Gaslight

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Listeners are advised this podcast contained sensitive material relating to
poisons and how they can cause death. If this subject
triggers adverse emotions, we urge you to contact Lifeline on
thirteen eleven fourteen or visit them at www dot lifeline
dot org dot AU.

Speaker 2 (00:30):
This is the case of Marion Barter, a mother teacher
friend missing for twenty five years.

Speaker 1 (00:41):
You know someone that she was going to vanish, that's
for sure.

Speaker 2 (00:45):
The bizarre circumstances surrounding her disappearance.

Speaker 3 (00:48):
I'm not sure if it was intentional or there's something
more foul afoot.

Speaker 1 (00:53):
If you could imagine a teacher coming straight from say
little house on the prairie to the eighties, that was
Marian Barter. Whether you find Marian Barta dead or alive,
I honestly believe somebody has that key piece of information.

Speaker 2 (01:09):
And the relentless quest of a daughter to find her mum.

Speaker 1 (01:14):
Something had happened, something has happened to make her leave.

Speaker 4 (01:20):
I am one hundred percent sure, one hundred percent sure
that somebody knows something.

Speaker 2 (01:28):
The lady vanishes episode forty seven.

Speaker 1 (01:32):
You don't believe me, Oh, it's not the question. I believe.

Speaker 2 (01:35):
I'm Alison Sanders.

Speaker 1 (01:37):
And I'm Brian Seymour.

Speaker 3 (01:38):
Yes, but I can remember every little detail, her name,
miss Froy everything.

Speaker 2 (01:42):
When we started this podcast, Brian chose a name The
Lady Vanishes, reminiscent of the nineteen thirty eight Alfred Hitchcock
movie of the same name. I met her last night
at the hotel you thought you did name. Indeed, Marian
has vanished, and although we are they are a lot
closer to knowing what happened to her, we still don't

(02:03):
know where she is. There have been so many developments,
none of which are more significant than the discovery of
the man of many names, Rick Blum and his connection
to Marian at the time of her disappearance. Since learning
of his existence and meeting him at the Inquest, we've

(02:24):
learned much about him, which triggered my memory of another
movie released in nineteen forty four, this time directed by
George Koker, but very much in the Hitchcock theme. Gaslight
follows opera singer Paula played by Ingrid Bergmann, who marries
her accompanist Gregory Anton in a two week whirlwind romance.

(02:50):
Unbeknownst to her, that is not his real name and
he is just using her to secure a fortune in
jewels belonging to her murdered aunt.

Speaker 1 (03:00):
Since the day I.

Speaker 3 (03:00):
Lost your problem, Yes, you're right, that's when it began, Yes,
against you, still standing there and saying look look at
this letter and staring at nothing.

Speaker 2 (03:15):
Anton, played by French actor Charles Boyer, is a master
manipulator trying to make Paula believe she's going mad. One
of his tactics is to dim the gas lights, and
when she notices, says it's just a figment of her imagination.

Speaker 1 (03:30):
It hurts me when you're ill and fancy.

Speaker 2 (03:33):
It's where the term gas lighting comes from Cameron. But
eventually police Inspector Brian Cameron played by Joseph Cotton sees
through he's act and you from.

Speaker 3 (03:44):
The first moment I saw you that you were dangerous
to me, From the first moment I saw you that
you were dangerous to her.

Speaker 2 (03:50):
Dangerous. That's the word. Monique Cornelius used a lot when
describing blum Or Frederick to Hedevari as she knew him.
Her interview in our last EPISO shows he was the
ultimate gaslighter. He knew how to get exactly what he wanted,
large sums of money and valuables from unsuspecting victims. He

(04:12):
targeted lonely women at their most vulnerable moments, bombarded them
with romance and promises of a new life, manipulated them
to make them second guess their own decisions, convinced them
to cut themselves off from family members, and made sure
they put their trust entirely in him. It's horrible to

(04:35):
think about, and what became clear by his responses at
the inquest was that he felt no compassion or empathy
for any of the women he duped, except perhaps for Monique,
who managed to see him for what he really was
before any real harm was done. But the question remains,
is this man more than a menacing serial fraudster. Could

(04:58):
he be a killer?

Speaker 1 (05:06):
Monique isn't the only one who thinks so. Julane recalled
his obsession with poisons and feared he would try to
smother her with a pillow. Estranged daughter Evelyn was made
to feel she was going crazy for believing he might
poison her with a bottle of champagne, and Jeanette Gaffney

(05:28):
Bowen was so concerned about the threat he posed to
her safety that she resorted to taking out an apprehended
violence order against him. Then, of course, there's Rick Bloom's
preoccupation with asking women to dye their hair blonde. Remember
his cousin's widow, whom he abandoned in Balley, had her

(05:52):
hair colored blonde after Rick Bloom arranged it, and he
asked Janet Oldenburg to bleach her hair before traveling to Europe,
although she never did. It's difficult to believe this Rick
Bloom happens to prefer blondes, after all, his wife Diane
is a brunette. So we decided to investigate whether there

(06:15):
could be something more insidious behind his motivations. It was
not easy finding a poisons expert in Australia willing to
come on the podcast to discuss this issue.

Speaker 5 (06:29):
Hello, Hello, how are you, Brian?

Speaker 1 (06:32):
I'm well how are you? But I tracked down a
highly qualified toxicologist and expert in poisons based in Pennsylvania
in the United States, Doctor Anne Chappelle.

Speaker 5 (06:42):
I'm a board certified toxicologist. I have a PhD in
Pharmacology and toxicology from Saint Joseph's University and Philadelphia. I've
been a practicing toxicologist for over twenty five years.

Speaker 1 (06:58):
Can you tell me what are some of the common
poisons that have been used to kill people.

Speaker 5 (07:03):
Well, there's intended poisons and unintended poisons. Of course, the
most frequently unintended kind of poison are prescription drugs actually,
where somebody has overdosed on those prescription drugs or it
is a drug that's not intended for them. So that
is actually something that is of concern and wide abuse.

(07:27):
And you see that quite a bit in terms of
other kinds of poisons. I know, we don't think of
these traditionally as poisons, but there's a lot of deaths
associated with alcohol as well as things like the other
opiates and such. Another again, we don't think of those
traditional poisons, but really that's what they are. When you're
thinking about you know, consumers or just in the general public.

(07:50):
Some of those most common poisons is actually carbon monoxide.
Carbon monoxide is an odorless, tasteless gas, and when you
breathe it in likes the red blood cells better than
your oxygen does, so it displaces the oxygen and so
you're carrying around carbon monoxide instead of oxygen, and it

(08:11):
basically starves your body. So that is a you know,
that's very common in terms of a poison.

Speaker 1 (08:17):
And what about intended poisonings. I mean, we've already I
get the Christie Arsenick and hold lies, and we've all
seen the movies. But what are some of the poisons
that employed by people intending to kill?

Speaker 5 (08:30):
Well, there was a very famous case just a few
years ago of Viktor Yuschenkov in Russia. He was poisoned
with dioxin. And dioxin you can see very clearly how
he has a normal looking face, and for a week
or so after he was poisoned, he got very, very sick.
You could see hyper pigmentation in his face. You could

(08:53):
see he had problems with this thyroid. He nearly died.
So there's a lot of those kinds of poisons that
you know at a very we as a toxicologist, we
always say the dose makes the poison. But I want
to modify that just a little bit. It's not just
the dose that makes the poison. It's also the route
of exposure. So you know, for some things, they can

(09:16):
go through the skin very easily. So if you put
something on a door, it gets through the skin and
reacts very quickly. So if you're thinking about poisons too,
there's two ways I think to think about poisons. One
is that classic movie where you know, the spy gets caught.
He falls down and he breaks open a tooth and

(09:36):
they're cyanide and he cracks it and he's dead in
thirty seconds. Then we also have the more chronic type
poisonings that you might see in some of the Agatha
Christie books. You know arsenic, you know, low doses of
arsenic over extended period of time. There's other heavy metals

(09:56):
and such that over time they build up in your
system and it's hard to detect them because your symptoms
are pretty generic. Actually, I don't feel good. I have
some diarrhea, you know, I'm really tired and lethargic. And
then over time those get worse and worse, and then
you can go into organ failure. All depends on the

(10:19):
form of the material. For example, arsenic, even though it's arsenics,
there's some more potent arsenics than other arsenics depending on
the form.

