June 27, 2023 • 71 mins
Alison, Evelyn and the Spotlight crew travel to Luxembourg, where colleagues Tom and Yannick reveal what they’ve uncovered, and we catch up with the brave woman who rejected Ric Blum’s advances and witnessed some very strange behaviour.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
This is the case of Marion Barter, a mother, teacher
friend missing for twenty six years.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
You know, no sign that she was going to vanish.
Speaker 3 (00:24):
That's for sure.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
The bizarre circumstances surrounding her disappearance.
Speaker 4 (00:29):
I'm not sure if it was intentional or there's something
more foul afoot.
Speaker 3 (00:34):
If you could imagine a teacher coming straight from say
little house on the prairie to the eighties, that was
Marian Barter.
Speaker 5 (00:40):
What I say, whether you find Marian Barter dead or alive,
I honestly believe somebody has that key piece of information.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
And the relentless quest of a daughter to find her mum.
Speaker 6 (00:55):
Something had happened, Something has happened to make her leave.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
I am one hundred percent sure, one hundred percent sure
that somebody knows something. The lady vanishes, Episode fifty three.
I'm Alison Sandy.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
And I'm Brian Seymour.
Speaker 5 (01:19):
Hello.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
Here I am with the man Liam Bartlet. We are
here in the middle of town square in Brussels, which
is just phenomenal. And Liam, you've been to so many
places in your career. Can you can you tell me
do you have an idea?
Speaker 6 (01:33):
The number? Yeah, the number. I'm not sure that can
I just can I tell people that we've been talking
about shopping, which is a serious subject. Right when you're
on their own shopping and if you don't come home
with the right presence, you're in a serious strike. Allison,
you've impressed me with the shopping already. This is a
lady who makes decisions. You can see why she us
(01:57):
where she is. I don't know the number, that's the
short answer. That's why I'm prevaricating.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
Here would be hundreds and all over the world, exotic locations,
from Batan to Russia to Middle East, Middle East Africa, Africa.
What's the most unusual.
Speaker 6 (02:13):
Like off the bridge of the Greed. Probably places that
you can't automatically find a policeman or get help if
you need it, or lawless places. Probably the Congo.
Speaker 1 (02:28):
Probably, oh my god, democratic republica commo.
Speaker 6 (02:31):
Yes, big country and out there, completely out there, and
terrible shopping.
Speaker 1 (02:38):
So you didn't buy any presents.
Speaker 6 (02:40):
Nothing came back from the Congo.
Speaker 1 (02:42):
He has been very impressive with his presence for his family.
I asked him whether or not he was wearing some
factory's wife, and he's of course his wife said no,
don't learn have been back, but he's no call.
Speaker 6 (02:54):
That's a COVID message from Whit's all over the world.
When you go away, don't worry me means get me
something big.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
And it's been a little bit sad because the fertility
bars you've got three ten wasn't a win up.
Speaker 6 (03:09):
I can't understand why that wasn't at We'd already had
three kids, so she didn't need a fraternity bars. Okay,
but it's beautiful and it's still sitting in that laundry
cupboard to day to this day.
Speaker 1 (03:21):
Thanks, but she didn't tell him. I love the fact
she didn't tell him, but kind of gave it away
with the laundry cupboard vacation. Very sad, but sorry, I'm
gonna bring this up. But my favorite, though, is the
one you brought back through your daughter one time.
Speaker 6 (03:36):
Can you describe it from Japan? We were out in
the prefectures of Japan. I have been really a regional
Japanese present, not common for many A frog purse.
Speaker 5 (03:47):
Real frog.
Speaker 6 (03:48):
Yeah, it has been treated, but she was ten there
at the time and a very ungrateful ten year old.
Speaker 1 (03:56):
I can't understand it, Like why you wouldn't want a
dead frog that you could book stuff in.
Speaker 6 (04:01):
It was a beautiful change kids.
Speaker 1 (04:08):
Well for just a little bit on the st of
your life as an international domestica of Jersey ships incredible
and I'm really to be on this part.
Speaker 6 (04:19):
Thanks for making me sound so seriously.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
Liam Bartlett has been a journalist for more than thirty years.
He started in radio, firstly in regional Western Australia, where
as well as presenting, he had to sell commercials, before
moving to Perth where he dominated the airwaves at six PR,
followed by ABC. In two thousand and two, Liam was
awarded a Churchill Fellowship to study investigative journalism and later
(04:48):
became a reporter for sixty Minutes. He joined Channel seven
Spotlight this year. For me, this is only the third
time I've been overseas for work, but undoubtedly the most
memorable in my career so far. Sadly, our time in Brussels, though,
has come to an end for now and we embark
(05:11):
upon a road trip to nearby Luxembourg.
Speaker 5 (05:14):
So the GPS is a little bit confusing.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
The route out of the Belgian capital is a tree
lined avenue decorated with old fashioned terrace apartments either side.
The next massive roundabout return right. We pass some more
magnificent landmarks on the way out, including the City Museum,
before the buildings become fewer and the trees more prominent.
First things first, though, we need fuel, not for the
(05:39):
car but for us. So here is the endless pursuits
to find somewhere we can get coffee.
Speaker 5 (05:46):
Not so easy as we're leading Brussels.
Speaker 1 (05:48):
We find it at a little town called yeesious Ike,
just outside Brussels.
Speaker 3 (05:53):
The restaurant that's shut.
Speaker 5 (05:56):
Yeah, it's the bank holiday.
Speaker 1 (05:58):
Belgium and Luxembourg s to have a lot of bank holidays.
It's not surprising, giving banking and finance drives both economies,
especially Luxembourg, which is a major global tax haven. But
they should be a cafe somewhere. They'll have a cafe.
People stood in coffee.
Speaker 5 (06:16):
Honestly, Yeah, here.
Speaker 7 (06:18):
We go ya, Oh my gosh, thank goodness, thank goodness,
we can come alive.
Speaker 5 (06:30):
Again, and we do.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
The staff there are so friendly and by the time
we get back on the road we feel completely reinvigorated.
It was another hour and a half before we stopped again,
this time at a small village just off the highway
over the Luxembourg border. Nothing is opened except for a
petrol station opposite a small homestead with farm animals including geese, turkeys, chickens,
(06:57):
and a rooster running free. I just love how the
chickens are out and it's a pretty busy road.
Speaker 2 (07:06):
We just have some sort of road sense.
Speaker 5 (07:09):
Those pe massive They are very.
Speaker 1 (07:15):
That you know that you're getting too close back on
the road. Giant wind farms crowded the picturesque horizon as
we near the entry to the world's last Grand Duchy.
Here we are downtown Luxembourg. Interesting as a train station. Yea,
so four hours later since leaving Brussels, we are now.
Speaker 5 (07:41):
In the fill of Luxembourg.
Speaker 1 (07:43):
It doesn't take that long, but we did make a
few stops. Light rain greets us As we reach the hotel.
It's a five minute walk over the Adolphy Bridge to
Old Town.
Speaker 5 (07:59):
Oh my god.
Speaker 1 (08:00):
I knew it was going to be a fairy tale town,
but I had no idea it was going to look
like this. Old Town, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is breathtaking.
What looks like the Disneyland Castle in the distance is
actually the opulent State Savings Bank, built at the beginning
of the twentieth century. Crowds gather at a fair the
(08:23):
other side of the Sandstone Bridge. But I can see
why it would be a fantasy place to live, and
why hope that somebody might be tempted to move here
and start a new life. In the center is the
Monument of Remembrance or Gela Fra, which means Golden Lady.
(08:43):
Standing twenty one meters tall, the gilded bronze statue represents Nike,
Goddess of Victory, holding out a laurel wreath as if
placing it upon the head of the nation. At its
base are bronze figures of Luxembourgish soul, representing those who
volunteered to serve for France in World War One. Local
(09:06):
sculptor Klaus Sito created the monument, which was erected in
nineteen twenty three. Luxembourg is one of the smallest countries
in Europe and traditionally a military fortress because geographically it
was a critical stronghold for whomever was ruling at the time.
Over many centuries, they included Holy Roman emperors, the House
(09:30):
of Burgundy, the Habsburgs, French and Spanish kings, and finally
the Prussians. Before the Unification of Germany. Now it's a
successful business center and popular tourist hub. As we discover
at the main thoroughfare of Old Town. This is very busy,
but people here are rugged up, their clothing more flamboyant
(09:56):
and colorful than our attire in Australia. The temperature in
the earth early teens. Luxembourg feels even colder than Belgium.
We only have two days here, so there's little time
to waste. After a day of traveling. We get an
early night ahead of a full day of filming, starting
with the Luxembourg Word newspaper in the local language, the
(10:19):
Luxembourger Vite. Oh yeah, it's so good to be here
in Luxembourg with you. Thank you so much. Welcome, I've
always been so welcoming. Now four years ago Sally and
Brian came to see you in the newsroom.
Speaker 3 (10:30):
This is not the new No, We've moved shocked twice
since then. Long we ended up here and hopefully feel good.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
There's a much nice of business in this and the
technology is amazing. I'm just looking around the newsroom. Is
have you always had great technology?
Speaker 5 (10:45):
Is it just since you moved.
Speaker 3 (10:47):
It's got to do with the fact that we moved.
It all came kind of together. The idea was always there,
but this is basically everyone in one room and being
transparent about data. So you know what y're how y'ard
was performing of what's going on right now, so you
just have a look at the warm. Basically that's the idea.
Speaker 1 (11:04):
Your last article was under plum in relation to it, Blum,
how did that perform good enough?
Speaker 8 (11:10):
Let's say, yeah, usually these articles performed pretty well, and
so this this one even though there wasn't like anymitate
luxember conectional, but they did really want a Luxembourg fund
as well. And it's a lot of international readers.
Speaker 3 (11:21):
So the topic in general. So ever since we wrote
the first piece on the whole case and about like
trying to explain all the possible connections and then the
stories of Lord Charlotte and Guilen and Ante Flamm, they
find they find their readers. Really they've performed quite well.
Speaker 1 (11:40):
Have you had any potential other leads?
Speaker 3 (11:44):
Not as such currently, So from a Luxembourg perspective, I'd
also say the Belgian perspective is kind of I'm not finished,
but that's that's what it is in Belgium for us
from our perspective. So there's women in Belgium being robbed
out of amounts of money, and we have three of
them now and we haven't heard of the fourth yet.
(12:05):
But we're still at the same time trying to find
more Luxembourg connections, which is difficult. Though it's been a
while since he was in Luxembourg, it's longer back in
time than the Belgium cases. And it's also we might
have had a different way of going about things back then.
It might not have been the same modus operandi or
(12:28):
tricks he pulled, so it's all a bit shadier in
the Luxembourg era.
Speaker 8 (12:33):
So he might have reported people, but there's a civil
on communication of like romantic scams.
Speaker 3 (12:38):
In what we can see, the romance scamming is in Belgium,
and it is in Australia for sure, because we heard
of those two other.
Speaker 6 (12:47):
Women in the hearing them.
Speaker 3 (12:48):
We don't know what happened with Marion Barter, but so
far we don't see any of that in Luxembourg.
Speaker 1 (12:54):
Well, the inquest starts at the end of the month,
so I guess we'd be interested in that, yeah, for sure.
Speaker 3 (13:00):
Where I think we'll cover it locally as well.
Speaker 8 (13:02):
We will probably following your legal family that you know,
tied in with the stories that we did before that,
and whether it'd be interesting to see how that of
the thing.
Speaker 2 (13:12):
That would be quite an interesting turning point.
Speaker 8 (13:13):
And maybe at that point we can also try to
re engage with several leads here Luxembourg or or Swamp
with media and maybe try something out that that could
give us more of an indication of for the dictions.
Speaker 3 (13:26):
Yeah, or we'll be spending time on YouTube.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
Well can you question and some of the other lads
where you have to thank you, You're welcome, thank you.
Speaker 2 (13:34):
Not long after Liam meets Tom for the first time.
Speaker 3 (13:38):
But I'm from Thailand originally, which is another province in Germany.
I was never very far from the Luxembourg French border,
so okay, other than like I lived in Canada for
a year when I was studying, but I'm native from
these grounds sort of stuff.
Speaker 6 (13:55):
I ice to work with the German guy a couple
of years who was the American correspondent for Build I
think very funny.
Speaker 3 (14:04):
Famous, yeah yeah, yeah, very funny, especially recently some dirty
Lunger being washed.
Speaker 6 (14:11):
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. He used to say he was
his life mission to let people know that some Germans
were funny.
Speaker 3 (14:17):
Yes, it's true.
Speaker 2 (14:19):
After a bit of light banter, Lillam invites Tom to
share his thoughts on Rick Bloom and the challenges he's
faced investigating his many claims to sort out the fact
from fiction.
Speaker 6 (14:31):
In Australia. We know him as Rick Bloom at the moment.
What do you know him best as over here?
Speaker 3 (14:38):
Well, that's a tricky one to begin with. We don't
know him at all, if you will or not under
a certain name. I'm still totally puzzled about what his
real name is. Some people we talked to say his
birth name is Billy Walters. We heard copper Dollar, we
heard the most. It seems to be the most common.
Pseudonym or fake name is fred Rick the hitter Varry.
