This is the case of Marion Barter, a mother, teacher friend missing for twenty six years.
You know, no sign that she was going to vanish.
That's for sure.
The bizarre circumstances surrounding her disappearance.
I'm not sure if it was intentional or there's something more foul afoot.
If you could imagine a teacher coming straight from say little house on the prairie to the eighties, that was Marion Barter. What I say, whether you find Marian Barter dead or alive, I honestly believe somebody has that key piece of information.
And the relentless quest of a daughter to find her mum.
Something had happened, Something has happened to make her leave.
I am one hundred percent sure, one hundred percent sure that somebody knows something.
The lady vanishes, Episode fifty five. I'm Alison Sandy.
And I'm Brian Seymour.
Our deep dive on Rick Blum continues. It's clear, as pointed out by many experts, including criminal analyst Laura Richards, that understanding this man, along with interrogating his pattern of behavior and what he's capable of, is integral to the investigation into what happened to Marian Barter. One man we have heard about but never spoken with, is Michael Reid, Evelyn's stepfather. Michael was married to Evelyn's mother alone, whom he met after she separated from Willy Wooters or Rick Blum,
who is Evelyn's biological father. Michael says he and Alona also had a child together, Christopher. However, on his birth certificate, his father is listed as Willie Wooters. When Alona died in nineteen seventy seven, the impact on all their lives was immense. As discussed in previous episodes, there are many issues with the way her death was handled and whether there could be much more to it than was previously acknowledged.
Brian contact of Michael read and after initially rejecting his request for an interview, I sent him the list of questions and he changed his mind. Hello, Hi, Michael, It's Alison Sandy. How are you. At the start of the interview, he announced it was also being recorded. At his end, are you there.
We're recording?
Can you hear me, Michael?
I can?
Oh? Good. Hey. First of all, thank you for talking to his Michael. I've just got some questions I think you've seen them in a print form, So I'll just ask away, can you tell us about your relationship with Willie Wooters also known as Frederick de Heeadvery and also known as Rick Bloom.
I had no relationship with him. The only time I met him was at a ferry terminal when Ilona and I were going back to England and he arrived, and I never spoke with him. He took Elona out to the car and they spoke, and Eloner came back to me and we bordered the vessel and went to England. And that's all I can tell you of my personal dealings with him.
And when was that? Do you remember when that fairy trip was?
It would have been seventy's, either seventy or seventy one.
And what did a loaner tell you about? Well, Willie Wooters as he was then.
She never told me a great deal. They argued arguments, but the only thing became raised one time and hit him on the head with a bottle. And Ilona wasn't the type of person who becoming raised. She was a very sweet and gentle person. I knew nothing of his prior history, and Ilona never mentioned anything to me of his prior history where we were together.
And do you know anything about what you told me a bit about the relationship between a loner and Willie. Did he mention anything else, such as any other incidents of violence or infidelity? No.
Another thing she told me was that before she was due to get married, one of the wives, or the previous wife, knocked on her door and said, you're getting yourself into big trouble here. Don't do it. He's not a nice man.
And would you remember the name if I told you? Was it Nicole?
It was the previous wife, his previous I think he was married three times, so it would have been It was a Belgium lady, I think. And I can't remember the name.
That there were actually two wives prior to a Look, it's a.
Long time ago, man, I just can't. I can't recall.
Okay, And did you know that that Willy was a convicted convent before he met Elona?
Yes, I can't recall if I was with her, but I did find an article in a French paper which stated that he was found with seventeen different passports under seventeen different aliases. The only other thing that I recall about also is Ilona told me that he had hired a car in Switzerland I think, and sold it in Italy. It's a Porsche.
No.
And then she said to me he was a gambler. She said, he used to go out gambling and sometimes she'll get nice rings at the next minute that disappear.
To that point, did will he ever ask you for money or try to scam you?
No?
Never never had any contact with him at all. Oh there was there was, Yes, I think I can honestly say. There was an incident which I've just record. We had paperwork come through. It was all in French and it advised I think it was to either every nor Ilono. I can't remember, but somebody had died in Belgium supposedly and they if they paid all the taxes, they would get all the properties or something like that. I always
wish I'd have kept that paperwork. So there was a document that came from overseas, obviously from him trying to scam and I took it to a friend of mine and he said, a Belgian friend of mine, and he read it and I said, he said to me, forget all about it.
So it clearly was some kind of attempt to scam you think, oh.
Yeah, yeah, for me, definitely a scam.
And what would the scam have been, do you know?
Well, the scam would have been that if all the back taxes had been paid, which is what they were after the money for the backpack tax taxes, all the properties of this person would then be assigned to either a loaner or everything a loaner had died then, So it was definitely to everylin. It was definitely to everything that was very that was she was very young then. I can't remember the age, but it was very suspicious.
I'll tell you what. Now this has all come out, I wish I had kept the documents or the doctrines I had.
