Le Diabolique

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 Marian 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 three. I'm Alison Sandy.

And I'm Brian Seymour.

Hello.

Here I am with the man Liam Bartlet. We are here in the middle of town square in Brussels, which is just phenomenal. And Liam, you've been to so many places in your career. Can you can you tell me do you have an idea?

The number? Yeah, the number. I'm not sure that can I just can I tell people that we've been talking about shopping, which is a serious subject. Right when you're on their own shopping and if you don't come home with the right presence, you're in a serious strike. Allison, you've impressed me with the shopping already. This is a lady who makes decisions. You can see why she us where she is. I don't know the number, that's the short answer. That's why I'm prevaricating.

Here would be hundreds and all over the world, exotic locations, from Batan to Russia to Middle East, Middle East Africa, Africa. What's the most unusual.

Like off the bridge of the Greed. Probably places that you can't automatically find a policeman or get help if you need it, or lawless places. Probably the Congo.

Probably, oh my god, democratic republica commo.

Yes, big country and out there, completely out there, and terrible shopping.

So you didn't buy any presents.

Nothing came back from the Congo.

He has been very impressive with his presence for his family. I asked him whether or not he was wearing some factory's wife, and he's of course his wife said no, don't learn have been back, but he's no call.

That's a COVID message from Whit's all over the world. When you go away, don't worry me means get me something big.

And it's been a little bit sad because the fertility bars you've got three ten wasn't a win up.

I can't understand why that wasn't at We'd already had three kids, so she didn't need a fraternity bars. Okay, but it's beautiful and it's still sitting in that laundry cupboard to day to this day.

Thanks, but she didn't tell him. I love the fact she didn't tell him, but kind of gave it away with the laundry cupboard vacation. Very sad, but sorry, I'm gonna bring this up. But my favorite, though, is the one you brought back through your daughter one time.

Can you describe it from Japan? We were out in the prefectures of Japan. I have been really a regional Japanese present, not common for many A frog purse.

Real frog.

Yeah, it has been treated, but she was ten there at the time and a very ungrateful ten year old.

I can't understand it, Like why you wouldn't want a dead frog that you could book stuff in.

It was a beautiful change kids.

Well for just a little bit on the st of your life as an international domestica of Jersey ships incredible and I'm really to be on this part.

Thanks for making me sound so seriously.

Liam Bartlett has been a journalist for more than thirty years. He started in radio, firstly in regional Western Australia, where as well as presenting, he had to sell commercials, before moving to Perth where he dominated the airwaves at six PR, followed by ABC. In two thousand and two, Liam was awarded a Churchill Fellowship to study investigative journalism and later became a reporter for sixty Minutes. He joined Channel seven

So the GPS is a little bit confusing.

The route out of the Belgian capital is a tree lined avenue decorated with old fashioned terrace apartments either side. The next massive roundabout return right. We pass some more magnificent landmarks on the way out, including the City Museum, before the buildings become fewer and the trees more prominent. First things first, though, we need fuel, not for the car but for us. So here is the endless pursuits to find somewhere we can get coffee.

Not so easy as we're leading Brussels.

We find it at a little town called yeesious Ike, just outside Brussels.

The restaurant that's shut.

Yeah, it's the bank holiday.

Belgium and Luxembourg s to have a lot of bank holidays. It's not surprising, giving banking and finance drives both economies, especially Luxembourg, which is a major global tax haven. But they should be a cafe somewhere. They'll have a cafe. People stood in coffee.

Honestly, Yeah, here.

We go ya, Oh my gosh, thank goodness, thank goodness, we can come alive.

Again, and we do.

The staff there are so friendly and by the time we get back on the road we feel completely reinvigorated. It was another hour and a half before we stopped again, this time at a small village just off the highway over the Luxembourg border. Nothing is opened except for a petrol station opposite a small homestead with farm animals including geese, turkeys, chickens, and a rooster running free. I just love how the chickens are out and it's a pretty busy road.

We just have some sort of road sense.

Those pe massive They are very.

That you know that you're getting too close back on the road. Giant wind farms crowded the picturesque horizon as we near the entry to the world's last Grand Duchy. Here we are downtown Luxembourg. Interesting as a train station. Yea, so four hours later since leaving Brussels, we are now.

