Welcome back to The Lady Vanishers the catch up series Episode three. I'm Alison Sandy.
And I'm Brian Seymour. This time we revisit episodes five to nine of The Lady Vanishers.
By this stage of our podcast, we were starting to receive a number of leads and messages from our listeners and former acquaintances and colleagues of Marion. Sally was also outlining how many different authorities she'd approached, from the New South Wales Police to the Salvation Army Missing Persons Unit, to Federal Police and in twenty sixteen, the Queensland Police. She even approached the New South Wales Premier to have carriage of the case transferred to Queensland.
But she still felt that every door she knocked on was being closed firmly in her face. Having already determined that Marian was not on the electoral roll, was not receiving the pension not claiming from Centerlink, and had not used her Medicare cards since September nineteen ninety seven, Sally made inquiries into her mother's unaccessed superannuation and checked with the Australian Tax Office to determine whether there had been
any activity in her mother's name. He's an excerpt from episode five.
Sally is convinced money plays a big role in this case. This is her reasoning. Why would someone go to the effort of withdrawing the limit of five thousand dollars in cash every single day for three and a half weeks in August and September nineteen ninety seven from Byron Bay and Burly Heads, where Marion was highly likely to have
been recognized. If it was Marian making the withdrawals, couldn't she simply prove her identity to the bank and transfer the money to another account, or again, with proof of identity, have the withdrawal limit raised so she could take a lump sum in one transaction. And why would someone purporting to be Marion be angry with Sally that the seven five hundred dollars she'd made selling Marion's car wasn't immediately
transferred to her account. It wasn't as though Marian was desperately in need of the cash, she just sold her home. Her bank accounts were very healthy. Sally's theory is that whoever drained Marion's bank accounts or convinced Marian too did not know that Marian had a significant amount of superannuation owing to her, and they did not know about the twenty thousand dollars Marion transferred to a Barclay's bank account in the United Kingdom just before she went overseas that's
still sitting there. Back into that and seventeen, it amounted to just under fifteen thousand dollars. It is not known how much Marion used during her trip or how much has now been eaten away by bank fees. Here's Brian speaking with Detective Gary Shean.
Sally wonders if perhaps someone might be acting in a coercive manner. Do any of Marin's actions indicate to you the possibility of a motive, either for her or for someone she knows, or someone who is possibly coercing her.
No. Look, there's been nothing that I've found during the period that I've had the investigation that suggests there would be any coercion other than perhaps her becoming involved with somebody who has impressed upon her that this might be a good idea, that is, to move away from the family and start a new life. There's been nothing to suggest that she is in any danger whatsoever. There's been
nothing like that at all. Everything that I've found factually and circumstantially indicates to me that it's a very real possibility that Marian has decided to just start a new life for herself, and that.
New life presumably is here in Australia if she's still alive, because there's no record of her leaving on that passport.
Is that no, that's correct.
Over the years, in her desperation, Sally has even met with psychics.
I did.
I had a couple of friends of mine actually tell me that I should speak to these people. I always take it with tongue in cheek because you know it's not proven fact. But I will tell you that I've had two separate clairvoyance on completely different spectrums tell me that she's buried under floorboards and that she's deceased. So I found that really odd that they both said exactly
the same thing. In two thousand and two, a guy had called crime stoppers and told that a woman by the name of Marion who went missing from northern New South Wales area had been killed and was buried in bushland in Armadale. And I questioned as to why they didn't look into that, and they said, well, we get calls like that all the time, and I said, that'd be fine if we'd had several calls, but we've had
zero calls. So he fought for it, and they let him take one dog and one dog handler to search an area, and it rained the whole day, and evidently they didn't find anything.
Armadale is another town in northern New South Wales, about three hundred and fifty kilometers southwest of Barren Bay. Detective Gary Shein says he thoroughly investigated the anonymous call to crime stoppers, but his checks were carried out in twenty ten. Sally believes the anonymous call came eight years earlier, in two thousand and two.