Okay, Michael, just on that so dis uncle, it appears that this was a document asking you or someone on Evalen's behalf to pay money to then access the rights to the property. Yeah, and the scam element might have been that you would pay the money and not get the rights to the property.
Well, well, that's exactly right.
Michael appears to be referring to Evelyn's four million franc debt in relation to the death of Freddie David Rick Bloom's brother. We are still investigating this, but we believe the debt was real. However, it is uncertain whether it was racked up by the real Freddie David or by Rick Bloom, who used that name as one of his aliases. We move on to questions about Ilona's inheritance after her mother died.
Well, this is a very interesting situation. When Loona's mother died, there was a percentage of the property that was left to Ilona, but because Ilona had passed on, it was to go equally divided to both the two siblings. Now, I had no information or dealings with that money.
You will recall that Evelyn visited the office of the notary who drew up a private agreement relating to her grandmother's estate allegedly signed by Willie wooters a Ka, Rick Blum, Joseph Birou, and Michael Reid, which sounds a lot like the deal Read is now describing, except he says he was not a.
Part of it.
That money was directed to both the children. I never knew how much they got and I was told nothing. Now going further, Joseph Kinsell died in Hungary and also left money to both the children that I know nothing of either. I know nothing of how it was sorted, on how they were paid. And I'd also like to answer the question on behalf of my dear wife that passed away, God bless a soul. Edward Bill was her boss.
She was a hairdresser. He called me up and he said, come in, we might be able to get some workers' compensation here for you or the children. I have the forms here, come and fill them in. I went into Southierra where Ilona worked, filled out the paperwork, and there was compensation awarded to both the children, of which I
had no control over whatsoever. It was organized by the insurance company that paid out now was her cousin, and informed Evelyn at the age of sixteen or seventeen, or it might have been younger, that compensation money had been paid and that your father, who's me, knows all about it.
Well.
I was never questioned by Evelyn. She followed up and went into to the city and she procured her part of the money when it wasn't I think they weren't allowed it till they were eighteen, but I'm not sure. But anyway, and she told Chris of this, and he also did the same. I know nothing about when they did it. I know that Evelyn bought a car with her money. My wife with me now was with me when she'd bought the car. I know Chris had brought a motorbike with his money.
Here Michael makes a critical and personal care arter assessment of his children, which we won't share with you. Suffice to say he claims they got all the money and he got nothing.
The property in Brussels where I lived with Ilona was a joint property between her mother and Joseph Birerou, and they had another property that they were both property owners of that Now, when Ilana's mother died, I believe that they sold the one and put it all into the other, because I was helping at the time him do the central heating and working in the property before we left for Australia.
And so did you strike any agreement with Joseph Birou and Willie Wooters about that property?
There was no agreement discussed, There was no agreement signed. And what he's whoever said that it was agreement that I could have Evelyn I procure I. Ilona's death left me with Evelyn and Chris, and at the time Chris's name was Woters. Because he was born in Brussels before the divorce came through and before the name change came through, if you really want to get into the degritty of it.
And it took me hundreds of dollars with a no tear in Belgium to get Chris's name into read because he was my son.
Just to avoid confusion, this is actually wrong. Chris was born in Tournay, not Brussels. Back to the interview, did.
You also change Evelyn's name at that time?
Evelyn was everly woters never changed her name. We came to Australia and everything was in the name of Reed, so she's always been known in Australia as Reed.
Yeah, and that's what I'm saying. She was she known as Reed because you basically told her her name was Zebelin Reed.
That's right.
Can I just interrupt here just to check with that private agreement because my understanding, and this is why it
seems seems to be the case. My understanding was that they were underage at that time, so that's why there had to be a private agreement between yourself, Rick Blum, being Evelyn's father, and Joseph Bireau, and that was the evidence that we saw in Belgium that there was a private agreement there, and that was when Rick Blum told Evelyn subsequently, although he didn't mention that he was part of it, that the deal was that Bureau kept the property and you kept Evelin.
Well, someone saidly lies here because I was totally unaware of any agreement as such.
But you would have had to have acted on their behalf, given that they were underage, like they couldn't have signed for that, so somebody had to. I would have thought you and blam, I suppose if he was going by, you know, being the father.
As far as I'm concerned, there was no interaction in any of this with Bloom. As far as I'm concerned that, as far as I know or to my knowledge, there was no agreement whatsoever about me keeping Evelyn. That is a load of codswallop. He also lied. He also lied, he didn't even know. He said he's seen her once, And that was a total lie, because I know that
Ilona had behind my back or taken Evelyn to see voters. Now, we weren't married then, we were just very in the very early stages of a concubine of living together.
Did you just deal with bureau then, and you're saying this private agreement, which we did see evidence of.
There was no agreement. I've never seen an agreement. I was never part of agreement. Who's clay, where's this agreement supposed to have originated?