(15:03):
Rick Blum seems to be the most recent. Then there's
this pheno remarkaal anecdote with the driver's license and the
real man from Luxembourg who got his identity stolen, et cetera,
et cetera. So I couldn't tell by which we by
which one we know him. We use Rick Bloom because
we feel that the that's the official one that's currently valid.
(15:25):
So to speak and we used the the ones he
used in the cases we cover. So for us, he's
Rick Glume, also known as Frederic the hittervary born as
we voters. It's a bit it's not very practical. Let's
say for him it.
Speaker 6 (15:41):
Was maybe for us it isn't It's a bit like
holding a tig about the titles.
Speaker 3 (15:45):
Yes, yeah, yeah, and you need I mean you need
to pinpoint it somehow and focus on some aspects. Right,
Rick Blum is what we call him in our titles,
for example, like we call him the serials camera Rick
Bloom as in another Belgian widow claims she was robbed
by serious camera Rick Blume. That's what he is for us.
Speaker 6 (16:07):
But the trial here for you is very muddy. Going
back through the records and that sort of thing you
keep coming across these different names. That's complicated, isn't it.
Speaker 3 (16:16):
Well, it's the complicated thing is the names. Indeed, I
send a list, the whole list with names to the
National Archives and say could you please check for us
if you have anything under those names, and they say, well,
we don't, for example. But then they also offered some
explanation saying well names is maybe not enough. The way
(16:37):
we are organized, we would need something like file numbers,
or if there's this like we have on file in
Australia that there's this arrest in Wills in Luxembourg in
nineteen seventy six, then the Luxembourg archives say do you
know why he was arrested? That might help us. Do
you know who arrested him, which police precinct, etc. And
I say no, I can only assume. Right so far
(16:59):
we have nothing, and that's because of the names, but
it's also because it's been quite a while and the
way things are organized right.
Speaker 6 (17:07):
Hell, how would you describe the criminal history of Rick
Bloom through Impressive, through Luxembourg and Belgium and France.
Speaker 3 (17:18):
You would get the impression that he's a master criminal,
or that's the way he might have seen himself at times,
because he tried to obscure everything with the fake names,
and he had a way of forging documents and using
systems to his advantage. But then again you look at
the at his rap sheet and at the time he
spent in jail, maybe that's not quite master criminal at all.
(17:40):
If you get caught a lot in between, it's hard
to tell, and it's impressive in that it is. I
sometimes think it's enough for two lifetimes. Right, It's like,
when did he do all this stuff? And also the
ones we covered recently about the Belgian women, Like we
have three Belgian women coming forward claiming and I mean
(18:02):
it's pretty safe to say it happened that way to
have lost significant sums of money to this guy. I
mean that's impressive in a way that it seemed so
easy for him, right, Like I'm not blaming those women
of anything like being naive or anything. I mean, it's
not for me to say, but it makes you wonder
(18:24):
how he did it. Right, He walks into their lives
and within two or three weeks he walks out again
with bags of money, like literally bags of money. It's crazy.
Speaker 6 (18:34):
And we are talking hundreds of thousands of euros.
Speaker 3 (18:37):
In some cases, yeah, one hundred and fifty thousand or
two like two bag, two plastic bags with fifty thousand
euros each in cash.
Speaker 6 (18:47):
So in a very short space of time, he manages
to not only inculcate himself into their lives, but get
them to trust him to that extent.
Speaker 3 (18:55):
And he uses he uses like he has some capital,
so to speak, some trust, some trust in the banks already,
like it's either that he approaches them on the on
this romantic scam level, like answering personal ads and being
all romantic with them. Let's call it, or it's family.
(19:15):
In one case it was he was family of the
late husband of the person he robbed, right, so they
knew him already by name and by anecdotes, but they
only met him briefly a few years before. And in
the most recent case that we covered on IFLAM, it
was it was friendship with the son in law of
(19:36):
the victims. So basically, you have several levels or several ways,
several whatever kind of relationship you have with him, he
will use it against you. That's the image we have.
Speaker 6 (19:48):
So he manages to find the emotional weeksman.
Speaker 3 (19:51):
Weeks, but the back door, the whatever you call it, right,
and it's some it's always it's those stories. They differ
in details, of course, but they have always the same
way they are going, like what could I have done?
He was a friend of my father's or well he
was family, wasn't he? Or he wrote me such a
nice letter. In fact, she did say that the one
(20:14):
he wrote the letter to she said he never disagreed
with me. Whenever I didn't want to do something, or
whenever I refused to do something, he said, yeah, you're
totally right, let's find another way. So basically, whatever you
say to him, he can use it. It's pretty manipulative
and quite impressive.
Speaker 6 (20:32):
Here on that note, I mean, do you have any
sense of the scale of this? Do you have any
idea of perhaps how many women he may have scammed
in this part of the world.
Speaker 3 (20:45):
It's hard to say, but I mean it's almost like
my hypothesis on what I'm working on, what we are
working on. Yannick and I pretty much every overseas strip
from Australia, which is all pretty well documented. Whenever he
comes back to Australia and declaring more than ten thousand
(21:05):
dollars in cash, there might have been a woman behind
that being scammed.
Speaker 6 (21:10):
Right, so far, well, there's dozens and dozens of THOUSETRAI yeah.
Speaker 3 (21:13):
So far we have free There might be more in Luxembourg.
He's to us. It seems he's a bit like a
phantom's it's hard to pinpoint what he or his tracks
in Luxembourg are hard to discover for the archive situation,
for because it's been in the eighties, Like, it's not
those Belgian cases, there are more recent How.
Speaker 6 (21:33):
Long do you think he has been operating in this fashion.
Speaker 3 (21:37):
That's also something that we're not sure or we cannot
be sure of, depends on what fashion you mean. I mean,
he's if you look at this at his rap sheet,
he's been forging stuff all along. He's been there's checks
without cover, there's identity theft, there's borrowing things from people
not giving them back. Basically apparently there's promises to sell.
(22:00):
You have an important or a significant or valuable collection
of something, he offers to evaluate it and sell it
for you, and then he takes it and never comes back.
Apparently those things have happened all along. What's relatively recent
seems to be this Roman scam thing that I've just described,
the three Belgian cases we had, And what we cannot
say at the moment is what happened exactly in Luxembourg.
(22:22):
That's still a mystery to us. Like we know about
this furniture store which has been operating for something like
three years. There has been a physical location where the
store was located. We don't know what happened there. There's
people saying it doesn't have much to do with furniture.
There's theories about money laundering or anything going on behind
(22:44):
those false fronts. Then there's stories about another furniture warehouse
in the Belgian Luxembourg Order area with some sinister things
going on there, but we don't know.
Speaker 6 (22:55):
Yeah, so we think that furniture shop business, yes, may
have some hass why I've been a front, yes, for
him to move money through.
Speaker 3 (23:03):
That's what we think for whatever money laundering would be
what you think of first maybe right. Then again, we
have talked to people in the village where he has
the furniture store, and that was also in our very
first article, a very early conversation in the process with
a man who said, yeah, I remember him. He had
something like thirty names. That was the first thing this
(23:26):
guy says to us on the phone. We say who
we are, We say we are writing about this guy
in Australia, and it's nothing about you, it's about him,
et cetera. And then he says, oh, yeah, I remember him.
He was he was mister David in that case, Freddie
David or David. I remember that guy. He had thirty
different names. And that's basically the first thing you hear
on the phone and I say, well, how do you
(23:48):
know that? And the guy says, yeah, there was talk,
you know, and I've saw it. I've seen a police
file once when there was he was in trouble with
the police and I was there as a witness and
it was a bit shady really, But he's he was
known to some people as the man with the many
names back in the ages. And why do you have
thirty different names when you have a furniture store and
(24:09):
trying to sell furniture?
Speaker 6 (24:10):
Right, great question. Some of these local towns are quite small, yes,
and a lot of people know a lot of other people.
Speaker 3 (24:18):
That's what you would think.
Speaker 6 (24:19):
So what about the local police, Well, why hasn't he
been on their ridar?
Speaker 3 (24:24):
We really don't know. Like also, if you look at
I mean, this is all from the hearings, right, this
is head. It has been discussed in the In the hearings,
his wife Diane says they lived in Idsis right. It
is a not too big community close to the capitol,
(24:44):
and he was at one point in the hearing. He
also describes how he goes from It'sich to Nossange to
the furniture store every day. Et cetera, and that it
takes him so on so long. Other unless there's snow
on the road, then it takes him longer. Blah blah.
And Monique Cornelius also lived in Itsish at the time,
and basically this would mean that you would have had
this affair we've been hearing about, and he would have
(25:08):
his family right two streets apart from each other. And
also the locals wouldn't know or wouldn't remember, Like we
are putting out in our articles, we say, do you
remember this guy under thisn't that name? He had this
furniture store he lived in Idsish. We don't get any
feedback of people. They don't remember him, and that's kind
of interesting too.
Speaker 6 (25:28):
No, wonder you call him a phantom?
Speaker 3 (25:30):
Yeah, I mean, I don't know if that's the right
thing to call him, but for us, he is a
bit of the Luxembourg chapter is very yeah, foggy.
Speaker 6 (25:39):
But we also know he has spent time in regional
giles over the last four or five decades. Yeah. So,
so where are the police on this? I mean, don't
the Belgian police and the Luxembourg police talk to each other.
Speaker 3 (25:52):
I mean we would assume, Yeah, I mean the police
must know something in Belgium because we know about those
from these Belgian women that they were in like the
police was in contact with both of them. In two
thousand and six, Ilen is being scammed out of money
and in twenty twelve she's being asked to come back
to the police to talk some more because in the
(26:14):
meantime there has been this other case Charlotte. So there
must have been some paper trail, right, And I'm also
pretty sure that there's some paper trail in Luxbourg. We
haven't seen it yet because it's difficult.
Speaker 6 (26:24):
I'm very surprised that there aren't what they doesn't exist
more police files with his.
Speaker 3 (26:31):
Name or some of his names are Yeah, as I said,
we sent them the whole list, and I said, they
drew a blank across the page. And that's really what
makes me think maybe there's more names. Maybe there's more
Luxembourg names that we don't know, and what are the
chances of they're being more widows. Yeah, that's also something.
But then again we were thinking maybe back then in Luxembourg,
(26:53):
his his way was a different one. Maybe he hadn't
started romance scamming widows back then because he also was
a bit younger, right, Maybe it was more to do
with the I don't know, stolen goods. That's also something
this neighbor from that song said. The original quote was
he sold couches that weren't his, for example. So there's
something going on with this furniture store, and it's not
(27:16):
just selling couches that you produce and sell to a customer.
Speaker 6 (27:20):
When you look at this story in its entirety, when
you look at the whole picture, have you seen many
cases like this? Not at all.
Speaker 3 (27:28):
I mean, this is quite extraordinary.
Speaker 6 (27:32):
Tell me the case of Monique Cornelius. Describe what happened
to her for me, if you would. What we know
is what we've heard in the hearings. Apparently she met
him in the I don't know, early eighties, nineteen eighty,
late seventies maybe, And she said in this interview in
the podcast, if I'm not mistaken, or in the hearing anyway,
(27:55):
somewhere she said it they met at the Caffe de Palil,
just three minutes from here actually, and he said, no,
we we met somewhere else at book sale, I think,
he said. And Monny Cornelius together with her by then
already ex Husbandhano Remachael. They had a bookstore in ash
Azette in the south of the country, and apparently she
(28:16):
had an affair with him. That's what we heard in
the hearings too, like there were these love letters from
Rick Glum being read out to her. He was Rick also,
and that's pretty much all I know, so we cannot
she wouldn't talk to us. And then sometime later he
turns up in Australia, Yes, with a driver's last Yes,
(28:39):
under the name of Fernand Remaco. Yah.
Speaker 3 (28:41):
Yeah, that's where it all gets connected to Luxembourg on
the biggest scale, so to speak. That's where we came
into it. It must have been at one point that
Rick Glum or whether Hiavari or Rick or whatever met
the real fanor Remachel, although the real Funnel Remarkle says no,
(29:02):
I've never met this man in my life.
Speaker 6 (29:04):
He's never met him.
Speaker 3 (29:05):
Yeah, that's what he says.
Speaker 6 (29:06):
And yeah, and yet Rick Blum ends up with a
Queensland driver's license. See he's nice, yes, exactly, and Fernand remarkable.
Yeah it's not exactly. I mean it's a bit like
Rumple still skin.
Speaker 3 (29:15):
Yeah, it's unusual. Name is Remarkael is not a too
unusual name in Luxembourg, but in other parts of the
world most probably Yeah, to put them together. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
of course. I mean there's not many funeral Remarkles in
the world, if at all. And he says he's never
met him. Nevertheless, apparently, and that's also what Bloom said
in the hearings. He had a driver's license from Remarkael
(29:36):
and he went to the Automobile Club in Luxembourg to
make it an international driver's license. So what that means
merely is it gets translated and it gets a stamped
that the translation is correct, and then you have an
international driver's license. And Bloom makes it sound like it
was easy back in the day to go to the
ACL and just say I need this copy to.
Speaker 5 (29:58):
That, right.
