The Note Paper - Japan

Apod Jake Production.

Welcome back to episode four of The Missing Matter. My name's Sally for those of you who are jumping in for the first time, I am the daughter of long term missing person Marian Barter. Next month in June, it will be twenty eight years since my mum vanished. She went on a trip of a lifetime and we've never seen her again since. And with me is my research extraordinary.

Johnny Condos, Hello everybody, Thanks for joining us again on this episode. I'm a good friend of Sale now also a researcher, been involved in this case since twenty nineteen.

The reason where doing this is because it hasn't finished yet.

We've still got more.

To do, right, no endless.

So last year in.

October I set about to go overseas on a research trip to find some more clues and speak to a few people. And the next few episodes you're going to hear about what we did and how we did it and what we stumbled across on the way. Do you want to tell everyone why we needed to go to Japan?

Japan was a bit of a strange sort of inclusion into the trip, but it was also so essential because we don't actually know concretely if your mum even went to Japan. So some people might think, well, why bother. We all know that she flew on Korean air. It's assumed that she landed in Korea and then she picked up her bags, they went through transit whatever, and then she popped out in London. But we have information from her saying that she was like a pack horse and

Well, she says in it doesn't she. I've just had an interesting time visiting in the East.

East is sal and Chris, greetings from beautiful but very wet Uk. I finally arrived in England after a most interesting visit to the East. Cloud is somewhat by far too much luggage. I felt like a pack horse.

It's eight days from the time she left Australia coming out out of Brisbane Airport, as you say, on Korean air landing in South Korea, and then her posting me that letter on that notepaper, and in using the envelope from the hotel as well, which was posted in tom Bridge in the UK. So we have got a very narrow window where we thought, when you are looking at cases like this, you actually want to get the smallest amount of timeline you possibly can, because that's when you

We agree, So we needed to start there.

Obviously, Japan is the closest to Australia, so we hopped on a plane and off we went.

So it was definitely about your mum. It was about seeing whether she had stayed at the hotel Nico Narita. It was seeing whether there was any immigration records, so coming in and out of Japan too, because you know, within the inquest documentation it was stated that immigration Japan and also through all of their connections back to New South Wales Police that she didn't go there, but neither did Rick Bloom according to the documents that we saw

So in the last episode you would have heard me talk about all the hoops I had to jump through to get the grant of probate right, and that was really key essential so that we could take that document with me overseas as the next of kin appointed by the Supreme Court here in Australia to be able to access that information. And so for those of you who haven't put the dots together, Rick Blum we know flew out on Tuesday, the seventeenth of June. He flew on

And so you traveled to Narita in Japan?

Yes?

Do you remember that?

Yes?

Do you remember? We stayed at the Narita, at the Narita Hotel.

I think it's it was called.

It's the hotel owned by Japan Airlines there at Narita. Who did you stay there with, mister Blum?

Nobody myself.

On the twenty second of June nineteen ninety seven, Marion left Eagle Farm Airport in Brisbane. Yes, and she too traveled to Japan. Marion sent correspondence to a daughter Yes, soon after leaving on stationary from the Hotel Nico Narita. Yes, the hotel that you stayed in.

Possibly, I'm not one hundred percent sure.

This is why it was important that we went.

We really wanted to go and see did Mum actually land in Japan, because in my heart of hearts, I think she did and we needed to go down that track. So what's on tomorrow, Well, it's Mum's birthday, so I have to find a cake celebrate her and hopefully that brings us a little bit of luck finding some information. So it will be at Hotel Nico and Narita. Simon, my cousin is coming. He's taken three days off to come and help us while we're there, and the key is to try and see if we can find any

That is still possible, so they might know or remember something.

So through this journey, I've really been so blessed to find so many kind and generous humans.

There was a.

Time, and I can't remember, I can't remember exactly when this happened, but Chris and I were going through to Sydney and it was a time when we're all wearing masks and we've gone through and the woman Chris always has my ticket on his phone, and the lady is standing behind the counter.

As soon as he scanned mine.

She said, oh my god, Sally, I thought it was you, and then said I listened to the podcast and I'm so sorry for everything you've gone through, and.

She actually started crying.

She gave me a hug, and then we got up to the lounge and my name got called out and I went round to the counter and one of the ladies said to me, oh, the lady downstairs has just upgraded you to business and I went, oh my god, that is so nice of her, not expected at all, but thank you so much. Anyway, one of the girls close to us in this was going through a pretty bad situation last year and her world had just literally

I was like, are you a professional cake.

Maker because this looks amazing, and she said, but I wanted to let you know we have met before, and I said, oh have we? She said, I'm the lady who saw you that time when you came through the Cornice lounge and I went, oh my god, how are you. So we started chatting and I was telling her about our trip at that point, because it was a couple of weeks before, and she said, give me the flight details and I'll see if I can get you and Johning into the lounge.