Speaker 1 (10:28):
Okay, and you're talking when you say over time, days, weeks, months.

Speaker 5 (10:32):
It can be Radon is considered a poison. It's a
gas you breathe it. It's a lot of times, at
least here in the us. You have it in different
rock formations, and so if you have a house with
a foundation, sometimes you can get from that foundation seepage
of that radon gas into the basement, and over a
period of twenty thirty years of exposure to those low

(10:55):
levels of radon gas, you can develop lung cancer. So
you know, sometimes it's thirty days, sometimes it's thirty seconds,
and you know it's really about what is that intended target.
Some of the most I guess efficient I'm using air
quotes here for efficient are poisons that stop your ability

(11:20):
to have a functioning heart or a functioning brain. So
those short term ones, those are things that again displace
the oxygen or maybe there isn't any oxygen if you're
just breathing nitrogen, let's say, or certain chemicals that when
they get into your body, they stop your cells from
being able to make energy. And because they can't make energy,

(11:42):
they die. And where are the cells in your body
that need the most energy your heart, your brain. So
so you may see these kinds of you know, chest pains,
or they collapse, they can't breathe, they you know, the heart,
you know, it looks like a heart attack or where
you know, they their brain just you know, stops well,

(12:04):
you have brain damage and then you can't come back
from that.

Speaker 1 (12:07):
I'm hitting pause here for a second. Doctor Chappelle is
talking about poisons that can impact your major organs like
your brain and heart. Not to draw any conclusions, but
just to remind you, Rick Bloom's third wife, Ilona Kinsel,
a hairdresser who probably used chemicals to treat customers hair,
was just thirty one years old when she died behind

(12:30):
the steering wheel of her car in Melbourne in nineteen
seventy seven, apparently because of something to do with her heart.
I'll leave that as food for thought, and now back
to my interview with doctor Chappelle. Can I just run
through a couple of poisons that I've gone through and
made up a list. It's not a definitive list of anything,
but just ask you about some of these poisons. And

(12:52):
you mentioned cyanide. Sinid does strike me as a poison that,
when administered in the correct dose, can kill very quickly.
How does it do that?

Speaker 5 (13:03):
Cyanide is one of those chemicals that inhibits your cell's
ability to make energy to sustain itself. So when it
can't sustain itself, the cell dies. And again that's like
in your heart, your brain, those kinds of regions of
your body. That's you know, detrimental. You can't support life
if you're not having a beating heart or a functioning brain.

Speaker 1 (13:24):
Yeah, and very quickly does that.

Speaker 5 (13:27):
It does at high enough dose. Yes, there's a little
bit of cyanide in a lot of things like pit fruit,
you know, apricots, apples, there's a little bit of cyanide
in there. But again it's the dose that makes the poison.

Speaker 1 (13:42):
Right, okay, And something like asenic, I mean in movies
and novels, it's it's tried as a poison that can
kill quickly. Also, what sort of dosed and what sort
of method of delivery would be required to kill within
a day.

Speaker 5 (13:57):
So arsenic is a little bit different. When it gets
into your body, it interferes with certain enzymes that are
critical for correct functioning of yourselves. So it binds to
these different enzymes. There's over two hundred of these different enzymes,
and then that is where when they start shutting down,
that's where you see the adverse effects. So the other

(14:19):
thing is that arsenic can be stored in the body.
It's not very waters voluble, so it likes to hang
out in the fat part of your body, and so
you can have this like reservoir of it too, so
you can get a low dose of it, but over
time it can build up in your body and then
you can see some more severe adverse effects with it.

(14:41):
But again, the adverse effects with acute, very high doses
of arsenic tend to be nausea, vomiting, adominal pain, severe diarrhea.
But the chronic is where you see this kind of
multi organ disease, and it's really it can be very
difficult to pinpoint.

Speaker 1 (15:03):
What about something like strychnine.

Speaker 5 (15:05):
Well, strych nine has an interesting history because it was
used as a rodent side pesticide and it was used
for killing like small little birds and rodents. It used
to be used medically actually because they found that it
could strengthen certain contractions, so they thought it would be
good for someone who needed some extra help with their

(15:27):
heart muscle. But then they realized that that really isn't
the right way to use strychnine. So what happens with
strychnine is that it is a neurotoxin, which means it
affects the nerves that give the signals for the muscles
and other parts of your body to do something. So
basically it doesn't allow an off switch, so your muscles

(15:52):
keep keep doing what you know, twitching or whatever. So
if an acute overdose of strychnine, the part of the
body that gets affected that's of concern would be the
heart because it can't contract like it's supposed to, and
or the diaphragm. You know, your diaphragm is what moves
up and down to help you breathe, so basically you suffocate.

Speaker 1 (16:12):
Wow.

Speaker 5 (16:13):
The other thing about strychnine is that it can be
absorbed through the skin, through your eyes, and so that's
another way it makes it very dangerous. And digitalis so
digitalis so many of these poisons, what we're calling poisons,
there are actually extracts from various plants. The stryccht nine

(16:35):
is actually extracted from the seed of the strictness nux
vomica tree. Digitalis is associated with the purple foxglove, and
so a long time ago there were some medicinal benefits
of foxglove because they found if they put it on
the skin where there was an open sore, it helped

(16:55):
to heal that Native Americans found that if you gave
it to some one who was suffering from some leg swelling,
it would make the leg swelling grow down. Because the
digitalis improves how the heart contracts. So if the heart
contracts better, it's working better. Your volume is up, your
pressure is up, and you're able to excrete the fluids

(17:17):
out of your kidney much better. So when you think
of what the overdose or poisoning would be, it affects
other muscles that actually contract. So you see a lot
of in the GI track, You see nausea, vomiting, diarrhea,
in your eyes, you can have vision changes because the

(17:38):
pupils are controlled by different muscles. And also too much
you can get in a regular heartbeat too fast, too slow.
So so much of these poisons is really getting down
to the basic pharmacology and where do these substances interact,
and that's why they've been exploited medicinally. But then again,

(18:02):
the dose makes the poison too much and you can
get that exaggerated pharmacologic effect and that can turn deadly.

Speaker 1 (18:09):
How difficult is it to get your hands on a
poison that can be used to keel and particularly from
things that are typically found in the home.

Speaker 5 (18:18):
Well. Again, some of the most common poisons are your
pharmaceuticals that you keep in your bathroom when you haven't
used all of your vicodin after you had your teeth
out or something, so those tend to be the most common.
In terms of other poisons, sometimes it's things that we
don't often think of, like bleach, but that tends to

(18:39):
be more of a direct acting poison. It destroys the
mucous tissues, so if you drink it, it's more of
a caustic agent, and we don't really think of that
at least I don't tend to think of that as
a traditional poison. But in terms of other things that
can be dangerous, you also have to think of who

(18:59):
is the person being affected. If it is a small child,
they don't have as much body weight, they don't have
necessarily a full capacity of their liver to be able
to metabolize and change how these are in the body,
or even the elderly. You have someone who is old,
their liver function tends to be lower, their kidneys might

(19:22):
not work as well, so a agent that works for
a young person might be very different in an old person.