Speaker 3 (30:00):
He is a bit vague about how he did it,
whether he send it by mail with a different picture
or no details, And in the end he ends up
going with this international driver's license to Queensland saying I
have an international driver's license from Luxembourg and I want
to copy it, so to speak, into an Australian driver's license,
which would make it totally legit. In the end question
(30:22):
would be what else do you need? To provide in
terms of documentation to say that you're entitled to this
friver's license. That's what I don't know. For example, in Australia,
I don't know how it works.
Speaker 6 (30:36):
Now he's very good at forgery.
Speaker 3 (30:37):
Yeah, that's the next thought. Then whatever it needs to
be provided, he would have it somewhere, even if he
makes it himself. Right. And that's the thing. We don't
know why he would pick this particular name. Maybe it's
just the occasion that he has this, like he meets
the ex husband of his affair and he steals the
(30:59):
drivers license and then he does his thing, or whether
he has some other motivation behind it, we don't know.
But that's eventually what brings the case back into Luxembourg
because of the personal ad under the name M. F
Remuckel and where it gets all even more confusing in
a way.
Speaker 6 (31:20):
It is confusing, isn't it, because there's liar upon liar.
Speaker 3 (31:23):
Yes, And that's apparently that's how he does it. He
uses those layers, just as he uses borders between countries,
like even before he came to Australia, he used this
border situation in this part of the world, like as
Germany France, Belgium, Luxembourg. He seemed to be border hopping
whenever it suited him, and coming to Australia it seemed
(31:47):
like it was free game after that, because Australia is
so far from here. Over here is so far from Australia,
you could do whatever you like. And that you can
tell with what he tells those women, like in women
he tells about Bali and about living in Australia. And
if we assume that he did the same thing with
Marion Barter, he told maybe he told Marion Barter about
(32:09):
living in Luxembourg, because that's the fantastic happy place in
old Europe, you know, and apparently there's England in the
equation with the Janet Oldenburg and also Marion Barter. So
basically he uses these fantasies about this happy place far
far away, and it's a two way road. It's not
(32:30):
just Australia to Europe, but it's also the other way around.
And that's interesting too.
Speaker 6 (32:34):
Through through this journey, have you once covered any evidence
of Marion Barter being here in Luxembourg?
Speaker 3 (32:42):
And I think it's rather unlikely, or let's say it's
not more unlikely than other stuff we uncovered. But for example,
there has been this theory, why is she riding divorced
on her outgoing passenger card when she goes to and
and saying she was gonna in Luxembourg, but she writes
being married or being a housewife married in Luxembourg when
(33:05):
she comes back to Australia a few weeks months later.
And there's been this theory did they get married in
Luxembourg under the name of Fenor Remarkael and Flora Bella, etc.
To which we think it's highly unlikely that in Luxembourg,
a very tight knit place, even more so back in
the eighties, you have this identity of Fenor Remarchael, who
(33:26):
was well, he wasn't a football star, but he was
well known in certain places and certain communities for being
a football player. For example, you don't just walk into
the next mayor's office saying, I'm the real Fenor Remarkael
and I want to marry this woman right, Let alone
the fact that you would need to have residence in
(33:47):
Luxembourg to be able.
Speaker 9 (33:48):
To do that.
Speaker 3 (33:49):
But if they got married, I don't think it was
in Luxembourg, and I don't quite think that Marion actually
ended up being in Luxembourg because whatever happened happened before,
I guess.
Speaker 6 (34:02):
So that's that's that's getting stranger, isn't it. So why
would Marion Barter write on her incoming passenger card into
Australia when she went back that she was a housewife,
that she'd been married, she was married here in Luxembourg.
Speaker 3 (34:17):
Yes, that's what we don't know. That's it might be
part of the bigger picture scam that he needed her
to be named Remarchael with the same initials, and he
needed a cover story for them to be whatever it
was that they was supposed to be for the scam.
Right then again, yeah, we don't know when you look.
Speaker 6 (34:42):
At all these stories of the way he has operated through,
not just the sort of the romance scam, so I
can put it that way, but all the rest of
the crimes. And when you put everything into one bucket,
what what for you? Are the biggest questions still left unanswered?
Speaker 3 (35:00):
So the biggest question that we should stay focused on
is what happened to Marian Barter, because that's also something
the other victims say. We talked to the ladies in Belgium,
they said, well, I know I lost a lot of money,
but at least I'm alive. Right, So they say they're
quite clear on that they were lucky, and as far
as we can tell, Marion Barter wasn't lucky in the end,
(35:21):
but we don't know. So that's what I would say
is the biggest question. We need to know what happened
to Marion, right, I mean, we approach them saying, here's
the deal, here's the backstory, here's the Marian Butter story,
here's what we've done so far, and then they either
have heard about that already or they read up on it,
up on it, and at least one of them said, well,
(35:42):
I'm at least I'm still alive, and apparently this Australian
lady is not. So yeah, it's in their minds for sure.
And the other big questions, I mean, yeah, what else
is there that we haven't seen yet? I mean there's
I wouldn't stop at Romans scamming. I wouldn't stop at
the forgery thing. I'm not sure that he's like the
(36:03):
whole what we talked of, what's also being talked about,
his fascination with poison and the livers, cans, etc. I'm
not quite sure what to make of that one. To
be honest, I talked to doctors who said, well, yeah,
there's livers Can. It's of no use to him. Really,
why would he do that? Like I talked to one
doctor who's a friend of mine who said, yeah, the
livers can. I don't quite see where he's going at it.
(36:26):
Are you sure that he's in his right mind? Like,
are you sure that he's not maybe a bit not
as intelligent as he makes himself seem, because the doctor
from a medical standpoint, he said, well livers can, who cares?
Speaker 6 (36:40):
Right? Strange thing to do is that.
Speaker 3 (36:41):
Yeah. On the other hand, yeah, it might be that way.
I wouldn't say he's a killer from what I read.
I mean, it's it's always just assuming, right. But we
have heard at least in one occasion from someone who said, well,
he wouldn't be surprised if he's connected to an armed
robbery in Tournay that was pretty spectacular in the eighties,
(37:04):
so that he might have been like something like a
loose member of one of or several of Belgian Luxembourgish
criminal gangs. So we were looking into this one. The
only thing we can tell for sure is that in
the seventies and eighties. There's been a lot of armed
robbery going on in these parts. So you find a
lot of newspaper articles in the archives about something being
(37:26):
taken by force back in the day. Apparently it was
still very common to do.
Speaker 6 (37:32):
Do you think it's safe to say that there are
still crimes that he might have committed that have yet
to be uncovered?
Speaker 3 (37:38):
Well, that, yeah, that's the assumption, right. I don't know
if it's safe to say, but everything looks towards that direction.
Speaker 6 (37:45):
If you had a chance to sit down and interview him, Tom, Yeah,
I'm sure you've thought about this many times while you
were tapping away. Yeah, composing many of the stories that
you've been running. What would be front of mine for you?
Speaker 3 (37:58):
Well, I'm pretty sure he wouldn't. You wouldn't talk to
him in the first place.
Speaker 6 (38:01):
I mean, I'm just a hypothetical, hypothetically, because I'm not
sure even if he talked to any of us that
he'd tell the truth.
Speaker 3 (38:08):
Here I are.
Speaker 2 (38:14):
Mister Bloom has not given any interviews since we introduced
him to our stunned audience early last year, despite many
approaches from other media following our story. Many of the
questions we have for mister Bloom go to what he
has done, to whom, when and where. Fortunately, we have
(38:37):
heard many of those questions put to him on the
witness stand at the coronial inquest. We've also had the
opportunity to observe this mercurial character, to try to piece
together a profile of his psyche and assess what he
might be capable of by peering through the multiple versions
of himself he has presented to the world.
Speaker 6 (39:04):
He has other decades conducted what is clearly a sort
of methodological approach to covering his tracks.
Speaker 3 (39:13):
Yes, and he's been added since he's sixteen or something
exactly at the first Belgian exactly articles.
Speaker 6 (39:19):
And it's the old story, isn't it. I mean, in
human nature, you graduate from one thing to another, for.
Speaker 3 (39:24):
Sure, definitely. And also the whole paper trail with the
Australian immigration I mean, I'm sure you read the file
about where they keep writing each other note saying should
we intervene, should we tell the minister about it?
Speaker 1 (39:36):
No? You do it?
Speaker 3 (39:37):
No you do it, No you do it. And in
the end somebody writes, well what is this? What have
you done here over the last five years? But still
nobody's doing anything about it. It's really weird. It's embarrassing
in a way for us, and it's also coming from
our on my European Luxembourg is German whatever point of view.
(39:59):
I also or have trouble understanding the whole name changed thing.
I didn't know what a deep poll is until Brian
told me about it. I didn't know it was so
easy to be somebody else in the Anglo Saxon law system,
let's call it.
Speaker 6 (40:13):
I didn't know.
Speaker 3 (40:14):
You just need I don't know, an electricity bill to
be somebody else. Apparently, maybe that's also something that needs
to be put into consideration, that that's maybe a bit
too easy for people like grip Plume.
Speaker 6 (40:26):
Right, it's extraordinary, isn't it. Yeah, And he's clearly taken
advantage of all those sorts of things.
Speaker 3 (40:31):
For sure, definitely. And it wouldn't have been so easy
in Belgium back in the day, especially like back in
the day, in Belgium, he would have needed to forge
those documents, he would have forged a physical copy of
somebody else's passport, idea, whatever, Whereas in Australia apparently he
can just send a letter to some official position saying
(40:53):
I want to be called somebody else in the future.
That's something that puzzled me in the beginning, but now
I get it that I try to understand it that
it's to be. But that's something where I thought, well,
that's kind of.
Speaker 6 (41:04):
Weird you did, right, But you've given us that flavor
that we wanted, you know, from Europe and a bit
of a bad.
Speaker 3 (41:10):
I wish I could tell you more about uh. I
wish we had more from the archives on, better feedback
from our readers. But maybe we're just at the beginning.
Speaker 6 (41:18):
We don't know. There will be more about.
Speaker 3 (41:20):
This when the hearing resumes and when it's I don't know.
Speaker 6 (41:23):
I think that's a really good point and we've we've
talked about that too off camera. When we go to
air with this, for example, this will be on YouTube
internationally and that in itself will then spur and perhaps
within Australia, other people to come forward, other people to
be confident, you know, to say something that's the thing,
to put their hand up and now you know it's
you know what it's like in journalism, that's general rural right,
(41:46):
like success begets success yeah, yeah, ye, exposure keeps keeps
the momentum going.
Speaker 3 (41:51):
And it's a trust thing, of course, Like exactly when
let's say there's another Belgian vido being having been scammed
out of whatever it is, the stamp collection of her
late husband, and she sees that there's other women speaking
out before her, and they've been treated seriously on fair
(42:13):
in the reports, then that might give them the courage
and the trust to do it, to come forward, which
is what happened to Glaine, or what happened with Glaine
in the first place. They read the French version of
of our first article on Marion Barter and then the
daughter in law just two days after. So we get
an email by the daughter and was saying, we just
(42:34):
read this. It's the same thing, the same thing that
happened to my mother in law. Thank god she's still alive,
but you need to hear the story. And then we
got her on the phone. Then we met her in Brussels,
and one came to the other right, And that's it,
Like it's like a house of cards, you need to
pull out the right one.
Speaker 1 (42:53):
Well, all this is going on, I'm arriving at the
home of the theatric and charismatic Manique Cornelius. Many of
you will remember her as the recipient of a letter
from Rick Blum, then Frederick to Heaveri and his singing testicles.
Although Minique has spoken to me on the phone before
(43:13):
convincing her to go on camera, is a much bigger
mountain to climb. When I get out of the taxi,
she rushes over the front door, locking behind her, greeting
me warmly in her sing song voice before inviting me in.
The seventy four year old retired teacher proudly introduces me
(43:35):
to one of her neighbors. Monique is petite, with straight
blonde hair framing her well weathered face, glasses and a
broad smile.
Speaker 5 (43:44):
Her home is.
Speaker 1 (43:45):
Beautifully decorated with artworks and furniture, and she has two
well fed British blue cats that she dotes on. We
have coffee and I show her some of the clip
of our interview with Gilaine that lying soon, Manique takes
out a large envelope with all the articles about Rick
(44:07):
Blum or Frederick to Heavari as she knew him, I have.
This time, she opens up about some of the crimes
she claims she witnessed him commit. Monique's English is sometimes
hard to follow, but as she tells it. He was
allegedly stealing furniture from overseas and reconstructing it before selling
it out of the business he operated in Luxembourg in
(44:30):
the nineteen eighties.
Speaker 5 (44:32):
In England, there are old castles and they are full
of very beauty furniture, and she is stealing that out old,
very old furniture, and tab brought to bet. He made
it in a big car, in a big fan, and
(44:55):
then with the ship. I had no idea.
Speaker 1 (45:00):
Ever, when the police awasted him. Can you tell me
that story again?
Speaker 5 (45:05):
I was going back to it. He had rented the
apartment from me there and I had my apartment. My
own apartment in Luxembourg is ten minutes from there from
our law ten minutes not more. The police erasities. I
was sure that he was not the man he pretended
to be. This was at the end of your relationship again. Yeah,
(45:28):
he has in Belgium. There are also many people made
you big money with furniture. I know where they are,
and he wanted to have me in there, so but
I told I wrote a letter of the commandy, let
you commande I retire from this night. And the police
(45:52):
came to catch me.