In the fill of Luxembourg.

It doesn't take that long, but we did make a few stops. Light rain greets us As we reach the hotel. It's a five minute walk over the Adolphy Bridge to Old Town.

Oh my god.

I knew it was going to be a fairy tale town, but I had no idea it was going to look like this. Old Town, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is breathtaking. What looks like the Disneyland Castle in the distance is actually the opulent State Savings Bank, built at the beginning of the twentieth century. Crowds gather at a fair the other side of the Sandstone Bridge. But I can see why it would be a fantasy place to live, and why hope that somebody might be tempted to move here

This is not the new No, We've moved shocked twice since then. Long we ended up here and hopefully feel good.

There's a much nice of business in this and the technology is amazing. I'm just looking around the newsroom. Is have you always had great technology?

Is it just since you moved.

It's got to do with the fact that we moved. It all came kind of together. The idea was always there, but this is basically everyone in one room and being transparent about data. So you know what y're how y'ard was performing of what's going on right now, so you just have a look at the warm. Basically that's the idea.

Your last article was under plum in relation to it, Blum, how did that perform good enough?

Let's say, yeah, usually these articles performed pretty well, and so this this one even though there wasn't like anymitate luxember conectional, but they did really want a Luxembourg fund as well. And it's a lot of international readers.

So the topic in general. So ever since we wrote the first piece on the whole case and about like trying to explain all the possible connections and then the stories of Lord Charlotte and Guilen and Ante Flamm, they find they find their readers. Really they've performed quite well.

Have you had any potential other leads?

Not as such currently, So from a Luxembourg perspective, I'd also say the Belgian perspective is kind of I'm not finished, but that's that's what it is in Belgium for us from our perspective. So there's women in Belgium being robbed out of amounts of money, and we have three of them now and we haven't heard of the fourth yet. But we're still at the same time trying to find more Luxembourg connections, which is difficult. Though it's been a while since he was in Luxembourg, it's longer back in

So he might have reported people, but there's a civil on communication of like romantic scams.

In what we can see, the romance scamming is in Belgium, and it is in Australia for sure, because we heard of those two other.

Women in the hearing them.

We don't know what happened with Marion Barter, but so far we don't see any of that in Luxembourg.

Well, the inquest starts at the end of the month, so I guess we'd be interested in that, yeah, for sure.

Where I think we'll cover it locally as well.

We will probably following your legal family that you know, tied in with the stories that we did before that, and whether it'd be interesting to see how that of the thing.

That would be quite an interesting turning point.

And maybe at that point we can also try to re engage with several leads here Luxembourg or or Swamp with media and maybe try something out that that could give us more of an indication of for the dictions.

Yeah, or we'll be spending time on YouTube.

Well can you question and some of the other lads where you have to thank you, You're welcome, thank you.

Not long after Liam meets Tom for the first time.

But I'm from Thailand originally, which is another province in Germany. I was never very far from the Luxembourg French border, so okay, other than like I lived in Canada for a year when I was studying, but I'm native from these grounds sort of stuff.

I ice to work with the German guy a couple of years who was the American correspondent for Build I think very funny.

Famous, yeah yeah, yeah, very funny, especially recently some dirty Lunger being washed.

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. He used to say he was his life mission to let people know that some Germans were funny.

Yes, it's true.

After a bit of light banter, Lillam invites Tom to share his thoughts on Rick Bloom and the challenges he's faced investigating his many claims to sort out the fact from fiction.

In Australia. We know him as Rick Bloom at the moment. What do you know him best as over here?

Well, that's a tricky one to begin with. We don't know him at all, if you will or not under a certain name. I'm still totally puzzled about what his real name is. Some people we talked to say his birth name is Billy Walters. We heard copper Dollar, we heard the most. It seems to be the most common. Pseudonym or fake name is fred Rick the hitter Varry.

Was maybe for us it isn't It's a bit like holding a tig about the titles.

Yes, yeah, yeah, and you need I mean you need to pinpoint it somehow and focus on some aspects. Right, Rick Blum is what we call him in our titles, for example, like we call him the serials camera Rick Bloom as in another Belgian widow claims she was robbed by serious camera Rick Blume. That's what he is for us.

