Gaslight

to Marian at the time of her disappearance. Since learning of his existence and meeting him at the Inquest, we've learned much about him, which triggered my memory of another movie released in nineteen forty four, this time directed by George Koker, but very much in the Hitchcock theme. Gaslight follows opera singer Paula played by Ingrid Bergmann, who marries her accompanist Gregory Anton in a two week whirlwind romance.

Unbeknownst to her, that is not his real name and he is just using her to secure a fortune in jewels belonging to her murdered aunt.

large sums of money and valuables from unsuspecting victims. He targeted lonely women at their most vulnerable moments, bombarded them with romance and promises of a new life, manipulated them to make them second guess their own decisions, convinced them to cut themselves off from family members, and made sure

they put their trust entirely in him. It's horrible to think about, and what became clear by his responses at the inquest was that he felt no compassion or empathy for any of the women he duped, except perhaps for Monique, who managed to see him for what he really was before any real harm was done. But the question remains, is this man more than a menacing serial fraudster. Could he be a killer?

preoccupation with asking women to dye their hair blonde. Remember his cousin's widow, whom he abandoned in Balley, had her hair colored blonde after Rick Bloom arranged it, and he asked Janet Oldenburg to bleach her hair before traveling to Europe, although she never did. It's difficult to believe this Rick Bloom happens to prefer blondes, after all, his wife Diane is a brunette. So we decided to investigate whether there

could be something more insidious behind his motivations. It was not easy finding a poisons expert in Australia willing to come on the podcast to discuss this issue.

other kinds of poisons. I know, we don't think of these traditionally as poisons, but there's a lot of deaths associated with alcohol as well as things like the other opiates and such. Another again, we don't think of those traditional poisons, but really that's what they are. When you're thinking about you know, consumers or just in the general public. Some of those most common poisons is actually carbon monoxide.

Carbon monoxide is an odorless, tasteless gas, and when you breathe it in likes the red blood cells better than your oxygen does, so it displaces the oxygen and so you're carrying around carbon monoxide instead of oxygen, and it basically starves your body. So that is a you know, that's very common in terms of a poison.

always say the dose makes the poison. But I want to modify that just a little bit. It's not just the dose that makes the poison. It's also the route of exposure. So you know, for some things, they can go through the skin very easily. So if you put something on a door, it gets through the skin and reacts very quickly. So if you're thinking about poisons too, there's two ways I think to think about poisons. One is that classic movie where you know, the spy gets caught.

He falls down and he breaks open a tooth and they're cyanide and he cracks it and he's dead in thirty seconds. Then we also have the more chronic type poisonings that you might see in some of the Agatha Christie books. You know arsenic, you know, low doses of arsenic over extended period of time. There's other heavy metals and such that over time they build up in your system and it's hard to detect them because your symptoms are pretty generic. Actually, I don't feel good. I have

some diarrhea, you know, I'm really tired and lethargic. And then over time those get worse and worse, and then you can go into organ failure. All depends on the form of the material. For example, arsenic, even though it's arsenics, there's some more potent arsenics than other arsenics depending on the form.

levels of radon gas, you can develop lung cancer. So you know, sometimes it's thirty days, sometimes it's thirty seconds, and you know it's really about what is that intended target. Some of the most I guess efficient I'm using air quotes here for efficient are poisons that stop your ability

to have a functioning heart or a functioning brain. So those short term ones, those are things that again displace the oxygen or maybe there isn't any oxygen if you're just breathing nitrogen, let's say, or certain chemicals that when they get into your body, they stop your cells from being able to make energy. And because they can't make energy, they die. And where are the cells in your body

that need the most energy your heart, your brain. So so you may see these kinds of you know, chest pains, or they collapse, they can't breathe, they you know, the heart, you know, it looks like a heart attack or where you know, they their brain just you know, stops well, you have brain damage and then you can't come back from that.

I'll leave that as food for thought, and now back to my interview with doctor Chappelle. Can I just run through a couple of poisons that I've gone through and made up a list. It's not a definitive list of anything, but just ask you about some of these poisons. And you mentioned cyanide. Sinid does strike me as a poison that, when administered in the correct dose, can kill very quickly. How does it do that?