Speaker 7 (45:53):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (45:54):
Ah, he told me that and so but I retired.
He had to let me go, so I knew we
got your arrested. Yeah yeah, and that I have the
police of Police Sjudice Year.
Speaker 7 (46:08):
You know what it is.
Speaker 5 (46:09):
This is the best police we have here. Yeah yeah, yeah.
And I did not I did not speak to them,
but I called them, please have an eye on me,
have an eye on me, and I have someone just
(46:30):
for Frederick in our police Judice Year. Yeah, that is
very good. I am afraid or something. Police. Next morning,
come to the police station. We have some questions. You
a member there in this circle? Oh? I said, no, yes,
(46:52):
you're we have it here. And look the next the
next post you have got he was it was a policeman.
Speaker 3 (47:03):
Not in uniform.
Speaker 5 (47:04):
It's just like he like him. Well he was away
quote or noah, it's true.
Speaker 9 (47:14):
You can go.
Speaker 5 (47:15):
He has vanished, vanished like I couldn't see him nowhere.
So I went back to ours and yes, I did
not see seeing him back one time when you told
me come to Australia with me. So that is interesting.
Speaker 1 (47:34):
Well again I just want to thank you if you
tell me, I thank you.
Speaker 5 (47:40):
We're going to Tourna tomorrow so we'll go to the tourney.
Speaker 1 (47:43):
Is that this way is yeah, So we'll go there
tomorrow and see.
Speaker 5 (47:49):
Tourna is wonderful. Tourna is wonderful, because wonderful sure with rembrants,
real real rambants inside. Oh, or you must look if
it's still there. It's forty years and forty years I.
Speaker 1 (48:08):
Will check it out.
Speaker 5 (48:09):
He lived at Intunia, and that's a house. But he
went to see his associates, and in the night or
the other day he came back with furniture. It was
a house about a sort of bungalow, and he was
never there. He was always visits associates, and came back
(48:30):
with a blue bad foot full of flick. And then
after two two hours he had effequated with averything. One
day we were eating outside. I have never had in
a restaurant such atmosphere. The only man but not educated classes.
(48:56):
You saw already in their behavior. So she, like.
Speaker 1 (49:03):
Maria, of course, of course like that. I was.
Speaker 5 (49:09):
I was the only woman between those and she who
is she? She belongs to be because she.
Speaker 4 (49:20):
Belongs to be.
Speaker 2 (49:21):
It is difficult in parts to understand Monique precisely, but
she's outlining a general impression of mister Bloom working with
gangsters as part of a dodgy furniture dealing operation in
which he tried to involve her before police stepped in.
After just one hour talking to Monique, she agrees to
an interview with the Spotlight crew on the basis that
(49:43):
her face is not shown. Luxembourg is a tiny community,
it is hard to remain anonymous. Given her previously stated
fear and trepidation in relation to Rick Bloom, it's understandable
why she's reluctant, and an impressive show of inner strength
that she agrees to it in the hopes of helping others.
(50:07):
While the Spotlight team is preparing for the interview with Monique,
Allison has another issue to attend to.
Speaker 4 (50:14):
I've just spoken my shoe over at Monique's house. My
heel came off my boot and so i can't walk properly,
so I've got.
Speaker 5 (50:22):
To try and find a shop his shoes.
Speaker 4 (50:27):
Unfortunately, it will be really expensive.
Speaker 5 (50:28):
For the other problem I have is my.
Speaker 1 (50:30):
Feet so big head to Europeans, so they probably won't
have my size, so I might just have to hobble
around the whole time Monique's end there. She took a
lot of convincing to want to speak Beau so not
it's really hard for her, but being anonymous as in
not showing.
Speaker 4 (50:48):
Her face will be will really be really helpful.
Speaker 9 (50:52):
So I'm so grateful to her, as for all the
other women out here who have been so generous, these grave,
wonderful women who keep telling their stories knowing that it's
for the greater good and to help other women who
(51:13):
are being through the same nightmare.
Speaker 1 (51:16):
And Evelyn and beneath me getting on really really well,
which is lovely, the having a great time catching up.
It's really hard obviously to hear Evelyn's.
Speaker 4 (51:26):
Story for anyone, but it's you know, it's been really
good of them coming together. I think it's therapeutic for
them all.
Speaker 10 (51:36):
So I'm just looking around here, I know I am now,
so I've got my bearings and hopefully I'll make it
back very very soon without getting lost anyway.
Speaker 4 (51:48):
Yeah, Luxembourg is very enjoyable place and where it's having
a wonderful time here and doing hopefully what we believe.
Speaker 5 (51:57):
Is some good.
Speaker 2 (51:59):
Fortunately, of finding some replacement shoes that were only one
size too small, Allison did make it back after only
a few wrong turns.
Speaker 6 (52:12):
Monique Thank you very much for doing this. It's very
important for people to hear your story because your story
is just one tiny story that this man has created
in Europe and in Australia. So he obviously was going
under a long list of names, but in this story
we'll call him by his current name, which is Rick
(52:33):
Bloom in Australia, Rick Bloom. So who was Rick Bloom
to you?
Speaker 5 (52:41):
In the beginning, it was I was just divorcing, I
was alone, I lived alone, and he was welcome. He
was an interesting friend. He spoke man, some languages, he
knew how to tell stories about his family in the
(53:03):
Second World War. He was a Jew, he was adopted
in Australia. For me, he was interesting, interesting man.
Speaker 6 (53:14):
Did he come across intelligently intellectually?
Speaker 5 (53:17):
Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. But sometimes he told me a
film that I have seen, also how the Jewish people
were transported in the concentration places. He told also films
(53:38):
to me. And when I saw that the distance got
greater and that he had here, ETCETERA pin of a
war he participated Australia against I don't know what Australia
(53:59):
was in the war, and he passiptated in that.
Speaker 6 (54:03):
Was that the Vietnam War. So he told you he
was an Australian soldier.
Speaker 5 (54:07):
Yes, of course, of course. And he showed me his
acid rippings that were so really bless you don't so
here here here, here up there. And he showed me
his legs and told me that there machine gun in
(54:29):
the war machine gun. And I thought, I thought that
the lack was so he was for me practically also
a hero.
Speaker 6 (54:41):
So he was pretending he had wounds from the war,
from the war, from the Vietnam War, Vietnam War. From
the moment he met you, what did he promise you?
Speaker 5 (54:51):
He wanted to marry marry me? No, no, never in
my life, I don't. I am just devo. Don't speak
me of marriage. And so I think that there I
was someone who didn't fit in his representation marriage. He
(55:11):
can take his marriage and go somewhere else. No, not yet,
I throw him away. When I knew in phoned in
Australia and I could hear this is what he's speaking.
And then I knew that he was married, and I
(55:35):
did not believe him anymore. It was practically by hearing
a phone call that he was spoking. Yeah, I said,
you spoke to him, and I think, yeah, that's my wife.
He betrayed me. It was never question of a wife.
(55:58):
Never now. But I am not too too idiots. But
even I I was proud of him. I was proud
to be with him. He could be, he could.
Speaker 6 (56:12):
He was very educated with me, and by the sounds
of it, very smooth.
Speaker 5 (56:19):
Yeah yeah, yeah yeah. And of war, of hero, of
his family burned in Auschwitz.
Speaker 6 (56:30):
Lots of stories, very very very convincing.
Speaker 5 (56:35):
And directly changing. I think I am a little bit educated,
but I think he is not educated, not at all.
He has never seen university or something.
Speaker 6 (56:50):
Manique, did you love him? Yeah, in the beginning, did
he tell you that he loved you?
Speaker 5 (56:58):
Oh yes, oh yes, yeah, oh yes.
Speaker 6 (57:05):
Did you ever give him any money?
Speaker 5 (57:07):
Never?
Speaker 1 (57:08):
No.
Speaker 5 (57:09):
I am Luxembourger, I'm a farmer. I know if money.
Speaker 4 (57:14):
No.
Speaker 5 (57:15):
When I knew him, I told me that he worked
in the English embassy as special ancient. I believed it,
susim right.
Speaker 6 (57:26):
So he made it as if he was James Bond.
Speaker 5 (57:28):
Something like that. That is really yeah. And if you
know at a certain state stadium of relationship.
Speaker 4 (57:40):
You do not know.
Speaker 5 (57:42):
Yeah, Ia, that is true, and so on is and
I wrote a letter to the English Empathy because it
was something in me told me I want verification. I
never got none. So then he told me that they
(58:04):
never given out. And I believe that. Yeah, I believed it,
and that is true. But if you uh to Frederic
Devari working at the English Embassy letter, I got never
an answer, but a position began in my brain. It
beguns easy begun in my and the other things. Yeah,
(58:28):
you can love someone not people also love vanishes.
Speaker 6 (58:32):
But you are a teacher. You were a teacher, a
very smart woman. How did he manage to pull the
wool over your eyes so many times?
Speaker 5 (58:43):
He was good? He was extremely good. And I can't
understand each woman that give him millions when she has
it so persuasive persus Yeah, and if he laughed all
(59:03):
the time, he said, it's like that chuck chuck, chuck.
We luxembocause are not like that. So serious man. And
you you know me little, you know me a little
bit now.
Speaker 6 (59:17):
So he was a lot of fun to be around.
Speaker 5 (59:18):
Yeah, and new things and thinking I didn't know that,
thinking standing above above everything. He laughed.
Speaker 6 (59:30):
Monique are describing a very good.
Speaker 5 (59:32):
Liar, a very good, absolutely absolutely good liar.
Speaker 6 (59:38):
What else in his personality? What sort of person do
you think?
Speaker 5 (59:42):
He is a very poor guy, a very poor guy,
and he showses women. His partners were always women, and
that there he has a big advantage. He was not
an ugly man. He could many things very good. So
(01:00:06):
you understand me and and always well never, oh yes,
let's do here, let's do say he left. He did
leave me completely free. I was if he had tried
me marriage or something to never, I was free and
(01:00:31):
he was disciplinable.
Speaker 6 (01:00:33):
Do you think he is capable of violence?
Speaker 5 (01:00:37):
Oh yes, oh yes, in the biggest dimension, in the
highest dimension. He made me once sign a paper where
there was nothing written, nothing on it, nothing at all.
But I saw you have to sign sign it now signing,
(01:00:59):
and so in his aggression that is serious money. I
saw him capable, must have just before I saw him
out of the country. If you come back once, I
will immediately go to the signed that and I signed it.
But at night I made a retraction with a letter
(01:01:24):
RECOMMANDI you know what it is electa eletter RECOMMANDI.
Speaker 6 (01:01:29):
Yes, like it's a Swan statement.
Speaker 5 (01:01:31):
It must be it is. It must be delivered. And
if they not deliver, you can go to to justice,
to the police of Arlon. Arlon was in Belgium.
Speaker 2 (01:01:44):
Monique lives in the city of Arlon. It has a
population of just over twenty eight thousand, making it the
smallest provincial capital in Belgium.
Speaker 5 (01:01:52):
And I retracted May and then he had disappeared, Chuck,
I was good, good, well, the school began in three weeks.
Speaker 6 (01:02:09):
I he was vanished and that was the last time
you saw him.
Speaker 5 (01:02:14):
No, after a year, I was I was very ill.
I got the depression because if I understand not what
happens to me, that can be very destructive for someone
who wants to understand and has questions like why what happened? Why?
(01:02:39):
Why are you right? Are you to throw him away
of country like that? He could very good play the
role of a victim. That he could best the role
of victim. His family all burned or everybody burned in
(01:03:02):
Auschwitz or somewhere, and he alone on the streets of Berlin,
in the stones, nothing to eat. Nothing. The English came
and got him to Australia, where a family has adopted it. Nothing.
Nothing is true of that. But he could tell itself
that you would a woman in any case, it will
(01:03:26):
also axt on women's emotionality. I am not too emotional.
I can't think. Also that he was a master in
an English master.
Speaker 6 (01:03:41):
Do you believe he has had anything to do with
the disappearance of Marion Barley?
Speaker 1 (01:03:46):
Yes.
Speaker 5 (01:03:47):
He always told me, Monique, let's make a world voyage
with I buy a ship with a veil, you know,
uh siege if that would be fine? But then here, Monique,
(01:04:10):
what are you doing on the ship with a man
like him. I have no possibility to get away. I
don't come with you. I have seen weapons, I see
the gun.
Speaker 6 (01:04:21):
So Monik, all of this, all of this experience for you,
all of this, however you want to whatever you want
to call it, experience, adventure, saga. Let me go backwards.
When you met Rick Bloom, Who did he say he was?
Speaker 5 (01:04:34):
What was his name, Frederic Deva? Then WILLI bou bou
be or muti? And that is a badge?
Speaker 6 (01:04:44):
Then what reason did he give you for changing his name?
Speaker 5 (01:04:47):
I am at the English Embassy. I'm a special agent,
and I must have those different identities. I must here.
Speaker 6 (01:05:00):
Ah, that's the reason he gave you for changing.