Speaker 1 (19:31):
So I did in drop. But you mentioned to liver.
What role does liver a function play in how a
poison that affects the body.

Speaker 5 (19:37):
So when you ingest anything through your stomach, the first
place all that blood goes to after it visits your
stomach and your intestines, is it goes through the liver.
And the role of the liver is to either break
down some of those nutrients and other components into their
smaller pieces. But it is also a really good way

(20:00):
to make substances that and metabolize them or change them
into something else. So the only way you can get
these substances, any substance really out of your body is
to make it water soluble, So it means to make
it so that you can pee, poop, or breathe it out.

(20:20):
So things that are difficult that sequester in your fat,
that are hard to get out, those can accumulate in
your body. And I also also think of it this way.
You have a normal dose of vicodin that you've been
taking for your back, and you've been taking it for
a couple of weeks, your liver automatically will start to

(20:41):
ramp up its production of the enzymes that break that
opiate down. So then if you stop taking that opiate,
your liver it goes back down to its normal levels
of those enzymes. Well, let's suppose four months later you're like, oh,
you know what, I really need some vic it In
the last time I took it, I had to take

(21:01):
three to feel better. You take three, but your body
is used to you not taking any and so you've
overdosed because your enzymes that you have are not in
high enough concentrations to be able to get rid of
that effectively. Also, think of it like tolerance for alcohol.
You know, you haven't you've had a drink, you drink

(21:22):
two drinks a night. For a while, you don't drink anything,
and then you're an easy date. So that's the way
it works. You know, it's a natural it's a way
for your body to accommodate. So usually the liver is
really good about making things less toxic. Sometimes it can
take something in and make it more toxic, or it

(21:44):
is so busy working on that toxicint that you've overwhelmed
it and those other you know, it's like when you
get really really drunk, your body can only handle so
much alcohol before you start having some adverse effects of
that alcohol because it just doesn't have the capacity. So again,
the very young, the very old people that are have

(22:08):
liver disease or chronic alcoholics or such, they tend to
have a more compromised liver function, and so they have
to be more careful in some of the intended and
unintended exposures they may have.

Speaker 1 (22:23):
The reason I asked doctor Chappelle specifically about how the
liver is affected is because Marian undertook a liver function
test the month before she traveled to England and Gulaine
Dubois den Loys claimed that Rick Bloom asked her to
take a liver test a scan before their planned trip.
Let me ask you this, If I was intending to

(22:44):
poison a otherwise healthy adult, what benefit would it be
to me to have them submit to a liver function
test to find out what their liver function was? Would
that be information that would help me in deciding a
dose or method of delivery.

Speaker 5 (22:58):
Well, think of it this way. Those kind of substances
that are metabolized into inactive substances that might help with
liver function. But for something like cyanide, where it gets
in your body and it interacts with those cells very quickly,
it's going to damage you before it actually even gets

(23:19):
to really to the liver. So there's you have to
think about what, you know, what's your ultimate goal here?
You know, are you really trying to poison them quickly?
You've got to get with something that maybe your liver
wouldn't break down, or just some that acts so fast.

Speaker 1 (23:37):
And now that you mentioned that, I mean, it does
I guess, you know, when I think about you know,
it is unthinkable, but you know, I'm trying to imagine
if I ever wanted to poison someone, you know what,
I think I probably would lean towards pharmaceuticals, very very
powerful opiates that are otherwise available for things like chronic pain,

(23:58):
post operative k things that you actually can get your
hands on. If they say you've you know, you've got
a loft long injury, you have chronic bind, your your
disability pension, you would presumably have access to all sorts
of pharmaceuticals that potentially could be misused intentionally to harm someone.

Speaker 5 (24:16):
Well, like insulin. There's another example. Let's suppose I was
a diabetic. You know, you really throw off someone's insulin
or their ability to process that sugar, you can throw
them into a sugar coma. So you know, I've seen
that in several kinds of thriller books and such. You know, again, though,
if you do have a death, if there's an autopsy

(24:39):
that is performed afterwards, and part of that autopsy they
look at your medical history, what drugs were you taking,
and they can tell a lot from just even a
look around your different organs. Were you do you have
a fatty liver? You know, did you? So that could
indicate that maybe had some liver liver disease. You know,

(24:59):
if you start seeing adverse effect in a particular region
of the body that might be associated with a poison,
well then that might lead you down a path. But
the problem with poisons, you know, and if you're trying
to get away with something, the poison you're not looking
for is the one that goes undetected. I mean, all

(25:21):
of these different drugs and pharmaceutical agents, you know, there
are different methods that the drug developers will use to
you know, look at the levels in the body for
therapeutic uses, but they don't always use those for actual
you know, overdoses. They would look and they'd say, oh, well,
and was prescribed. You know, these four drugs Okay, we
don't know of any you know, there's some levels in there,

(25:43):
but you know, you have an unexplained death, you know,
and then they might start looking around to say, oh wait,
it looks like their heart stopped. Okay, what could have
caused their heart to stop? And then you know, you
look around at some of the other things. That's why
sometimes you see that it takes four to six weeks
for toxicology testing to get done so that you can

(26:06):
determine a cause of death. Well, sometimes that's because they're
looking for something they don't have a method, and they
need to develop a method for Sometimes there's a big backup,
or sometimes you just have to find a lab that
can actually detect that particular agent that you think it
might be.

Speaker 1 (26:22):
If I can ask you about the method of delivery
or ingestion of a poison, and you mentioned poisons like famously,
the Russian opposition leader Navali was poisoned with Ovchuk to
the Scrippoles, the father and the daughter in London. That's
obviously an extremely toxic designed weapon. Yeah, the Russians have
a biological agent. But in terms of things around the home,

(26:46):
I mean, what sorts of methods of delivery I'm thinking, like,
would I try and add it to someone's tea or
something they're going to drink. Would I mix it in
with their food? Would I put it on their clothes?
What sorts of methods of delivery for these these sorts
of poisons that are accessible to the ordinary person, things

(27:07):
like as you say, pharmaceutical is very powerful. Pharmaceuticals or
other poisons that might be around the house.

Speaker 5 (27:14):
A lot of times, the sense of taste and smell
help you to understand if you are being poisoned. This
is an evolutionary mechanism that humans have developed over time.
So many times poison will taste bitter, or if you're
going to eat a meal, maybe it tastes sour or
it smells awful to say that, maybe it's bad and
contaminated with some kind of bacteria. So that's our sensory

(27:38):
organs tend to help us with that. Now, there are
many different poisons that don't necessarily have a taste or smell,
but you know a lot of the things that you
might be thinking of, like a hemlock or some of
these the arsenic the cyanide those they tend to have
a very bitter taste or very bitter smell. Almond smell

(28:02):
very distinctive. So if you were going to be doing
something to someone's tea or whatever part of that is,
you need to make sure that you know it's it's undetectable.
You know, do you make something that's really sweet and
then put something in there to counteract the bitter. But
you know that's where you know, if you're looking at

(28:23):
a lot of natural products, they tend to have a
very distinctive smell or taste. You know, we use medicinal
herbs and other herbs all the time. You know, my
mother in law hates cilantro. She can tell cilantro in
her food from five hundred yards away. So again, that
can be very powerful as a tool to deter ingesting

(28:44):
something bad. So I think you really have to work
to cover it up.

Speaker 1 (28:49):
And I guess if I was poisoned with the prescription
drug that I wasn't prescribed in that you know someone
else had sourced the drug and found a way to
get me to ingest it. How launchly is it that
that would be detected again if they're not looking for
that drug. If I look at my medical history and
look at what I've been taking and that's not on
the least would I even taste for it.