It's not very waters voluble, so it likes to hang out in the fat part of your body, and so you can have this like reservoir of it too, so you can get a low dose of it, but over time it can build up in your body and then you can see some more severe adverse effects with it. But again, the adverse effects with acute, very high doses of arsenic tend to be nausea, vomiting, adominal pain, severe diarrhea.

But the chronic is where you see this kind of multi organ disease, and it's really it can be very difficult to pinpoint.

the right way to use strychnine. So what happens with strychnine is that it is a neurotoxin, which means it affects the nerves that give the signals for the muscles and other parts of your body to do something. So basically it doesn't allow an off switch, so your muscles keep keep doing what you know, twitching or whatever. So if an acute overdose of strychnine, the part of the body that gets affected that's of concern would be the heart because it can't contract like it's supposed to, and

or the diaphragm. You know, your diaphragm is what moves up and down to help you breathe, so basically you suffocate.

vomica tree. Digitalis is associated with the purple foxglove, and so a long time ago there were some medicinal benefits of foxglove because they found if they put it on the skin where there was an open sore, it helped to heal that Native Americans found that if you gave it to some one who was suffering from some leg swelling, it would make the leg swelling grow down. Because the digitalis improves how the heart contracts. So if the heart

contracts better, it's working better. Your volume is up, your pressure is up, and you're able to excrete the fluids out of your kidney much better. So when you think of what the overdose or poisoning would be, it affects other muscles that actually contract. So you see a lot of in the GI track, You see nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, in your eyes, you can have vision changes because the

pupils are controlled by different muscles. And also too much you can get in a regular heartbeat too fast, too slow. So so much of these poisons is really getting down to the basic pharmacology and where do these substances interact, and that's why they've been exploited medicinally. But then again, the dose makes the poison too much and you can get that exaggerated pharmacologic effect and that can turn deadly.

be more of a direct acting poison. It destroys the mucous tissues, so if you drink it, it's more of a caustic agent, and we don't really think of that at least I don't tend to think of that as a traditional poison. But in terms of other things that can be dangerous, you also have to think of who

is the person being affected. If it is a small child, they don't have as much body weight, they don't have necessarily a full capacity of their liver to be able to metabolize and change how these are in the body, or even the elderly. You have someone who is old, their liver function tends to be lower, their kidneys might not work as well, so a agent that works for a young person might be very different in an old person.

into something else. So the only way you can get these substances, any substance really out of your body is to make it water soluble, So it means to make it so that you can pee, poop, or breathe it out. So things that are difficult that sequester in your fat, that are hard to get out, those can accumulate in your body. And I also also think of it this way.

You have a normal dose of vicodin that you've been taking for your back, and you've been taking it for a couple of weeks, your liver automatically will start to ramp up its production of the enzymes that break that opiate down. So then if you stop taking that opiate, your liver it goes back down to its normal levels of those enzymes. Well, let's suppose four months later you're like, oh, you know what, I really need some vic it In the last time I took it, I had to take

three to feel better. You take three, but your body is used to you not taking any and so you've overdosed because your enzymes that you have are not in high enough concentrations to be able to get rid of that effectively. Also, think of it like tolerance for alcohol. You know, you haven't you've had a drink, you drink two drinks a night. For a while, you don't drink anything, and then you're an easy date. So that's the way it works. You know, it's a natural it's a way

for your body to accommodate. So usually the liver is really good about making things less toxic. Sometimes it can take something in and make it more toxic, or it is so busy working on that toxicint that you've overwhelmed it and those other you know, it's like when you get really really drunk, your body can only handle so much alcohol before you start having some adverse effects of

that alcohol because it just doesn't have the capacity. So again, the very young, the very old people that are have liver disease or chronic alcoholics or such, they tend to have a more compromised liver function, and so they have to be more careful in some of the intended and unintended exposures they may have.

test to find out what their liver function was? Would that be information that would help me in deciding a dose or method of delivery.