Speaker 5 (01:05:02):
Yeah, one day I saw him pulling up from the
soil an identity card. So what do you do with that?
It's not your identity, Monique. He opened and showed me
at least ten identity cards different. Are you crazy? What
(01:05:24):
do you do with the identity? Cut Monique? That's my profession.
I believed it, but then I know I didn't believe
in everything anymore.
Speaker 6 (01:05:35):
Yes, that's when you write a letter.
Speaker 5 (01:05:36):
Yeah, that's why I live still over Yeah.
Speaker 6 (01:05:39):
So when you look at this in total, how has
this affected your life?
Speaker 5 (01:05:44):
In nothing, I have become strong much. I have nobody.
I have only myself and I look in the eyes
of Frederick. Or what do you say, piece of fear,
piece of fear? If you show up one time, I
(01:06:07):
will go to squeeze. He never showed one time. He
showed up. Money, come back, come back. We have discovered
in Australia in the passage of Cook Cook passage an
old Spanish ship and it's full of silver. Come we
will get that. He was finished. I said no. I
(01:06:31):
just said no.
Speaker 6 (01:06:32):
And what do you think then, of the way he's
treated all the other ladies widows here in Belgium.
Speaker 5 (01:06:40):
I understand the ladies. A woman who wants to live,
she wants still to have emotions. She wants it to
have a life she has never had. I understand that.
Very good, very good. I would never do it because
I have herd that experience.
Speaker 6 (01:07:02):
Do you feel sympathy for them?
Speaker 5 (01:07:05):
Oh? Yes, so a bit, very bad, very big sympathy.
Speaker 6 (01:07:13):
Well, why do you think that the police in all
these different countries have never been able to to really
get to the bottom of.
Speaker 5 (01:07:22):
The truth because women don't give up their emotions so easy.
Must be very strong and say that was answer? Not
not as men? Perhaps I will have my satisfaction. You will,
(01:07:45):
you will die, my dear, No, I will begin, I begin.
Speaker 7 (01:07:52):
You are.
Speaker 5 (01:07:55):
Nothing for me, less than nothing you are.
Speaker 6 (01:08:00):
Do you think he's managed to escape a lot of
his problems because the victims have been embarrassed.
Speaker 5 (01:08:06):
They have been through through really because at a certain age,
many women are alone and the family is a family.
Speaker 4 (01:08:20):
It is what it is.
Speaker 5 (01:08:23):
You have to go alone to that. And then he
must be a little bit. I was younger.
Speaker 9 (01:08:31):
That was my fault.
Speaker 5 (01:08:33):
I will do it without you your blood fast.
Speaker 6 (01:08:38):
So what did you think of him taking your former
husband's identity?
Speaker 3 (01:08:46):
Bloody?
Speaker 6 (01:08:48):
So he took advantage of you by taking your husband's identity. Yeah,
and then down the track Marion Bart Yeah became.
Speaker 5 (01:08:57):
Missus woman Florabella Missus the remarkaal.
Speaker 2 (01:09:02):
Yes, coming up, we traveled to where it all began.
Speaker 6 (01:09:14):
We've heard so many stories from so many different women
that are essentially the same story in their connection with
Rick Bloom, Willie Wooters, Frederick Bird a very whatever he
calls himself at a particular point in time, a lot
of his approaches to these lonely women have been the same,
(01:09:35):
and they've ended up in the same tragedy. Well, one
sort of person, what sort of man is capable of
doing that to somebody else?
Speaker 2 (01:09:55):
If you knew Marian or have any information about her
or her where about, we'd love to hear from you.
Our website is sevennews dot com dot au, slash news
slash the Lady Vanishers, and you can also message us here.
You can also send us an anonymous tip at the
(01:10:16):
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,
(01:10:37):
Sound design, Mark Wright Graphics, Jason Blandford transcripts and translation
Estelle Sanchez, the theme and much of the music by
Nicholas Gasparini at the Darkpiano dot Com. Thanks again to
the Allians Francis. This is a seven News production.
This is the case of Marion Barter, a mother, teacher
friend missing for twenty six years.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
You know, no sign that she was going to vanish.
Speaker 3 (00:24):
That's for sure.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
The bizarre circumstances surrounding her disappearance.
Speaker 4 (00:29):
I'm not sure if it was intentional or there's something
more foul afoot.
Speaker 3 (00:34):
If you could imagine a teacher coming straight from say
little house on the prairie to the eighties, that was
Marian Barter.
Speaker 5 (00:40):
What I say, whether you find Marian Barter dead or alive,
I honestly believe somebody has that key piece of information.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
And the relentless quest of a daughter to find her mum.
Speaker 6 (00:55):
Something had happened, Something has happened to make her leave.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
I am one hundred percent sure, one hundred percent sure
that somebody knows something. The lady vanishes, Episode fifty three.
I'm Alison Sandy.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
And I'm Brian Seymour.
Speaker 5 (01:19):
Hello.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
Here I am with the man Liam Bartlet. We are
here in the middle of town square in Brussels, which
is just phenomenal. And Liam, you've been to so many
places in your career. Can you can you tell me
do you have an idea?
Speaker 6 (01:33):
The number? Yeah, the number. I'm not sure that can
I just can I tell people that we've been talking
about shopping, which is a serious subject. Right when you're
on their own shopping and if you don't come home
with the right presence, you're in a serious strike. Allison,
you've impressed me with the shopping already. This is a
lady who makes decisions. You can see why she us
(01:57):
where she is. I don't know the number, that's the
short answer. That's why I'm prevaricating.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
Here would be hundreds and all over the world, exotic locations,
from Batan to Russia to Middle East, Middle East Africa, Africa.
What's the most unusual.
Speaker 6 (02:13):
Like off the bridge of the Greed. Probably places that
you can't automatically find a policeman or get help if
you need it, or lawless places. Probably the Congo.
Speaker 1 (02:28):
Probably, oh my god, democratic republica commo.
Speaker 6 (02:31):
Yes, big country and out there, completely out there, and
terrible shopping.
Speaker 1 (02:38):
So you didn't buy any presents.
Speaker 6 (02:40):
Nothing came back from the Congo.
Speaker 1 (02:42):
He has been very impressive with his presence for his family.
I asked him whether or not he was wearing some
factory's wife, and he's of course his wife said no,
don't learn have been back, but he's no call.
Speaker 6 (02:54):
That's a COVID message from Whit's all over the world.
When you go away, don't worry me means get me
something big.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
And it's been a little bit sad because the fertility
bars you've got three ten wasn't a win up.
Speaker 6 (03:09):
I can't understand why that wasn't at We'd already had
three kids, so she didn't need a fraternity bars. Okay,
but it's beautiful and it's still sitting in that laundry
cupboard to day to this day.
Speaker 1 (03:21):
Thanks, but she didn't tell him. I love the fact
she didn't tell him, but kind of gave it away
with the laundry cupboard vacation. Very sad, but sorry, I'm
gonna bring this up. But my favorite, though, is the
one you brought back through your daughter one time.
Speaker 6 (03:36):
Can you describe it from Japan? We were out in
the prefectures of Japan. I have been really a regional
Japanese present, not common for many A frog purse.
Speaker 5 (03:47):
Real frog.
Speaker 6 (03:48):
Yeah, it has been treated, but she was ten there
at the time and a very ungrateful ten year old.
Speaker 1 (03:56):
I can't understand it, Like why you wouldn't want a
dead frog that you could book stuff in.
Speaker 6 (04:01):
It was a beautiful change kids.
Speaker 1 (04:08):
Well for just a little bit on the st of
your life as an international domestica of Jersey ships incredible
and I'm really to be on this part.
Speaker 6 (04:19):
Thanks for making me sound so seriously.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
Liam Bartlett has been a journalist for more than thirty years.
He started in radio, firstly in regional Western Australia, where
as well as presenting, he had to sell commercials, before
moving to Perth where he dominated the airwaves at six PR,
followed by ABC. In two thousand and two, Liam was
awarded a Churchill Fellowship to study investigative journalism and later
(04:48):
became a reporter for sixty Minutes. He joined Channel seven
Spotlight this year. For me, this is only the third
time I've been overseas for work, but undoubtedly the most
memorable in my career so far. Sadly, our time in Brussels, though,
has come to an end for now and we embark
(05:11):
upon a road trip to nearby Luxembourg.
Speaker 5 (05:14):
So the GPS is a little bit confusing.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
The route out of the Belgian capital is a tree
lined avenue decorated with old fashioned terrace apartments either side.
The next massive roundabout return right. We pass some more
magnificent landmarks on the way out, including the City Museum,
before the buildings become fewer and the trees more prominent.
First things first, though, we need fuel, not for the
(05:39):
car but for us. So here is the endless pursuits
to find somewhere we can get coffee.
Speaker 5 (05:46):
Not so easy as we're leading Brussels.
Speaker 1 (05:48):
We find it at a little town called yeesious Ike,
just outside Brussels.
Speaker 3 (05:53):
The restaurant that's shut.
Speaker 5 (05:56):
Yeah, it's the bank holiday.
Speaker 1 (05:58):
Belgium and Luxembourg s to have a lot of bank holidays.
It's not surprising, giving banking and finance drives both economies,
especially Luxembourg, which is a major global tax haven. But
they should be a cafe somewhere. They'll have a cafe.
People stood in coffee.
Speaker 5 (06:16):
Honestly, Yeah, here.
Speaker 7 (06:18):
We go ya, Oh my gosh, thank goodness, thank goodness,
we can come alive.
Speaker 5 (06:30):
Again, and we do.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
The staff there are so friendly and by the time
we get back on the road we feel completely reinvigorated.
It was another hour and a half before we stopped again,
this time at a small village just off the highway
over the Luxembourg border. Nothing is opened except for a
petrol station opposite a small homestead with farm animals including geese, turkeys, chickens,
(06:57):
and a rooster running free. I just love how the
chickens are out and it's a pretty busy road.
Speaker 2 (07:06):
We just have some sort of road sense.
Speaker 5 (07:09):
Those pe massive They are very.
Speaker 1 (07:15):
That you know that you're getting too close back on
the road. Giant wind farms crowded the picturesque horizon as
we near the entry to the world's last Grand Duchy.
Here we are downtown Luxembourg. Interesting as a train station. Yea,
so four hours later since leaving Brussels, we are now.
Speaker 5 (07:41):
In the fill of Luxembourg.
Speaker 1 (07:43):
It doesn't take that long, but we did make a
few stops. Light rain greets us As we reach the hotel.
It's a five minute walk over the Adolphy Bridge to
Old Town.
Speaker 5 (07:59):
Oh my god.
Speaker 1 (08:00):
I knew it was going to be a fairy tale town,
but I had no idea it was going to look
like this. Old Town, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is breathtaking.
What looks like the Disneyland Castle in the distance is
actually the opulent State Savings Bank, built at the beginning
of the twentieth century. Crowds gather at a fair the
(08:23):
other side of the Sandstone Bridge. But I can see
why it would be a fantasy place to live, and
why hope that somebody might be tempted to move here
and start a new life. In the center is the
Monument of Remembrance or Gela Fra, which means Golden Lady.
(08:43):
Standing twenty one meters tall, the gilded bronze statue represents Nike,
Goddess of Victory, holding out a laurel wreath as if
placing it upon the head of the nation. At its
base are bronze figures of Luxembourgish soul, representing those who
volunteered to serve for France in World War One. Local
(09:06):
sculptor Klaus Sito created the monument, which was erected in
nineteen twenty three. Luxembourg is one of the smallest countries
in Europe and traditionally a military fortress because geographically it
was a critical stronghold for whomever was ruling at the time.
Over many centuries, they included Holy Roman emperors, the House
(09:30):
of Burgundy, the Habsburgs, French and Spanish kings, and finally
the Prussians. Before the Unification of Germany. Now it's a
successful business center and popular tourist hub. As we discover
at the main thoroughfare of Old Town. This is very busy,
but people here are rugged up, their clothing more flamboyant
(09:56):
and colorful than our attire in Australia. The temperature in
the earth early teens. Luxembourg feels even colder than Belgium.
We only have two days here, so there's little time
to waste. After a day of traveling. We get an
early night ahead of a full day of filming, starting
with the Luxembourg Word newspaper in the local language, the
(10:19):
Luxembourger Vite. Oh yeah, it's so good to be here
in Luxembourg with you. Thank you so much. Welcome, I've
always been so welcoming. Now four years ago Sally and
Brian came to see you in the newsroom.
Speaker 3 (10:30):
This is not the new No, We've moved shocked twice
since then. Long we ended up here and hopefully feel good.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
There's a much nice of business in this and the
technology is amazing. I'm just looking around the newsroom. Is
have you always had great technology?
Speaker 5 (10:45):
Is it just since you moved.
Speaker 3 (10:47):
It's got to do with the fact that we moved.
It all came kind of together. The idea was always there,
but this is basically everyone in one room and being
transparent about data. So you know what y're how y'ard
was performing of what's going on right now, so you
just have a look at the warm. Basically that's the idea.
Speaker 1 (11:04):
Your last article was under plum in relation to it, Blum,
how did that perform good enough?