Speaker 5 (29:09):
Well, let's give an example of someone and wanted to
offer you. So they took insulin and gave you a
really high dose of insulin. You went into insulin shock,
and you died. Well. Upon death, most of the time,
they will take certain measurements of the blood of the
different fluids and they will run, you know, look at
your red blood cells. They will look at the amount

(29:30):
of sugar and potassium and all those kinds of things
that are in some of your bodily fluids, and they
may say, Wow, this guy had a huge amount or
not enough sugar in his body. That's weird. I wonder
why that happened. So again, if you were already pretty sick,
they might not go to look for that. So that's

(29:51):
why it's important that they take a full medical history
upon death. They look at the drugs you were on
or not. How active were you, you know, were you
a chronic drinker? You know? Did you were you a
person that like to be do engage in risky behaviors
those kinds of things. So you know, it really depends.
I think, well, I guess you would really have to

(30:12):
know the person and understand enough about that person and
their routines if you're trying to make it look like
somebody else was not involved.

Speaker 1 (30:23):
So ideally you'd want to study the person over the
course of a few weeks or months to work out
exactly the best method. Right again, to some clear on
the liver, what benefit is there to me of knowing
someone's liver function in terms of saying selecting the right
dose of a prescription medication.

Speaker 5 (30:42):
Well, that's a tough question. It really depends on the medicine.
Some medicines you have to give with food, some without food.
The numbers that you get from a general liver function
test that just give you an idea of kind of
you know, is it functioning pretty normally. Your actual dose
is dependent on a number of things in terms of

(31:03):
the root of exposure. You know, if it was injected
versus eaten, Like if you ate insulin, you wouldn't have
a problem because your stomach breaks it down into just
its little pieces and you wouldn't have an adverse effect. So,
you know, someone who is pretty large, you know they
may have a normal lever function, but their distribution, you know,

(31:24):
you would need a lot more of that drug in
their body to be able to exert that kind of
adverse effect. So it really depends on a lot of things.

Speaker 1 (31:33):
And what about in terms of detecting whether a poison
is present in a person post mortem? I mean, I've
often heard, I've seen on these same cop shows where
they take a sample of the hair and analyze that
when they're looking for something specific. I mean, would is
that a method of detecting a poison the presence of

(31:55):
a poison in a deceased person, And what difference, if any,
would it make if that person had dowed the heat
to expiring.

Speaker 5 (32:03):
So hair can provide a record of exposure for some agents.
That's things like cocaine, marijuana, opiates, methanhetamines, ecstasy, PCP. You
can also use it for certain heavy metals as well,
and usually it has about a three month history to it.
You really can't get, you know, the end of my hair.

(32:25):
You couldn't get you know, what happened a year ago,
And you really can't always pinpoint the true time. You
can't say, okay, this this piece here was September of
twenty twenty. Some drugs bind to the melanin, which is
the dark color, very very well and very tightly, so

(32:47):
you can if you were to bleach the hair or
relax it chemically treat it. Sometimes you can affect the
concentration of some of those substances in the hair and
make it.

Speaker 1 (32:58):
Hot to take the presence of a poisonous substance.

Speaker 5 (33:01):
Yes, And if you do have alopecia, you don't have
any hair on your head, they may take it from
another part of your body, if you have chest hair,
if you have pubic hair, arm pit hair. There are
some other places where they may try to get some
hair samples. They tend to put like to the ones
on the top of your head. They usually need about

(33:21):
an inch and a half or so to be able
to get it.

Speaker 1 (33:24):
In terms of taking hair from other parts of the body,
presumably you would only do that. You wouldn't even taste
the hair if you suspected fambpl or suspected expose you
to a poisonous substance. Right, It's very rare that I've
saying the hair was tasted. They'd have to be looking
for something, wouldn't I right?

Speaker 5 (33:40):
Generally, Yes, and it could be that they take a
hair sample in case they need it, you know, for later.
They may not do it right at the time of death.
Maybe they look at you know, at a much later times.
It's not something that's routine.

Speaker 1 (33:53):
I should just ask you about some other sort of
classic if I can put it that way, poisons that
a kara and knight just say, shuch as, oleander and
not shade. Are these things that are still commonly or
used it all?

Speaker 5 (34:06):
Well, I'm not sure about those, but I know that,
you know, we talk about them and classic toxicology training,
and I think it's more common in areas where you
have nightshade and oleander that you know, you would warn hikers,
you know, to not touch it, not ingest it. So

(34:27):
from that regards, yes, you know what you know. In
my suburbia life, I may have some poison ivy nearby,
but you know I'm not cultivating nightshade either.

Speaker 1 (34:39):
And there are some poly toxic mushrooms out there on
the deathcat mushroom.

Speaker 5 (34:43):
Oh yes, mushrooms. My piece of advice. If you found
it in a store, it's edible. If you find it
at a farmer's market, it's edible. If you're on a hike,
I wouldn't do it. It's very difficult to tell them
apart yeah, and again.

Speaker 1 (34:59):
The most sorts of mushrooms that are poisonous twists and
can kill very quickly. Yes, and how do they typically
affect the body? I know that's a very broad question,
but again, what sort of attack on our system can
we expect from a mushroom?

Speaker 5 (35:15):
Many of the death caps they tend to be neurotoxic.
And so again you ingest it, and it usually takes
a day or two for it start to the poison
to start to in the metabolites of that to build
up in your liver and damage your liver and then
that causes you know, sequential organ failure.

Speaker 1 (35:33):
Yeah, Okay, with this case we're looking into, it's very
taken a very unusual and morbid twist that this person
may have killed and has on several occasions expressed an
interest in poisons and boasted that he can poison without
being detected post mortem, which is an extraordinary claim to make.

(35:55):
I don't know if he's done it or not, that's
not for us to decide, but that sort of let
us to ask Welton, and how easy is it to
poison someone? How do these poisons work? And you've been
wonderful and helping to understand a little bit of that.
Thank you very much.

Speaker 5 (36:08):
Yeah, no problem, It's fit a pleasure.

Speaker 2 (36:13):
Most of you are probably wondering what's going on with
the inquest. We are also and contact the media team
for the coroner each week to check in. On Monday,
the twentieth of March, the following announcement was made.

Speaker 6 (36:30):
Reinquest into the disappearance and suspected death of Marion Barter
aka Flora Bella Natalia Marion Remichel. The Inquest into the
Disappearance of Marion Barter will resume in May. A three
day hearing before State Coroner Teresa O'Sullivan will commence on
thirty one May twenty twenty three at ten am in

(36:52):
Lismore Court. Please note that listing dates can be subject
to change.