You've got to get with something that maybe your liver wouldn't break down, or just some that acts so fast.

hands on. If they say you've you know, you've got a loft long injury, you have chronic bind, your your disability pension, you would presumably have access to all sorts of pharmaceuticals that potentially could be misused intentionally to harm someone.

that in several kinds of thriller books and such. You know, again, though, if you do have a death, if there's an autopsy that is performed afterwards, and part of that autopsy they look at your medical history, what drugs were you taking, and they can tell a lot from just even a look around your different organs. Were you do you have a fatty liver? You know, did you? So that could

indicate that maybe had some liver liver disease. You know, if you start seeing adverse effect in a particular region of the body that might be associated with a poison, well then that might lead you down a path. But the problem with poisons, you know, and if you're trying to get away with something, the poison you're not looking

for is the one that goes undetected. I mean, all of these different drugs and pharmaceutical agents, you know, there are different methods that the drug developers will use to you know, look at the levels in the body for therapeutic uses, but they don't always use those for actual you know, overdoses. They would look and they'd say, oh, well,

and was prescribed. You know, these four drugs Okay, we don't know of any you know, there's some levels in there, but you know, you have an unexplained death, you know, and then they might start looking around to say, oh wait, it looks like their heart stopped. Okay, what could have caused their heart to stop? And then you know, you look around at some of the other things. That's why sometimes you see that it takes four to six weeks for toxicology testing to get done so that you can

determine a cause of death. Well, sometimes that's because they're looking for something they don't have a method, and they need to develop a method for Sometimes there's a big backup, or sometimes you just have to find a lab that can actually detect that particular agent that you think it might be.

something they're going to drink. Would I mix it in with their food? Would I put it on their clothes? What sorts of methods of delivery for these these sorts of poisons that are accessible to the ordinary person, things like as you say, pharmaceutical is very powerful. Pharmaceuticals or other poisons that might be around the house.

organs tend to help us with that. Now, there are many different poisons that don't necessarily have a taste or smell, but you know a lot of the things that you might be thinking of, like a hemlock or some of these the arsenic the cyanide those they tend to have a very bitter taste or very bitter smell. Almond smell very distinctive. So if you were going to be doing something to someone's tea or whatever part of that is, you need to make sure that you know it's it's undetectable.

You know, do you make something that's really sweet and then put something in there to counteract the bitter. But you know that's where you know, if you're looking at a lot of natural products, they tend to have a very distinctive smell or taste. You know, we use medicinal herbs and other herbs all the time. You know, my mother in law hates cilantro. She can tell cilantro in her food from five hundred yards away. So again, that can be very powerful as a tool to deter ingesting

something bad. So I think you really have to work to cover it up.

your red blood cells. They will look at the amount of sugar and potassium and all those kinds of things that are in some of your bodily fluids, and they may say, Wow, this guy had a huge amount or not enough sugar in his body. That's weird. I wonder why that happened. So again, if you were already pretty sick, they might not go to look for that. So that's why it's important that they take a full medical history upon death. They look at the drugs you were on

or not. How active were you, you know, were you a chronic drinker? You know? Did you were you a person that like to be do engage in risky behaviors those kinds of things. So you know, it really depends. I think, well, I guess you would really have to know the person and understand enough about that person and their routines if you're trying to make it look like somebody else was not involved.

its little pieces and you wouldn't have an adverse effect. So, you know, someone who is pretty large, you know they may have a normal lever function, but their distribution, you know, you would need a lot more of that drug in their body to be able to exert that kind of adverse effect. So it really depends on a lot of things.

twenty twenty. Some drugs bind to the melanin, which is the dark color, very very well and very tightly, so you can if you were to bleach the hair or relax it chemically treat it. Sometimes you can affect the concentration of some of those substances in the hair and make it.

poison someone? How do these poisons work? And you've been wonderful and helping to understand a little bit of that. Thank you very much.

They include Jennifer, who was attended every day of the inquest, not just in Sydney where she's from, but along with husband Ken, traveled to Byron Bay and Ballina when the hearings were held there. Jen organized the petition which resulted in Marion Barter finally being put on the Australian Missing Persons Register, and has organized a new petition to have the reward for information into Marian's disappearance lifted to one million dollars. For more details, please visit our Facebook page.