Speaker 8 (11:10):
Let's say, yeah, usually these articles performed pretty well, and
so this this one even though there wasn't like anymitate
luxember conectional, but they did really want a Luxembourg fund
as well. And it's a lot of international readers.
Speaker 3 (11:21):
So the topic in general. So ever since we wrote
the first piece on the whole case and about like
trying to explain all the possible connections and then the
stories of Lord Charlotte and Guilen and Ante Flamm, they
find they find their readers. Really they've performed quite well.
Speaker 1 (11:40):
Have you had any potential other leads?
Speaker 3 (11:44):
Not as such currently, So from a Luxembourg perspective, I'd
also say the Belgian perspective is kind of I'm not finished,
but that's that's what it is in Belgium for us
from our perspective. So there's women in Belgium being robbed
out of amounts of money, and we have three of
them now and we haven't heard of the fourth yet.
(12:05):
But we're still at the same time trying to find
more Luxembourg connections, which is difficult. Though it's been a
while since he was in Luxembourg, it's longer back in
time than the Belgium cases. And it's also we might
have had a different way of going about things back then.
It might not have been the same modus operandi or
(12:28):
tricks he pulled, so it's all a bit shadier in
the Luxembourg era.
Speaker 8 (12:33):
So he might have reported people, but there's a civil
on communication of like romantic scams.
Speaker 3 (12:38):
In what we can see, the romance scamming is in Belgium,
and it is in Australia for sure, because we heard
of those two other.
Speaker 6 (12:47):
Women in the hearing them.
Speaker 3 (12:48):
We don't know what happened with Marion Barter, but so
far we don't see any of that in Luxembourg.
Speaker 1 (12:54):
Well, the inquest starts at the end of the month,
so I guess we'd be interested in that, yeah, for sure.
Speaker 3 (13:00):
Where I think we'll cover it locally as well.
Speaker 8 (13:02):
We will probably following your legal family that you know,
tied in with the stories that we did before that,
and whether it'd be interesting to see how that of
the thing.
Speaker 2 (13:12):
That would be quite an interesting turning point.
Speaker 8 (13:13):
And maybe at that point we can also try to
re engage with several leads here Luxembourg or or Swamp
with media and maybe try something out that that could
give us more of an indication of for the dictions.
Speaker 3 (13:26):
Yeah, or we'll be spending time on YouTube.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
Well can you question and some of the other lads
where you have to thank you, You're welcome, thank you.
Speaker 2 (13:34):
Not long after Liam meets Tom for the first time.
Speaker 3 (13:38):
But I'm from Thailand originally, which is another province in Germany.
I was never very far from the Luxembourg French border,
so okay, other than like I lived in Canada for
a year when I was studying, but I'm native from
these grounds sort of stuff.
Speaker 6 (13:55):
I ice to work with the German guy a couple
of years who was the American correspondent for Build I
think very funny.
Speaker 3 (14:04):
Famous, yeah yeah, yeah, very funny, especially recently some dirty
Lunger being washed.
Speaker 6 (14:11):
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. He used to say he was
his life mission to let people know that some Germans
were funny.
Speaker 3 (14:17):
Yes, it's true.
Speaker 2 (14:19):
After a bit of light banter, Lillam invites Tom to
share his thoughts on Rick Bloom and the challenges he's
faced investigating his many claims to sort out the fact
from fiction.
Speaker 6 (14:31):
In Australia. We know him as Rick Bloom at the moment.
What do you know him best as over here?
Speaker 3 (14:38):
Well, that's a tricky one to begin with. We don't
know him at all, if you will or not under
a certain name. I'm still totally puzzled about what his
real name is. Some people we talked to say his
birth name is Billy Walters. We heard copper Dollar, we
heard the most. It seems to be the most common.
Pseudonym or fake name is fred Rick the hitter Varry.
(15:03):
Rick Blum seems to be the most recent. Then there's
this pheno remarkaal anecdote with the driver's license and the
real man from Luxembourg who got his identity stolen, et cetera,
et cetera. So I couldn't tell by which we by
which one we know him. We use Rick Bloom because
we feel that the that's the official one that's currently valid.
(15:25):
So to speak and we used the the ones he
used in the cases we cover. So for us, he's
Rick Glume, also known as Frederic the hittervary born as
we voters. It's a bit it's not very practical. Let's
say for him it.
Speaker 6 (15:41):
Was maybe for us it isn't It's a bit like
holding a tig about the titles.
Speaker 3 (15:45):
Yes, yeah, yeah, and you need I mean you need
to pinpoint it somehow and focus on some aspects. Right,
Rick Blum is what we call him in our titles,
for example, like we call him the serials camera Rick
Bloom as in another Belgian widow claims she was robbed
by serious camera Rick Blume. That's what he is for us.
Speaker 6 (16:07):
But the trial here for you is very muddy. Going
back through the records and that sort of thing you
keep coming across these different names. That's complicated, isn't it.
Speaker 3 (16:16):
Well, it's the complicated thing is the names. Indeed, I
send a list, the whole list with names to the
National Archives and say could you please check for us
if you have anything under those names, and they say, well,
we don't, for example. But then they also offered some
explanation saying well names is maybe not enough. The way
(16:37):
we are organized, we would need something like file numbers,
or if there's this like we have on file in
Australia that there's this arrest in Wills in Luxembourg in
nineteen seventy six, then the Luxembourg archives say do you
know why he was arrested? That might help us. Do
you know who arrested him, which police precinct, etc. And
I say no, I can only assume. Right so far
(16:59):
we have nothing, and that's because of the names, but
it's also because it's been quite a while and the
way things are organized right.
Speaker 6 (17:07):
Hell, how would you describe the criminal history of Rick
Bloom through Impressive, through Luxembourg and Belgium and France.
Speaker 3 (17:18):
You would get the impression that he's a master criminal,
or that's the way he might have seen himself at times,
because he tried to obscure everything with the fake names,
and he had a way of forging documents and using
systems to his advantage. But then again you look at
the at his rap sheet and at the time he
spent in jail, maybe that's not quite master criminal at all.
(17:40):
If you get caught a lot in between, it's hard
to tell, and it's impressive in that it is. I
sometimes think it's enough for two lifetimes. Right, It's like,
when did he do all this stuff? And also the
ones we covered recently about the Belgian women, Like we
have three Belgian women coming forward claiming and I mean
(18:02):
it's pretty safe to say it happened that way to
have lost significant sums of money to this guy. I
mean that's impressive in a way that it seemed so
easy for him, right, Like I'm not blaming those women
of anything like being naive or anything. I mean, it's
not for me to say, but it makes you wonder
(18:24):
how he did it. Right, He walks into their lives
and within two or three weeks he walks out again
with bags of money, like literally bags of money. It's crazy.
Speaker 6 (18:34):
And we are talking hundreds of thousands of euros.
Speaker 3 (18:37):
In some cases, yeah, one hundred and fifty thousand or
two like two bag, two plastic bags with fifty thousand
euros each in cash.
Speaker 6 (18:47):
So in a very short space of time, he manages
to not only inculcate himself into their lives, but get
them to trust him to that extent.
Speaker 3 (18:55):
And he uses he uses like he has some capital,
so to speak, some trust, some trust in the banks already,
like it's either that he approaches them on the on
this romantic scam level, like answering personal ads and being
all romantic with them. Let's call it, or it's family.
(19:15):
In one case it was he was family of the
late husband of the person he robbed, right, so they
knew him already by name and by anecdotes, but they
only met him briefly a few years before. And in
the most recent case that we covered on IFLAM, it
was it was friendship with the son in law of
(19:36):
the victims. So basically, you have several levels or several ways,
several whatever kind of relationship you have with him, he
will use it against you. That's the image we have.
Speaker 6 (19:48):
So he manages to find the emotional weeksman.
Speaker 3 (19:51):
Weeks, but the back door, the whatever you call it, right,
and it's some it's always it's those stories. They differ
in details, of course, but they have always the same
way they are going, like what could I have done?
He was a friend of my father's or well he
was family, wasn't he? Or he wrote me such a
nice letter. In fact, she did say that the one
(20:14):
he wrote the letter to she said he never disagreed
with me. Whenever I didn't want to do something, or
whenever I refused to do something, he said, yeah, you're
totally right, let's find another way. So basically, whatever you
say to him, he can use it. It's pretty manipulative
and quite impressive.
Speaker 6 (20:32):
Here on that note, I mean, do you have any
sense of the scale of this? Do you have any
idea of perhaps how many women he may have scammed
in this part of the world.
Speaker 3 (20:45):
It's hard to say, but I mean it's almost like
my hypothesis on what I'm working on, what we are
working on. Yannick and I pretty much every overseas strip
from Australia, which is all pretty well documented. Whenever he
comes back to Australia and declaring more than ten thousand
(21:05):
dollars in cash, there might have been a woman behind
that being scammed.
Speaker 6 (21:10):
Right, so far, well, there's dozens and dozens of THOUSETRAI yeah.
Speaker 3 (21:13):
So far we have free There might be more in Luxembourg.
He's to us. It seems he's a bit like a
phantom's it's hard to pinpoint what he or his tracks
in Luxembourg are hard to discover for the archive situation,
for because it's been in the eighties, Like, it's not
those Belgian cases, there are more recent How.
Speaker 6 (21:33):
Long do you think he has been operating in this fashion.
Speaker 3 (21:37):
That's also something that we're not sure or we cannot
be sure of, depends on what fashion you mean. I mean,
he's if you look at this at his rap sheet,
he's been forging stuff all along. He's been there's checks
without cover, there's identity theft, there's borrowing things from people
not giving them back. Basically apparently there's promises to sell.
(22:00):
You have an important or a significant or valuable collection
of something, he offers to evaluate it and sell it
for you, and then he takes it and never comes back.
Apparently those things have happened all along. What's relatively recent
seems to be this Roman scam thing that I've just described,
the three Belgian cases we had, And what we cannot
say at the moment is what happened exactly in Luxembourg.
(22:22):
That's still a mystery to us. Like we know about
this furniture store which has been operating for something like
three years. There has been a physical location where the
store was located. We don't know what happened there. There's
people saying it doesn't have much to do with furniture.
There's theories about money laundering or anything going on behind
(22:44):
those false fronts. Then there's stories about another furniture warehouse
in the Belgian Luxembourg Order area with some sinister things
going on there, but we don't know.
Speaker 6 (22:55):
Yeah, so we think that furniture shop business, yes, may
have some hass why I've been a front, yes, for
him to move money through.
Speaker 3 (23:03):
That's what we think for whatever money laundering would be
what you think of first maybe right. Then again, we
have talked to people in the village where he has
the furniture store, and that was also in our very
first article, a very early conversation in the process with
a man who said, yeah, I remember him. He had
something like thirty names. That was the first thing this
(23:26):
guy says to us on the phone. We say who
we are, We say we are writing about this guy
in Australia, and it's nothing about you, it's about him,
et cetera. And then he says, oh, yeah, I remember him.
He was he was mister David in that case, Freddie
David or David. I remember that guy. He had thirty
different names. And that's basically the first thing you hear
on the phone and I say, well, how do you
(23:48):
know that? And the guy says, yeah, there was talk,
you know, and I've saw it. I've seen a police
file once when there was he was in trouble with
the police and I was there as a witness and
it was a bit shady really, But he's he was
known to some people as the man with the many
names back in the ages. And why do you have
thirty different names when you have a furniture store and
(24:09):
trying to sell furniture?
Speaker 6 (24:10):
Right, great question. Some of these local towns are quite small, yes,
and a lot of people know a lot of other people.
Speaker 3 (24:18):
That's what you would think.
Speaker 6 (24:19):
So what about the local police, Well, why hasn't he
been on their ridar?
Speaker 3 (24:24):
We really don't know. Like also, if you look at
I mean, this is all from the hearings, right, this
is head. It has been discussed in the In the hearings,
his wife Diane says they lived in Idsis right. It
is a not too big community close to the capitol,
(24:44):
and he was at one point in the hearing. He
also describes how he goes from It'sich to Nossange to
the furniture store every day. Et cetera, and that it
takes him so on so long. Other unless there's snow
on the road, then it takes him longer. Blah blah.
And Monique Cornelius also lived in Itsish at the time,
and basically this would mean that you would have had
this affair we've been hearing about, and he would have
(25:08):
his family right two streets apart from each other. And
also the locals wouldn't know or wouldn't remember, Like we
are putting out in our articles, we say, do you
remember this guy under thisn't that name? He had this
furniture store he lived in Idsish. We don't get any
feedback of people. They don't remember him, and that's kind
of interesting too.
Speaker 6 (25:28):
No, wonder you call him a phantom?
Speaker 3 (25:30):
Yeah, I mean, I don't know if that's the right
thing to call him, but for us, he is a
bit of the Luxembourg chapter is very yeah, foggy.
Speaker 6 (25:39):
But we also know he has spent time in regional
giles over the last four or five decades. Yeah. So,
so where are the police on this? I mean, don't
the Belgian police and the Luxembourg police talk to each other.
Speaker 3 (25:52):
I mean we would assume, Yeah, I mean the police
must know something in Belgium because we know about those
from these Belgian women that they were in like the
police was in contact with both of them. In two
thousand and six, Ilen is being scammed out of money
and in twenty twelve she's being asked to come back
to the police to talk some more because in the
(26:14):
meantime there has been this other case Charlotte. So there
must have been some paper trail, right, And I'm also
pretty sure that there's some paper trail in Luxbourg. We
haven't seen it yet because it's difficult.