The other thing I will say is that at one stage there was some information come in that Marion had met foul play and had been buried out at Armadale in a paddock. I followed up that information and I traced the source of the information. Unfortunately it was a bogus name, but the address that they gave was a real address. So I traveled out to Armadah and I spoke to the people that lived there. They had no
clue about what I was talking about. They didn't know the name that had been given to crime Stoppers, and I went further than that. I actually went out and spent two days at Armadah looking for the site that I believe that they had been talking about in their report. I found what I thought was the site, and I took out a kadava dog with me and I involved the Sees in a fairly expansive search for two days and we came up with nothing. So that's the only
thing that we have had in the whole time. And I think that information came in prior to me being involved in the investigation, but it was something that I acted upon. But it's been the only information so far that would lead me to suggest that there was something wrong with Marion, and it proved to be false. And I guess to your relief, oh absolutely yeah. I mean, nobody wants to find out that somebody comes to, you know, to an end a grizzly and the murderer. Absolutely yeah.
Sally remains active on her Facebook site to find her mother, regularly posting updates on any developments.
Please to be able to share with you, I'd have a strong media interest in telling mum's story.
Watch this space.
She's well aware of online trolls, faceless keyboard cowards in target vulnerable people to inflict pain through sheer malice. But every now and then she'll receive an odd message through the site that will raise a red flag. Just before ten pm on Tuesday, the twenty third of July twenty thirteen, there were a couple of unusual posts there from someone going by the name of Clark Hunter. The first reads
Natalia is alive, but you never see her again. It's followed by it was not her intention to disappear, she was forced. Sally has kept a screenshot of the messages.
This guy called.
Clark Hunter came onto the Facebook page and posted and said, which I find really odd. He called a Natalia and he said something along the lines of Natalia didn't want to go missing, but you will never see her again. It was not by choice, is what he said. And then I questioned him and I said where, And he came back a few times and I thankfully screenshot it on my phone because then he deleted himself from the
Facebook page. So but I don't know who Clark Hunter is. No, and I don't know if he's a troll or I don't know if he's someone genuine.
They're missing out on their grandmother.
While Sally refused to accept that her mother would just abandon her life, other loved ones, including her sisters, felt that was the only conclusion they could draw.
Sally told me the police told her that Marian wasn't a missing person. She was fifty two years old and she had chosen to leave and that was her right to do so. And you know, I'm happy to accept that. You know, I think she's probably met someone and settled down and got a new partner and starting life afresh, probably got a new job somewhere. I'm sure she's probably perfectly happy.
Even Marian's ex husband, Ray Barter, believes she's still alive.
Oh absolutely, I would not look something may have happened to her. I don't know, but to be honest, if you want my honest opinion, I think she's still aligned. She's somewhere would not surprise me in the slightest.
As for Sally, she's toyed with all sorts of possibilities. There were so many questions that play on her mind. What happened to make her mother want to leave Australia so suddenly? Why did she unexpectedly order Chris out. The evening, he was helping her pack up her things.
I think it was a Tuesday or a Wednesday evening. Sally was at Taife and Marian had sold the house, and I was around there helping her pack. I specifically remember I was sitting on the lounge room floor and I was packing up the TV cabinet and she walked out and said, what's the time. I told her what the time was, and she said, right, just drop everything. I need you to go now. It was a little bit weird, a little bit out of character, but I said, look,
I'll just finished packing this box. She went, no, just leave it all there and go. I need you to go right now. So I packed up and I left then and got Sally from Faith.
Who was the man in Marion's car the Knight. Sally spotted her at the petrol station shortly before she went overseas.
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.
Yet police are convinced Marian has not met with our play. There is the lingering doubt, though, that some misadventure may befallen Marian in that Sally saw her with a mysterious man in the days leading up to her disappearance. This was totally out of character, and we know that people are often coerced, often by an abusive partner or a third party, into doing things precisely like we're describing, changing their identity, emptying their accounts. Marian is a collector of
antiques and artworks. We don't know where they've gone. Does anything lead you to the conclusion that possibly she may be a victim of foul play.
I haven't been able to come up with anything at all of my investigation that would suggest that she was a victim of foul play.
What would you need to go down that avenue of inquiry, What sorts of evidence, what sorts of things would you need to come across.
Look, it's hard to say because everything is different, but if there was something there, then it certainly would be something that I would follow up. But there's been nothing to suggest that or all.
Without proof that Marian is dead and without proof that she is alive, Sally's life remains in limbo. Officially, she can't even finalize her mother's estate. No one can. Sally is the sole executor of Marian's will and air to her estate.
My last will and Testament dated twenty fourth of October at nineteen ninety one.