Speaker 2 (36:58):
Three days at Lismore in northern New South Wales, near
where Rick Blum lives. We understand from the postponement of
the findings that the coroner wanted to be able to
consider new information which has come to light. But does
that mean mister Blum could also be called back? I
guess we'll find out in a few months. During our

(37:22):
four year journey, we have had the privilege of getting
to know some of our most dedicated listeners and sleuths.
They include Jennifer, who was attended every day of the inquest,
not just in Sydney where she's from, but along with
husband Ken, traveled to Byron Bay and Ballina when the
hearings were held there. Jen organized the petition which resulted

(37:45):
in Marion Barter finally being put on the Australian Missing
Persons Register, and has organized a new petition to have
the reward for information into Marian's disappearance lifted to one
million dollars. For more details, please visit our Facebook page.
Another friend of the podcast, k McNiven, has not only

(38:05):
been providing us with some new information of late, she's
also been helping to pull together an accurate timeline of
the significant events in Rick Blum's life, the events that
we know of anyway, and how they connect with the
timeline we've previously created for Marian Barter, particularly the occurrences
leading up to her disappearance. Obviously, there are several key

(38:29):
pieces of evidence which led to breakthroughs. The first happened
in twenty ten when Detective Gary Sheehan learned that Marian
had changed her name to Flora Bella Natalia Marian Remikel
before her trip overseas in June nineteen ninety seven. After

(38:54):
that information was revealed in the podcast. In twenty nineteen,
listener Joni used the name Remickel to track down a
personal ad from a nineteen ninety four French Australian newspaper
posted by Monsieur f Remichel, which included a Lennox Head
post office box and a Ballana phone number that then

(39:15):
led to Luxembourg soon after and the only person in
the world with that name and age, the real Fernand Remicel. Then,
on September twenty fourth, twenty twenty, Detective Lisa Pisotto discovered
a Queensland driver's license in the name f nand Remicel.
It's important to give police credit where it's deserved. After

(39:38):
this podcast was launched, New South Wales dismantled the Missing
Persons unit and set up a new unit, appointed homicide
detectives and resources to do this very difficult work. Detective
Pisotto was the first to find the Queensland license taken
out with a false name. Less than a month later,
on October fifteenth, Detective Senior Constable Sasha Perazza went to

(40:00):
the New South Wales State Library and searched old editions
of phone books for the Ballona phone number listed in
the ad and discovered it was linked to a business
Ballona Coin Investments. An Australian security as an Investment Commission
search revealed Frederick and Diana Hedeveri as the directors of

(40:21):
this company. Further police investigations revealed as many as thirty
aliases for Rick Blum, including for nand Remichel, an identity
he stole after having an affair with the real mister
Remikeel's ex wife. After speaking with mister Blumm himself in
twenty twenty one, he confirmed that he not only knew Marion,

(40:45):
but had an affair with her in the months leading
up to her overseas trip, and took a trip to
the UK at almost exactly the same time that Marian did.
Early in the making of this podcast, we spoke to
Laura Richards, an award winning expert on domestic abuse, coerceive control, stalking,

(41:07):
sexual violence, homicide and risk assessment. Helloh, but that was
before we'd even heard of Rick Blum and his various aliases.

Speaker 4 (41:16):
So my name's Laura Richards. I'm a criminal behavior analyst.
I previously worked at New Scotland Yard and ran their
sexual Offenses section and the homicide Prevention Unit, and I
also worked in their Violent Crime and Intelligence and Analysis Unit.
And I was the advisor to the Association of Chief
Police Officers on violence and spent a lot of time

(41:39):
working on cases that involve missing women, domestic abuse, coercive control, stalking.
I changed the law on stalking in England and Wales
and then on coercive control and now other parts of
the world. I'm working in America and Australia to criminalize
coercive control and i have a podcast called Crime Analyst

(42:02):
where I talk about my work and the cases to
try and educate people and resolve cases as well. And
I've recently launched a YouTube channel called Crime Analyst, where
again I talk through cases, many of which involve women
who have been victimized or disappeared or murdered and the

(42:22):
search for truth and giving them a voice and giving
their families a voice has been a very important part
of my work and ensuring that the narrative is corrected
when the wrong information is put out, and that might
be by the media, it might be by the police,
but to ensure that we get to the truth of
what went on and that we hold abusers to account.

(42:45):
And my most recent campaign has just resulted in a
victory twenty two years to ensure dangerous domestic abuses and
coercive controllers are on the same register as sex offenders,
to create a clear culture change, so that we focus
on perpetrators and their behavior, particularly as some of them

(43:05):
are very devious, very manipulative, and we should be looking
at them and closing them down just like we do
any other dangerous type of offender and criminal that's in
England and Wales. It was announced on February the twentieth,
as I said, after twenty two years, which tells you
what a steep hill it is to climb to get
the very basic provisions in place to ensure that women

(43:28):
and children are.

Speaker 2 (43:28):
Protected Powersive control is often talked about now, particularly in
relation to domestic violence. The definition, as provided by Relationships
Victoria is a pattern of controlling and manipulative behaviors in
a relationship. They go on to describe twelve familiar tactics
used by perpetrators, including isolating their victim from a support network,

(43:53):
monitoring their activities throughout the day, denying them freedom and autonomy,
limiting act says to money and control of finances, making
jealous accusations about the time spent with their family and friends,
and of course gaslighting. I go on to usk Laura
whether she considers Marian was a victim of this and

(44:16):
whether our investigation is on the right track.

Speaker 4 (44:19):
Yes, well, with Marion's case, of course, it's some time ago,
so this case is always going to be a challenge,
and I think it's a real credit to Marion's daughter
and to the lady Vanishes to be so persistent and
keep asking questions, which is all about my work crime
analysts to ensure that the right questions are asked of

(44:41):
the right people, and that we're curious and we trust
our instincts about people when we see patterns repeating specifically,
and I always felt with Marion's case, as I know
from many other cases I've worked, the months leading up
to her disappearance are the most important. So we knew
that she changed her name, and that came after some time.

(45:03):
She changed her name, she sold her house, she went
abroad on the premise that she was going for adventure
and fun, but there was always a sense that somebody
else might have been influencing her and part of that change,
and of course then an ad was found that it
was most likely answered by her because of the name change,

(45:24):
that's a very unusual name that she used. And I
think following that lead has been a very tenacious task
to go to the UK but also to Luxembourg to
do the door knocking, which is what it always takes,
boots on the ground and energy and passion to ask
the right questions, and of course that has led to

(45:45):
various people like Monique Cornelius, who's very important in all
of this, who has signposts due to someone called Rick Blum.
And in terms of his behavior, well, I think there's
lots of things that are very interesting, and I think
the first thing is that he did use an alias
of Remacale, which again is a very important name because

(46:07):
that's what Marian changed her name. To the fact that
he admitted to a relationship, that's a very significant piece
of information that has come out that he had a
three month relationship with her, and in fact he told
the police there were two different relationships that he had
with her, so he's now on her timeline and that's

(46:28):
important the fact that they leave the country round about
the same time and they enter the country round about
the same time. Is that coincidence? I don't believe in coincidences,
particularly when you're looking at all disparate bits of information
that can point in one direction. And her bank account
being emptied, that was always the mystery of who's emptying

(46:52):
and taking money out of the bank account. So looking
at his behavior and his timeline matched against her behavior
and her timeline, I believe that all the evidence points
in one direction, particularly when you have uncovered other women
who even at the coronial inquiry, other women gave evidence
about his pattern of behavior and establishing a pattern of behavior.

(47:15):
But that's what I do for my day to day work,
looking at patterns, and his is significant in that he
has a history of promising women who are vulnerable and
lonely the world and taking from them everything that he can,
having manipulated them into an even more vulnerable position, i e.

(47:40):
Taking them out of their normal environment where they've got
family and friends, taking them into another environment where they
are totally dependent on him, having them sign over money
and valuables and so on, with the promise of a
better life together. He appears to be very good at
reading the emotional temperature of women and being melionesque, being

(48:02):
who they want him to be, and getting into that
dependent state. And then it seems that he exploits them,
having entrapped them, and takes their money, and that to
me looks like a significant pattern of course of control.
And course of control is really about a behavioral regime

(48:22):
that somebody uses to exploit, to entrap, to isolate, and
to utterly dominate them and create this codependency so that
they can be totally manipulated. And often it happens at
the start of a relationship, and it's a strategic campaign
where somebody love bombs the other person, where they promise

(48:43):
them the world, They say everything that they will do
that sounds incredibly appealing, but they have a different end
in mind. And I see that repeat Patten, when I've
listened to other women give evidence about his behavior, and
certainly Monique who said that he's very, very, very very dangerous,

(49:03):
and I have to say I believe her testimony. These
are women who are credible, and when you put them
all together, it paints a very disturbing picture of Rick
Blum's behavior. And he has to be looked at and
seriously investigated for his behavior and his involvement potentially in
the disappearance and murder of Marion Barter.