But the trial here for you is very muddy. Going back through the records and that sort of thing you keep coming across these different names. That's complicated, isn't it.

Well, it's the complicated thing is the names. Indeed, I send a list, the whole list with names to the National Archives and say could you please check for us if you have anything under those names, and they say, well, we don't, for example. But then they also offered some

Hell, how would you describe the criminal history of Rick Bloom through Impressive, through Luxembourg and Belgium and France.

You would get the impression that he's a master criminal, or that's the way he might have seen himself at times, because he tried to obscure everything with the fake names, and he had a way of forging documents and using systems to his advantage. But then again you look at the at his rap sheet and at the time he spent in jail, maybe that's not quite master criminal at all. If you get caught a lot in between, it's hard to tell, and it's impressive in that it is. I

And we are talking hundreds of thousands of euros.

In some cases, yeah, one hundred and fifty thousand or two like two bag, two plastic bags with fifty thousand euros each in cash.

So in a very short space of time, he manages to not only inculcate himself into their lives, but get them to trust him to that extent.

And he uses he uses like he has some capital, so to speak, some trust, some trust in the banks already, like it's either that he approaches them on the on this romantic scam level, like answering personal ads and being all romantic with them. Let's call it, or it's family. In one case it was he was family of the late husband of the person he robbed, right, so they knew him already by name and by anecdotes, but they

So he manages to find the emotional weeksman.

Weeks, but the back door, the whatever you call it, right, and it's some it's always it's those stories. They differ in details, of course, but they have always the same way they are going, like what could I have done? He was a friend of my father's or well he was family, wasn't he? Or he wrote me such a nice letter. In fact, she did say that the one he wrote the letter to she said he never disagreed

Here on that note, I mean, do you have any sense of the scale of this? Do you have any idea of perhaps how many women he may have scammed in this part of the world.

It's hard to say, but I mean it's almost like my hypothesis on what I'm working on, what we are working on. Yannick and I pretty much every overseas strip from Australia, which is all pretty well documented. Whenever he comes back to Australia and declaring more than ten thousand dollars in cash, there might have been a woman behind that being scammed.

Right, so far, well, there's dozens and dozens of THOUSETRAI yeah.

So far we have free There might be more in Luxembourg. He's to us. It seems he's a bit like a phantom's it's hard to pinpoint what he or his tracks in Luxembourg are hard to discover for the archive situation, for because it's been in the eighties, Like, it's not those Belgian cases, there are more recent How.

Long do you think he has been operating in this fashion.

That's also something that we're not sure or we cannot be sure of, depends on what fashion you mean. I mean, he's if you look at this at his rap sheet, he's been forging stuff all along. He's been there's checks without cover, there's identity theft, there's borrowing things from people not giving them back. Basically apparently there's promises to sell.

Yeah, so we think that furniture shop business, yes, may have some hass why I've been a front, yes, for him to move money through.

That's what we think for whatever money laundering would be what you think of first maybe right. Then again, we have talked to people in the village where he has the furniture store, and that was also in our very first article, a very early conversation in the process with a man who said, yeah, I remember him. He had something like thirty names. That was the first thing this

Right, great question. Some of these local towns are quite small, yes, and a lot of people know a lot of other people.

That's what you would think.

So what about the local police, Well, why hasn't he been on their ridar?

We really don't know. Like also, if you look at I mean, this is all from the hearings, right, this is head. It has been discussed in the In the hearings, his wife Diane says they lived in Idsis right. It is a not too big community close to the capitol, and he was at one point in the hearing. He also describes how he goes from It'sich to Nossange to the furniture store every day. Et cetera, and that it takes him so on so long. Other unless there's snow

No, wonder you call him a phantom?

Yeah, I mean, I don't know if that's the right thing to call him, but for us, he is a bit of the Luxembourg chapter is very yeah, foggy.

But we also know he has spent time in regional giles over the last four or five decades. Yeah. So, so where are the police on this? I mean, don't the Belgian police and the Luxembourg police talk to each other.