Well, if there was any agreement for the kids to get anything, it would have to have been signed off by an adult, not by them. No, that's the confusion.
If there's an amount of money awarded for inheritance, the inheritance. I believe that Ergie met me Elizabeth in English, but Jie, she loved those children and she had daughter daughter. Now she knew she was dying, she had cancer. And Ilona went back in the October for three months and came back what was that seventy six, and came back in seventy seven. We moved into the house in February of seventy seven. She died of a heart attack on the
thirteenth of July, six months later. Five months later, and as far as I was concerned that the children in my care and I was the responsible parent and left to bring them up. Attila, her brother actually came out to see me and the children. God bless his little socks and unfortunately two years later, at twenty one, he walked into his father's property Claps and died of a brain hemorrhage. She was in the German Air Force or Army, and he died of a bay brain hemorrhage. Now you know,
the whole family was a travesty. Ilona died that she did, Her mother died three months later in September, and then Attila died. What made me laugh last night was Livy was reading out some information on this Willie Waters with the names and one of his synonyms was Attila, Attila somebody, and we just looked at each other. We just couldn't
believe what this man's up to. But getting back to my situation with these children were wonderful to me because she was Catholic alone and we had them in a Catholic school and they had organized for Chris to go to one of the top schools in Geelong when he was five, just five, and the nuns organized for Evelyn to go to a convent in South Melbourne. And I turned around and said, look, these children have just lost their mother, they're not going to lose a man, a
father figure. And well, from there it went on and look, it just it was a it was a travel. The whole the whole situation for the family was a travesty, and.
So both children ended up going into what good homes.
I got to the situation. I had friends saying to me, you can't look after the children, have to do something with them, and I said, no way, and the nun said, well, look we've got a Catholic family welfare home in black Rock where an older couple look after four or five children. And I finally agreed much too, that's my own feelings. I put them in there and I wanted to see. I said, I'll come to see every weekend. Well, they decided that I could assume every weekend because they wanted
me to have a life. So anyway, I saw them on the regular basis and helped financially pay for their upkeep. But it was a tough time for all.
So was there any time that you were not the legal guardian for Chris and Evelyn when they were children, were either of them wards of the state.
I was a legal guardian all the time. There was never any judgment made by any court. As far as everybody was concerned, I was their father.
No, it wouldn't need to be a judgment. But you know, people, when you say you handed the children over to a group home, did you also relinquish guardians legal guardianship when you did that.
Look, I don't know. I'd never thought of that. I never thought of that.
This is very interesting to me personally. I was a ward of the state from the time I was born until I was eighteen years old, so I know how the system works. I'm also about the same age as Evelyn. Evelyn has confirmed that she was a ward of the State of Victoria. This means that the government and the responsible Minister was her legal guardian. I did not understand how Michael Reid could not know that he was no longer Evelyn's legal guardian, especially if he was still in
contact with her, as he claims. Another thing that stands out in our conversation. Never once does Michael express sympathy for Evelyn or for his son Chris, despite the litany of traumatic experiences they had to endure as very young children.
Can I ask you were you suspicious about the manner of the loneer's death.
You know, Lana had thrown this birthday party for Chris and I on the Sunday, which was eleventh, twelve, thirteenth, on the tenth. She died on the Wednesday, which was at thirteen, and they're all going home, and one of my friends turned around and said, now you're going to get the biggest birthday present Mike. And Ilona looked at me and she said, no, you're not, No, you're not, and she didn't she was. I look back on that moment and I said, well, it's very unusual for a
Loana because she never knocked me back. Without being too smart, she never knocked me back anyway. We went to bed and in the morning she said it's didn't teel too good, and she was losing blood from a vagina, she told me, And I said, well, you better go to the doctor and get yourself checked out. She said I will now. When I kissed her goodbye in the morning of the day she died, and she had asked me to meet her for lunch, her lips were very cold, and I said,
that's a kiss of death. That is terrible, Lona, and she was cold. She was cold, and I go over a hugshaid, I said, you're right, you're right to go to work. She said, yes, anyway, I was tied up with a customer and never made lunch and the rest is history.
Just to recap, we already know that Elona visited her doctor a week before her death on July seventh, nineteen seventy seven, complaining of a sore throat. Now Michael tells us that two days before she died, Ilona was experiencing vaginal bleeding and on the morning she died, her lips were stone cold.
Now I've never known that. They said there was nothing wrong with her heart, but she had the autopsy comments that you sent me on that is blown me away because she had heart pills to take. She had heart pills to take because when she was young she had scarlet fever and it left a mark on her heart, I believe, and this is what I was told by Ilona and obviously, but when she died, you know, I just said, well, everybody said, well, how was her heart?
I said, well, she I know she had a weak heart, but look, I'd never ever thought about the possibility that something untoward had happened to her. Never.
Just to reiterate, we have the autopsy report confirming the opposite, that her heart was fine.