Speaker 2 (49:25):
Yeah. Absolutely, And I assume that through your travels and
different people that you've come across, that this type of
person would come up a bit in what you've seen
that profile. Am I correct in saying that.

Speaker 4 (49:39):
The characteristics and his pattern of behavior, Yes, And unfortunately
I see it more often than what people would think.
And the ability to be cameleonesque and be whatever the
women want him to be, and be a very good
storyteller and present in a very plausible way, and be

(50:00):
able to think on his feet because we're talking about
intelligent women too, who he gas lit, and he had
the ability when they challenged him to think on his
feet and always give a different and plausible story for
explaining away certain things that he did. And I think
that again because very often people can say, oh, with

(50:21):
the women were naive, that they were gullible, or it's
on them, But actually it's much more about how manipulative
someone like Rick Blum can be, and it's much more
about how he exploits and he's learned to trade craft
and I do think some of that looking back into
his history, the fact that he was in the gendarmes,
the fact that he worked as a police officer, means

(50:42):
that he learned the system. And he's not just exploiting
the women, he's exploiting systems and processes, including immigration. So
he's all about his own needs and what he wants.
And the lack of empathy and remorse is I want
to say, quite staggering in his case, but I've seen

(51:03):
it many times, and he appears to have no remorse,
no empathy, and no shame about what he's done. His
answer is that it's legal to change your name thirteen times.
Why would you need to change your name so many times?
Why would you keep getting new passports and driving licenses

(51:23):
and so on? And having worked in the police. Most
often times when people do that, it's because they're a criminal.
They're committing crime, and they want to fly under the radar.
And I believe that's exactly what he's been doing. And
what we know about is most likely just tip of
the iceberg.

Speaker 2 (51:40):
How hard are these sorts of people to catch, in
the sense go to jail. I mean, he's been to
jail for fraud, obviously, but in something like this where
it's already been proven he's a compulsive liar and it
seems like he would never tell the truth. So how
do you deal with people like this?

Speaker 4 (52:00):
Well, I believe he's a pathological liar, and so you're right,
is he ever going to tell the truth? I mean,
he may if and when it suits him, But it's
much more than him being a con artist or a
con man, And I think that is a barrier when
understanding the dangerousness of someone like Rick Blum, that you
could put it down to while it's fraud or it's

(52:22):
just money, it's a few gullible victims, but it's much
more than that. And it's much more than that, because
it's about power and control and him enjoying that power
and control, and the more he does it, the more
he needs to do it. And I would say that
if someone were to assess him using the Psychopathy checklist,
they would probably find lots of characteristics that he scores

(52:45):
highly on, like being a pathological liar, like charm and
zero empathy and remorse and responsibility taking that he would
probably score quite high on the psychopathy checklist. So this
isn't just about taking money. It's much more than that,
and it could of course well involve harm and murder

(53:09):
and their serious crimes and their serious allegations. And I
think the barriers are always that somebody could just say, oh,
he's a con artist, which makes it seem like something
much lesser. But I would like to see professionals taking
men like Rick Blum very seriously, because they tell us
who they are in their actions and their behavior, and

(53:30):
their ability to manipulate, and his level of manipulation and
deviousness he scores very highly, and just having an indirect
assessment of him, because I do indirectly assess people using
the Psychopathy Checklist, listening to people who know him the best,
there are some clear traits there, and therefore I believe Monique,

(53:52):
who knew him much better than I do from a distance,
and we can't rely on him to tell the truth.
So the women and the people who are in his
life are the ones who can give us a much
better understanding of who he is. And she and other
women say he's very dangerous, and he even claimed that
he killed with his bare hands. Again, that's a very

(54:12):
serious allegation. Why would he just drop that into the
conversation that's for purpose, and I would be taking those
things that he discloses very seriously.

Speaker 2 (54:23):
That seems to be the problem here, that he's not
really being taken too seriously. The other issue is that
he's eighty three years old, so they're thinking there seems
to be this whole well for what purpose?

Speaker 4 (54:35):
Yes, I think, having worked a lot of these cases,
when you see someone like Rick Blum arriving at court
and he's got a walker and he looks frail, the
inclination is to think that he's old and he's frail,
and therefore there's no point in a prosecution. But I
disagree with that. You can still be a risk when

(54:56):
you are over seventy to the people that are in
your life. You can still be abusive, and therefore, I
think for the women it's very important that they get justice,
but also for Marion's family, for her son and her
daughter and the grandchildren, I think it's really important that

(55:17):
he is investigated. And like I said, I've seen some
very dangerous men who are seventy plus who are still
a risk and are still a danger. And I don't
buy into it when people say after seventy you're no
longer a risk of offending. I've seen men continue to
offend you right up until the day they die, and
that's why it should be taken seriously. And I don't

(55:39):
believe in closure, by the way, so I'm not even
going to use that word that there should be closure
to this case because for the families there never is.
But I think what they need are answers. And you've
taken it very far in terms of there wasn't even
investigation to start. It was just believe that Marian took
herself off. But I do believe that police need to

(56:00):
step up now and investigate him and look at his
timeline and interview the people that have been in his life,
look at his actions and his behavior and the aliases
that he has used, and follow the money and listen
to the women, and you get a very clear picture
emerge about who he is and the level of fraud

(56:22):
and exploitation and if women are being moved around, is
there a human trafficking part to this? Because he's exploiting women,
there could be other serious offenses, and therefore it should
be taken seriously. It doesn't matter how old someone is.
The truth will out eventually. But for Sally, this has
been a very long time coming. And I think from

(56:44):
just listening to Monique, she says that in a way
she doesn't want to go back to that place. But
I can hear the fear in her voice. I can
hear the upset and the anxiety that he has caused,
not just to her but to many women, and I
think their voices need to be her.

Speaker 2 (57:00):
And we saw what happened with Chris Dawson too, I
mean there was nobody. We still don't know what happened
to Lynn, Like you know, we know that she's dead,
but it just goes to show that he was seventy.
I guess that's the difference.

Speaker 4 (57:14):
Well, it depends whether you think justice is a waste
of time and justice and accountability is a waste of time,
and that there's a time limit on it. For murder,
there's no statute of limitation, and the prosecution don't have
to prove how someone died. They don't have to establish
exactly what happened and what happened with Lynette Dawson's case,

(57:35):
And it's one that I followed in great detail and
spoke to Headley Thomas many times about the compelling and
overwhelming evidence, as even the judge said, pointed in one
direction and one direction only, and that was to her husband,
who the judge said, there was no evidence that the
net ever left the house, not one piece of evidence

(57:58):
to show that she had left under her own esteem
and that anybody had seen her elsewhere, and everything led
back to Chris Dawson. So I don't believe that there
should ever be a time code or a statute of
time placed on murder, and in fact, in most countries
there isn't. And for families that accountability and seeing justice,

(58:21):
seeing the wheels in motion, and having their loved one
be put at the center of an investigation as they
should quite rightly be, and seeing someone held accountable is
a really important part for them. And it should matter
to other professionals that Marion has been completely lost in

(58:42):
all of this and ensuring that we may not understand
the detail of what happened. But every piece of evidence
that we have thus far and that you've uncovered points
in one direction, and that's to Rick Blum.

Speaker 2 (58:57):
Absolutely it does. It's overwhelming. The other thing I would say, though,
it seems like his wife, His wife would know a lot,
and she's sticking by him. They're being married for I
think more than forty years now. She was nineteen when
she met him. There is you know, people obviously quite
critical in relation to that, but there is probably a
good chance she's a victim of coercive control too, right.