I mean we would assume, Yeah, I mean the police must know something in Belgium because we know about those from these Belgian women that they were in like the police was in contact with both of them. In two thousand and six, Ilen is being scammed out of money and in twenty twelve she's being asked to come back to the police to talk some more because in the meantime there has been this other case Charlotte. So there must have been some paper trail, right, And I'm also

I'm very surprised that there aren't what they doesn't exist more police files with his.

Name or some of his names are Yeah, as I said, we sent them the whole list, and I said, they drew a blank across the page. And that's really what makes me think maybe there's more names. Maybe there's more Luxembourg names that we don't know, and what are the chances of they're being more widows. Yeah, that's also something. But then again we were thinking maybe back then in Luxembourg,

When you look at this story in its entirety, when you look at the whole picture, have you seen many cases like this? Not at all.

I mean, this is quite extraordinary.

Tell me the case of Monique Cornelius. Describe what happened to her for me, if you would. What we know is what we've heard in the hearings. Apparently she met him in the I don't know, early eighties, nineteen eighty, late seventies maybe, And she said in this interview in the podcast, if I'm not mistaken, or in the hearing anyway, somewhere she said it they met at the Caffe de Palil, just three minutes from here actually, and he said, no, we we met somewhere else at book sale, I think,

Yeah, that's where it all gets connected to Luxembourg on the biggest scale, so to speak. That's where we came into it. It must have been at one point that Rick Glum or whether Hiavari or Rick or whatever met the real fanor Remachel, although the real Funnel Remarkle says no, I've never met this man in my life.

He's never met him.

Yeah, that's what he says.

And yeah, and yet Rick Blum ends up with a Queensland driver's license. See he's nice, yes, exactly, and Fernand remarkable. Yeah it's not exactly. I mean it's a bit like Rumple still skin.

Yeah, it's unusual. Name is Remarkael is not a too unusual name in Luxembourg, but in other parts of the world most probably Yeah, to put them together. Yeah, yeah, yeah, of course. I mean there's not many funeral Remarkles in the world, if at all. And he says he's never met him. Nevertheless, apparently, and that's also what Bloom said in the hearings. He had a driver's license from Remarkael and he went to the Automobile Club in Luxembourg to

That, right.

He is a bit vague about how he did it, whether he send it by mail with a different picture or no details, And in the end he ends up going with this international driver's license to Queensland saying I have an international driver's license from Luxembourg and I want to copy it, so to speak, into an Australian driver's license, which would make it totally legit. In the end question would be what else do you need? To provide in terms of documentation to say that you're entitled to this

Now he's very good at forgery.

Yeah, that's the next thought. Then whatever it needs to be provided, he would have it somewhere, even if he makes it himself. Right. And that's the thing. We don't know why he would pick this particular name. Maybe it's just the occasion that he has this, like he meets the ex husband of his affair and he steals the drivers license and then he does his thing, or whether he has some other motivation behind it, we don't know.

It is confusing, isn't it, because there's liar upon liar.

Yes, And that's apparently that's how he does it. He uses those layers, just as he uses borders between countries, like even before he came to Australia, he used this border situation in this part of the world, like as Germany France, Belgium, Luxembourg. He seemed to be border hopping whenever it suited him, and coming to Australia it seemed like it was free game after that, because Australia is so far from here. Over here is so far from Australia,

Through through this journey, have you once covered any evidence of Marion Barter being here in Luxembourg?

And I think it's rather unlikely, or let's say it's not more unlikely than other stuff we uncovered. But for example, there has been this theory, why is she riding divorced on her outgoing passenger card when she goes to and and saying she was gonna in Luxembourg, but she writes being married or being a housewife married in Luxembourg when she comes back to Australia a few weeks months later.

To do that.

But if they got married, I don't think it was in Luxembourg, and I don't quite think that Marion actually ended up being in Luxembourg because whatever happened happened before, I guess.

So that's that's that's getting stranger, isn't it. So why would Marion Barter write on her incoming passenger card into Australia when she went back that she was a housewife, that she'd been married, she was married here in Luxembourg.