After the breakdown of her marriage to Ray Barter, Marian left everything to her two children, Sally and Owen.
I have given my daughter Salliem a fun Wee Brown, substantially more than my son, Owen Clifford Brown. The reason I've done this is because my son, Owen Clifford Brown resides with his father, and I feel that in the event of the children's father's death, Owen will be adequately provided for in his father's will.
But with Owen now deceased as well, Sally is entitled to everything. However, she's resigned to the fact that her mother's final wishes may never be realized.
In episode six, we went back to Byron Bay with Sally. This was where much of the money was drained from Marion's account on a daily basis in the weeks after her passport returned to Australia in nineteen ninety seven. Here's what happened in that episode. Today, our first stop is the bank, so let's just take a walk down here. Actually, I can see the common walk back up, Sal, we'll go through this way. I see right here, we're outside
the Commonwalk bank. Yep. Whether withdrawals made here physically or electronically. So someone came in here, didn't they?
Yeah, they did. I'm led to believe that that's what was happening.
Five thousand dollars was taken from Marion's account every day for more than three weeks in September nineteen ninety seven.
It is actually a different bank if it used to be up there.
Oh I did it.
Yeah, So it's actually because it was a flat yea. So when you walked in, the counter was right there in front of them.
Records suggest that there wasn't any CCTV at the time, but Sally's not so sure. So someone came here and made a number of withdrawals, and yet they didn't have any CCTV footagejohb. They didn't have any camera footage on obs.
Well, they wouldn't give me any CCTV footage when I came and asked them. I kind of walked in with her photo and told them that I'd found out that she had withdrawals coming out of this account this bank here Iron Bay. And he kind of just took the photo out of my hand and shook it and said, oh, that rings a bell and walked off into his manager's office, closed the door behind him, and came back out, took a photo copy of the photo and then said to me, what would you like me to say to her if
I see her? Which I found was a very odd scenario. I'd just walked these streets, and I'd gone to the newsagents and gone to the pharmacy and wool worse and showing her photo around, and no one had had anything to say.
No one knew who she was.
Or what was going on. So could it be that he recognized her possibly possibly or someone that looked like her, or that it was an odd thing to have happened. I mean, Byron Bay, the locals know the locals, and you know, if someone's coming in every day for three and a half weeks with drawing the same amount of money, that would flag something to me is not quite right?
Do you think, Marian was walking these streets twenty two years ago, walking through here into this bank, making withdrawals out of her own account. Do you think she was the one doing Itally don't know.
I really honestly don't know. Yes, she could have been, but at the same time, it seems very odd to me. And this is always what's resonated with me the whole journey is that if it was her doing it, why wouldn't you just.
Do it in one lump sum?
And why would you bother coming to the bank. That's a big effort to go to the bank every day for three and a half weeks, and five thousand dollars is the maximum you can take out. So if it was her, why wouldn't she just electronically transfer it or you know, come in and do a transfer and a lum sum to a different account.
So I question whether.
Someone was forcing her to remove her money, And that's the problem for me.
Is it possible that looking at it from the bank's perspective, they've got a duty of care, and that is if he or the manager recognized that woman as the person who'd made the withdrawals, and they maybe shouldn't be sharing that even with a woman who claims to be her daughter.
Yeah.
Sure, it was just an interesting way that he went about it, like to shut the door behind him as he walked into his manager's office, and to take a photo, like a photocopy of the photo. That was odd to me, odd behavior.
Ra, No, we can't share that information. I'll see if we can help you.
And if it would be normally, if it was just a flat out I can't tell you that would have been what it would be.
But it was more than that, wasn't it more than that?
Like there was something dodgy.
On that day in October nineteen ninety seven, when Sally canvassed the streets, no one recognized Marian's photo she detected, perhaps a flicker of recognition from the bank teller, but not from any other person. Admittedly, there are a lot of tourists at Byron and itinerants, so there's a regular
passing parade of new faces. But surely a local or someone who worked in the shops and cafes at that time could recall seeing or speaking to a middle aged woman who was in town every single day for three and a half weeks. Sally was in Byron a matter of weeks after the last withdrawals from Marion's account were made, so people's memories would have been fairly fresh. But again, there are so many possibilities. Maybe Marian only ever went to the bank and left straight away, avoiding other people
and places for fear of being seen. Perhaps she was in disguise, or perhaps someone else was going to the bank on her behalf. About five hundred meters from the beach is the Byron Bay Police Station. Detective Gary Sheen, the investigator on Marion's case, works there. We go to see him.