In fact, my wife sitting here now, worked right just outside where she died, just outside where when she was there, when the car was when she died at the will and the ambulance was there. My wife, now Olivia was actually there, and so was a friend of mine. He was a Belgian friend. He worked with Olivia then and he said, I know that car, and he rushed up and and a loaded had passed. You know, But I mean, you know now you've been talking about Buddy poison and
talking about this with woters. I mean, I mean the mind in fact, Libby's. We were lying in bed the first time we'd spoken to one of you guys about this, this business with him, and she said, he said, well, could he have got to her? I said, I doubt it. I doubt it. Live you know, well I do you know now I see and listen to all what's going going on, And you just don't know, do you. I mean, I just don't know.
Were you were aware that that Willy was in the country in the months before the Loona passed away?
Oh No, not at that time, No, No, No, I wasn't. No, I just can't believe it. No, I wasn't. It was only when Evelyn had told us that she had finally contacted her birth father.
Are you familiar with a claim that everyone makes that Willie or Rick, once she reconnected with him, gifted her a bottle of champagne. The top was tampered with, and he had already spoken about poisons, and she was worried that he had tampered with the champagne in an attempt to poison him.
Never, never, never discussed, never heard of that until now.
What do you think was responsible for Alona's death?
I'll tell you what was responsible her mother. She died of a broken heart. Actually, she said something to me which I've said to Livy, which really broke my heart. But when I think about it, she was so right. She said, I can always find another husband, Mike, but I can never find another mother, not like my mother. And she adored her mother. And all the time we were in Belgium, we were around there all week, every week, all the time, and she looked after the grandchildren and
she was a lovely lady. She was a lovely lady, and the daughter adored her. I honestly believe that she died of a broken heart. And I've told him. Is this ANFD turn around now and so there was nothing wrong with her. Well that's what she died of, a broken heart.
Okay, And can I ask you why wasn't a proper burial site organized for a loner?
Well, you have really hit a very sore point. Me a copper, MEA copper, me a copper. I basically never wanted to go back there. I didn't accept that she had gone. And that's basically it. I can say no more.
How surprised are you that Rick Blue and Willie Wooters is now a person of interest in the disappearance of another woman, maryon Barter?
Well, so totally blown away, totally blown away.
I believe Crystals that you were working on a cruise ship when you met Aloner and that's how he was conceived. Is that right?
Yes, she came on a cruise I was matre d and she chased me. Unfortunately she did. She had guys coming up to me and saying, Elona wants to see you here and wants to see you there. Well, we at that particular time, we weren't allowed to mix with passengers. But the story goes on, of course that we finally did and we finally got together and she didn't actually join the ship in Sydney when we sailed for home
to England because the ship was full. She flew to Fiji and joined the ship in Fiji, and then it was on for young and old and the rest is history.
Michael Reid admits he was very blunt when he told Evelyn he wasn't her father.
I remember it very clearly. We'd had a big row, but she had been I don't know, she was just you know, she was off the rows and I'd caught her at home one time, which was very rare, and Ida said to her, Look, I never wanted to tell you this, but I'm just going to tell you that the life you've given me and what you've put me through, and I'm not even your fucking father. That's exactly what I said to her.
How old was she then?
I would say she was a good fifteen sixteen.
This corroborates what Evelyn told us as heard in the previous episode, but she added that much more was said to her, which was so bad she couldn't repeat it.
Okay, last question from me, did you know Alona was assaulted by Joseph Biro.
No Ilona was not assaulted by Joseph Biro. Ilona was assaulted by Joseph Kinsell, her father, when she was eleven years old?
Is that why her mother wasn't with him.
Yes, so it wasn't Biro, it wasn't.
Birea, it was kin Cell. It was her real father.
This is new. Michael is saying that Ilona's biological father, Joseph Kinsel, sexually abused her, not her stepfather Joseph Birou. Was there any incidence of Bureau assaulting or abusing Elona that you're aware of?
Ilona said to me when she came back from nursing her mother. She said, he has been a wonderful husband. He has been a wonderful father to me. There's no way if he makes any offer of payment, am I going to accept it?
Again? This seems odd, especially in relation to her objecting to her share of the inheritance. We don't know the true nature of her relationship with Biau, but her mother did leave her part of her estate, which was to be shared between Evelyn and Christopher when she died. She certainly had not ren denounced her inheritance.
Didn't he marry her best friend?
When?
Yes, yes, I believe he married she was living in Switzerland, and I'm told I was absolutely golfs back when I heard that, but I believe he did, and I never found that out until Ilona died.
To clarify, Michael claims that Ilona thought Joseph Biro was a wonderful man and that even if he offered her any payment after her mother's death, she would not accept it, not even to leave for her own children. One thing everyone agrees on is that after Joseph Bureau's wife died, he married his stepdaughter's best friend and they sold the family home and moved to the country.