Speaker 6 (26:24):
I'm very surprised that there aren't what they doesn't exist
more police files with his.
Speaker 3 (26:31):
Name or some of his names are Yeah, as I said,
we sent them the whole list, and I said, they
drew a blank across the page. And that's really what
makes me think maybe there's more names. Maybe there's more
Luxembourg names that we don't know, and what are the
chances of they're being more widows. Yeah, that's also something.
But then again we were thinking maybe back then in Luxembourg,
(26:53):
his his way was a different one. Maybe he hadn't
started romance scamming widows back then because he also was
a bit younger, right, Maybe it was more to do
with the I don't know, stolen goods. That's also something
this neighbor from that song said. The original quote was
he sold couches that weren't his, for example. So there's
something going on with this furniture store, and it's not
(27:16):
just selling couches that you produce and sell to a customer.
Speaker 6 (27:20):
When you look at this story in its entirety, when
you look at the whole picture, have you seen many
cases like this? Not at all.
Speaker 3 (27:28):
I mean, this is quite extraordinary.
Speaker 6 (27:32):
Tell me the case of Monique Cornelius. Describe what happened
to her for me, if you would. What we know
is what we've heard in the hearings. Apparently she met
him in the I don't know, early eighties, nineteen eighty,
late seventies maybe, And she said in this interview in
the podcast, if I'm not mistaken, or in the hearing anyway,
(27:55):
somewhere she said it they met at the Caffe de Palil,
just three minutes from here actually, and he said, no,
we we met somewhere else at book sale, I think,
he said. And Monny Cornelius together with her by then
already ex Husbandhano Remachael. They had a bookstore in ash
Azette in the south of the country, and apparently she
(28:16):
had an affair with him. That's what we heard in
the hearings too, like there were these love letters from
Rick Glum being read out to her. He was Rick also,
and that's pretty much all I know, so we cannot
she wouldn't talk to us. And then sometime later he
turns up in Australia, Yes, with a driver's last Yes,
(28:39):
under the name of Fernand Remaco. Yah.
Speaker 3 (28:41):
Yeah, that's where it all gets connected to Luxembourg on
the biggest scale, so to speak. That's where we came
into it. It must have been at one point that
Rick Glum or whether Hiavari or Rick or whatever met
the real fanor Remachel, although the real Funnel Remarkle says no,
(29:02):
I've never met this man in my life.
Speaker 6 (29:04):
He's never met him.
Speaker 3 (29:05):
Yeah, that's what he says.
Speaker 6 (29:06):
And yeah, and yet Rick Blum ends up with a
Queensland driver's license. See he's nice, yes, exactly, and Fernand remarkable.
Yeah it's not exactly. I mean it's a bit like
Rumple still skin.
Speaker 3 (29:15):
Yeah, it's unusual. Name is Remarkael is not a too
unusual name in Luxembourg, but in other parts of the
world most probably Yeah, to put them together. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
of course. I mean there's not many funeral Remarkles in
the world, if at all. And he says he's never
met him. Nevertheless, apparently, and that's also what Bloom said
in the hearings. He had a driver's license from Remarkael
(29:36):
and he went to the Automobile Club in Luxembourg to
make it an international driver's license. So what that means
merely is it gets translated and it gets a stamped
that the translation is correct, and then you have an
international driver's license. And Bloom makes it sound like it
was easy back in the day to go to the
ACL and just say I need this copy to.
Speaker 5 (29:58):
That, right.
Speaker 3 (30:00):
He is a bit vague about how he did it,
whether he send it by mail with a different picture
or no details, And in the end he ends up
going with this international driver's license to Queensland saying I
have an international driver's license from Luxembourg and I want
to copy it, so to speak, into an Australian driver's license,
which would make it totally legit. In the end question
(30:22):
would be what else do you need? To provide in
terms of documentation to say that you're entitled to this
friver's license. That's what I don't know. For example, in Australia,
I don't know how it works.
Speaker 6 (30:36):
Now he's very good at forgery.
Speaker 3 (30:37):
Yeah, that's the next thought. Then whatever it needs to
be provided, he would have it somewhere, even if he
makes it himself. Right. And that's the thing. We don't
know why he would pick this particular name. Maybe it's
just the occasion that he has this, like he meets
the ex husband of his affair and he steals the
(30:59):
drivers license and then he does his thing, or whether
he has some other motivation behind it, we don't know.
But that's eventually what brings the case back into Luxembourg
because of the personal ad under the name M. F
Remuckel and where it gets all even more confusing in
a way.
Speaker 6 (31:20):
It is confusing, isn't it, because there's liar upon liar.
Speaker 3 (31:23):
Yes, And that's apparently that's how he does it. He
uses those layers, just as he uses borders between countries,
like even before he came to Australia, he used this
border situation in this part of the world, like as
Germany France, Belgium, Luxembourg. He seemed to be border hopping
whenever it suited him, and coming to Australia it seemed
(31:47):
like it was free game after that, because Australia is
so far from here. Over here is so far from Australia,
you could do whatever you like. And that you can
tell with what he tells those women, like in women
he tells about Bali and about living in Australia. And
if we assume that he did the same thing with
Marion Barter, he told maybe he told Marion Barter about
(32:09):
living in Luxembourg, because that's the fantastic happy place in
old Europe, you know, and apparently there's England in the
equation with the Janet Oldenburg and also Marion Barter. So
basically he uses these fantasies about this happy place far
far away, and it's a two way road. It's not
(32:30):
just Australia to Europe, but it's also the other way around.
And that's interesting too.
Speaker 6 (32:34):
Through through this journey, have you once covered any evidence
of Marion Barter being here in Luxembourg?
Speaker 3 (32:42):
And I think it's rather unlikely, or let's say it's
not more unlikely than other stuff we uncovered. But for example,
there has been this theory, why is she riding divorced
on her outgoing passenger card when she goes to and
and saying she was gonna in Luxembourg, but she writes
being married or being a housewife married in Luxembourg when
(33:05):
she comes back to Australia a few weeks months later.
And there's been this theory did they get married in
Luxembourg under the name of Fenor Remarkael and Flora Bella, etc.
To which we think it's highly unlikely that in Luxembourg,
a very tight knit place, even more so back in
the eighties, you have this identity of Fenor Remarchael, who
(33:26):
was well, he wasn't a football star, but he was
well known in certain places and certain communities for being
a football player. For example, you don't just walk into
the next mayor's office saying, I'm the real Fenor Remarkael
and I want to marry this woman right, Let alone
the fact that you would need to have residence in
(33:47):
Luxembourg to be able.
Speaker 9 (33:48):
To do that.
Speaker 3 (33:49):
But if they got married, I don't think it was
in Luxembourg, and I don't quite think that Marion actually
ended up being in Luxembourg because whatever happened happened before,
I guess.
Speaker 6 (34:02):
So that's that's that's getting stranger, isn't it. So why
would Marion Barter write on her incoming passenger card into
Australia when she went back that she was a housewife,
that she'd been married, she was married here in Luxembourg.
Speaker 3 (34:17):
Yes, that's what we don't know. That's it might be
part of the bigger picture scam that he needed her
to be named Remarchael with the same initials, and he
needed a cover story for them to be whatever it
was that they was supposed to be for the scam.
Right then again, yeah, we don't know when you look.
Speaker 6 (34:42):
At all these stories of the way he has operated through,
not just the sort of the romance scam, so I
can put it that way, but all the rest of
the crimes. And when you put everything into one bucket,
what what for you? Are the biggest questions still left unanswered?
Speaker 3 (35:00):
So the biggest question that we should stay focused on
is what happened to Marian Barter, because that's also something
the other victims say. We talked to the ladies in Belgium,
they said, well, I know I lost a lot of money,
but at least I'm alive. Right, So they say they're
quite clear on that they were lucky, and as far
as we can tell, Marion Barter wasn't lucky in the end,
(35:21):
but we don't know. So that's what I would say
is the biggest question. We need to know what happened
to Marion, right, I mean, we approach them saying, here's
the deal, here's the backstory, here's the Marian Butter story,
here's what we've done so far, and then they either
have heard about that already or they read up on it,
up on it, and at least one of them said, well,
(35:42):
I'm at least I'm still alive, and apparently this Australian
lady is not. So yeah, it's in their minds for sure.
And the other big questions, I mean, yeah, what else
is there that we haven't seen yet? I mean there's
I wouldn't stop at Romans scamming. I wouldn't stop at
the forgery thing. I'm not sure that he's like the
(36:03):
whole what we talked of, what's also being talked about,
his fascination with poison and the livers, cans, etc. I'm
not quite sure what to make of that one. To
be honest, I talked to doctors who said, well, yeah,
there's livers Can. It's of no use to him. Really,
why would he do that? Like I talked to one
doctor who's a friend of mine who said, yeah, the
livers can. I don't quite see where he's going at it.
(36:26):
Are you sure that he's in his right mind? Like,
are you sure that he's not maybe a bit not
as intelligent as he makes himself seem, because the doctor
from a medical standpoint, he said, well livers can, who cares?
Speaker 6 (36:40):
Right? Strange thing to do is that.
Speaker 3 (36:41):
Yeah. On the other hand, yeah, it might be that way.
I wouldn't say he's a killer from what I read.
I mean, it's it's always just assuming, right. But we
have heard at least in one occasion from someone who said, well,
he wouldn't be surprised if he's connected to an armed
robbery in Tournay that was pretty spectacular in the eighties,
(37:04):
so that he might have been like something like a
loose member of one of or several of Belgian Luxembourgish
criminal gangs. So we were looking into this one. The
only thing we can tell for sure is that in
the seventies and eighties. There's been a lot of armed
robbery going on in these parts. So you find a
lot of newspaper articles in the archives about something being
(37:26):
taken by force back in the day. Apparently it was
still very common to do.
Speaker 6 (37:32):
Do you think it's safe to say that there are
still crimes that he might have committed that have yet
to be uncovered?
Speaker 3 (37:38):
Well, that, yeah, that's the assumption, right. I don't know
if it's safe to say, but everything looks towards that direction.
Speaker 6 (37:45):
If you had a chance to sit down and interview him, Tom, Yeah,
I'm sure you've thought about this many times while you
were tapping away. Yeah, composing many of the stories that
you've been running. What would be front of mine for you?
Speaker 3 (37:58):
Well, I'm pretty sure he wouldn't. You wouldn't talk to
him in the first place.
Speaker 6 (38:01):
I mean, I'm just a hypothetical, hypothetically, because I'm not
sure even if he talked to any of us that
he'd tell the truth.
Speaker 3 (38:08):
Here I are.
Speaker 2 (38:14):
Mister Bloom has not given any interviews since we introduced
him to our stunned audience early last year, despite many
approaches from other media following our story. Many of the
questions we have for mister Bloom go to what he
has done, to whom, when and where. Fortunately, we have
(38:37):
heard many of those questions put to him on the
witness stand at the coronial inquest. We've also had the
opportunity to observe this mercurial character, to try to piece
together a profile of his psyche and assess what he
might be capable of by peering through the multiple versions
of himself he has presented to the world.
Speaker 6 (39:04):
He has other decades conducted what is clearly a sort
of methodological approach to covering his tracks.
Speaker 3 (39:13):
Yes, and he's been added since he's sixteen or something
exactly at the first Belgian exactly articles.
Speaker 6 (39:19):
And it's the old story, isn't it. I mean, in
human nature, you graduate from one thing to another, for.
Speaker 3 (39:24):
Sure, definitely. And also the whole paper trail with the
Australian immigration I mean, I'm sure you read the file
about where they keep writing each other note saying should
we intervene, should we tell the minister about it?
Speaker 1 (39:36):
No? You do it?
Speaker 3 (39:37):
No you do it, No you do it. And in
the end somebody writes, well what is this? What have
you done here over the last five years? But still
nobody's doing anything about it. It's really weird. It's embarrassing
in a way for us, and it's also coming from
our on my European Luxembourg is German whatever point of view.
(39:59):
I also or have trouble understanding the whole name changed thing.
I didn't know what a deep poll is until Brian
told me about it. I didn't know it was so
easy to be somebody else in the Anglo Saxon law system,
let's call it.
Speaker 6 (40:13):
I didn't know.
Speaker 3 (40:14):
You just need I don't know, an electricity bill to
be somebody else. Apparently, maybe that's also something that needs
to be put into consideration, that that's maybe a bit
too easy for people like grip Plume.
Speaker 6 (40:26):
Right, it's extraordinary, isn't it. Yeah, And he's clearly taken
advantage of all those sorts of things.
Speaker 3 (40:31):
For sure, definitely. And it wouldn't have been so easy
in Belgium back in the day, especially like back in
the day, in Belgium, he would have needed to forge
those documents, he would have forged a physical copy of
somebody else's passport, idea, whatever, Whereas in Australia apparently he
can just send a letter to some official position saying
(40:53):
I want to be called somebody else in the future.
That's something that puzzled me in the beginning, but now
I get it that I try to understand it that
it's to be. But that's something where I thought, well,
that's kind of.