Another friend of the podcast, k McNiven, has not only been providing us with some new information of late, she's also been helping to pull together an accurate timeline of the significant events in Rick Blum's life, the events that we know of anyway, and how they connect with the timeline we've previously created for Marian Barter, particularly the occurrences leading up to her disappearance. Obviously, there are several key

pieces of evidence which led to breakthroughs. The first happened in twenty ten when Detective Gary Sheehan learned that Marian had changed her name to Flora Bella Natalia Marian Remikel before her trip overseas in June nineteen ninety seven. After

that information was revealed in the podcast. In twenty nineteen, listener Joni used the name Remickel to track down a personal ad from a nineteen ninety four French Australian newspaper posted by Monsieur f Remichel, which included a Lennox Head post office box and a Ballana phone number that then led to Luxembourg soon after and the only person in

the world with that name and age, the real Fernand Remicel. Then, on September twenty fourth, twenty twenty, Detective Lisa Pisotto discovered a Queensland driver's license in the name f nand Remicel. It's important to give police credit where it's deserved. After this podcast was launched, New South Wales dismantled the Missing Persons unit and set up a new unit, appointed homicide

detectives and resources to do this very difficult work. Detective Pisotto was the first to find the Queensland license taken out with a false name. Less than a month later, on October fifteenth, Detective Senior Constable Sasha Perazza went to the New South Wales State Library and searched old editions of phone books for the Ballona phone number listed in the ad and discovered it was linked to a business

Ballona Coin Investments. An Australian security as an Investment Commission search revealed Frederick and Diana Hedeveri as the directors of this company. Further police investigations revealed as many as thirty aliases for Rick Blum, including for nand Remichel, an identity he stole after having an affair with the real mister

Remikeel's ex wife. After speaking with mister Blumm himself in twenty twenty one, he confirmed that he not only knew Marion, but had an affair with her in the months leading up to her overseas trip, and took a trip to the UK at almost exactly the same time that Marian did. Early in the making of this podcast, we spoke to Laura Richards, an award winning expert on domestic abuse, coerceive control, stalking,

sexual violence, homicide and risk assessment. Helloh, but that was before we'd even heard of Rick Blum and his various aliases.

I changed the law on stalking in England and Wales and then on coercive control and now other parts of the world. I'm working in America and Australia to criminalize coercive control and i have a podcast called Crime Analyst where I talk about my work and the cases to

try and educate people and resolve cases as well. And I've recently launched a YouTube channel called Crime Analyst, where again I talk through cases, many of which involve women who have been victimized or disappeared or murdered and the search for truth and giving them a voice and giving their families a voice has been a very important part of my work and ensuring that the narrative is corrected when the wrong information is put out, and that might be by the media, it might be by the police,

but to ensure that we get to the truth of what went on and that we hold abusers to account.

And my most recent campaign has just resulted in a victory twenty two years to ensure dangerous domestic abuses and coercive controllers are on the same register as sex offenders, to create a clear culture change, so that we focus on perpetrators and their behavior, particularly as some of them are very devious, very manipulative, and we should be looking at them and closing them down just like we do any other dangerous type of offender and criminal that's in

England and Wales. It was announced on February the twentieth, as I said, after twenty two years, which tells you what a steep hill it is to climb to get the very basic provisions in place to ensure that women and children are.

a relationship. They go on to describe twelve familiar tactics used by perpetrators, including isolating their victim from a support network, monitoring their activities throughout the day, denying them freedom and autonomy, limiting act says to money and control of finances, making jealous accusations about the time spent with their family and friends,

and of course gaslighting. I go on to usk Laura whether she considers Marian was a victim of this and whether our investigation is on the right track.

from many other cases I've worked, the months leading up to her disappearance are the most important. So we knew that she changed her name, and that came after some time. She changed her name, she sold her house, she went abroad on the premise that she was going for adventure and fun, but there was always a sense that somebody else might have been influencing her and part of that change, and of course then an ad was found that it was most likely answered by her because of the name change,

that's a very unusual name that she used. And I think following that lead has been a very tenacious task to go to the UK but also to Luxembourg to do the door knocking, which is what it always takes, boots on the ground and energy and passion to ask the right questions, and of course that has led to various people like Monique Cornelius, who's very important in all of this, who has signposts due to someone called Rick Blum.

