by elevating liver enzymes on blood tests (Souza et al., 2009), exacerbating ethanol‐induced hepatic damage (Marinello et al., 2019), and causing acute fulminant liver failure (Suga et al., 2021), perhaps by contributing to the formation of cytotoxic substances, such as formaldeyde and methylamine.

 

[sah10406]

Just why would she travel back to Australia without him if they were now ‘married’? Was she chasing after him? Had he spun a yarn meaning she had to leave after him? Did she never leave? Was there a female accomplice playing Marion?

I have always assumed he travelled separately from his victims because he was travelling under a different name (pseudonym) and/or nationality than the victim knew him by. I have also always assumed he has at least one Belgian passport, used to enter any EU country, including UK at that time. He will have given them a made-up reason for the separate travel. Other forms of ID could be used for day to day purposes, but at the airport only a passport will do. Travelling separately would avoid awkward conversations with border officers or being addressed by a different name that could alert the victim there is something fishy. JMO.