This is the case of Marion Barter, a mother teacher friend missing for twenty five years.
You know, I know something 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. This is The Lady Vanishers the catch Up series, Episode one. Hi, I'm Alison Sandy.
And I'm Brian Seymour.
We're only weeks away from November thirty, the date when New South Wales State Coroner Teresa O'Sullivan is due to hand down her findings into the disappearance of Marian Barter. We began this podcast on April one, twenty nineteen, with the aim of sharing Marian's story and the hope of trying to help her daughter Sally, find some sort of answers. Back then, we had no idea what lay ahead, what we discover, or just how many people from all all around the world would support Sally's quest.
Would you believe? We'd originally slated only about eight episodes, now forty plus episodes on Here we Are. We're aware that forty episodes is a lot to binge. You'd need to set aside a full working week to do it. So for our faithful long time followers who like a refresher and for newer listeners who want to get their head around this extraordinary story, the next few episodes offer a condensed version of the events that shaped our podcast
since twenty nineteen. There will be segments of the original episodes as well as new commentary, but we'll be eliminating the red herrings and focusing on the clues and information that were key to bringing us to where we are today. Obviously, even though these are compilation episodes, there is still a lot of information to get through, so they'll be pretty lengthy. Now, sit back, as we rewind to the beginning of the Lady Vanishes.
Episode one introduced us to Marian Barter through the eyes of her daughter, Sally Layden, who at that stage had spent the best part of twenty two years wondering why her mother had disappeared after taking off on an overseas trip in nineteen ninety seven. She had mixed emotions. Was her mother really missing? Why didn't authorities take the case seriously.
At the time of her disappearance, Marion Barter was fifty one years old. She was average height, slim, with dark, wavy shoulder leaked hair, fair skin, and hazel eyes. She was very feminine and some a little eccentric. Marian loved floral's and was quite particular about the way she dressed. Her home was furnished with antiques and expensive artworks. In photos, you notice her smile is very thin, almost reminiscent of the Mona Lisa, and that she seems to be communicating
something or she could be simply thinking of nothing. She did like to be loved and to be in love. She was married and divorced three times, and hence was at various times known by four different names. Marian Wilson was her maiden name. Her first marriage was to Australian soccer star Johnny.
Warren attack through Johnny Warren number ten.
Coming up to be. Her third marriage was to Ray Barter in between husband Stuart Brown. He was the father of her two children, Sally and Owen. They were twenty four and twenty three years old when their mum vanished. Certainly is now forty five a married mother of three.
And how close were you with your mother?
I know it's an odd question, but some people aren't close with their father or mother.
How close were you with Sharon?
I think I would say we had a pretty normal, normal relationship. I think if you asked me to compare my relationship with my children, I'm closer to my children than my mum was to me. But I also have reflected on that as a child and think that I wanted my life to be different with my kids. I wanted to be a different parent. I wanted to go and watch them at their football games, and watch them do their gymnastics and be there for them every step
of the way. So I've actually probably go the opposite end of the tunnel where I'm probably too too motherly.
Big boys, that was.
A bear.
That was Marian was also a teacher, a highly regarded one. She trained at Balmain Teachers College in Sydney and was named Queensland's Teacher of Excellence in nineteen ninety six. Teaching was her passion, loved.
It and anyone that you talk to will tell you that, you know, what a great teacher she was. Somewhat to Owen and my detriment, I think because she was so involved in teaching that she was more about her students than she was about us sometimes, which I think is pretty standard for a teacher who loves their job, I think from what I've seen over the years. But she was very well loved. She's godmother to hundreds of children, and you know, growing up in primary school.
She was a teacher at our where I went to.
Primary school as well, and quite often if we weren't staying back till five o'clock getting ready for the next day in the classroom, we were invited to somebody's house for afternoon tea and hanging out with people. And I reconnected with all of those people on faith Book since they found out about mum, because it's actually been quite earth shattering for a lot of people to even consider that that would be something that would happen to her,
and everyone has something really nice to say. I remember one boy once when I first started a Facebook page about mum being missing, and he came on and he said Missus Brown, who she was known in primary school. He's the same age as me, so we were in the same year together through primary school. And he said, she's the only person who's ever got me into a two two and because mum was very big on doing theater productions and things like that.
In the school.
And I think we're in the Nutcracker or something, and he had to wear a two two.
And he's now about six foot tall and big, big guy.
And yeah, so she had a lot of a lot of influence on a lot of people. Another girlfriend of mine who's the same year as me as well at primary, she's now in theater, and she actually posted something on the page and said, I always remember my parents telling me that year three was just a gap year for me because I was doing too much theater and too
much drama with Missus Brown. But hence I am now in theater, and my whole motivation and my whole reason I'm in this career is based on my experiences with her from grade three, so she has touched a lot of people and it's a very sad, very sad situation.
In nineteen ninety seven, Marian was teaching four and five year old boys at TSS, the Southport School, an exclusive all boys school on the Gold Coast. She said earlier that that sometimes felt like your mother spent more time and cared more about the boys she was raising in the school, and she did for their own children.
Yeah, everyone loved her. Everyone wanted a piece of her. So she was always if we weren't at someone's house, as I said, for afternoon tea, she was staying back at class doing something for the kids for the next day. Or she had us in the holidays painting Beatrix Potter pictures of you know, missus Tiggywinkle on the windows, because that was the theme she was doing that that term. But she was all about school and all about the people at school and not always about oh and I
as such. But didn't mean she was a bad parent, She just had a different way of parenting us.
Marian abruptly resigned in the middle of the school year, an unusual move for a teacher is dedicated as herself.
Sixteen June nineteen ninety seven. Dear Sir Madam, I wish to inform you of my resignation from the Southport School on Friday twentieth of June nineteen ninety seven. I'll be traveling overseas for an indefinite period and hopefully teaching in England and Europe. I'd like to renew my registration for nineteen ninety eight in advance and advise you of my forwarding address for future renewal should I need to do so. Yours, sincerely, Marian Barter.
Something wasn't right.
She'd just won their Teacher Award of Excellence for Queensland, so she was voted the best teacher in Queensland in nineteen ninety six, and it seemed that there was a little bit of a tall Poppy syndrome going on with the new teachers that had come in, where they were trying to knock her down a peg, is my take
on it, from what she had told me. So I'd be over there for dinner and she'd be in tears telling me that these people had said horrible things about her, and she was not in a very happy place.
What happened to you, mother, Sally.