So we arrive at the airport, we walk.

Into the corners lounge and sitting at the table with her partner is longtime friend of mine. Her name is Elkie, and we were chatting and Elkie just started talking to me about this moment in time that she remembered.

I was there the morning that mister and missus Wilson walked into bryce street of my grandparents' house.

And we're told by the Salvation Army that they had.

Found and that she had said she didn't want anything, and they had looked back to Jesus Wilson.

That was the story, and I was sitting in the front room.

It makes me want to vomit a little bit, yeah, because you know, they never found her.

They never found it was said. I listened to the inquest. I said, that's a look, that's a lie.

That never happened. That's a lie.

Because I was there that morning, I.

Felt a bit nervous. I felt a bit weird for me. This is a big thing. It had taken you and I nearly all year and a lot of planning to get to that actual point, and I couldn't quite believe that we were leaving our families.

It just under a month.

Yeah, it was quite a big thing for us to do, I think, just to put ourselves in that position, and it was a little.

Mental sid command.

Just passing to such like coach on the side at thirty six.

Thousand wrong in Tokyo on time. What is our main game coming to Nareda. We want to find evidence.

Any marriage, any any kind of evidence of her in Japan.

We need to clarify that she definitely came into reapration. Yeah, not really everything cross that we'll be able to get that information because that is important because that contradicts what was the findings at the inquest into Tokyo Passages.

Group must now take the.

We've arrived in Japan, and we sort of wanted to follow the footsteps of Rick Blum and experience the whole bus out to Narita. Yes, I'm staying in the hotel.

Can I please get an envelope in middle? Do you normally have them in the room? I think there is an en bit of author Oh you think there is upstairs in the room? Is that normal?

Is it normally.

Inside the room.

Oh okay, I just this is My mum sent me this back in nineteen ninety seven from you, and she wrote to me on your notepaper. But she's actually a missing person. So I've come here to retrace and try and find out what's happened to her. So that's why I wanted to ask you about the envelopes, if they were in the room, or if she would have had to ask you for an envelope at the desk. Let's talk about our first day. We woke up to a rainy day. There was lots of bamboo surrounding the hotel,

I honestly never thought that I would be here.

That's kind of a spin out for me and Janie and I are about to head off. We're gonna go downstairs today. We've got the chapel here and we want to go and see if we can get records of any sort of marriage or any indication that mum was here. And then we're heading off into Narita to go into the town square. We're meeting my cousin Simon who's taken a few days off to come and help us, which

And we've got.

This is what's been spinning me out, is the note paper because it's identical. I've just done a comparison to mums because I've bought the letter that mum sent me and the notepaper is identical, which is just bizarre to think after twenty seven years.

And I want to.

Prove that my mum actually did come here because that.

Was not the result from the inquest.

We're here on a mission to prove that theory wrong.

So let's hope we go and get some answers. Today, on our first official day of the research trip.

We had a very busy day planned.

We only were staying two nights at hotel in Nico and Nrita before heading into Tokyo, and we had planned to meet early with my cousin Simon, so we were just sitting there having a coffee. We literally were heading over to Narita City Hall, and there we spoke to a lovely man who took an interest in helping us. He did speak English, and he was there to help us understand the rules around getting married in Japan.

And so they do a search for records just to say whether there's a marriage interesting Marian within that day range. They need to fill in some special forms and be different for every country, so he has to spend some time to say, Australia, this is what we need, and.

Since I'm in Japan, it's easier. I'm the request.

I think I might need some of these type of documents, right, actually maybe I should get a copy.

So I would go to him on.

One of these days and he would talk to his boss where he explain the story, show him the libiot, and they might come back and say they need something else, something again, and eventually they would fill in the form. He said it would take at least one or two weeks, possibly a month for them to process the request. And all they'll do is say yes or no. They're not going to show us the certificate or the interviews.

But if we can get a.

Yes, if you give you just know yes the birth place and that's pretty into partment and interesting information.

I mean, there was a lot of theories around the whole marriage and the whole wedding thing within Japan where people would have gone. There was a whole hipp of research that was done by researchers about this, but we really needed to find actual proof of this and records

So we were basically.

Were most impossible legal marriage and toolhi.

Is and we assumed that we wanted it.

I wanted to hear it from somebody who works here, and I thought, I just said to Journing because we saw the tops up, whether it was worth coming here. We both are the same opinion that you'd have to be legally bound to do it, and he wouldn't have done.

That, and you have to get a certificate of single. There's a whole lot of time.

And we went through this morning. It's all different.

Yeah, and you have to have a passport in your name from your country.

And also it doesn't make sense to me because I know, why would you link link It's no benefit to him. All it needs is to look down the island and chapel that's right. I mean she was happy to marry Rayne, you know, like to be fair.