Do you know what ever happened to Bireau or Joseph Kinsel, any of the Josephs.
Yes, Joseph Kinsell returned. He lived in Germany and a little farm where we visited him, and he returned to live and eventually died in Budapest. I don't know if Joseph Biro is still alive or not, but he remarried, as you say, a friend of Ilona's. And that's all I can say. All I can say to you is that the loss of Ilona totally devastated my life and my two children's lives, and whatever happened after that was an absolute travesty as far as I was concerned.
There's a lot to unpack here. First off, the scam Michael Reid is referring to appears to be the so called inheritance of Freddie David. However, we know there was no financial gain from that, just a four million franc debt, which we understand, and Evelyn could just renounce like her father, Rick Blum did, unless there is another, as yet unknown aspect of this deal. There is a lot of bad blood between Reed and his children. It's not for us
to go into it here. One interesting question that has arisen out of these discussions is the notion that not only is Evelyn Rick Blum's daughter, but could Chris Reid also be his biological son. Willie Wooters, as Rick was known then, was recorded as his father on Chris's birth certificate. He was born in the same birthplace, Tornay, something Michael does not appear to know. Elona did see Willie, and it's possible they were intimate in the nine months prior
to Chris's birth. It's another intriguing set of coincidences. Of course, we cannot ask Ilona and Michael Reid is adamant, Chris is his son. As to Michael's theory that Ilona died of a broken heart, we're looking for a real world physical cause, and it seems that her physical condition in the days leading up to and including the day she died should have triggered immediate medical attention. It's also worth mentioning that Ilona's mother, Urzebet Elizabeth in English, died several
months after Alona in September. This is heavy going and we know some of you have questioned, what, if anything, this has to do with the disappearance of Marion Barter. Long time listeners already know the answer. When we started out, we planned to file seven episodes, with the idea being we would chronicle our investigation in real time and keep going until we found Marian. This is where our investigation has led. Evelyn has already provided invaluable information relating to
the key person of interest in this case. We hope and we expect, as has happened regularly over the past four years, that this line of inquiry will prompt someone to come forward, possibly a person with a vital piece of information that will ultimately help us to answer the question driving all of us. What happened to Marion Barter? Can I record this, Chris if you want to. To that end, we tracked down Michael's son and Evelyn's half brother.
Chris read it is fascinating about your mum Alona. Now, she was supposedly on the way home from work from Edward Beale Headdressers, and for some reason she pulled over and died right there in the car. Now, there's a lot that happened after that that confuses me. But what did you make of what you were told? And what were you told about how your mum Alona died?
Oh?
I a told you how to strike will apparently, and that was it. So yeah, when then by the time I got to the cars, she was dead pretty much.
And who told you that?
My dad? Yeah?
And as time were on, did you hear any more about about that?
No?
No, because two weeks after I went into a home. So my dad didn't cope at all, you know what to do and put me and myosist into a home. So my life pretty much turned a shit after that. Between you and Iry, use those words.
No, I'm sorry to hear that, Chris. Just just so you know, I grew up in as a wad of the state. I grew up in government orphanages and foster homes and juvenile yeah, juvenile government homes when I was a teenager, so I have a pretty good idea of what that's like, you know.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, well I was let's just say I was happy when auntie uncle which is what we had to call and left and a young Feena moved in after about three and a half. But then my dad had met a Jewish lady and got you know, was about to be remarried. So yeah, I say, you know, for me, it was part of my world that kind
of I think saw a very little memory. I remember everything kind of before going coming and then coming out, but there's kind of a lot of parts of my mind I think blocked out probably you know this trauma, what you know, what went on, et cetera.
So have very little memory.
But I think I remember my my mother was that my dad said, you know, all of a sudden, she's actually remember my dad saying anything to me about my mother.
To tell the truth, because whenever I went to the funeral, why didn't you go?
I had no idea. I don't even I don't remember my dad even have any friend or for my mum. Actually, in fact, my dad didn't even give my mum a proper burial, didn't even give her a headstone later where she was married and Danny Nolm met by Danny noon Like as an adult, I kind of wanted to ade some questions and it's like I went in and I coudn't believe it was just a mark grave. My mother is buried there and she's got no headstaying. My dad,
what the heck it's going on? He said, oh, you know, I'll go and put one on, and he never did so, I don't know, mate.
It was just very odd.
It's no way to remember such a young, vivacious woman. And she was very beautiful your mum. I've seen some photos of her and what all accounts an absolutely lovely woman looked like Alder Hippon. Actually, funnily enough, she did have a bit of that about it, didn't she.