Briefly after the incident where I saw her at her home and she was in tears and had told me that information. She told me that she decided that she was going to go on a holiday for a year and wanted to go to the UK. She'd always wanted to go on the Orient Express was one of her bucket lists.
And I was all for it. I was like, you know what, go for it.
You single, You've got no ties here, you know, do whatever you need to do. And so she said, look, you know, I'm going to sell the house because the house is a three bedroom home, it's got swimming pool and no one's whim in. I'll sell the house when I come back. I'll just buy a unit at Main Beach. And so she then ended up giving us a little bit of her furniture. She had a lot of antiques. She said, I'll give that to you.
Now so that you can have.
It's going to be yours anyway one day, so you may as well have it now because when I get back, I'm going to downsize. And she put the rest of her things into storage and she quite openly said to me, if i'd get a job over there, She's very interested in the Steiner School program, and she had a lot of passion for being a bit eccentric, I guess in
your teaching style. So if you were reading she was reading a book about going to the beach, she'd take the boys out of class and they'd walk down to the water's edge and play in the sand.
And she was that kind of teacher.
So she was very interested in Steiner and had openly said to me, if I don't come back and get a job over there, you can just send my things over for me. And we were very open and happy for her to do that. It wasn't like it was like, oh, you're not allowed to go, you can't go. We were like, sure, no problem.
Within weeks, she'd sold her home at a loss of fifteen thousand dollars. She'd bought the property for one hundred and eighty thousand dollars in nineteen ninety four, but let it go for one hundred and sixty five thousand. It seemed like she was in a hurry. When Sally's then boyfriend Chris Laden was helping Marian to pack up her home,
she suddenly turned on him before she left. There are a couple of odd things that you've now in hindsight realized seemed very odd, particularly one night he spotted her filling up at the petrol bowser.
Yeah, what happened?
So I was at Taife and my husband who we were married at that time, but Chris was helping mum pack up the house. So she'd already sold the house and was packing her things and putting them in the shipping container. And at about eight thirty that night, she kind of panicked and said, oh, what's the time to Chris, and he said it's take thirty and she said, well you need to go. You just drop what you're doing now. I need you to go, and was quite abrupt.
And anyway, he came and got me at nine.
O'clock when I finished, which I typically didn't on this night and we would always stop at the McDonald's local on the way home just to grab something to.
Eat because it was always too late. And he picked me up and he said, gotch your mother's rude.
And I said, why, what happened? And he said, she just kicked me out. Like I was just in the middle of packing up stuff in the box and she just said, just drop it. What's the time you need to go and so he was quite annoyed, I would say at that point, because he was there, it was a kind gesture helping her.
And anyway we went. We stopped at the McDonalds.
And McDonald's is one of those McDonald's where they have the drive through you can fill up your petrol as well, so it's got the petrol station attached to it. And we were sitting in there and I had my back to the bowsers, and anyway, Chris, I was getting him something extra to eat, and I stood up, and as I stood up, I gave him an open window to look out to the bowsers and he said, Oh, your mother's just pulled into the petrol bowser. And so I've
turned around and I could see her. She got out of the car and she stood at the door and I was waving, and I didn't know if she could see me because I was inside in the restaurant. Anyway, she just looked at me like a deer in head lights.
And there was.
A guy in the car and well again, like you know, when you're at nighttime at the petrol station and the lights are reflecting on the windscreen, it's really hard to see. But he was quite tall, like I would say, his head was nearly touching the roof, and he seemed quite darker colored skin.
No one you'd recognize, not that I would know.
And anyway, so I'm standing there waving, and she got back in the car and she drove off, but instead of driving past me to get out onto the main road, she drove around the back but got stuck and ended up going through the drive through at McDonald's, and me, being twenty three, raced over and looked at her and pointed at her as she went through the drive throom and went busted, thinking it was funny, Like I thought, Oh, she's got a new boyfriend and she doesn't want to tell me about it.
Anyway.
The next day I said to her who was the guy in the car, and she said, he's just a friend. I met him at the art center through a friend of mutual friend, and he just wanted to take me out for a drink before I go overseas. I thought it was a bit odd. I was like, one, it's a bit late to be going out. Two you don't drink, so not sure where you were going, and three.
Your behavior was a bit odd.
So the mystery man in the car has always been a bit of a thing in the back of my head.
Who is he and why was he there? And why did she panic?
Because she didn't want obviously, I want us to see why she kicked Chris out so quickly.
Marian's collection of valuable antiques and paintings were put into storage, but no one knows where. Shortly before her big trip, she helped to celebrate Sally's engagement to Chris.
It was really nice actually, because my brother came and my dad came, and it was the first time in our adult life that all four of us had actually reunited and been back together. Her mum spent some really nice time with Owen two and took him up to see my grandparents, who he hadn't seen for a long time at Caloundra, and it was a really special time
for him, men for mum. And Mum bought a cake for the engagement party and she organized all that, and she was quite excited for us that we were getting married. And she actually the school that she was working at had a beautiful chapel with all the rose facing inwards, which I really loved, and I asked her if we could get married there, and she said only the old boys are allowed to get married at the chapel, and
so she said, but let me ask. So she went to the principal and said, can I ask one more favor before I leave? And he said, anything for you, Marian, And she said, well, Sally wants to get married in the chapel and he said, no problem. So they organized all our meetings and interviews with the priest, and Chris and I got married there eighteen months later. But Mum wasn't there, sadly, so it was a bit of a tough day.
Well, you never assumed you'd never see her again.
Never, you know, for her to leave halfway through a school year and up and just sell her house within three weeks and get on a plane and not want anyone.
To come to the airport to see her off.
For her to leave, and then to contact us numerous times while she's over there. That also says to me, if I was going to go missing, I'd get on a plane. You'd never see me ever again. I wouldn't be bothered to write postcards. I'd be out, I'd be gone.
But the fact that she.
Took time to write letters, She took time to write cards, she sent her sister birthday presents from over there that to me is not someone that is wanting to go missing. She also said in her postcards she was terribly concerned about some stuff that she'd had in her storage that.
She needed me to take back.
To TSS because she'd held it at home because of the safety of the product. So she had a set of kitchen scales, and she had bought a set herself with her own money, and the boys ruined it, and she used to use it for math lessons. And she had said to me in a letter and a postcard making reference. And the last time I spoke to her on the phone, all she was concerned about was this set of kitchen scales that cost fifty dollars, and she said to me, you know, you must get them.
Back to the school.
I took them home because I didn't want the boys to ruin them again.
Those and the Russian dolls, and.