Hello, how are you. I'm good, Thank you.
They make small talk before she and Gary finally diving to the subject that forced their lives to cross more than a decade ago.
Oh, I'm just thinking, I don't know. Like Gary and I have had plenty of conversations about this, haven't we. We've tossed over every possible scenario. And I think she's met with foul play. I think something has happened at TSS which sparked her to go into a frenzy of changing her name and going overseas and coming back. But why the money was stripped out of her bank account in such a unique fashion, and it's such a random thing.
To take out five thousand dollars out of a bank account every day for three and a half weeks, That to me isn't a flagged thing by the banks. And to change your name to such a random name like Florabella Ramkeel, Like if you want to go missing, you'd be Jane Brown, you wouldn't be Florabella. That's a really unique and unusual name for somebody who wants to disappear the face of the planet.
The name.
I thought that was quite flamboyant, very weird.
Like I just don't like it's just not the character of my mum either, Like I just don't know that she would be that person. So I don't know. I think I think something definitely went wrong, not to say that she didn't meet somebody or you know, do something and then it went pear shaped or if something happened, Like I'm still questioning who the guy was in the car.
That's a real mystery at the time. I've been thinking about.
Look too, and what I have found out since I've spoken to you last is that And these are just from parents at TSS having enlightened me to their story that she was seeing one of the dads in her class in nineteen ninety seven, and he was a single dad, and all they can tell me was that he was a pilot. I spoke to her teacher's aide and she said to me that when the little boy would arrive at school, mum would run out to go and see the dad in the car, and sometimes she'd be out
there for thirty forty minutes talking to him. And Barbara, who was an assistant, kind of got a little bit upset about that because she was like, oh, she left me to deal with the boys while she's out there talking to the guy, like you know. It was a bit of that kind of tone. And anyway, apparently mum used to babysit the little boy to help the dad out. And the little boy came into class one day and said to my mum, oh, see that lady over there.
My dad's going to marry her. And my mum collapsed and had a meltdown and ran out of the classroom. And Barbara said to me, she said, I felt like she had a breakdown at that point. And that's been really interesting for me because I didn't know about a pilot. I didn't know like I no, and I knew that she was openly seeing the groundsman, the maintenance guy that's Greg Edwards. So he's still at TSS.
Did I expect agree when I went up there?
Yeah, okay, So we went out for dinner with him. So Mum was very open and honest and.
All above board with it.
Everyone knew about that relationship.
I was like, why why hired the pilot? But then I spoke to Janice White, who's one of Mom's really long term friends. Mum used to teach with her in the sixties and she's friends with Barbara, So there was this kind of like little connection that I found out. And Jannah said to me, I knew about the pilot. She told me about the pilot and.
She said to me, I like him.
I'm not sure how much he likes me.
Yeah, okay, So that was an interesting.
Conversation to have. So I've kind of questioned, is the pilot the guy in the car at McDonald's.
That'd be something that I'd really really liked to know, because I remember when you gave me your statement, you talked about the fact that Mum had always pretty much been in relationships and yearned to be in relationships. So to find out who that bloke was in that car would be very, very interesting, and it'll probably give us a little bit more information than what we've got now. But the fact is we don't know who he is.
I so where I'm working on that detective She believes Marian has chosen to disappear, and he's not sure he'll ever find her.
Circumstantially, it paints a picture for me that leads me to believe that Marian, in fact, has decided to estrange herself from the family for whatever reason, and get on with a new life. There are a lot of things that Sally has told me about her mother's behaviors when she was in Australia before she decided to go over to England. She's also appears to have made a fairly quick decision to have gone, in that she sold a house, resigned from a job that Sally says she absolutely loved,
and then gone overseas. But prior to going I know for a fact that she applied for this new passport in a new name, and for whatever reason again decided not to tell the family that she had done that, and actually traveled overseas on that passport.
And yet the Threadboater has asked her she was calling, leaving messages to make sure Sally was okay. Why would someone disappear themselves from her daughter's life for good if she was still at that late stage checking in with them.
Yeah, look, I can't answer that. I don't know. I really don't know. Sally tells me that she did receive a phone call from my mum. From what I understand, that phone call is very close to when she came back to Australia. I have no idea why she would do anything like that.