Yes, that's what we don't know. That's it might be part of the bigger picture scam that he needed her to be named Remarchael with the same initials, and he needed a cover story for them to be whatever it was that they was supposed to be for the scam. Right then again, yeah, we don't know when you look.

At all these stories of the way he has operated through, not just the sort of the romance scam, so I can put it that way, but all the rest of the crimes. And when you put everything into one bucket, what what for you? Are the biggest questions still left unanswered?

So the biggest question that we should stay focused on is what happened to Marian Barter, because that's also something the other victims say. We talked to the ladies in Belgium, they said, well, I know I lost a lot of money, but at least I'm alive. Right, So they say they're quite clear on that they were lucky, and as far as we can tell, Marion Barter wasn't lucky in the end, but we don't know. So that's what I would say

Right? Strange thing to do is that.

Yeah. On the other hand, yeah, it might be that way. I wouldn't say he's a killer from what I read. I mean, it's it's always just assuming, right. But we have heard at least in one occasion from someone who said, well, he wouldn't be surprised if he's connected to an armed robbery in Tournay that was pretty spectacular in the eighties, so that he might have been like something like a loose member of one of or several of Belgian Luxembourgish

Do you think it's safe to say that there are still crimes that he might have committed that have yet to be uncovered?

Well, that, yeah, that's the assumption, right. I don't know if it's safe to say, but everything looks towards that direction.

If you had a chance to sit down and interview him, Tom, Yeah, I'm sure you've thought about this many times while you were tapping away. Yeah, composing many of the stories that you've been running. What would be front of mine for you?

Well, I'm pretty sure he wouldn't. You wouldn't talk to him in the first place.

I mean, I'm just a hypothetical, hypothetically, because I'm not sure even if he talked to any of us that he'd tell the truth.

Here I are.

Mister Bloom has not given any interviews since we introduced him to our stunned audience early last year, despite many approaches from other media following our story. Many of the questions we have for mister Bloom go to what he has done, to whom, when and where. Fortunately, we have heard many of those questions put to him on the

He has other decades conducted what is clearly a sort of methodological approach to covering his tracks.

Yes, and he's been added since he's sixteen or something exactly at the first Belgian exactly articles.

And it's the old story, isn't it. I mean, in human nature, you graduate from one thing to another, for.

Sure, definitely. And also the whole paper trail with the Australian immigration I mean, I'm sure you read the file about where they keep writing each other note saying should we intervene, should we tell the minister about it?

No? You do it?

No you do it, No you do it. And in the end somebody writes, well what is this? What have you done here over the last five years? But still nobody's doing anything about it. It's really weird. It's embarrassing in a way for us, and it's also coming from our on my European Luxembourg is German whatever point of view. I also or have trouble understanding the whole name changed thing. I didn't know what a deep poll is until Brian

I didn't know.

You just need I don't know, an electricity bill to be somebody else. Apparently, maybe that's also something that needs to be put into consideration, that that's maybe a bit too easy for people like grip Plume.

Right, it's extraordinary, isn't it. Yeah, And he's clearly taken advantage of all those sorts of things.

For sure, definitely. And it wouldn't have been so easy in Belgium back in the day, especially like back in the day, in Belgium, he would have needed to forge those documents, he would have forged a physical copy of somebody else's passport, idea, whatever, Whereas in Australia apparently he can just send a letter to some official position saying I want to be called somebody else in the future. That's something that puzzled me in the beginning, but now I get it that I try to understand it that

Weird you did, right, But you've given us that flavor that we wanted, you know, from Europe and a bit of a bad.

I wish I could tell you more about uh. I wish we had more from the archives on, better feedback from our readers. But maybe we're just at the beginning.

We don't know. There will be more about.

This when the hearing resumes and when it's I don't know.

I think that's a really good point and we've we've

And it's a trust thing, of course, Like exactly when let's say there's another Belgian vido being having been scammed out of whatever it is, the stamp collection of her late husband, and she sees that there's other women speaking out before her, and they've been treated seriously on fair in the reports, then that might give them the courage and the trust to do it, to come forward, which is what happened to Glaine, or what happened with Glaine

Well, all this is going on, I'm arriving at the home of the theatric and charismatic Manique Cornelius. Many of you will remember her as the recipient of a letter from Rick Blum, then Frederick to Heaveri and his singing testicles. Although Minique has spoken to me on the phone before convincing her to go on camera, is a much bigger mountain to climb. When I get out of the taxi, she rushes over the front door, locking behind her, greeting me warmly in her sing song voice before inviting me in.