The Russian dolls and these little teddy bears.
Dear Salem Chris, Greetings from beautiful but very wet UK.
From her letters and postcards home to family and friends, it seemed Marian was having a wonderful time.
I finally arrived in England after a most interesting visit to the east.
On July thirty first, nineteen ninety seven, Sally and Chris returned from a ski holiday in the Snowy Mountains to find a voice message from Marion on their answering machine. She'd heard of the deadly Threadbow landslide and was concerned for their safety.
The landslide started at the edge of the Alpine Way before slamming into the Bimberdeen staff Lodge and the nineteen ski workers in.
Chris and I had been skiing at Parish the day before the Threadbow disaster happened, and when we got home we'd driven down. So when we got home back to the Gold Coast back in the days when we had answering machines on our phone, and we got in and there was the light was flashing and I pressed it and it was Mum Hi, and it was the first time she'd rung me since she'd been away, and this was the thirty first of July, and she said, oh, we've just heard word over here about the Threadbow disaster.
What's happened at Threadbow. I was just worried for you and Chris and making sure you're okay, I'll try you again later. And I got really sad because I really desperately wanted to talk to he because I just bought my wedding dress on the way home, literally the day before, on.
August the first, Marion called Sally again and.
She said she was at a payphone and she told me, I'm sitting here in Tunbridge Wells in the UK, and she said, I'm.
Having a fabulous time.
I'm just having some SCons and tea with some little old ladies that I've met and I'm having a really nice time. But I just thought i'd touch base. I wanted to make sure you and Chris were okay, and so we had a big chat and she asked me about if I managed to get the things back to TSS, which I had, and we talked for a bit about what she was doing, and she said to me, I've postponed my trip on the Orient Express because I'm having such a lovely time here exploring everywhere, so I'll go
on that later. And then the phone kept dropping out, so the money the phone.
Kept dropping out because it was a pay phone back in those days, unless you kept putting coins.
In correct was a voice saying well, just kept dropping out, and then she'd bring me back and she's, I've got more money, and so she kept putting the money in and I said to her, where are you and I'll call you back save being on the payphone. She goes, no, I'm out. I'm just I'm having tea with these lit old ladies.
I just wanted to call.
She didn't tell you the location she called from, that, did she.
She said she was in Tumbridge, Wells.
She did say it was Timber sent the letter from Yes, correct, okay.
And I had you know, back in the day, there was that delay when you were talking to someone overseas, the international call. You kind of got that delay before they'd speak, so she was definitely definitely there. It was definitely an overseas call. And the money kept dropping out, so I think she rang back about five times, and then the last time she rang back, she said, this is all the money I've got now, So you just talk until the money drops out.
So I just kept talking and telling her what we're up to.
And I just got an interview with the police force because I was trying to get into the police service and bought the wedding dress. So I just told her everything, and then the phone just went dead. And that was the last time I've ever spoken to her.
It was the last time any of Marian's loved ones spoke to her. Do you still hear her voice in that phone call?
Today?
Her voice resonates with me a lot in the back of my mind, and I can hear her talking and laughing, and yeah.
So she was a big part of my life.
So my mum and dad separated when I was really little, so I was really just my brother, my mother, and I who did everything together. So we went on holidays together, and so, yeah, she's a big part of my world.
After that final phone call on August first, the days and weeks slipped by, Sally wasn't too concerned at first. Marian had said she needed a break and not to expect much correspondence. But on October the eighteenth, alarm bells rang for Sally. It was her brother Owen's birthday. Marian always made a face at birthdays, not this time.
I was starting to get a bit worried. I was like, I don't even know where she is. I don't know what hotel she's staying at. I don't know where exactly, she's located over there, and so I started to get a bit worried Reed, and I rang Owen two days after his birthday, and I said, did you hear from Mom for your birthday?
And he said no.
With increasing suspicions about the lack of contact with her mother, Sally decided to contact Marion's bank to see whether she was still accessing her accounts. Remember, Marion had just sold her Gold Coast home, so she had plenty of money available to her.
I had her bank details because I kept her who she had given me her car, and the plan that we had was that I was going to sell my car and then give her the money for my car and keep her car. And if in the event that I didn't sell my car, I just look after her car while she was away and she'd get it when she came back. So it was a pretty even Stephen
kind of situation. But I had her bank details in saying that, and so I rang the bank while my friends were over for dinner, and I said to the lady on the phone, my mum's traveling overseas by herself. We haven't heard from her for a little while. And it was my brother's birthday, and I'm concerned for her. Could you please check to see if she's using her account. The woman's standard answer was I'm really sorry. I can't
tell you anything due to privacy. And then she paused and she said, did you say that your mum's overseas And I said yes, and she said, oh my god, money's coming out of her account and Barren Bay. She kind of had said to me, you can't tell anybody that I'm telling you this information, because you know, obviously I'm not supposed to tell you, but I'm actually concerned.
So she then told me everything that had happened on her account, and we counted it, and she said, there's like three and a half weeks of every day in Byron Bay, five thousand dollars increments being stripped out of your mum's account. Three of those days in the middle somewhere. We're back in Burly Heads on the Gold Coast.
Now.
She taught on the Gold Coast. Chris and I lived five minutes from Burley, and I've always questioned if it was her taking the money out, One, why wouldn't you take it out in a lump sum?
Two? Why would you do it every day?
For in five thousand dollar increments, which is the maximum you can take out. And three, why would you come back to the Gold Coast where you are at absolute risk of being seen if you want to go missing and everyone thinks you're in the UK?
Why would you walk the streets of Burley?
And how was the money withdrawn?
I don't know. I don't know that.
So what happened was we kind of did a quick addition of it and I was like, oh my gosh, that's like eighty thousand dollars, what the hell?
And back then that was a lot of money.
So Chris and I got in the car the next day and I took one of her school photos, portrait photos, and we walked.
The streets of Byron Bay.
I went to Lowest Lane shoes and I went to places I knew that she had visited in Byron Bay that she liked, and not that she went to Byron Bay very often, but she had a fetish for these shoes down there.
That was one of the first ports of call.
Where we went to see if she'd been in there, and they were like, I'm really sorry, and everyone's standard answer was I'm really sorry.
So no one who Sally approached in Byron Bay in late nineteen ninety seven, could recall seeing Marion in the weeks that her bank accounts were drained.
Sally contacted police on the twenty second of October nineteen ninety seven and reported her mother, Marian Barter missing. Nothing has been straightforward since. On August the second, nineteen ninety seven, the day after Sally last spoke to her mother Marian on the phone, there's a record of Marian's passport returning to Australia under the new name Flora Bella Natalia Marian ramecl.