And in terms of his behavior, well, I think there's lots of things that are very interesting, and I think the first thing is that he did use an alias of Remacale, which again is a very important name because

that's what Marian changed her name. To the fact that he admitted to a relationship, that's a very significant piece of information that has come out that he had a three month relationship with her, and in fact he told the police there were two different relationships that he had with her, so he's now on her timeline and that's important the fact that they leave the country round about the same time and they enter the country round about

the same time. Is that coincidence? I don't believe in coincidences, particularly when you're looking at all disparate bits of information that can point in one direction. And her bank account being emptied, that was always the mystery of who's emptying

and taking money out of the bank account. So looking at his behavior and his timeline matched against her behavior and her timeline, I believe that all the evidence points in one direction, particularly when you have uncovered other women who even at the coronial inquiry, other women gave evidence about his pattern of behavior and establishing a pattern of behavior.

But that's what I do for my day to day work, looking at patterns, and his is significant in that he has a history of promising women who are vulnerable and lonely the world and taking from them everything that he can, having manipulated them into an even more vulnerable position, i e. Taking them out of their normal environment where they've got family and friends, taking them into another environment where they are totally dependent on him, having them sign over money

and valuables and so on, with the promise of a better life together. He appears to be very good at reading the emotional temperature of women and being melionesque, being who they want him to be, and getting into that dependent state. And then it seems that he exploits them, having entrapped them, and takes their money, and that to me looks like a significant pattern of course of control.

And course of control is really about a behavioral regime that somebody uses to exploit, to entrap, to isolate, and to utterly dominate them and create this codependency so that they can be totally manipulated. And often it happens at the start of a relationship, and it's a strategic campaign where somebody love bombs the other person, where they promise them the world, They say everything that they will do that sounds incredibly appealing, but they have a different end

in mind. And I see that repeat Patten, when I've listened to other women give evidence about his behavior, and certainly Monique who said that he's very, very, very very dangerous, and I have to say I believe her testimony. These are women who are credible, and when you put them all together, it paints a very disturbing picture of Rick

Blum's behavior. And he has to be looked at and seriously investigated for his behavior and his involvement potentially in the disappearance and murder of Marion Barter.

explaining away certain things that he did. And I think that again because very often people can say, oh, with the women were naive, that they were gullible, or it's on them, But actually it's much more about how manipulative someone like Rick Blum can be, and it's much more about how he exploits and he's learned to trade craft and I do think some of that looking back into his history, the fact that he was in the gendarmes, the fact that he worked as a police officer, means

that he learned the system. And he's not just exploiting the women, he's exploiting systems and processes, including immigration. So he's all about his own needs and what he wants. And the lack of empathy and remorse is I want to say, quite staggering in his case, but I've seen it many times, and he appears to have no remorse, no empathy, and no shame about what he's done. His answer is that it's legal to change your name thirteen times. Why would you need to change your name so many times?

Why would you keep getting new passports and driving licenses and so on? And having worked in the police. Most often times when people do that, it's because they're a criminal. They're committing crime, and they want to fly under the radar. And I believe that's exactly what he's been doing. And what we know about is most likely just tip of the iceberg.

more than that. And it's much more than that, because it's about power and control and him enjoying that power and control, and the more he does it, the more he needs to do it. And I would say that if someone were to assess him using the Psychopathy checklist, they would probably find lots of characteristics that he scores highly on, like being a pathological liar, like charm and zero empathy and remorse and responsibility taking that he would

probably score quite high on the psychopathy checklist. So this isn't just about taking money. It's much more than that, and it could of course well involve harm and murder and their serious crimes and their serious allegations. And I think the barriers are always that somebody could just say, oh, he's a con artist, which makes it seem like something

much lesser. But I would like to see professionals taking men like Rick Blum very seriously, because they tell us who they are in their actions and their behavior, and their ability to manipulate, and his level of manipulation and deviousness he scores very highly, and just having an indirect assessment of him, because I do indirectly assess people using the Psychopathy Checklist, listening to people who know him the best, there are some clear traits there, and therefore I believe Monique,

who knew him much better than I do from a distance, and we can't rely on him to tell the truth. So the women and the people who are in his life are the ones who can give us a much better understanding of who he is. And she and other women say he's very dangerous, and he even claimed that he killed with his bare hands. Again, that's a very serious allegation. Why would he just drop that into the conversation that's for purpose, and I would be taking those things that he discloses very seriously.