Speaker 4 (59:19):
I have no doubt that she if she met him
young and he was older, that she's been manipulated. And
it's very hard for you to if you've met someone
young and you've been with them all your life and
you are being controlled, it's very hard for you to
see through the fog. And let's face it, the bottom
line is he hasn't respected her. He's disrespected her in

(59:40):
every way by placing ads and meeting women and exploiting
them and pretending to be someone who's not. But I
don't hold her to account for that. It's his behavior
that should be under the microscope and not hers.

Speaker 2 (59:54):
It's a sad situation. And his kids obviously, who haven't
spo broken out at this stage, but maybe they're the
key to it. But I guess it would be hard
to make people talk under these circumstances.

Speaker 4 (01:00:08):
Well, time and distance changes things, and when new information
comes to light and that's put into the public domain.
I have no doubt, as I've worked many other cases,
that his wife will be thinking about all of that too,
and will make her own decisions and will speak publicly
when she feels that's right, if the time comes. But

(01:00:29):
we must take great care not to blame another woman
for a man's behavior, and not to shift that focus
because we may not hear from her, But that doesn't
absolve him. It's his actions, it's his behavior. He chose
to do these things, and he chose to do these
things to all these women irrespected of Marian. If you
look at the women who have spoken out about him,

(01:00:52):
he has done great harm and he deserves to be
held accountable for that. And he disrespected his wife and
his children by pretending to not be married, and therefore
he doesn't have any decency about him because he's caused
all this harm to them too. And I'm sure at
some stage his wife and the children will make their

(01:01:15):
own assessment, whether that's private or whether that's public. But
he must be held accountable and he must be questioned.
And even when he was questioned about whether he killed Marion,
his answer was very interesting because he answered the question
with a question, which is a sign of deception, and
he bought time. And then he said no, no, which

(01:01:37):
is a fading fact, not a declarative. No, I didn't.
I can't believe you were even asking me this. No
is a declarative. It never happened. And if you didn't
do it, that's all you have to say. But two
things tell me that he lied under oath on that
day when he was asked that question, and that should

(01:01:58):
be ground for further investigation. Well, I think the key
thing here is that whatever is known about now, it
is tip of the iceberg. And when you do go
looking for things, you find even more, and I think
even from other women's accounts, building up a picture of
who he is and what he's done that also is

(01:02:19):
evidentially significant and circumstantial evidence counts for a lot, and
it mustn't be lost sight of that. That's what happened
in Lynette Dawson's case forty years on, largely owed to
a podcaster Headley Thomas, who reinvestigated the case of things
that weren't taken seriously from the start. And I believe

(01:02:41):
that with this case, it's a very similar situation. And
if you build the picture, if you look at the timeline.
If you are investigating a case, then you would want
to do all of that and significant witnesses and people
who can do the time date stamp of where he was,
what he did, what he said. The money movement really important,

(01:03:03):
and I think the fact that he was even in
Australia and managed to get citizenship must be reviewed. The
fact that he cheated the system and he's there illegally.
He had a criminal history, so how was it that
he managed to get his citizenship, Because I think the
question is if he was denied, he wouldn't have been

(01:03:24):
in Australia and therefore Marion Barter might be alive today.
And that's a very serious issue that the government must
look at as to how he managed to cheat the
system and why is he still there. That's a problem.
And the fact that he's got so many passports and
illegal names and he's doing that for nefarious reasons. That's

(01:03:47):
why people repeatedly change their name. So all the red
warning flags are there for his behavior. And it takes
one good investigator, just what happened with Lynette Dawson, to
put all these pieces together, who should not be deterred
by his age, because justice has no age, and I
think there are many people and I'm included in that,

(01:04:09):
who do want to see justice in this case and accountability.
Why should he get away with it? Because right now
he's laughing at everybody. Why should he get away with that?
Why can one man do so much damage and not
be held to account. That's what professionals should be asking
and it shouldn't be allowed and it must be looked

(01:04:31):
at seriously. And coerse of control. New South Wales and
Queensland are criminalizing coerse of control. This would be a
clear case where he could have been put before the
courts for his course and controlling behaviors of multiple women,
and that shouldn't be lost because there's always an opportunity

(01:04:51):
for early identification, intervention and prevention. And as I always say,
course of control correlates significantly with femicide. Here we have
a disappearance and a potential femicide and nobody's going to
do anything about that. And also all those intervention opportunities
where something could have been done. There's learning here for

(01:05:12):
other cases too. That's the whole point of why I
brought the law into England and Wells is to ensure
that we identify those coursive controllers who are using that
behavior because it does correlate with femicide and we want
to stop what I call murders in slow motion before
they happen and hold these men to account.

Speaker 2 (01:05:32):
Yes, And I guess that's the thing, isn't it. But
it's an in quest staged. Still, the inquest findings will delay,
so the coroner will have a decision. She can ask
the police to do further investigation and could lead to
a tribal murder.

Speaker 4 (01:05:49):
Well, it must. I don't think any coroner can hear
the accounts that have been heard and not reach that determination.
It's not my determination to make, but it is an
important one in the round of hearing all of this
and new information. And by his own admission, he was

(01:06:10):
the person who had that significant relationship with her beforehand,
that piece of the puzzle that we were searching for,
and through his own admission leakage, I would say that
was and even the fact that he gave information in
his own words, there are very clear indicators of deception
and so I hope the coroner does pay attention to that.

(01:06:32):
So I hope that that is the only decision that
the coroner takes. Having listened to all the evidence and testimony,
Rick Blum must be further investigated, and within that investigation
they should be looking at his culpability in terms of murder.

(01:06:53):
Did he play a role in disappearing Marion Barter? The
money that transferred from her aunt, where did that end up?
He opened safety deposit boxes, he closed safety deposit boxes.
The timing is very similar. So when you put things
on a timeline, it's not just her victimology, it's the timeline,

(01:07:14):
and it's the timing of that relationship. It's her changing
her name using the name that he was using. It's
the Luxembourg connection. There are so many pieces of evidence,
circumstantial evidence that point to him, So yes, he must
be investigated by the police. And there sounds to me
to be good and significant grounds for there to be

(01:07:37):
a case against him and a charge made for murder
given this circumstantial evidence that has been uncovered that points
in his direction and nowhere else. That's the other significant thing.
Who else may have done this? The means motive and opportunity,
There is nobody else other than Rick Blum, and that's

(01:08:00):
also significant.

Speaker 2 (01:08:02):
That's right. He has means he has motive. He has
opportunity that is proven, So thank you so much. It's
really good to get that clarity and just have it articulated.
So well, is it anything else you'd like to say?

Speaker 4 (01:08:16):
I think that's it, you know. I think these developments
are very significant, and I just want to thank you
for keep digging and keep asking questions, and I will
be cheering on from the sidelines. And there should be
experts like me who talk to course of control at
trials like this, so that juries and judges and people
really do understand the serious and insidious nature of coercive

(01:08:42):
control and the manipulative perpetrators who use those tactics to
deliberately ensnare and trap and exploit and dominate vulnerable women.
That's not okay, and you do need experts to educate
the court. And I think there's an overwhelming pattern here
of his behavior and overwhelming circumstantial evidence regarding Marion specifically,

(01:09:07):
So good luck and I will be watching and listening
and keep me posted as to how events unfold. But
I hope the coroner reaches the right decision in this case.

Speaker 2 (01:09:20):
Yes, thank you so much, and keep up the good fight.

Speaker 4 (01:09:23):
Thank you, and you too, take good care.