And so after that, you remembering it was mum's birthday. You'd actually found a Buddhist temple, this beautiful Buddhist temple. And if you haven't been to a temple before, you actually have to cleanse or you're supposed to cleanse yourself with the water before you actually enter. So people wash it over their face and wash it all over their hands before entering. And I remember there was just a haze of smoke.

Do you remember that?

And it was all like I kept going, it's everywhere, like it was all over us for the remainder of this, Yeah.

Because they burn it burns twenty four to seven. Yeah, while we went there was for the And I apologize if any of these words are said incorrectly. The Agoma prayer, which is a very special prayer and it's a ritual brought back from China, and it involves burning of special firewood and making a big flame for the fulfillment of the wishes of the audience and the worshipers or whoever comes. So it's quite stunning. It's been around for one thousand

Well, we have to purchase like the little piece of wood and then you write on it.

I just wrote the missing matter Marion matters, and I asked them.

To help me find my mum.

So.

Happy the same mum.

Would be seventeen on them today, eternal, eternally.

I loved.

Very sad that I haven't boundary yet.

A Buddhist temple.

And just written a wish for you.

Did I find you?

I'm gonna go in and sit down now for about twenty five minutes with there's smoking ceremony, and just take twenty five minutes to think of you and think of the journey that we're on finding and so then you pop that in amongst all the other wishes, and then they actually burned the wishes in their smoking ceremony.

So I lit a.

Candle for Mum, being that it was her birthday, and then we took our shoes off and we went and sat in on the Buddha blessing, which was quite emotional for me, to be honest, I did have tears in my eyes because it was just like the drums and everything were just pounding through my chest as I'm sitting right next to it.

You see that symbol next to the drum, and they're.

All sitting there humming, and I could just it was just quite a powerful thing to do. So I'm really grateful that you took time to think about that, because I was too busy doing all the other stuff to think about doing just stopping for a minute and having a breather, because you know, it was an important day. It was Mum's birthday, and you know, I feel like that was a really beautiful thing to be able.

To do for her.

So once we left the temple, we all went back to Hotel Nicnareta and I just sat down and we decided we'd have a coffee and I bought a.

Little cake for mum.

And after we had the cake and just had a moment to think about her again, we approached concierge at Hotelnicna, Rita and asked them if they could help us talk

I was like, oh, this is actually a thing.

Yes, But they came down and usd us to sit and wait, and then someone from the chapel came down and got us, and he took us down into the.

Actual chapel and we're standing in there.

They had told us that there used to be an older chapel and we were standing in the very new chapel. So this chapel was not there in nineteen ninety seven. There was a different chapel that was no longer in action.

Or being used.

He was very clear to us that you can't just walk in and get married in air so two foreign people walking in wouldn't be allowed to just walk in and get married.

They didn't have records.

We asked him if they had archives, and they did go off in check and triple check, but they came back and said, unfortunately, they don't have records going back to nineteen ninety seven. Unfortunately we didn't find anything with relation to whether or not mum was married in Japan to Rick Blum.

So our next stop was Tokyo.

Up the next morning, we're heading back to the airport and downstairs at the airgeport in Narita, you actually walked down to catch the train.

Well, primarily we were going into Tokyo obviously to find out about the immigration and whether try and at least see if we could apply for those records based on the documentation that you had post the death certificate and all the probate sort of processes.

So this is you reaching out to them before we'd left Australia to find out what information was available and whether we could access or not.

That's correct, Yeah, So I had a number of phone calls with them that is basically what we were aiming to do on that day was to try to get the movement records. Simon came with us, and Simon's son as well.

If he speaks fluent, he was.

To do, yeah, to do the interpreting.

But and so we arrive.

And then we were called up to a little booth and the gentleman behind the counter he didn't really understand. He couldn't speak English. I can't speak Japanese.

So if this is true, and if if there's a record of it, but they say they keep records, so if it exists, it exists.

But what's the earliest year that they do have records for if you could ask?

And there was a form that he gave me that he started asking me to fill in, but we soon realized that the form wasn't really relevant because he was asking me to fill it in from my perspective, not from mum's perspective. And we literally just wanted him to say.

Whether or not she landed in Japan or not, and he would not tell.

Us that she wrote to me on a notepaper from Japan, so I don't have any proof that she came here.

And I'm trying to get proof that she arrived in Japan.

I don't even need to see the documents really, I just like if he could tell me that she definitely came to Japan, I'd be happy with that, and the date that she left. It's just that she because she's a missing person, so it's important to get clarification to know that if she was in Japan, she definitely stayed here, because.

That's what she's written to me.

So that's the whole purpose. There's not really a lot in it.

I don't see the value in me paying lawyer another lawyer to.

Tell me whether she was here or not. If he could just say that to me, that would be very helpful. I don't know what to do. I don't can you just say to him?