The postcards seemingly countenancing a continuing relationship with her family. Why send them if you're cutting them off again?
I can't answer that. There may be reasons, but I just don't know the answers to that.
Now, the Luxembourg ball connection. There was a connection with Luxembourg, wasn't there.
There was a suggestion on the incoming passenger card. Well, it wasn't a suggestion. It was indicated on the incoming passenger card that Marion or Florabella had arrived in Brisbane via Hong Kong and was residing in Luxembourg. There was also an indication that she was only going to stay in Australia for a very short period of time days
or weeks days. But after having made some more inquiries with the Department of Immigration, those incoming passenger cards aren't checked and people aren't held accountable for what they write on them, So it would be very very easy to write anything that you wanted on the card and it
would never ever be picked up again. Through what I had established with my other inquiries, it led me to believe that it was a very good chance that Florabella had written what she did on the incoming passenger card to try and cover up the fact that she was coming back to Australia. Look, I don't know what goes through people's minds when they make decisions such as these, that is, to start a new life for any reason
that they decide. If she didn't want to be located, I think it would be a reasonable thing for someone in that mind frame to do, but to the average punter it would seem quite unusual. I mean, you have to remember that prior to going to England again, she applied for a passport with a complete name change, didn't tell anybody travel overseas as if nothing had happened in
regards to that. If you look at it in the perspective of a person who had gone to all that length of trouble to do that before she left, it just seems to be a step in the same direction and.
Also to play devil's advocate to find out whether or not she did come under someone's spell or fall to some sort of misadventure. Yeah.
Look, you spoke before about the fact that Sally had said she'd seen her mother with a gentleman. To my mind,
that could be one way or the other. But after again, having seen what I've seen and seen what I've found through my investigation, it tends to sit on the timeline of her being involved with a male person and quite potentially setting up a new life for herself that didn't involve her old Whilst it's only circumstantial, it does fit that timeline of how things occurred and some of the levels of secrecy that she went to to try and do some of the things that she actually did either
passport and return to Australia without telling anybody.
Detective she says, by now Marian could have a fully established new identity and life and may feel completely detached from the person she was twenty two years ago.
In a statement, New South Wales Police said proper procedure was.
Followed pajeteen of the NSWPF Missing Persons Standard Operating Procedures officers to seek approval from the manager of the Missing Persons Unit to withdraw a case from the register in extraordinary circumstances. This was done based on the evidence available to investigators at the time, a decision authorized and approved by Gary's superiors as per the normal chain of command.
In a bit to try to find out what may have been going on in Marion's life, we interviewed a forensic psychologist, the head of Federal Police Missing Persons Unit, and an expert in colts. By the time episode seven was released, we discovered that the New South Wales Police Force Missing Persons Unit was to be reviewed due to underresourcing and poor leadership. In this episode, we explored the many leads and messages we'd received from former students and
staff at the Southport School, Marion's last known workplace. We discovered some disturb being historical allegations about what may have been going on behind closed doors, some of it before Marian's time there. We're not going to revisit those allegations, as we're not convinced they had anything to do with Marian's disappearance, although it can be said there were likely some personality conflicts and Marian no longer seemed happy at work, which may have been the impetus for her to suddenly
quit without warning. We also looked at the possibility that Marian may perhaps be a witness in protection for something she may have discovered, but it was just a theory we explored, which delivered nothing solid.
In Episode eight, we headed back to northern New South Wales to investigate information we'd received from a number of people that Marian may be part of a cult there.
Despite our efforts, we drew a blank. By this stage, we were also trying to access Marian's passport and the documents she filled in to chain her name to Flora Bella Italia Marion Remachel, and we were making inquiries about passenger lists for the flights Marion took to and from the United Kingdom, as well as looking at the timing of her final phone call to Sally from Tunbridge Wells
and her return flight to Australia. We discovered that all bank withdrawal slips possibly used by Marian and the paper records of storage companies would most likely have been destroyed given the passage of time. And we began our connection with our super slutes, the first being Christina in the United Kingdom.
And I'm kind of like her stove with a bone, and I won't let it go. I just keep going until I find something. So yeah, I do have an interest in looking into the finer details.