Speaker 1 (01:09:26):
Please see our show notes for links to Laura's webpage
and YouTube channel. Following on from her insightful observations, let's
further discuss Rick Bloom's motive, method and opportunity in relation
to Marian. There is a good basis to believe from

(01:09:48):
his pattern of behavior with Janet Oldenburg, Jeanette Gafney, Bowen,
Monique Cornelius, Gulaine, Dubois, den Loy and Charlotte that he
was using a similar romantic scam on Marion. Remember the
mysterious man spotted in Marion's car by Sally and Chris.
As we know, Marion left for Europe on the twenty

(01:10:08):
second of June nineteen ninety seven for the trip of
a lifetime, but something happened which caused her to alter
her plans so that she returned to Australia early. But
all evidence suggests that the con was still on when
she came back. Her incoming passenger card dated the second
of August nineteen ninety seven had her listed as a

(01:10:29):
Luxembourg housewife and there was a big tick in the
married box. This is in contrast to the normal size
tick she put in the divorced box of the outgoing
passenger card on the way over. With the choice of
name Flora Bella Natalia Marion Remichel. It is apparent that
she believed herself to be married to Fernand Remichel, one

(01:10:51):
of the names Rick Bloemith thought to have been using
at the time. While there has been no firm confirmation
the handwriting belonged to marry, it looks very similar and
we believe it was Marion who came back to Australia.
It's fair to say that she was not aware of
the reality of the situation. Upon her return. Marian's incoming

(01:11:14):
passenger cards said she would only be back in Australia
for eight days. Presumably she thought that would be all
the time she needed to tie up some loose ends
and collect more money. Perhaps Marian also intended to use
that time to say goodbye to her family and tell
them of her plans to build a new life overseas.

(01:11:35):
Remember Rick Bloom told Charlotte that he needed cash to
purchase their house for a new life in Bali, and
Julaane the same for their future home in Australia. He
also encouraged Janet to sell her home to fund a
new life in the French Riviera, and wanted to buy
an apartment in Paris for Jeannette Gaffney Bowen, But Marian

(01:11:59):
did not leave a stra after eight days. Indeed, she
never left Australia again. In August nineteen ninety seven, her
Medicare card was used for the last time at an
optometrist in Grafton. Between August and October nineteen ninety seven,
her bank accounts were drained, although we cannot be sure

(01:12:21):
it was Marian doing this or someone pretending to be her.
Her last withdrawal, a very large one eighty thousand dollars,
was made on October fifteen, nineteen ninety seven, and then nothing.
What happened next remains a mystery. It is reasonable to

(01:12:47):
conclude that Marian was no longer alive on October the eighteenth,
her son Owen's birthday, because, as Sally has always insisted,
Marian never would have forgotten or neglected to call Owen
on that day unless she was somehow prevented from doing so.
It is possible that at some stage after returning, Marian

(01:13:08):
realized that Rick Bloom had lied to her that there
was no exotic new life, that he'd simply scammed her
of her money, or maybe Marian discovered that he had
a family. Presumably she would have felt upset, angry, betrayed,
and from what Sally has told us about Marian's personality,
she would likely have confronted him about it, or perhaps

(01:13:33):
having taken the money he wanted from Marian, Rick Bloom
was now sick of having to keep up the charade
for her. He wanted to get back to his normal life,
and that meant she somehow must disappear. The assumption that

(01:13:56):
Marian decided to change her life, turn her back on
her family, and disappear is a familiar one. That's what
Chris Dawson said happened with his wife Lynett Dawson in
nineteen eighty two in Sydney. There were even supposed sightings

(01:14:17):
of Lynn after she vanished, just like Marion was supposedly
cited by a bank manager. In both cases, no body
was ever found, so there was no physical evidence of
a crime. But after three coronial inquests and a.

Speaker 2 (01:14:31):
Trial, Christopher Michael Dawson on the charge little of about
eight January nineteen eighty.

Speaker 1 (01:14:36):
Two, forty years after Lynn vanished, her husband Chris was
found guilty of her murder and jailed for life.

Speaker 2 (01:14:43):
I find you guilty.

Speaker 1 (01:14:45):
You may sit down. The circumstantial case against him included
these four compelling elements. Chris Dawson was infatuated with a
female school student who moved in with him shortly after
Lynn vanished. Lynn was a doting mother whom family said
would never abandon her young children. The sightings of Lynn

(01:15:05):
were uncorroborated and unlikely, And Chris Dawson was a habitual liar.
Now consider the circumstantial case against Rick Bloom. Rick Bloom
is a liar almost beyond compare the catalog of mistruths, fictions,
and lies filled the episodes of this podcast. He is

(01:15:27):
the most prolific fantasist that any of us have seen
in our combined century of journalistic encounters. He has used
at least thirty eight aliases and has spent years in
jail for crimes of fraud and deceit. Mister Bloom lied
to gain citizenship to Australia. During his six days of
evidence at the coronial inquest, mister Bloom admitted to lying

(01:15:49):
on multiple occasions, changed his evidence, and appeared to commit
perjury repeatedly. In addition, he has lied to his family
and at least seven women we know to conduct clandestine affairs.
He has expressed an interest in poisons, specifically how to
poison someone fatally without detection, to at least two women.

(01:16:11):
His third wife, Ilona, died behind the wheel of her car,
not from a crash, but from an unspecified heart related incident.
Mister Bloom has a long admitted history of luring single,
vulnerable women with cash and assets away from their families
and in some cases overseas. We know for a fact
he did travel to and from Europe at the same

(01:16:34):
time as Marion Barter. He denies traveling with her, but
cannot provide an alibi that can be corroborated. He stole
the identity of Fernand Remichel, a unique name chosen by Marian,
as her new identity. After meeting Rick Bloom, he asked
Marion and another woman to have liver test done prior

(01:16:54):
to travel, and he convinced one woman to dye her
hair and asked another to do the same, which may
relate to both the administration and detection of poisons. After
meeting Rick Bloom, Marion and all her money vanished. One
of his victims, Monique Cornelius claims that Rick Blum told

(01:17:14):
her in person that he had killed before. All of
his victims say they were terrified of him, some fearing
for their lives, some still do. The circumstantial case against
Rick Bloom is the most compelling we have seen, and,

(01:17:35):
like Laura Richards says, it's one that needs to be
heard by a judge as there is absolutely no doubt
whatsoever that his life of lies is inextricably linked with
the disappearance of Marion Barter.

Speaker 3 (01:17:51):
Well, missus Antony, who believe me?

Speaker 6 (01:17:53):
Now?

Speaker 3 (01:17:54):
Perhaps you'd like to see these things cost woman's lave,
the costumes something too.

Speaker 1 (01:18:09):
If you knew Marion or have any information about her
or her whereabouts, we'd love to hear from you. Our
website is sevennews dot com dot au, slash news slash
The Lady Vanishers, and you can also message us here.
You can also send us an anonymous tip at The

(01:18:30):
Lady Vanishes dot org. If you like what you're hearing,
don't forget to subscribe. Please rate and review our series.
It helps new listeners find us. Presenter and executive producer
Alison Sandy, investigative journalist Brian Seymour, producer and writer Sally Eels.

(01:18:52):
Sound design Mark Wright graphics Jason Blandford, transcripts and translation
Estelle Sanchez. The theme and much of the music by
Nicholas Gasparini atth Darkpiano dot com. Thanks again to the
Alliance Francis. This is a seven News production.

All Episodes

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

On Purpose with Jay Shetty

Dateline NBC

Cold Case Files: Miami

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Gaslight

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

.css-r6mb8g{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:1;overflow:hidden;}On Purpose with Jay Shetty

Dateline NBC

Cold Case Files: Miami

All Episodes

Gaslight

On Purpose with Jay Shetty