And I thought that was quite odd.
And the documentation also said that she was living in Luxembourg and that she was married status married and Judy's home occupation was home duties, and that she was coming to Australia for three days. However, police have confirmed to me that Customs told them that the passport never left the country again. So even though it said that she was only coming for three days, that passport never has left Australia again, which.
Is baffling to me.
So who is this Flora no idea.
I've never heard of the name Flora Bella in my life.
It's been confirmed Marian did change her name by deed Pole before she left for England, but her family did not know. Sadly only found out in May twenty and eleven, four years after she discovered Marian was no longer on the official missing persons list.
I had so much contradicting information from police, so police rang me a week after I listed her missing and said she doesn't want anyone to know where she is or what she's doing. I was then told by the AFP that they never physically cited her, They only spoke to someone on the phone. Yet that freedom of information document says that that is not reflected in the event.
I think it says, and it says that I have In twenty eleven, there's a statement saying the nixt of Kin has said that she was called by Nick Byron Bay police to state that her mother was found and that she didn't want anyone to do anyone to know where she was. However, this is not reflected in the event and that's not documented in the statement. And I was like, wow, one hand, I've read that I was confirmed one hundred percent. Rang me and told me that
I told my grandfather. He said that's not good enough. So he then went to the Salvation Army Tracing service. They then started doing a search, but I have led a documentation from them too, saying we've never found your.
Mother, to further muddy the waters. Through September nineteen ninety seven, large sums of money were taken from Marion's Australian bank account, and her Medicare card was used in northern New South Wales. However, the twenty thousand dollars which Marion transferred to a Barclay's Bank account in England to pay for her year of travel has never been touched, nor has her superannuation. There was no contact when Marion's father died, when Sally got married,
or when Sally had her children. Even when Owen, Sally's brother, Marian's son, tragically took his own life the age of twenty seven them.
He said, it was the worst day of your life.
I was horrendous. It was horrendous.
So Ella was only six months old, seven months old, and we'd been sitting out in the garden. So Chris was working in the garden and I had her on my lap, and Eden, his fiance who he'd been with for ten years, rang me and said, have you heard from Owen And I said, no, I haven't. And she said, well, his motorbike's missing, and he hasn't been at work for
the last two days, and the apartment looks weird. She said, all the powerpoints have been pulled out of the wall, and there's money and his keys sitting on the bench, and there's a note there saying this is the money to do my laundry. And anyway, so I said, well, he's probably just gone for a ride somewhere to chill out. I don't know. I haven't heard from him. He'll be fine, you know, no idea whatsoever. And then Chris turned around and said.
Has she checked the garage? And I looked at him.
I went, why would you say that. I don't say that. Shaky, silly. That was in the afternoon. Anyway, I said to Ed and go and check in the garage. See if he's in the garage. He might be me thinking he was in the garage working on his bike or something. Anyway, Dad called me at ten twenty one pm. I had just finished feeding Ella at ten, so I just put her down and I just got into bed and kind of just dozed off, and the phone rang and I remember thinking looking at the clock, going, who would ring
me at this time of night? And Dad rang me, and he had some profanities to speak, and you know, in a stressed situation, saying the police are here, He's done it, I've gone and I've got to go and identify him now at the morgue. And he was in a very panicked manner. It was not gently told to me. I was very abruptly told, but understandably. Dad was really upset.
So I jumped out of bed and I had I put a robe on because it was like I was cold, and I put grabbed a photo of him, and I just put it on my heart and I just tied my robe really tight, and I remember walking around the house going, I don't know what to do.
I don't know what to do.
The valuable paintings that Marian stood have seemingly vanished. Despite official claims that Marian is alive and doesn't want to be found, no one, including investigators and police, has actually physically seen her. How would you describe the dedication of the authorities, including the police, in terms of finding out how your mother vanished.
I'm really bewildered and very sad because she is a person, she's a human being, she's a mother, she's a grandmother. You know, she's missed out on so many things in life that are really important.
And I will tell you that.
Unfortunately, I don't want to speak badly about anybody, but I will tell you that I feel like every single time I've reached out and asked for people to help me, they've slammed the door in my face quite firmly.
Is part of that, because they think that Marian has chosen to disappear, and you just can't accept that, because that's when reading the documents, that's what I keep getting from people, from police, from authorities, from the Salvos. They're trying to impress upon you the fact that she may never have gone missing.
Is that how you feel? Is that? Do you feel that that's the way they're treating you?
No, And unfortunately those documents have a lot of information on them that is not correct, and that troubles me as well.
What's your gut feeling about what's happened to Marian based on.
The fact of how quickly she quit school and left and was not in a very normal state that I would know my mother to be, and she was not happy. She was very upset, she was frazzled. She was to tell Chris to get out. Is not her personality at all. Something had happened, Something has happened to.
Make her leave.
Sally has endured half a lifetime of sadness, frustration, confusion and hope. What if she's out there, alive and well, knowing what you're going through, but just for whatever reason, not reaching out to you.
How do you process that?
I don't know.
I've tried to stay positive about it the whole way along. I don't want to be an emotional mess about the situation, and I've I've kind of thought to myself that if it was a case that she just wanted to be missing, that would like I would just walk away from that.
I would not sit there and question her or you know, I've read a lot about a lot of literature and a lot of information about missing persons, and so many people who are missing or go missing and then decide that they want to come home, but they don't come home because they're worried about the backlash that's going to happen with their family, and what are the family going to say to them? Are they going to I just give her a hug, and the first thing I do is introduce her to my kids.
That's pretty tough. That's all you can ask for.
I wouldn't even I don't even think i'd care to know what she's been doing. It's hard, but anyway, we'll see, we'll see what this brings.
I'm hoping.
I'm only doing this so that I can try and find her. Just give her a hug, and you know, tell her that she's loved and that we've missed her. And I'm sad that she missed my wedding, and I'm sad that she missed me having babies, and I'm sad that she's missed are graduating. And you know that she plays the cello, and that Darcy is the state champion in gymnastics, and Caleb bl Love's playing rugby. You know, I'm sad that she doesn't get to see all those wonderful things.
In episode two, we learned about Marian's life, who she was as a person, from those who knew her best, her friends, and her family. We went right back to when Marion Barter was Marian Wilson, the first child of Colleen and Jack Mackenzie Wilson born on October third, nineteen forty five in Inner West Sydney.