Her home is.

Beautifully decorated with artworks and furniture, and she has two well fed British blue cats that she dotes on. We have coffee and I show her some of the clip of our interview with Gilaine that lying soon, Manique takes out a large envelope with all the articles about Rick Blum or Frederick to Heavari as she knew him, I have. This time, she opens up about some of the crimes she claims she witnessed him commit. Monique's English is sometimes

In England, there are old castles and they are full of very beauty furniture, and she is stealing that out old, very old furniture, and tab brought to bet. He made it in a big car, in a big fan, and then with the ship. I had no idea.

Ever, when the police awasted him. Can you tell me that story again?

I was going back to it. He had rented the apartment from me there and I had my apartment. My own apartment in Luxembourg is ten minutes from there from our law ten minutes not more. The police erasities. I was sure that he was not the man he pretended to be. This was at the end of your relationship again. Yeah, he has in Belgium. There are also many people made

Yeah.

Ah, he told me that and so but I retired. He had to let me go, so I knew we got your arrested. Yeah yeah, and that I have the police of Police Sjudice Year.

You know what it is.

This is the best police we have here. Yeah yeah, yeah. And I did not I did not speak to them, but I called them, please have an eye on me, have an eye on me, and I have someone just for Frederick in our police Judice Year. Yeah, that is very good. I am afraid or something. Police. Next morning, come to the police station. We have some questions. You a member there in this circle? Oh? I said, no, yes, you're we have it here. And look the next the next post you have got he was it was a policeman.

Not in uniform.

It's just like he like him. Well he was away quote or noah, it's true.

You can go.

He has vanished, vanished like I couldn't see him nowhere. So I went back to ours and yes, I did not see seeing him back one time when you told me come to Australia with me. So that is interesting.

Well again I just want to thank you if you tell me, I thank you.

We're going to Tourna tomorrow so we'll go to the tourney.

Is that this way is yeah, So we'll go there tomorrow and see.

Tourna is wonderful. Tourna is wonderful, because wonderful sure with rembrants, real real rambants inside. Oh, or you must look if it's still there. It's forty years and forty years I.

Will check it out.

He lived at Intunia, and that's a house. But he went to see his associates, and in the night or the other day he came back with furniture. It was a house about a sort of bungalow, and he was never there. He was always visits associates, and came back with a blue bad foot full of flick. And then after two two hours he had effequated with averything. One day we were eating outside. I have never had in a restaurant such atmosphere. The only man but not educated classes.

Maria, of course, of course like that. I was.

I was the only woman between those and she who is she? She belongs to be because she.

Belongs to be.

It is difficult in parts to understand Monique precisely, but she's outlining a general impression of mister Bloom working with gangsters as part of a dodgy furniture dealing operation in which he tried to involve her before police stepped in. After just one hour talking to Monique, she agrees to an interview with the Spotlight crew on the basis that her face is not shown. Luxembourg is a tiny community,

I've just spoken my shoe over at Monique's house. My heel came off my boot and so i can't walk properly, so I've got.

To try and find a shop his shoes.

Unfortunately, it will be really expensive.

For the other problem I have is my.

Feet so big head to Europeans, so they probably won't have my size, so I might just have to hobble around the whole time Monique's end there. She took a lot of convincing to want to speak Beau so not it's really hard for her, but being anonymous as in not showing.

Her face will be will really be really helpful.

So I'm so grateful to her, as for all the other women out here who have been so generous, these grave, wonderful women who keep telling their stories knowing that it's for the greater good and to help other women who are being through the same nightmare.

And Evelyn and beneath me getting on really really well, which is lovely, the having a great time catching up. It's really hard obviously to hear Evelyn's.

Story for anyone, but it's you know, it's been really good of them coming together. I think it's therapeutic for them all.

So I'm just looking around here, I know I am now, so I've got my bearings and hopefully I'll make it back very very soon without getting lost anyway.