Yeah, it was all the hilarious. But it was always a fascinating point for me because I apparently thought the story. I was told that she had scarlet fever as young girl and Neil killed her. My dad said it left ever the weak heart, so I've got an idea of it that because I've not done much research into scarlet fever, I know that scarlet fever was a disease that was around and still around, very not as much as it was, but apparently that was that. But you know the thing
for me was that they fled kind of Belgium. You know, I came back here to row with him under it under his name. Would you believe it? Belgium wouldn't recognize the divorce between my mum and Willie Waters. And so then I had a passport that was put in his name to be able to get me a passport to Hungary to get me out of Europe and into Australia. And then years later, so I grew up so many years believe in that I actually I was this guy's son,
and in fact I wasn't. And it wasn't until I confronted my own father and said, well, I've got all the evidence here. I've got a Burthships kit in my name of Waters, you know, because my sister had all this stuff and she came to me with it and I said, well why haven't you sorted it out? And it was that prompting that he actually went back to
Belgium and actually sorted it out. And you know, I am Michael Reid's son, but it took a lot of identity crisis for me, as you can imagine being told on one person and then having all this evidence saying that I'm not. So you know, there was a story back then, I guess with him being around and they fled from I think, you know, Europe to come to Melbourne and to get away from this William Motors guy.
But who knows, you know, like.
It's just I wonder around the timing of you know, I don't know what research you've done, but if my mother died in seventy seven, where was he at the time? Are there any movements of his travel? Was he in the country at the time. Had he been in the country at the time.
Well, he had been in the country at the time. He first came I think in nineteen sixty nine, following your mother. He came separately from her and then he returned to Europe. He used various names during that period, including Bernard du Pont and Freddie David and Willie Wooters. So he ended up being jailed. I think it was in France for four years, that's right, in.
The seventies, and then he returned to Australia and he was actually granted citizenship. He lied about and his admitted lying about having a criminal record, and he was given Australian citizenship in nineteen seventy six.
Wow, So was he here in seventy seven around the time my mother died.
Well, I need to check the records, but he certainly was here in seventy six, and then at some stage he moved back to Europe and lived in Belgium and then the UK in the very early eighties.
And as you're probably.
My grandmother, my mum's martin was really suspicious of him, in fact, so much so that she actually hired a prior private detective to kind of, you know, find out who this William Motors guy was, and found out that actually he was married with a couple of children. They went to my mother and told her and said this guy to scumback, you know, lying to you.
Yeah, I can tell you that. In nineteen seventy seven, Frederick David Deheedevry, that's Rick Bluem aka William Rogers, arrived in Sydney alone from the United Kingdom on March seventeen in nineteen seventy seven, and he gave his Australian address as Towns Road in Vaclues. That's here in Sydney.
Yeah, so any say seventy seven, So, to be honest with you, that's March and then my mum dies enjoy.
Well, well hang on, I'm just about to tell you that on March twenty five, this is five days after he arrived in Sydney. We've got a record showing Frederic David de Heeavery left again for Belgium. And then on July thirteen, your mum was discovered in the car and her husband at the time, Michael read your dad, said she had not long returned from Belgium after visiting her
dying mother. So I'm just reading from our timeline. After Alona Consel was found summed at the will of her car, her husband Michael Reid said she had not long returned from Belgium after visiting her dying mother.
Yeah, that's right, I remember we went back. I remember that.
So it appears that both Willie and your mum were in Belgium at around the same time, not long before she passed away.
Well, I remember going back to belgiumcause my grandmother got cancer. I really got a really quick jus like dead in space. It was three months, so very aggressive, very quick.
How old are you when, Alona, when your mom passed away, Chris my.
Mom, Yeah, I just turned five. Yeah, yeah, yeah, So.
It's such a hard thing for a little kid to deal with. Mate, I'm sorry you had to go through that.
Oh mate.
I think the toppest gig was, you know, I don't know your story. Everyone we've got one was the you know, it's basically two whears. You lost your mommy and her dad all of a sudden, Dad's gone to get put into her own So, you know, I think for anyone who's gone through that, you know, there's a lot of people who have gone through I mean my sister everyone was a wad at the state for years as well, and she was in foster homes and that's old, that
whole thing. Yeah, you know, obviously, as you know, there was that Royal commission into the whole lot of you know, foster homes and panned Or's box.
Yeah I know it.
Well yeah yeah, and I'll got approach with that as well. Yeah, but you know, I have no I had no kind of for me. I want to go on the journey of having to go through all that again. Then I thought about it, I thought, no, I'm not interested, but yeah.
Only a boy mate.
But you know, like I always say, now, you can't change your past, but you can change the future. And I wasted twenty years of my life dragging the ball and changed the past with me and trying to drag into the future and blameing around around me because of circumstances that I had no control of.
Can I ask you just a couple of quick things while I got in your kiss, because you just mentioned briefly a couple of things. The first is that you had a passport issued in the name of Willie Wooters. It's correct, yeah, And effectively that meant, you know, he was your he could he could pretend or show that he was your legal father, your legal guardian.
Well back then he was Yeah.
Yeah.
I guess my mother must have had something to do with that, you know, or I don't know.