The family moved to Queensland when Marion was about four or five, living in the bayside suburb of Wellington Point near Brisbane for the early part of the nineteen fifties. The Wilsons returned to Sydney around seven years later, to the southern suburb of Oyster Bay, just in time for Marian to start secondary school at Port Hacking State High.
One of the few people who remember Marian well from that time has agreed to speak with me. It's her sister, Deirdre Stewart.
Hello.
There were four girls in the family, Marion, Deirdre, Bromwyn and Lee. Deirdre was two years younger than her big sister.
Yes, I mean, like all parent children relationships, there were times when it was a bit strange, but generally speaking, I think she adored her parents and they adored her.
Do you have any rebellious years as a teenager like that?
No, don't think so.
So she was well, good daughter.
We were all good daughters. We did what we were told. We were a bit frightened of our father, so if he told us to do something, we did it.
So basically it was a nice, happy household.
Yeah.
While Deirdre admits she wasn't close to Marian, she does remember her fondly.
She was my big sister, and she did more interesting things than me because she was older than me. And she had beautiful clothes, which I was very envious of. But having said that, she often lent me clothes to wear I was going out somewhere. She used to buy really nice clothes. She liked his minor label clothes like Norma Tullow and designers from the nineteen sixties, and she
had quite a lot of them. And she had a dressmaker that used to make a thing, so she sort of used to design her own clothes and get this dressmaker to make it really really nice clothes. She was very attractive, Marian. She had a lovely siger and she always looked gorgeous in clothes. She was always immaculately dressed. And you know, she had excellent tastes in things. She loved old things, and she collected bits of china and
stuff like that. She knew a lot about china and what china was valuable and what furniture was worth collecting. So yeah, she had very good taste in clothes and in daycor and she was very elegant and very attractive, and she had a very outgoing personality. Everybody loved Marryan.
She would always talk to people and pour a heart out to people, so that you know, that was probably one thing that was a little bit unwise on her part, so that everybody knew everything that she was thinking and feeling. Like she wore a heart on a sleeve.
Marian loved to be loved, Oh.
Yes, definitely. She liked men, and she liked having a man in her life. In fact, she told me once she could never live without her having a man in her life. So yes, that was important to her. And she had a lot of relationships outside those marriages too, so you know, she liked men and she liked having relationship with me. I wouldn't surprise me at all if she'd found, you know, another guy, and was you know, I had fallen in love and was troubling overseas with him.
That's probably what I would have soon happen to her.
It wouldn't surprise you if the reason she gave it all up was for a man.
No, that wouldn't surprise me at all.
Unlike Marion's daughter, Sally, Deirdre is happy to let the disappearance of her sister rest. She doesn't feel the need to know what happened and wishes Sally could just let go.
I think she should just leave Mary and be and just accept that she's gone and that she's got a new life somewhere and just leave it go. But that's something and she feels the need to track her down and find out what happened, and just in case, you know, something awful has happened to her, well, then that's what she's got to do. She's the only person who knows that. I'm not about to judge Sally for what she's doing, but it's not something I would do, she says.
The impact on the family has been enormous.
Lee gets very distressed. She was very close to Marian, and she gets quite distressed when Marian's brought up again. I think she's a bit unhappy that Sally's, you know, dredging it all up again. And Sally has sent us a couple of texts implying that Lee and Brown and I have all been trying to hide information from her or not divulging information that we had and that you know, we weren't being very helpful, and that she was trying to find out what happened to her mother and we
weren't being very helpful, which is totally untrue. So that was quite hurtful. I know Lee was very upset about that. I think Bron just ignored it.
You seem a little bit disappointed though, that Sally's still pursuing this.
Yes, probably probably because it just sort of dreades it all up again, like you sort of get on with your life and you know, I mean I think about it periodically and I think, well, she's probably in some nice place doing all sorts of interesting things, and so yeah, I think it's quite painful to go through it all again. I'm glad my mother is not around to go through it again because it was upsetting for her.
Yeah, it must have broken her heart to have a daughter. I mean, I can't imagine it'd be hard enough with your mother, but your daughter.
Yes, it was very upshitting for them both.
Was it your parents that you felt were the most hurt or devastated by it?
I think so.
Yes.
Did we last saw and spoke with Marion at Christmas in nineteen ninety six.
To spend Christmas with Mum and Dad on Sunshine Coast, so we would have done that as her normal. Ninety seven, which was the year that she left, I also went overseas and I was away for three months, so maybe Dune, July and the end of July. I came back at the end of July, so I was actually still away when she left to go to England. Didn't see her off. I didn't get to talk to her or wish were a happy holiday or anything. I know. She went up to stay with Mom and Dad for a while before
she left. I think both my other sisters went up there as well, so they chatted to her, but no, I didn't actually get to speak to her, so it's a long time since I've spoken to her. I came back at the end of July and there was a little pastor waiting for me because it was my birthday on the seventh of August, and she sent me a little present and a little card which I didn't keep, unfortunately, but I read it and she didn't say anything which
I thought was unusual or anything. She just wished me a happy birthday and hoped I'd have had a good trip and told me how excited she was because she was just about to get onto the Orient Express. So she seems to have sent a lot of letters to people around that date. And after we discussed it together, we talked about it together later on when we started to under you know, what was going on, you know, had she which was she?
All right?
You know what about your sisters? Did they have any other contact with Marion? Not that I know of, no postcards as well or anything that.
Yes, I think they probably all got cards as well, you know, or a postcard on my postcard and present came from Tunbridge, Wells my elderly relatives. Postcard came from Sussex. I'm very excited, she said. I've been very brave. I hired a car and I've been touring around and having a lovely time.
So from Deirdre's memories of her sister's childhood in the nineteen fifties to her last contact in nineteen ninety seven, we're now skipping back to the nineteen sixties when Marian was dating Johnny Warren, a talented young soccer player who'd go on to captain Australia.
Warren, how many goals would Australia need to win on Sunday Week.
I don't remember when, maybe enough and play in Australia's first appearance at the World Cup.
Enough.
He became a broadcaster known as Captain Soccero for his passionate work to promote his favorite game, Canbra Boy. Marion and Johnny married in Dulige Hill, a suburb of Sydney, in December nineteen sixty seven, but the happy times don't last. Johnny was between international soccer tours when he announced the marriage was over. Marian and Johnny were married for just four years.
I'm calling an old friend of Marian's. Hello, Hello, Janie Alison Sandy. How are you? Janice White used to teach with her when they were in their twenties.
How I'm just changing years.