Yeah, Luxembourg is very enjoyable place and where it's having a wonderful time here and doing hopefully what we believe.

Is some good.

Fortunately, of finding some replacement shoes that were only one size too small, Allison did make it back after only a few wrong turns.

Monique Thank you very much for doing this. It's very important for people to hear your story because your story is just one tiny story that this man has created in Europe and in Australia. So he obviously was going under a long list of names, but in this story we'll call him by his current name, which is Rick Bloom in Australia, Rick Bloom. So who was Rick Bloom to you?

In the beginning, it was I was just divorcing, I was alone, I lived alone, and he was welcome. He was an interesting friend. He spoke man, some languages, he knew how to tell stories about his family in the Second World War. He was a Jew, he was adopted in Australia. For me, he was interesting, interesting man.

Did he come across intelligently intellectually?

Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. But sometimes he told me a film that I have seen, also how the Jewish people were transported in the concentration places. He told also films to me. And when I saw that the distance got greater and that he had here, ETCETERA pin of a war he participated Australia against I don't know what Australia was in the war, and he passiptated in that.

Was that the Vietnam War. So he told you he was an Australian soldier.

Yes, of course, of course. And he showed me his acid rippings that were so really bless you don't so here here here, here up there. And he showed me his legs and told me that there machine gun in the war machine gun. And I thought, I thought that the lack was so he was for me practically also a hero.

So he was pretending he had wounds from the war, from the war, from the Vietnam War, Vietnam War. From the moment he met you, what did he promise you?

He wanted to marry marry me? No, no, never in my life, I don't. I am just devo. Don't speak me of marriage. And so I think that there I was someone who didn't fit in his representation marriage. He can take his marriage and go somewhere else. No, not yet, I throw him away. When I knew in phoned in Australia and I could hear this is what he's speaking. And then I knew that he was married, and I did not believe him anymore. It was practically by hearing

He was very educated with me, and by the sounds of it, very smooth.

Yeah yeah, yeah yeah. And of war, of hero, of his family burned in Auschwitz.

Lots of stories, very very very convincing.

And directly changing. I think I am a little bit educated, but I think he is not educated, not at all. He has never seen university or something.

Manique, did you love him? Yeah, in the beginning, did he tell you that he loved you?

Oh yes, oh yes, yeah, oh yes.

Did you ever give him any money?

Never?

No.

I am Luxembourger, I'm a farmer. I know if money.

No.

When I knew him, I told me that he worked in the English embassy as special ancient. I believed it, susim right.

So he made it as if he was James Bond.

Something like that. That is really yeah. And if you know at a certain state stadium of relationship.

You do not know.

Yeah, Ia, that is true, and so on is and I wrote a letter to the English Empathy because it was something in me told me I want verification. I never got none. So then he told me that they never given out. And I believe that. Yeah, I believed it, and that is true. But if you uh to Frederic Devari working at the English Embassy letter, I got never an answer, but a position began in my brain. It beguns easy begun in my and the other things. Yeah, you can love someone not people also love vanishes.

But you are a teacher. You were a teacher, a very smart woman. How did he manage to pull the wool over your eyes so many times?

He was good? He was extremely good. And I can't understand each woman that give him millions when she has it so persuasive persus Yeah, and if he laughed all the time, he said, it's like that chuck chuck, chuck. We luxembocause are not like that. So serious man. And you you know me little, you know me a little bit now.

So he was a lot of fun to be around.

Yeah, and new things and thinking I didn't know that, thinking standing above above everything. He laughed.

Monique are describing a very good.

Liar, a very good, absolutely absolutely good liar.

What else in his personality? What sort of person do you think?

He is a very poor guy, a very poor guy, and he showses women. His partners were always women, and that there he has a big advantage. He was not an ugly man. He could many things very good. So you understand me and and always well never, oh yes, let's do here, let's do say he left. He did leave me completely free. I was if he had tried me marriage or something to never, I was free and he was disciplinable.

Do you think he is capable of violence?

Oh yes, oh yes, in the biggest dimension, in the highest dimension. He made me once sign a paper where there was nothing written, nothing on it, nothing at all. But I saw you have to sign sign it now signing, and so in his aggression that is serious money. I saw him capable, must have just before I saw him out of the country. If you come back once, I will immediately go to the signed that and I signed it.