Christina tracked down all of the flight numbers for airlines that travel from Japan to London on June twenty seventh, twenty eighth, and twenty ninth. In nineteen ninety seven, Marion had a stopover in Japan and on her way to England. She left Australia on June twenty sixth and her letter, written on paper with the Japanese hotel logo, was posted at Tunbridge Wells in the UK on June the thirtieth. Later, it was discovered she actually went on a different airline,
but at the time this is what we explored. All this was revealed in episode nine. Here's what else Christina was working on back then.
Okay, well, I started by looking into the postcards. So on one of those postcards that Marion sent from the UK in July nineteen ninety seven. The picture on that postcard was of a little market square in this small village called Alphaston, which is in East Sussex, and that's about eight kilometers north of the coast, and it's a small village and it's in a picturesque setting. Apparently back in nineteen ninety seven it was a busy village and
there was lots happening there, not so much now. And one of the shops in the picture is Sally's Craft Center, and this is where the postcard is purchased, because on the back of the postcard it has a gold sticker with the name of the shop, and Marian mentioned in it what she'd written in the postcard that she was there in Alpiston, so there's every reason to believe she was there. But since found out the shop is no longer Sally's Craft Center and it hasn't been.
That for some years.
I've managed to get the name of the lady that owned the shop and I'd like to make contact with her. Maybe someone remembers Marian coming into the shop, So I've reached out to some other local Facebook groups in the Alphiston area and the local lady there has offered to put up a poster on the noticeboard in the village store and maybe get the story published in the parish magazine. So the word is getting out there that Marion was there. So it's just continuing with that line of inquiry.
And I also believe that you've got some contacts potentially in the in regard to the Orient Express.
Yeah.
So my husband, who has worked on the railway for some years, he has a contact at the company that does the booking for the Urine Express. So he's made contact to them to see if they have any booking records or or any kind of records that go back to nineteen ninety seven, and he's waiting for a reply from them. That's another line of inquiry that's continuing at
the moment. So looking into Tunbridge World, because it does look like that's where Marion was staying, and that is in the county of Kent, east of Sussex, or their next door to each other. I've been emailing hotels in Tunbridge well to see if any of them have guest records going back to nineteen ninety seven, and so much time has passed, quite a few of the hotels have changed ownership or management and there aren't any records from that far back. I am waiting to hear back from
a few others. It's the same case with car rental places, because it seems that Marion rented a car. Usually due to data protection laws, there aren't any records from that far back. So again it's the case of sharing information with the public in the hope that they recall something. And then also we know that Marion was in Tonbridge, which is actually very close to Tunbridge. Well, so Tonbridge is spelt tn whereas Tundridge starts with tun They're very
close to each other, only about twelve kilometers apart. But it looks like Mariam visited a castle in Tombridge, and the letter that she sent to Sally the postage stamp has the town Tombridge on the stamp, so it really does look like she was there. And then that was dated the thirtieth of June, so it looks like she was in the Tombridge area at the end of June.
And then it looks like she's made her way further south, traveling around the southeast of England, further down towards the coast, which then leads to another postcard that she sent from Brighton, So she visited a shop there also another little sucked out of the way obscure shots and again that shop is no longer there unfortunately. The owner of that shop is retired and moved to France around two thousand and two. That may be a bit more of a challenge to
track her down. So she's bought the postcard at this shot in Brighton that that has the posted stamp of the town Hastings on it, which is a bit further east of Brighton, So that's possibly another location that she was in during those first weeks of July. So Zudie Cooper sadly mentioned that Marian became friends with a teacher called Sudie Cooper who went to TSS School on an
exchange but themes from the UK. Mary had mentioned to her friend and that it was good that she now had a contact in the UK if she should decide to stay or work there, As sadly pointed out, that would be a strange thing to mention if you were
planning on completely disappearing. So I'm looking into teachers here in the UK with that name, and has started sending a few emails I know that Sally was going to look into the archives at Tess to see if said any information on her, But be really good if she could be tracked down, because she could hold some really important information. Maybe her full name was Susanne or Susan, so I'd really like to narrow that down. But I think she would be a really important person to find.
That leads me on to the Steine School because he had mentioned that Marion may well have gone to the UK because of her interest in those schools. And there are two Steiner schools.
Here in Sussex.