They met not long after Marion's marriage to soccer star Johnny ended.
I think it was seventy two when I met Marion, and it was before Sally and Owen were born, and I was working in a school, primary school in Sydney, and I was not long back from working in western New South Wales, so I was a feeling a bit disoriented and Marian came to work during the year in the classroom next door to me, and as we were a bit separate from the rest of the school, we sort of she I think she needed someone to talk with, and I guess I needed a friend in a because
I was in a totally new situation as well. We jirlled. Then we stayed friends until she disappeared.
When you say different circumstances from what you were before, can you explain what you mean.
Marian had come out of her first marriage and she was feeling very hurt and hadn't lasted a long time the marriage, and they had been in a long term relationship before they married, but then wasn't a long lasting marriage. And I think she was I guess, you know, of all the feelings that you would be experiencing at that time that she was. She was a bit lost, she was confused, she was looking for direction, she was wondering where her life was going to lead, all those types
of things. And as I said, I'd come back from back from country New South Wales and was living back in the city again, and I was, you know, I was actually trying to re establish myself as well. But yeah, and I guess because we were also in a building that was a bit separated from our colleagues. We would often just sort of you know, I didn't have morning
tea together and things like that. She was a very easy person to talk with, and she she was always the person that was very warm, so you felt that you could talk with her and that she would, you know, take on board what you were saying. You know, she would be supportive under different circumstances. She was also a lot of fun as well.
So what sort of teacher was she?
Oh, she was a wonderful teacher and wouldn't be the only person that said that. She was full of energy. She was lively, extremely creative, very musical, really good with the children. I think she was teaching a year two class, and she was an excellent teacher. She was delightful. She would be full of energy and had wonderful ideas, could
develop great relationships with children. But she was also you know, when she needed to be firm, She set rules, and the children really enjoyed being with her and in her class and all that. Yeah, I mean she was accepted well by the rest of the staff all that sort of thing as well. So yeah, now I would have been delighted if she'd been in any school that I worked in as well. There was never any doubt that she was a great teacher.
So then I guess how did her life develop? After getting over her first failed marriage with Johnny, she.
Actually went on to meet Stewart and she married Stuart and had Sally and Owen, So that she always moved. Marian was a real home and that in any home that she had, it was always really well decorated, but not in a formal way, in a really comfortable way. But she had lovely furniture and lovely crockery, and she knew how to create what was a really comfortable home, but a very attractive home as well. But she did move around a bit.
Stuart Brown and Marian met through Stuart's sister, Robin Creevy, who was then the deputy principal at Peaker South Infant School, where Marion worked.
I knew her because I was the infants mistress at peak Her South, and she was transferred from Narwey because the infant's mistress there was coming. Now that's right, I was deputy there. The new infant mistress was coming from Norwiy and Marian was such a priest teacher she got her to transfer to peak Her so Marian transferred there, and I would have to say she was probably one of the best teachers I have ever encountered. She had
great energy. The house that they lived in at mort Dale Heights was absolutely so beautiful, and she was a great gardener. She spent many many hours in the garden and everything she did was perfect. I always found her a person of integrity. She was intelligent, she was very creative.
Nobody worked harder with their children in their classes. Do you know we used to have a third of a pint of milk that was distributed children every day, and John Wren was promoting some sort of energy thing, like a chocolate based energy thing that you added to milk. She used to spend her morning tea time taking the lids off enough bottles of milk and mixing packets of that into the milk for the children to have. That's the kind of person she was.
By nineteen seventy two, Stuart and Marion were a couple because they were both getting over failed marriages. Pretty soon, Marian was pregnant. Sally was born in May nineteen seventy three. Then Owen arrived seventeen months later. Did you see any changes in her since then, you know, like, how was she as a mum? So this is Janus again.
Oh, she had daughter children, took care of them well and played with them, took some places, was a great person for taking the children off to have different experiences and that type of thing. She loved her children. She was very affectionate with them. That was another thing about Marian that she wasn't stand office at all as far as her physical nature was concerned. So they should give them hugs and kisses and tell them how wonderful they were,
and all of that type of thing. From what I could see, she was a very loving, very affectionate mum.
But things guarded turning sour. According to Robin, Marion left Stewart and moved to Queensland in nineteen seventy five, but when Stuart's father Ivan was diagnosed with leukemia, the couple reunited, moving to Springwood in the Blue Mountains and officially tied the knot in nineteen seventy seven, but by nineteen seventy nine it was all over. So Marian was on the
move again, from Springwood to nearby Lapston. When her children were in primary school, she met Ray Barter, a car detailer and the man who had become her third husband.
By the nineteen eighties, Marion and her old teaching friend Janis had lost contact to some degree, but new friendships will form me. Wendy Paggart's son, Jerome, was in Marian's first grade class at Springwood Public School in nineteen eighty.
She was an amazing teacher, best teacher I've ever experienced in the whole schooling career of my children. She was very, very dedicated to me. She opened up a lot of new doors. She loved ballet and plays and all sorts of theatrical things which myself or my children hadn't been exposed to previously. She took them to Seize one late in Sydney. She got even the boys dressed up in the most out handish gear in plays and everything.
You know.
I've got pictures of my son a big top hat in the night shirt as Peter Pan. The kids all loved her.
Wendy later became godmother to Sally, and I.
Kept up the friendship with her even.
After that, and a bride'smaid at Marion and Ray's wedding on June the ninth, nineteen eighty five.
Seemed a nice enough fellow and they showed dogs together. They were Afghan dogs that they had there.
Around nineteen eighty eight, Marion Ray and Sally moved to the south coast of New South Wales, building a home at Gyngong good Morning. There she met Barb Matthey.
She was a neighbor and she moved into a house opposite us at Jerringong and we got to know each other because she's a very friend. She was a very friendly person. She was a teacher and I was a teacher as well, so I wasn't teaching at that time, but she was still teaching.
Then she shifted again to Kayama Heights.
She was like that a little bit. She would not put down roots for long.
Marian and her son Owen had always shared a special bond.
But since Ray had come along, the connection between mother and son had deteriorated.
He was a funny young kid. He was extremely intelligent, and she always said that he needed to be in a special school or a special class because he was so intelligent. He was so far ahead of the other kids that he's really boord and he was always in trouble at school. But on the other hand, he used to do some really weird teens, but she really sort of doated on him. Sally good kid, you know. I got on really well with Sally, didn't get on so well with Owen.
Why was that?
Well?
He was just.
Sent without sounding awful. He was an odd child, He had funny ways. Yeah, he was just shy.