Yes, like it's a Swan statement.

It must be it is. It must be delivered. And if they not deliver, you can go to to justice, to the police of Arlon. Arlon was in Belgium.

Monique lives in the city of Arlon. It has a population of just over twenty eight thousand, making it the smallest provincial capital in Belgium.

And I retracted May and then he had disappeared, Chuck, I was good, good, well, the school began in three weeks.

I he was vanished and that was the last time you saw him.

No, after a year, I was I was very ill. I got the depression because if I understand not what happens to me, that can be very destructive for someone who wants to understand and has questions like why what happened? Why? Why are you right? Are you to throw him away of country like that? He could very good play the role of a victim. That he could best the role of victim. His family all burned or everybody burned in Auschwitz or somewhere, and he alone on the streets of Berlin,

Do you believe he has had anything to do with the disappearance of Marion Barley?

Yes.

He always told me, Monique, let's make a world voyage with I buy a ship with a veil, you know, uh siege if that would be fine? But then here, Monique, what are you doing on the ship with a man like him. I have no possibility to get away. I don't come with you. I have seen weapons, I see the gun.

So Monik, all of this, all of this experience for you, all of this, however you want to whatever you want to call it, experience, adventure, saga. Let me go backwards. When you met Rick Bloom, Who did he say he was?

What was his name, Frederic Deva? Then WILLI bou bou be or muti? And that is a badge?

Then what reason did he give you for changing his name?

I am at the English Embassy. I'm a special agent, and I must have those different identities. I must here.

Ah, that's the reason he gave you for changing.

Yeah, one day I saw him pulling up from the soil an identity card. So what do you do with that? It's not your identity, Monique. He opened and showed me at least ten identity cards different. Are you crazy? What do you do with the identity? Cut Monique? That's my profession. I believed it, but then I know I didn't believe in everything anymore.

Yes, that's when you write a letter.

Yeah, that's why I live still over Yeah.

So when you look at this in total, how has this affected your life?

In nothing, I have become strong much. I have nobody. I have only myself and I look in the eyes of Frederick. Or what do you say, piece of fear, piece of fear? If you show up one time, I will go to squeeze. He never showed one time. He showed up. Money, come back, come back. We have discovered in Australia in the passage of Cook Cook passage an old Spanish ship and it's full of silver. Come we will get that. He was finished. I said no. I just said no.

And what do you think then, of the way he's treated all the other ladies widows here in Belgium.

I understand the ladies. A woman who wants to live, she wants still to have emotions. She wants it to have a life she has never had. I understand that. Very good, very good. I would never do it because I have herd that experience.

Do you feel sympathy for them?

Oh? Yes, so a bit, very bad, very big sympathy.

Well, why do you think that the police in all these different countries have never been able to to really get to the bottom of.

The truth because women don't give up their emotions so easy. Must be very strong and say that was answer? Not not as men? Perhaps I will have my satisfaction. You will, you will die, my dear, No, I will begin, I begin.

You are.

Nothing for me, less than nothing you are.

Do you think he's managed to escape a lot of his problems because the victims have been embarrassed.

They have been through through really because at a certain age, many women are alone and the family is a family.

It is what it is.

You have to go alone to that. And then he must be a little bit. I was younger.

That was my fault.

I will do it without you your blood fast.

So what did you think of him taking your former husband's identity?

Bloody?

So he took advantage of you by taking your husband's identity. Yeah, and then down the track Marion Bart Yeah became.

Missus woman Florabella Missus the remarkaal.

Yes, coming up, we traveled to where it all began.

We've heard so many stories from so many different women that are essentially the same story in their connection with Rick Bloom, Willie Wooters, Frederick Bird a very whatever he calls himself at a particular point in time, a lot of his approaches to these lonely women have been the same, and they've ended up in the same tragedy. Well, one sort of person, what sort of man is capable of doing that to somebody else?

If you knew Marian or have any information about her or her where about, 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 Vanishes dot org. If you like what you're hearing, don't forget to subscribe. Please rate and review our series.