One in forest Row which is just south of best Instead, and that is about twenty five kilometers from Tunbridge, well so not far. And the other one is in Brighton on the coast, which is about about twenty eight kilometers from Alphreston, so they're close to places that Marian was visiting. And I have email both of those schools and after if there's any record of Marion's visiting or making inquiries
into teaching there. Both of the schools have responded and said they've passed the information onto current staff and even some ex members of staff who were there in nineteen ninety seven. So I'm just waiting for some feedback from them, and I've now started to email other sin of schools as well. Just the small point that Bally mentioned to me this week was that Marian had said I think in one of her letters that she had put some of her luggage into left luggage Heathrow before hiring the
car and having more freedom to travel around. So I think she had quite a bit of luggage and getting rid of that for a while enabled her some more freedom. I'm just wondering if that luggage was ever picked up on me. I don't know if you would be able to find out that information now after so long that it was just the thought that I had, I thought, did she ever pick it up?
Good thought?
Now there is that possibility that her identity was stolen and it was somebody else that came back in and they wouldn't have known about that luggage if that was the case. Absolutely, So all right, No, that's wonderful, Christia.
Please keep in touch, so absolutely, and I'll just I'll keep digging and I'll keep notes of everything that I'm finding the information not as jasin, so whatever.
I can do, And true to her word, Christina keeps on chasing down any query or lead she has. In recent days, she's been in touch with British Telecom the BT Archives manager, asking about whether records still exist for a payphone in Tunbridge Wells that may have been used by Marion Barter on August the Fir nineteen ninety seven to call her daughter in Australia.
Dear Christina, I'm afraid payphone call records are not kept for any great length of time. I believe it's in the order of weeks or months, and certainly not years. I can state definitively that there are no such records from nineteen ninety seven in existence. Sorry, the brand able to help, best regards, James Elda Archives manager.
A dead end this time, but you never know until you try. In episode nine, we also heard from Sally's husband, Chris Leyden.
She was obviously a very passionate woman about the job that she did teaching. She was always very polite, She was always very accommodating of her guests in her home. She was someone who came across as a caring individual.
What do you think happened to her?
I don't speculate for me. You've got to base everything on fact. The problem is that there's not a great deal of facts. Even the police report is poor at best, to be honest, from what I've seen of it. Yea a five year old child with a box of crayons could probably keep a more accurate report.
Does it sometimes make you angry that Marian going missing has been such a source of sadness for Sally?
Yes?
And no.
There's not so much anger because until there's factual evidence around what's actually happened to Marian, it would be silly to bring an emotion like anger in. It's frustrating that there's an unsolved missing person's case that really the I guess the police services in general don't really want to know about. Yeah, there's a lot of speculation, there's a lot of assumption, and she doesn't fit specifically into one of their boxes on a report, so they leave her
as found. It's ridiculous because she's not found.
So perhaps if authorities had handled this better, then the room for speculation wouldn't have been as much.
I agree. I think if they are handled it better right from the start, instead of brushing it aside and making assumptions that weren't based on fact, perhaps she wouldn't be in this situation we are now.
You may recall Chris and Sally saw Marion with a stranger at a Gold Coast service station near a McDonald's restaurant, not long before she left to go overseas. This is his memory of that evening. Sally was at a class at Taife and Chris was at Marion's home.
So Sally mentioned that she turned on you one day when you were helping her pack, not long before she went overseas. Can you tell us about that?
I think turned on's probably a bit over dramatic, but I was round there. I think it was a Tuesday or a Wednesday evening. Sally was at Taife and Marian had sold the house, and I was round there helping her pack. I specifically remember I was sitting on the lounge room floor and I was packing up the TV cabinet and she walked out and said, what's the time. I told her what the time was, and she said, right,
just drop everything. I need you to go now. It was a little bit weird, a little bit out of character, but I said, look, I've just finished packing this box. She went, no, just leave it all there and go. I need you to go right now. So I packed up and I left, went and got Sally from Taithe.
After that, I understand that you and Sally then went to McDonald's. Do you have something to eat?
Yes, we did. I picked Sally up from Taithe. It was quite late, so a bit hungry. We just thought we'd drop in there to bundle road. Actually it was the service station attached to the McDonald's. We dropped in there, and yeah, at the time I saw marry him pull up at the service station to obviously fill a car with fuel. I said to Sally, there's your mother. Sally sort of got her attention, and she jumped back in the car and sped away, really the wrong way through
the drive through. Fun actually for her, But yeah, there was a there was somebody in the car with her who looked to be male and quite a tall gentleman at that.