They had no idea how that all worked out.
But you know, I had to go into Hungary and and basically say that I was his son and had the burst ticket, even though I was born in Bulgium intern.
Yeah, that's right, man, it was. It was not my real name and not my identity.
And the purpose of that, you think was to get you safely out of Europe.
Trader, I think.
That, you know, my mom wanted to get away from it, but apparently said that she she was in love with him. You know, so you know, knew my dad and knew my mom, but she said that, you know, she was actually very really in.
Love with my dad.
You mean you mean Michael, she was actually in love with WILLI the whole time, you think.
Said to me, she, I don't think she was ever really in love with Mike.
She really loved you know, I really loved William at the time, but then kind of found out what he was about and then that. But she you know, you know, she said to me, she and almost doesn't believe that she was actually ever really loved with my dad. There was a story where where in that time, probably the timeline, where my mom came to.
Sydney with William. Yeah, and they went on well they were in Sydney together.
My mom put my sister Evely on a plane to go back to Belgium.
Stopping here for a second. Remember how Blum would try to involve some of the key women in his life in his nefarious activities, i e. Monique and Evelyn. It's reasonable to believe he also tried to involve Aloner while Evelyn and I were in Belgium. The notary whose firm drew up this personal agreement apparently between Bloom, than Rooters, Biro and Michael Reid said alone also registered a company.
The notary Jerome Otto is expected to get back to Evelyn about this and other documents we are seeking this.
Month, and her and we in that an argument or something like that. He apparently nicked off back to Europe and then she went on a cruise, on a cruise called the Pino Ariana. Find that where my dad was working, right, and that's how I came to.
Be Okay, So it was just a brief fling with your dad, I think so correct. And then she went to Belgium.
And she got pregnant.
Say she's obviously gone, hey, Mike, you know, a great fling, but we're pred not pregnant now. So he's come off the boat and tried to do the right thing. I think, you know, went to Belgium and kind of was with her, and you know, I remember being in Belgium as a young kid and when we're going to kindergarten in Belgium, you know, so they got to school there, that sort of thing. I remember my uncle because he died very
young as well, which is interesting. Yeah, so he was in the Special Forces, my uncle.
Yeah, and you know, you like in his twenties or something, and he died late twenties. This is a tilla Yeah, tiller correct.
Yeah, yeah, that is odd.
So you know, both my mom and him dying young.
Well, he didn't have scarlet fever as well, did he know, So it's not genetic. It's not scarlet fever in both cases. So it is odd.
Well, that's what they say. You know, they never did toxic college of report. And even what I's pushing for him, they asking questions, why was I toxic cology report done?
Well, I wanted to ask you, Yeah, I wanted to ask you about that again because it took nine months or longer. And and the reason we know that is because there was a law firm Maurice Blackburn, who apparently were acting on behalf of Ilona's dependence, which I can only guess. Would you your sister, and maybe Michael for a worker's compensation claim. Maybe I'm guessing because Ilana was driving home from work, although I'm not sure how that would cover having a stroke or a heart attack in
a car. But anyway, I'm reading that. I've got these letters in front of me, and they're backwards and forwards. Are the kind of saying, where's the where's the coroner's report, where's all the top tropology? And apparently it just wasn't done for months and months, and there was a big the ombudsman got involved and finally it was done, but it appears that they really didn't come up with much in the way of answers, or by.
That time it was too late.
Yeah, so I think because it took so long, by the time they got around to it, it was too late to even do a top skill to report.
Yeah, I mean, the report of death for the coroner just says apparent cause heart attack and you look for some more detail because that's a very broad category of things that can actually kill, and it says there was there was no infection. The Pulmary system showed a clear trakira, there was gruel like material in the stomach. I mean it doesn't really nail down the cause of this supposing heart incident that led to her death in a car
on the side of the road. What I can ask you about is that apparently there was some kind of settlement reached and some money paid to Michael that I'm guessing should have been in part yours.
I received a small inheritance from my mother when I was eighteen. There's a lot of questions because you know, my grandmother remarried to.
A guy called Joseph. So they fled Hungary during Joseph birerou Yeah, so.
They fled Hungary in fifty six or whatever it was when Russia invaded and got out and started a new life in Belgium, and so we owned up. I think my grandmother and miss Joseph birero Go owned apartments in Belgium. The plot thickens because my grandmother they under his apartment, and I remember I had to get it interpreted. I received a correspondent to Lamar regarding an inheritance. But what
a statement was that? Another manut is But looking back in Nasara and iieve didn't really understand it.
Now.
Look, when I kind of go oh, I should have challenged that presurely really got into it.
Chris explains he did get a payout from his mother's will, but he's confused about what that entailed. Evelyn says they did receive some money from their grandmother's inheritance, but that was after a private agreement was made and she doesn't know the details.
So when my time my dad, that was like what really, Yeah, no, you definitely received it.