your life. You can still be abusive, and therefore, I think for the women it's very important that they get justice, but also for Marion's family, for her son and her daughter and the grandchildren, I think it's really important that he is investigated. And like I said, I've seen some very dangerous men who are seventy plus who are still a risk and are still a danger. And I don't buy into it when people say after seventy you're no

longer a risk of offending. I've seen men continue to offend you right up until the day they die, and that's why it should be taken seriously. And I don't believe in closure, by the way, so I'm not even going to use that word that there should be closure to this case because for the families there never is. But I think what they need are answers. And you've taken it very far in terms of there wasn't even investigation to start. It was just believe that Marian took

herself off. But I do believe that police need to step up now and investigate him and look at his timeline and interview the people that have been in his life, look at his actions and his behavior and the aliases that he has used, and follow the money and listen to the women, and you get a very clear picture emerge about who he is and the level of fraud and exploitation and if women are being moved around, is

there a human trafficking part to this? Because he's exploiting women, there could be other serious offenses, and therefore it should be taken seriously. It doesn't matter how old someone is. The truth will out eventually. But for Sally, this has been a very long time coming. And I think from just listening to Monique, she says that in a way she doesn't want to go back to that place. But

I can hear the fear in her voice. I can hear the upset and the anxiety that he has caused, not just to her but to many women, and I think their voices need to be her.

to prove how someone died. They don't have to establish exactly what happened and what happened with Lynette Dawson's case, And it's one that I followed in great detail and spoke to Headley Thomas many times about the compelling and overwhelming evidence, as even the judge said, pointed in one direction and one direction only, and that was to her husband, who the judge said, there was no evidence that the net ever left the house, not one piece of evidence

to show that she had left under her own esteem and that anybody had seen her elsewhere, and everything led back to Chris Dawson. So I don't believe that there should ever be a time code or a statute of time placed on murder, and in fact, in most countries there isn't. And for families that accountability and seeing justice, seeing the wheels in motion, and having their loved one be put at the center of an investigation as they should quite rightly be, and seeing someone held accountable is

a really important part for them. And it should matter to other professionals that Marion has been completely lost in all of this and ensuring that we may not understand the detail of what happened. But every piece of evidence that we have thus far and that you've uncovered points in one direction, and that's to Rick Blum.

don't hold her to account for that. It's his behavior that should be under the microscope and not hers.

absolve him. It's his actions, it's his behavior. He chose to do these things, and he chose to do these things to all these women irrespected of Marian. If you look at the women who have spoken out about him, he has done great harm and he deserves to be held accountable for that. And he disrespected his wife and his children by pretending to not be married, and therefore he doesn't have any decency about him because he's caused

all this harm to them too. And I'm sure at some stage his wife and the children will make their own assessment, whether that's private or whether that's public. But he must be held accountable and he must be questioned. And even when he was questioned about whether he killed Marion, his answer was very interesting because he answered the question with a question, which is a sign of deception, and he bought time. And then he said no, no, which is a fading fact, not a declarative. No, I didn't.

I can't believe you were even asking me this. No is a declarative. It never happened. And if you didn't do it, that's all you have to say. But two things tell me that he lied under oath on that day when he was asked that question, and that should be ground for further investigation. Well, I think the key thing here is that whatever is known about now, it

is tip of the iceberg. And when you do go looking for things, you find even more, and I think even from other women's accounts, building up a picture of who he is and what he's done that also is evidentially significant and circumstantial evidence counts for a lot, and it mustn't be lost sight of that. That's what happened in Lynette Dawson's case forty years on, largely owed to a podcaster Headley Thomas, who reinvestigated the case of things

that weren't taken seriously from the start. And I believe that with this case, it's a very similar situation. And if you build the picture, if you look at the timeline. If you are investigating a case, then you would want to do all of that and significant witnesses and people who can do the time date stamp of where he was, what he did, what he said. The money movement really important, and I think the fact that he was even in

Australia and managed to get citizenship must be reviewed. The fact that he cheated the system and he's there illegally. He had a criminal history, so how was it that he managed to get his citizenship, Because I think the question is if he was denied, he wouldn't have been in Australia and therefore Marion Barter might be alive today. And that's a very serious issue that the government must look at as to how he managed to cheat the system and why is he still there. That's a problem.