Do you remember any other anything else distinctive about him at all?
No, I mean not really. I mean you're looking out a window into a lit service station fore court into a dark car, you don't. You don't really get detail of who that might have been. The silhouette of him through the window. He was obviously a big.
Person, and she moved quickly, did she without him actually putting petrol into the car?
And that's my recollection is.
We're still trying to find out who that mysterious tall man was. Marian brushed aside Sally's questions in the days after the incident. Perhaps it was just an acquaintance taking her out for a drink, though why the need for such secrecy. Marian said she met him at the local arts center. That may or may not have been true. However, it would be interesting to hear from someone who worked at the Gold Coast Art Centre in nineteen ninety seven
and was familiar with people who regularly visited. It seems unlikely that the mysterious man was Greg Edwards, the groundsman from TSS, whom Marian had been out with a few times, because he wasn't a secret. Sally had met him and would likely have recognized him. But could it have been someone else Marian worked with. Could it have been the father, uncle, or grandfather of one of her students, Perhaps the pilot, one of Marian's former colleagues, remembers the one that Marian
had apparently been seeing. Sally has managed to get her hands on some of Marian's class lists from TSN and we are trying to track down that pilot, or.
Was the mysterious stranger, someone who'd secretly swept Marian off her feet, lavished her with attention and affection, promised to help her escape the turmoil of her life, take her on an adventure and establish a whole new life. Maybe that person promised her the world and then took her world away from her. Whatever the case, if there's someone out there who has any information about that mysterious tall man in the car, we'd love to hear from you.
In episode nine, we reported that Sally had applied via email to the New South Wales Coroner seeking an inquest for her mother.
Good afternoon, Coroner. My name is Sally Laden and I am writing to you today applying for a coronial inquest in relation to my mother, Marian Barter, who has now been missing with trace for twenty two years.
Sally goes on to detail the particulars of the case, Marian's unhappiness at TSS, the dates of her resignation, her departure for England, the postcard sent home, the missing money, and the name change.
I've also created a timeline of events to assist us since she went missing in nineteen ninety seven and have attached this for your perusal.
She expresses disappointment with New South Wales Police and advisors of the documents she can provide.
I am happy to provide further information you require in order to proceed with the inquest.
Before explaining her greatest fear think that.
The events leading up to her disappearance were so out of character, and the fact that absolutely no one can find my mum, not the New South Wales Police Force AFP nor the Salvation Army Family Tracing Service can find her. I'm devastatingly concerned that she may have met with foul play.
Sally then signs off with the plea.
If you could please acknowledge receipt of this email and advance how long I can expect to hear back from you with an answer, thanking you in anticipation.
Another thing we've determined is that other than Flora Bella Remichel, there is no record of a further name change for Marian through births, deaths and marriages. That doesn't mean she hasn't assumed another identity, It just means she hasn't done so officially. Also, when her passport expired in two thousand and seven. It has never been reissued in any name.
I'm seventeen now, and there's another generation coming to understand the weight that Sally has shouldered for years. Her daughter Ella, Ella is the oldest of Sally's children. She's never known a life with Marion in it.
For someone that I've never met, she has had quite a big impact on my life, but I like to think of it as a good one, because you know, she obviously isn't here, and she isn't around, and my uncle isn't around, and my grandfather lives in the Blue Mountains. My mom doesn't really have a lot of family outside of our immediate family right here to call on or to ask for help or to go and see or to have around. So my mom and I are very very close as a result of that, which is really nice.
I feel like I can tell her everything, which I know a lot of people don't feel like they can tell their parents everything, especially when they're my age. So I think it's really nice that I do have that relationship with her, and I think, if anything, at least, that's one good thing that's come out of this whole scenario is that, Yeah, it's definitely brought my mom and I and even our entire family a lot closer than most families are.
I would say, yeah, like.
Her mom, Ella belize, Marion has met with thou play I.
Do you think that you know someone's manipulated her or taken advantage of her, or something along the lines of that kind of scenario, And that's what's happened to her for sure.
Here that concludes the third of our catch up episodes. Next time the piece of information that really led to some major breakthroughs in the case.
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 and Alie Sinclair. Graphics Jason Blandford. This is a seven News production.