Was very normal.
You know, She's a really normal, every day Australian kid. But Owen was different.
Was it just about being the male in the household?
Was he just threatened by more than that?
It was more than that. It was also that well. Once I remember was that mowing the lawn and Owen came out and took the mother and said I'll do that, and I said doing him? I said why? He said, because I'm the man of the house. And I said, well, you're too young for one thing to be pushing a mother. I said, so best to go inside and I'll finishing. So there there was a little bit of tension there with him. I basically just didn't worry about it. I
just ignored it. But she did. She did have a bit of a soft spot for On, but then she wouldn't know about his because that happened after she disappeared.
Obviously, he didn't get along on that sway. Oh, and ended up living.
With his dad.
Yes, yeah, that was part of the reason. Yeah, he did go and do with his father and we didn't sort of see why do I To be honest.
Do you think it was something within Owen or was circumstances that kind of led to I guess, you know, his mum disappearing. Could that have been a contributor to what actually ended up happening.
God's that's really hard question doing so. I don't really know, to be honest, it's possible. But he loved his mum, Yeah, absolutely. I mean they were pretty much acceptable, the two of them. She could sort of appreciate him for what he was, you know, because he was a really intelligent kid, but being you know, a bit eccentric probably is the word.
This is how Sally remembers that time in the nineteen eighties.
The Owen story is a long story. It goes right back to when he was little. I don't know, he probably would have been in year four and I was in year five, maybe even younger, year three and year four, so little you know, we're talking nine and ten. Mum had met a new guy and he came to live with us very quickly. We hadn't met him, and we'd been at our dads for the weekend. And I remember Mum coming and picking U up from the train station and she said, I've just got something to tell you kids.
I said what, and she said, Oh, We've got a guy who's coming to come and live with us. And I said okay. And I was a bit shocked by that, and I didn't really understand it either. I didn't quite get it, but as I grew up and learned. He walked out on his wife and his three kids, and he needed somewhere to go, and Mum had been on a couple of dates with him, so she being my mum the person that she is, it's Ray and he came and lived with us. And he walked in with
an added ass bag. That's all he brought with him, one bag. And I remember Owen and I walked straight out.
We didn't even speak to him. He was in the kitchen.
We went and sat on the trampoline and just jumped on the trampoline and looked at him through the kitchen window and thinking, this is really bizarre. There's a guy in our house we've never met before. Anyway, Mum later married him, and the problem that stemmed from that was that Owen and Ray never got along. So Owen had an IQ one shy of being a genius, but he was an odd person.
He had non personality. I was kind of like the.
Extrovert and he was the introvert. And we were only seventeen months apart, so we did everything together. We had matching BMX bikes and everyone used to think we were twins. And I remember Owen and Ray struggling a lot to get along. Ray used to get cranky because I remember one day, the law mol wouldn't start and he couldn't work out how to get the lawmolder to start, and I walked out and tinkered with the spark plug and got it to start, and Ray actually got really mad
at him. Ray and Owen's relationship. He actually gave my Mum an ultimatum, and he said, either he goes or I go, And so Mum sent Owen to live with my dad.
Soon enough, Marian and Ray's marriage was on the rails. By nineteen eighty nine, they were divorced. Once again. Marian was single, and she didn't like it. Here's Janice again.
She was very devastated. I guess, yeah, she was a bit older and wiser, but than what she had been possibly twenty years before. But when she'd broken up with Johnny.
But.
It was tough. It was tough on her and she was restless again. She just didn't know what her future held, and that's when she started talking about moving out of New South Wales. She did eventually move to Queensland.
Marian soon settled into a new life on the Gold Coast. She scored a position at the exclusive TSS, the Southport School.
For a time, everything was going well. Her friend Bob came up from Jerngong to see her.
She seemed very very happy teaching those kids, that's for sure.
But by nineteen ninety seven something was unsettling Marian.
She was stressed.
Her passion for her job was crumbling.
She was stressed and she was short tempered. I guess that generosity of spirit was rather dented.
There were unpleasant rumors about how she handled her students and talk of a falling out with certain staff members.
In episode three, we took a deeper dive into what was going on at Marian's workplace, the Southport School. At the time. She abruptly quit in nineteen ninety seven. From the recollections of former colleagues and parents of former students, it appeared that Marian had at first enjoyed working at the school, but in nineteen ninety seven her relationships with
some other staff members were becoming rocky. Having won Queensland's Teacher of the Year award in nineteen ninety six, there were now unpleasant rumors circulating behind her back and suggests she was having mood swings that caused tension in the classroom.
It seemed that there was a little bit of a tall Poppy syndrome going on with the new teachers that had come in, where they were trying to knock her down a peg, is my take on it. From what she had told me, so, I'd be over there for dinner and she'd be in tears telling me that these people had said horrible things about her, and she was not in a very happy place.
We also learned that in her personal life, Marian was lonely. It was in this episode that we first mentioned a pilot, the father of a boy in her class, whom Marian apparently had a crush on. Since then, we've established that this pilot did exist, but there was never anything between them, only a fleeting, one sided attraction on Marian's behalf. We also learned that Marian was, for a short time in
a relationship with the school maintenance man, Greg Edwards. However, as we later discovered, this was no passion at romance, more of a friendly companionship which had fizzled out well before Marion decided to take a trip overseas. Friends recalled she was restless and needing a change. However, she did not speak of anyone special in her life, but seemed excited when she suddenly decided to upend her life with her job, sell her house, put her belongings into storage,
and take a trip overseas. This is Marion's longtime friend Janice White, and I actually spoke.
To her night or two before she left, and she was excited. She was planning on going to places where Jane Austen had lived and all of that sort of thing. She was very excited and very happy about going overseas. I must have been. I was surprised when she told me she'd sold the house. Well, when you go overseas, but you don't usually sell your property before you go. You know that she was planning on staying a while. But yeah, Joe said, that surprised me, but I guess it's something I wouldn't do.
Janice and marian sisters all remember receiving postcards or letters from Marian while she was away.
I think she enjoyed traveling, and she definitely wanted to go on the Orient Express. You know, that was a long held desire of hers. I don't know if she was going by herself or she was traveling with someone. She never mentioned anyone else, so I assumed she was going by herself. The last time I heard from her was the birthday card that I got from her. The one that my elderly relatives got was dated the seventh of July, and she seems to have sent a lot of letters to people around that day.