And the fact that he's got so many passports and illegal names and he's doing that for nefarious reasons. That's why people repeatedly change their name. So all the red

warning flags are there for his behavior. And it takes one good investigator, just what happened with Lynette Dawson, to put all these pieces together, who should not be deterred by his age, because justice has no age, and I think there are many people and I'm included in that, who do want to see justice in this case and accountability. Why should he get away with it? Because right now he's laughing at everybody. Why should he get away with that? Why can one man do so much damage and not

be held to account. That's what professionals should be asking and it shouldn't be allowed and it must be looked at seriously. And coerse of control. New South Wales and Queensland are criminalizing coerse of control. This would be a clear case where he could have been put before the courts for his course and controlling behaviors of multiple women, and that shouldn't be lost because there's always an opportunity for early identification, intervention and prevention. And as I always say,

course of control correlates significantly with femicide. Here we have a disappearance and a potential femicide and nobody's going to do anything about that. And also all those intervention opportunities where something could have been done. There's learning here for

other cases too. That's the whole point of why I brought the law into England and Wells is to ensure that we identify those coursive controllers who are using that behavior because it does correlate with femicide and we want to stop what I call murders in slow motion before they happen and hold these men to account.

and new information. And by his own admission, he was the person who had that significant relationship with her beforehand, that piece of the puzzle that we were searching for, and through his own admission leakage, I would say that was and even the fact that he gave information in his own words, there are very clear indicators of deception and so I hope the coroner does pay attention to that. So I hope that that is the only decision that

the coroner takes. Having listened to all the evidence and testimony, Rick Blum must be further investigated, and within that investigation they should be looking at his culpability in terms of murder. Did he play a role in disappearing Marion Barter? The money that transferred from her aunt, where did that end up? He opened safety deposit boxes, he closed safety deposit boxes. The timing is very similar. So when you put things on a timeline, it's not just her victimology, it's the timeline,

and it's the timing of that relationship. It's her changing her name using the name that he was using. It's the Luxembourg connection. There are so many pieces of evidence, circumstantial evidence that point to him, So yes, he must be investigated by the police. And there sounds to me to be good and significant grounds for there to be a case against him and a charge made for murder given this circumstantial evidence that has been uncovered that points

in his direction and nowhere else. That's the other significant thing. Who else may have done this? The means motive and opportunity, There is nobody else other than Rick Blum, and that's also significant.

be cheering on from the sidelines. And there should be experts like me who talk to course of control at trials like this, so that juries and judges and people really do understand the serious and insidious nature of coercive control and the manipulative perpetrators who use those tactics to deliberately ensnare and trap and exploit and dominate vulnerable women. That's not okay, and you do need experts to educate

the court. And I think there's an overwhelming pattern here of his behavior and overwhelming circumstantial evidence regarding Marion specifically, So good luck and I will be watching and listening and keep me posted as to how events unfold. But I hope the coroner reaches the right decision in this case.

was using a similar romantic scam on Marion. Remember the mysterious man spotted in Marion's car by Sally and Chris. As we know, Marion left for Europe on the twenty second of June nineteen ninety seven for the trip of a lifetime, but something happened which caused her to alter her plans so that she returned to Australia early. But all evidence suggests that the con was still on when

she came back. Her incoming passenger card dated the second of August nineteen ninety seven had her listed as a Luxembourg housewife and there was a big tick in the married box. This is in contrast to the normal size tick she put in the divorced box of the outgoing passenger card on the way over. With the choice of name Flora Bella Natalia Marion Remichel. It is apparent that she believed herself to be married to Fernand Remichel, one of the names Rick Bloemith thought to have been using

at the time. While there has been no firm confirmation the handwriting belonged to marry, it looks very similar and we believe it was Marion who came back to Australia. It's fair to say that she was not aware of the reality of the situation. Upon her return. Marian's incoming passenger cards said she would only be back in Australia for eight days. Presumably she thought that would be all the time she needed to tie up some loose ends