We needed yes.
So my understanding of that, Chris, is that that you should have got a healthy sum from the property there. But I think Joseph Biro ended up selling it and moving to the country with his new wife.
Yeah. Yeah.
If I can just say, just from an outsider that you know, you and your sister, I just wish you both the very best going forward, because you've actually gone through and survived as little children, extremely traumatic and unusual circumstances. You know, it doesn't get much worse, and to actually survive that is enough. But to actually, you know, to thrive and as you say, heal and build a life and make make a life for yourself. And you're a tat of five now and a business owner. I mean,
you know, it's that that's pretty rare. It's very hard to do. So you know, i'd say both of you can. I think both of you can. I just say both of you can cut yourself a bit of slack going forward, because.
Well, you know, I think I think for me, you know, might, like I said, of my ways open, but you know, you do get to a point wharing. I'm fifty one in July, and you know how many a young fella and I've got.
You know, everything's ahead ahead of my life. There's nothing to stop me from doing anything I want to.
And that's why I say to anyone, and I think he's probably going to listen to this is you know, it's easy to get stuck.
And I was stuck for a long time. But you know, the end of the day, it only takes one decision. You're only one position away from turning things around.
And there are so many doors that are waiting for anyone in this position to open. But what happens is when you get stuck, you don't you look through a narrow door, and then you actually stop looking at the other doors that are around you that are all waiting to be open, because you're so stuck on this one thing.
Yeah, and well said Chris, and at the start of this conversation, you asked me about your mum, and I just wondered if you had some suspicions about the circumstances of how she passed away, do you?
Of course I do. Of course I do, because that touched the reports.
You know, I guess I'm a bit a bit, you know, the timing of him coming back to what happened with my sister, with the champagne bottom lined look of things.
You know, I was around at the time, and it was just too uncanny.
It was just weird.
And in the end, we'll never know.
And I guess it's one of those questions that you know, she's been buried for too long now and you can't even go back and you know, exsume her to go through the process. So you know, it's just it was poorly handled. So there was a settlement. Well, you know, good luck to debt about it. You know, you could at least put a hitch out of my mother's grave.
You didn't. Never do that.
I mean, that's the thing that gets me, and I will do that one day myself. So you know, I guess, I just yeah, I just guess that it is what it is. Life goes on, mate, life goes on like I don't. I don't see do you want her in every day? But there is a part of me it that we've spoken and when I have these conversations and it is brought up in his context that then I kind of get you.
Well, I actually would like to know a little bit and i's more. If there's more out there, come back to me and let me know.
But otherwise I'm not going to sit here, you know, spending hours and hours trying to you know, find out myself because I just don't have the time of the energy. I've got my family to take care of my children, and that's my focus on my business and you know, taking care of mine. You know, I've got dreams and I want to say there's dreams fulfilled. So you know, life too.
Short as you may.
Yep, And thanks for talking to me, Chris. I wish you all the best going.
Forward, mate, Thank you, mate, I appreciate your time.
To sum up, Chris says that within weeks if his mother dying, his father could not cope, and he and Evelyn were both put in homes. There was no funeral for a loner and no headstone to mark her grave. To this day, he wonders how his mother died and his uncle just a short time later. He says a relative told him a loner remained in love with Willie
even after they separated and she met Michael. Our investigation continues. Meanwhile, many listeners have asked us about what happened when Diane de Headevry was confronted by Spotlight's Liam Bartlett.
This is the head of her How are you well here? It is Liam Bartlett from seven News Spotlight. Do you mind if we just have a quick chat to you? We just want to ask you a couple of questions about your husband. Did you have any idea that your husband was involved with the exploitation of so many women over the years? Missuster Headavery, missus the Headavery, We just want to ask you how terrible it must have been for you. Do you mind just having a quick chat
to us? Do you mind having a quick chat to us?
Please?
Madam missuster Headavery, why won't you talk to us?
Following our trip to Belgium and Luxembourg the Spotlight Special and the release of these past five episodes, a variety of new leads have emerged. It will take us a bit of time to properly investigate them, but rest assured we will keep you posted every step of the way until next time.
If you knew Marian or have any information about her or her whereabouts, we'd love to hear from you. Our website is sevennews dot com dot au slash news slash the Lady Vanishers and you can also message us here. You can also send us an anonymous tip at the Lady Vanishers dot org. If you like what you're hearing, don't forget to subscribe. Please rate and review our series.
It helps new listeners find us. Presenter and executive producer Alison Sandy, investigative journalist Brian Seymour, writer and producer Sally Yields. Sound design Mark Wright, graphics Jason Blandford, translation and transcripts Estel Sanchez, Voice actors Aurelian Ritter, Veronique Durcell and the Brisbane seven Newsroom. The theme and much of the music by Nicholas Gasparini at the Dark Piano dot com. Thanks again to the Alliance Francais. This is a seven News production