Seventh of July nineteen ninety seven. Brighton, Sussex, Dearest Nony, Margie and dub hope you're all well. Thinking of you as I passed this interesting little shop, having a wonderful time exploring, and I'm finally beginning to relax because of all my luggage. I decided to hire a little car and have been rather brave motoring carefully around this gorgeous place. I'm shortly after Amsterdam and the Orient Express on the
fifteenth of July. Lots of love, Marion. Please give love to sister d and hope she's home safely after a wonderful trip.
What about your sisters? Did they have any other contact with Marion? Postcards as well or anything that.
They Yes, I think they probably all got cards as well. My postcard and present came from Unbridge. Well, my elderly relatives postcard came from Sussex. I knew she was going away in ninety seven. She was looking forward to going overseas and she had a ticket to go on the Orient Express and she was very excited about that.
Yes, I wasn't expecting at sea forever.
Very few people hung on to Marion's postcards or even thought to. They all presumed they'd see her again, although Sally has kept too. The first is from Alfreston, a scenic village in East Sussex, about one one hundred and thirty kilometers south of London. Marion has not written the date on the card, and the postmark is far too faded to read. It features a picture of some little shops in the village center. One of them is called Sally's Craft and Gift Center.
He's an excerpt, Dear Sal, thinking of you as I explored this little shop on my tour to the historic village of Alfriston, and feeling much more relaxed. The strawberries tastes divine, and so do the raspberries. Lots of love to you both, Mum.
The second postcard is a photo of London's famous Tower Bridge. It has a postmark dated July nineteen ninety seven.
Dearest Sal and Chris, hope you are well and I guess eagerly looking forward to your snowy trip. Have a great time. I really quite love just being a tourist. I decided to experience the Tube, travel around London to see the sites, and of course drop into Harrod's David Jones, move over. What a shop, So crowded and so much stuff. Lots of love, Mum.
In all of the correspondence she sent, there's no sign that Marian is unhappy or about to cut off contact with their family and disappear. She seemed full of life, enjoying the sites, but still keeping track of what her loved ones were doing at home. As Marian indicated in her postcard. Sally and Chris took a holiday to Australia's Snowy Mountains in July nineteen ninety seven.
In a domino effect, the terrost lodgers had collapsed on each other, dumping tons of rubble on the victims.
It was this trip that prompted Marian to make a phone call home.
This rescue effort could hardly have faced tougher conditions. Freezing, cold, dark and dangerous.
On Wednesday in July thirty, nineteen ninety seven, at eleven thirty five pm, rain, melting snow and a leaking water Maine caused a catastrophic landslide at the Threadboat Ski Resort. Two ski launchers were destroyed, Eighteen people were killed.
Any survivors had endured freezing temperatures overnight, hopes of finding anyone alive of fading.
News of the disaster was beamed around the world. Marian in England became worried for Sally and Chris, who was skiing in the area. The couple was safe, but Marian didn't know that, so she called their Gold Coast home and left a message on the answering machine.
I just got word what happened at Threadboat. Wanted to make sure you and Chris were okay.
This was the thirty first of July and she said, Oh, we've just heard word over here about the Threadbow disaster.
What's happened at Threadbow.
I was just worried for you and Chris and making sure you're okay.
She called back the next day, August first, and had a long chat with Sally.
She said, I'm having a fabulous time. I'm just having some SCons and tea with some little old ladies that I've met, and I'm having a really nice time. But I just thought i'd touch base. I wanted to make sure you and Chris were okay.
Marian said she was in Tunbridge Wells now known as Royal Tonbridge Wells in Kent, England. The payphone she was using kept dropping out, so as she had to ring back several times. Sallie told her about her ski holiday and how she'd found her wedding dress. Marian spoke of her adventures in England. She revealed that she'd postponed her plans to ride the Orient Express and said that she wouldn't be sending as much correspondence as she wanted to
have a holiday. In the days that followed, Sallie turned detective and made some disturbing discoveries. She found out that Marian or someone using her passport, had returned to Australia on August the second, nineteen ninety seven. That's just one day after Marion's phone call from Tunbridge Wells in the UK. Sally called Marian's bank and found out her account had been accessed throughout August and September almost every day for three and a half weeks. Five thousand dollars had been
drained from her account. Fall up it amounted to around eighty thousand dollars.
Sally's next stop was the police station to officially report her mother, Marian Barter missing. The following statement was taken by Senior Constable Graham Childs at Byron Bay on Wednesday, October twenty second, at two thirty seven pm. It is important to note that this was not listed as a missing person file, but simply as an occurrence.
The next of kin is concerned that the person of interest, who is her mother, has traveled to England and has not returned to Australia. On the second of August nineteen ninety seven, and did not contact her upon return. Members of the family have received postcards dated the thirtieth of August nineteen ninety seven from England. Inquiries with the persons of interest bank indicated that she had acted on her account a number of times, including several transactions at Byron Bay.
The latest transaction was the sum of eighty thousand dollars by telegraphic transfer, possibly to an overseas account. A stop has been placed on the account with a narrative for the person of interest to contact her daughter as a matter of urgency. At this stage, it is not planned to list the person of interest as missing, as it is believed she is capable of behavior of this nature. It is not unusual for her to not contact members
of the family. She is a three times divorced woman in her fifties, and one possible scenario for her behavior is that she has returned to Australia with a companion and has transferred the funds to England to purchase a property there, with the view to move to in Endland.
Sally called each of Marian's friends and loved ones to find out if they'd heard from her. News of her disappearance was met with disbelief. Here's janet Oma day.
But to me, she was just going on a holiday.
She didn't mention who she was going to see or whatever. So it was just a shock.
When she supposedly came back that she disappeared.
Is it something that to you seems completely out of character for her?
Absolutely?
Absolutely.
She was so passionate about her family.
You know, she was very close to her mom and dad. She talked about her mom and dad a lot.
And you know, of course Sally.
Marian's parents, who both now died, were traumatized. Her father Jack, sought help from the Salvation Army's Family Tracing Service. From here, the story of Marian's disappearance becomes confusing, filed with setbacks, mungling and bizarre breakthroughs. The conflicting information that's been fed to the family has splintered them.
So that's the first of our condensed catch up episodes. Now on to catch up episode number two. 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 forward slash The Lady Vanishes, where you can also email us. Oh and 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, presenter and investigative journalist Brian Seymour, producer and writer Sally Eels. Sound design Mark Wright, transcripts Charlie Dally Watkins, graphics Jason Blandford. The theme and much of the music by Nicholas Gasparini at the Darkpiano dot com. This is a Seven News production