and collect more money. Perhaps Marian also intended to use that time to say goodbye to her family and tell them of her plans to build a new life overseas. Remember Rick Bloom told Charlotte that he needed cash to purchase their house for a new life in Bali, and Julaane the same for their future home in Australia. He also encouraged Janet to sell her home to fund a new life in the French Riviera, and wanted to buy an apartment in Paris for Jeannette Gaffney Bowen, But Marian

did not leave a stra after eight days. Indeed, she never left Australia again. In August nineteen ninety seven, her Medicare card was used for the last time at an optometrist in Grafton. Between August and October nineteen ninety seven, her bank accounts were drained, although we cannot be sure it was Marian doing this or someone pretending to be her. Her last withdrawal, a very large one eighty thousand dollars, was made on October fifteen, nineteen ninety seven, and then nothing.

What happened next remains a mystery. It is reasonable to conclude that Marian was no longer alive on October the eighteenth, her son Owen's birthday, because, as Sally has always insisted, Marian never would have forgotten or neglected to call Owen on that day unless she was somehow prevented from doing so.

It is possible that at some stage after returning, Marian realized that Rick Bloom had lied to her that there was no exotic new life, that he'd simply scammed her of her money, or maybe Marian discovered that he had

a family. Presumably she would have felt upset, angry, betrayed, and from what Sally has told us about Marian's personality, she would likely have confronted him about it, or perhaps having taken the money he wanted from Marian, Rick Bloom was now sick of having to keep up the charade for her. He wanted to get back to his normal life, and that meant she somehow must disappear. The assumption that Marian decided to change her life, turn her back on

her family, and disappear is a familiar one. That's what Chris Dawson said happened with his wife Lynett Dawson in nineteen eighty two in Sydney. There were even supposed sightings of Lynn after she vanished, just like Marion was supposedly cited by a bank manager. In both cases, no body was ever found, so there was no physical evidence of a crime. But after three coronial inquests and a.

Now consider the circumstantial case against Rick Bloom. Rick Bloom is a liar almost beyond compare the catalog of mistruths, fictions, and lies filled the episodes of this podcast. He is the most prolific fantasist that any of us have seen in our combined century of journalistic encounters. He has used at least thirty eight aliases and has spent years in jail for crimes of fraud and deceit. Mister Bloom lied

to gain citizenship to Australia. During his six days of evidence at the coronial inquest, mister Bloom admitted to lying on multiple occasions, changed his evidence, and appeared to commit perjury repeatedly. In addition, he has lied to his family and at least seven women we know to conduct clandestine affairs. He has expressed an interest in poisons, specifically how to poison someone fatally without detection, to at least two women.

His third wife, Ilona, died behind the wheel of her car, not from a crash, but from an unspecified heart related incident. Mister Bloom has a long admitted history of luring single, vulnerable women with cash and assets away from their families and in some cases overseas. We know for a fact he did travel to and from Europe at the same time as Marion Barter. He denies traveling with her, but

cannot provide an alibi that can be corroborated. He stole the identity of Fernand Remichel, a unique name chosen by Marian, as her new identity. After meeting Rick Bloom, he asked Marion and another woman to have liver test done prior to travel, and he convinced one woman to dye her hair and asked another to do the same, which may relate to both the administration and detection of poisons. After

meeting Rick Bloom, Marion and all her money vanished. One of his victims, Monique Cornelius claims that Rick Blum told her in person that he had killed before. All of his victims say they were terrified of him, some fearing

for their lives, some still do. The circumstantial case against Rick Bloom is the most compelling we have seen, and, like Laura Richards says, it's one that needs to be heard by a judge as there is absolutely no doubt whatsoever that his life of lies is inextricably linked with the disappearance of Marion Barter.

It helps new listeners find us. Presenter and executive producer Alison Sandy, investigative journalist Brian Seymour, producer and writer Sally Eels. Sound design Mark Wright graphics Jason Blandford, transcripts and translation Estelle Sanchez. The theme and much of the music by Nicholas Gasparini atth Darkpiano dot com. Thanks again to the Alliance Francis. This is a seven News production.