So what's my options is to find a lawyer, pay for a lawyer, and then get the lawyer to send these.

Forms to these people.

Has he got a card or something like gift to him?

Like you, it's an option, So it's not you, But you can go through here, which is the place which is basically here, so there's no need because it will be from the lawyer. So okay, it's a different route.

Yeah, you're a thank you a couple of thousands.

And I remember being quite grinded by this because he kept laughing, and I'm like, this is actually quite stressful for me.

From my perspective.

I've just gone through absolute helen back to get this death certificate in both names so that we can access her in coming and out going passenger information all over the world, was my thought, because I had this piece of paper from the Supreme Court in Australia which deemed me to be able to do that, and he said that document does not apply here in Japan. Australian documents

Why can't you? And even Simon kept jumping in.

He's like, she's a missing person, she's deceased, so she doesn't. She's not alive anymore. And he kept saying, oh, you need to get her to sign a document to allow you to do it. I'm like, you're not understanding. She's not alive for me to ask her to sign a document.

If you post it to them in the.

Mail, there'll be some deercut there.

They're opening the see this form and it's like they'll take a check book and you just want them to throw it over there to the next instead, which would be easier for them if they can just kind of give.

It a glance without all the other added complications.

Simple just like them, and maybe don't you could not do any idea at all, right, that's another option. Maybe I could do one without it's even happens, and they.

Might just look at it and toss it.

With him and then you know land.

You could also try Histralian lawyer letter saying you know this from the head, you know please, something like that to make it kind of scary, and then it's actually makes it a little less likely because I'll pass it on to the day become bureaucratic. But that's why the simple one, just going through the cracks, it's probably the best chance.

So One of the other little side projects that we did while we were there was just looking into any coin shops or antique places or anything like that where we were hoping that there could have been someone there that over the years that may have had some kind of interaction with Rick Bloom. I don't know if you remember that he actually spoke about giving some Japanese coins to one of the managers at the Amsterdam airport with

Back in a timeline just to help people who haven't been listening to the Lady Vanishers. You met me in May of twenty nineteen, so we launched the podcast the first of April twenty nineteen. You find the ad in the paper with the name RAMACKURL linked to a Lennox Head post office box and phone number.

That was in the May of twenty nineteen.

Then I get an email from a gentleman who wants to remain anonymous, who says, I've gone down to the local library at Balana. I've hand scanned thousands of searchers for phone numbers, and I found a link to the phone number which linked that phone number to a company called Baalano Cooin Invest. You and I then did a massive search with him. He actually did the assex search on that.

Name, didn't he with it? Yeah, yeah, that's right.

He did that and he found the name of the owner of Balin cooin invest was Frederick de Heavidery and Diane to Heavidairy.

Yes. So I rang around the local coin dealers there and I happened to speak to a very old, very well known dealer called Jim and I actually called him and this is what he said. He said, oh yes, Rick. Now at this stage I wasn't expecting him to actually know anything. I was expecting him to know Barry Cooper, That's who I was aiming to try and connect with. So when he I don't know if you remember, but when he said, oh, yes, Rick, the Belgian, Yes he's

You're talking about buying a coin that is worth fifty thousand euros.

Yeah, that's through gold.

Coin that sits in your wallet, and when you're coming through customs, they're not looking at your coins in your wallet. And the little amans terms is what that's saying.

Yeah, yeah, so an ancient coin. I mean it could just be a beaten up old coin that you wouldn't even look twice at within a mix in your hand. That was how it's explained to me. So it's effectively a very good way to move money from country to country or continent to continent, because as we've seen, within the passenger cards, it's a maximum ten thousand you are

You, not traded, No, No, okay.

Every day for people come to my shop, I can't remember.

Everybody halfa I can, okay, many men come every day, of.

Course, yes, no, I understand. So we ended our trip in Japan going to the Meiji jing Ju Temple in Shabu. Yeah, one of the things that we did want to do was to have Sally write a message on a plaque and hang it on the wall there of the temples. So that was what we did on that final day. She actually wrote the Missing Matter Marion Matters.

And I had it in me.

I said to you, let's pull up how to write it in Japanese. Some people actually who were Japanese could read it as well. So I'm there with my black pen writing it in Japanese.

We hung it up.

There and among the thousands, and just the hope that one person might read it and think what is that about and just take a moment. And I guess at the end of the day, this whole podcast and the whole talking about all of this, it just comes back to the fact that missing persons do matter, and that the people who are missing shouldn't be forgotten. So hence why this storyline is about my mum, but it stems back from all missing persons and you know we really

We did and on our way to London to London in the next episode of The Missing Matter, or.

We went to London because we had a few things we needed to do. We needed to go to the library, and we also needed to go and visit a massive coin dealer in the UK that we have some information that really potentially connects Mum and Rick Blum at the same time in London, and of course