Speaker 6 (41:04):
Weird you did, right, But you've given us that flavor
that we wanted, you know, from Europe and a bit
of a bad.
Speaker 3 (41:10):
I wish I could tell you more about uh. I
wish we had more from the archives on, better feedback
from our readers. But maybe we're just at the beginning.
Speaker 6 (41:18):
We don't know. There will be more about.
Speaker 3 (41:20):
This when the hearing resumes and when it's I don't know.
Speaker 6 (41:23):
I think that's a really good point and we've we've
talked about that too off camera. When we go to
air with this, for example, this will be on YouTube
internationally and that in itself will then spur and perhaps
within Australia, other people to come forward, other people to
be confident, you know, to say something that's the thing,
to put their hand up and now you know it's
you know what it's like in journalism, that's general rural right,
(41:46):
like success begets success yeah, yeah, ye, exposure keeps keeps
the momentum going.
Speaker 3 (41:51):
And it's a trust thing, of course, Like exactly when
let's say there's another Belgian vido being having been scammed
out of whatever it is, the stamp collection of her
late husband, and she sees that there's other women speaking
out before her, and they've been treated seriously on fair
(42:13):
in the reports, then that might give them the courage
and the trust to do it, to come forward, which
is what happened to Glaine, or what happened with Glaine
in the first place. They read the French version of
of our first article on Marion Barter and then the
daughter in law just two days after. So we get
an email by the daughter and was saying, we just
(42:34):
read this. It's the same thing, the same thing that
happened to my mother in law. Thank god she's still alive,
but you need to hear the story. And then we
got her on the phone. Then we met her in Brussels,
and one came to the other right, And that's it,
Like it's like a house of cards, you need to
pull out the right one.
Speaker 1 (42:53):
Well, all this is going on, I'm arriving at the
home of the theatric and charismatic Manique Cornelius. Many of
you will remember her as the recipient of a letter
from Rick Blum, then Frederick to Heaveri and his singing testicles.
Although Minique has spoken to me on the phone before
(43:13):
convincing her to go on camera, is a much bigger
mountain to climb. When I get out of the taxi,
she rushes over the front door, locking behind her, greeting
me warmly in her sing song voice before inviting me in.
The seventy four year old retired teacher proudly introduces me
(43:35):
to one of her neighbors. Monique is petite, with straight
blonde hair framing her well weathered face, glasses and a
broad smile.
Speaker 5 (43:44):
Her home is.
Speaker 1 (43:45):
Beautifully decorated with artworks and furniture, and she has two
well fed British blue cats that she dotes on. We
have coffee and I show her some of the clip
of our interview with Gilaine that lying soon, Manique takes
out a large envelope with all the articles about Rick
(44:07):
Blum or Frederick to Heavari as she knew him, I have.
This time, she opens up about some of the crimes
she claims she witnessed him commit. Monique's English is sometimes
hard to follow, but as she tells it. He was
allegedly stealing furniture from overseas and reconstructing it before selling
it out of the business he operated in Luxembourg in
(44:30):
the nineteen eighties.
Speaker 5 (44:32):
In England, there are old castles and they are full
of very beauty furniture, and she is stealing that out old,
very old furniture, and tab brought to bet. He made
it in a big car, in a big fan, and
(44:55):
then with the ship. I had no idea.
Speaker 1 (45:00):
Ever, when the police awasted him. Can you tell me
that story again?
Speaker 5 (45:05):
I was going back to it. He had rented the
apartment from me there and I had my apartment. My
own apartment in Luxembourg is ten minutes from there from
our law ten minutes not more. The police erasities. I
was sure that he was not the man he pretended
to be. This was at the end of your relationship again. Yeah,
(45:28):
he has in Belgium. There are also many people made
you big money with furniture. I know where they are,
and he wanted to have me in there, so but
I told I wrote a letter of the commandy, let
you commande I retire from this night. And the police
(45:52):
came to catch me.
Speaker 7 (45:53):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (45:54):
Ah, he told me that and so but I retired.
He had to let me go, so I knew we
got your arrested. Yeah yeah, and that I have the
police of Police Sjudice Year.
Speaker 7 (46:08):
You know what it is.
Speaker 5 (46:09):
This is the best police we have here. Yeah yeah, yeah.
And I did not I did not speak to them,
but I called them, please have an eye on me,
have an eye on me, and I have someone just
(46:30):
for Frederick in our police Judice Year. Yeah, that is
very good. I am afraid or something. Police. Next morning,
come to the police station. We have some questions. You
a member there in this circle? Oh? I said, no, yes,
(46:52):
you're we have it here. And look the next the
next post you have got he was it was a policeman.
Speaker 3 (47:03):
Not in uniform.
Speaker 5 (47:04):
It's just like he like him. Well he was away
quote or noah, it's true.
Speaker 9 (47:14):
You can go.
Speaker 5 (47:15):
He has vanished, vanished like I couldn't see him nowhere.
So I went back to ours and yes, I did
not see seeing him back one time when you told
me come to Australia with me. So that is interesting.
Speaker 1 (47:34):
Well again I just want to thank you if you
tell me, I thank you.
Speaker 5 (47:40):
We're going to Tourna tomorrow so we'll go to the tourney.
Speaker 1 (47:43):
Is that this way is yeah, So we'll go there
tomorrow and see.
Speaker 5 (47:49):
Tourna is wonderful. Tourna is wonderful, because wonderful sure with rembrants,
real real rambants inside. Oh, or you must look if
it's still there. It's forty years and forty years I.
Speaker 1 (48:08):
Will check it out.
Speaker 5 (48:09):
He lived at Intunia, and that's a house. But he
went to see his associates, and in the night or
the other day he came back with furniture. It was
a house about a sort of bungalow, and he was
never there. He was always visits associates, and came back
(48:30):
with a blue bad foot full of flick. And then
after two two hours he had effequated with averything. One
day we were eating outside. I have never had in
a restaurant such atmosphere. The only man but not educated classes.
(48:56):
You saw already in their behavior. So she, like.
Speaker 1 (49:03):
Maria, of course, of course like that. I was.
Speaker 5 (49:09):
I was the only woman between those and she who
is she? She belongs to be because she.
Speaker 4 (49:20):
Belongs to be.
Speaker 2 (49:21):
It is difficult in parts to understand Monique precisely, but
she's outlining a general impression of mister Bloom working with
gangsters as part of a dodgy furniture dealing operation in
which he tried to involve her before police stepped in.
After just one hour talking to Monique, she agrees to
an interview with the Spotlight crew on the basis that
(49:43):
her face is not shown. Luxembourg is a tiny community,
it is hard to remain anonymous. Given her previously stated
fear and trepidation in relation to Rick Bloom, it's understandable
why she's reluctant, and an impressive show of inner strength
that she agrees to it in the hopes of helping others.
(50:07):
While the Spotlight team is preparing for the interview with Monique,
Allison has another issue to attend to.
Speaker 4 (50:14):
I've just spoken my shoe over at Monique's house. My
heel came off my boot and so i can't walk properly,
so I've got.
Speaker 5 (50:22):
To try and find a shop his shoes.
Speaker 4 (50:27):
Unfortunately, it will be really expensive.
Speaker 5 (50:28):
For the other problem I have is my.
Speaker 1 (50:30):
Feet so big head to Europeans, so they probably won't
have my size, so I might just have to hobble
around the whole time Monique's end there. She took a
lot of convincing to want to speak Beau so not
it's really hard for her, but being anonymous as in
not showing.
Speaker 4 (50:48):
Her face will be will really be really helpful.
Speaker 9 (50:52):
So I'm so grateful to her, as for all the
other women out here who have been so generous, these grave,
wonderful women who keep telling their stories knowing that it's
for the greater good and to help other women who
(51:13):
are being through the same nightmare.
Speaker 1 (51:16):
And Evelyn and beneath me getting on really really well,
which is lovely, the having a great time catching up.
It's really hard obviously to hear Evelyn's.
Speaker 4 (51:26):
Story for anyone, but it's you know, it's been really
good of them coming together. I think it's therapeutic for
them all.
Speaker 10 (51:36):
So I'm just looking around here, I know I am now,
so I've got my bearings and hopefully I'll make it
back very very soon without getting lost anyway.
Speaker 4 (51:48):
Yeah, Luxembourg is very enjoyable place and where it's having
a wonderful time here and doing hopefully what we believe.
Speaker 5 (51:57):
Is some good.
Speaker 2 (51:59):
Fortunately, of finding some replacement shoes that were only one
size too small, Allison did make it back after only
a few wrong turns.
Speaker 6 (52:12):
Monique Thank you very much for doing this. It's very
important for people to hear your story because your story
is just one tiny story that this man has created
in Europe and in Australia. So he obviously was going
under a long list of names, but in this story
we'll call him by his current name, which is Rick
(52:33):
Bloom in Australia, Rick Bloom. So who was Rick Bloom
to you?
Speaker 5 (52:41):
In the beginning, it was I was just divorcing, I
was alone, I lived alone, and he was welcome. He
was an interesting friend. He spoke man, some languages, he
knew how to tell stories about his family in the
(53:03):
Second World War. He was a Jew, he was adopted
in Australia. For me, he was interesting, interesting man.
Speaker 6 (53:14):
Did he come across intelligently intellectually?
Speaker 5 (53:17):
Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. But sometimes he told me a
film that I have seen, also how the Jewish people
were transported in the concentration places. He told also films
(53:38):
to me. And when I saw that the distance got
greater and that he had here, ETCETERA pin of a
war he participated Australia against I don't know what Australia
(53:59):
was in the war, and he passiptated in that.
Speaker 6 (54:03):
Was that the Vietnam War. So he told you he
was an Australian soldier.
Speaker 5 (54:07):
Yes, of course, of course. And he showed me his
acid rippings that were so really bless you don't so
here here here, here up there. And he showed me
his legs and told me that there machine gun in
(54:29):
the war machine gun. And I thought, I thought that
the lack was so he was for me practically also
a hero.
Speaker 6 (54:41):
So he was pretending he had wounds from the war,
from the war, from the Vietnam War, Vietnam War. From
the moment he met you, what did he promise you?
Speaker 5 (54:51):
He wanted to marry marry me? No, no, never in
my life, I don't. I am just devo. Don't speak
me of marriage. And so I think that there I
was someone who didn't fit in his representation marriage. He
(55:11):
can take his marriage and go somewhere else. No, not yet,
I throw him away. When I knew in phoned in
Australia and I could hear this is what he's speaking.
And then I knew that he was married, and I
(55:35):
did not believe him anymore. It was practically by hearing
a phone call that he was spoking. Yeah, I said,
you spoke to him, and I think, yeah, that's my wife.
He betrayed me. It was never question of a wife.
(55:58):
Never now. But I am not too too idiots. But
even I I was proud of him. I was proud
to be with him. He could be, he could.
Speaker 6 (56:12):
He was very educated with me, and by the sounds
of it, very smooth.
Speaker 5 (56:19):
Yeah yeah, yeah yeah. And of war, of hero, of
his family burned in Auschwitz.
Speaker 6 (56:30):
Lots of stories, very very very convincing.
Speaker 5 (56:35):
And directly changing. I think I am a little bit educated,
but I think he is not educated, not at all.
He has never seen university or something.
Speaker 6 (56:50):
Manique, did you love him? Yeah, in the beginning, did
he tell you that he loved you?
Speaker 5 (56:58):
Oh yes, oh yes, yeah, oh yes.
Speaker 6 (57:05):
Did you ever give him any money?
Speaker 5 (57:07):
Never?
Speaker 1 (57:08):
No.
Speaker 5 (57:09):
I am Luxembourger, I'm a farmer. I know if money.
Speaker 4 (57:14):
No.
Speaker 5 (57:15):
When I knew him, I told me that he worked
in the English embassy as special ancient. I believed it,
susim right.
Speaker 6 (57:26):
So he made it as if he was James Bond.
Speaker 5 (57:28):
Something like that. That is really yeah. And if you
know at a certain state stadium of relationship.
Speaker 4 (57:40):
You do not know.
Speaker 5 (57:42):
Yeah, Ia, that is true, and so on is and
I wrote a letter to the English Empathy because it
was something in me told me I want verification. I
never got none. So then he told me that they
(58:04):
never given out. And I believe that. Yeah, I believed it,
and that is true. But if you uh to Frederic
Devari working at the English Embassy letter, I got never
an answer, but a position began in my brain. It
beguns easy begun in my and the other things. Yeah,
(58:28):
you can love someone not people also love vanishes.
Speaker 6 (58:32):
But you are a teacher. You were a teacher, a
very smart woman. How did he manage to pull the
wool over your eyes so many times?
Speaker 5 (58:43):
He was good? He was extremely good. And I can't
understand each woman that give him millions when she has
it so persuasive persus Yeah, and if he laughed all
(59:03):
the time, he said, it's like that chuck chuck, chuck.
We luxembocause are not like that. So serious man. And
you you know me little, you know me a little
bit now.
Speaker 6 (59:17):
So he was a lot of fun to be around.
Speaker 5 (59:18):
Yeah, and new things and thinking I didn't know that,
thinking standing above above everything. He laughed.
Speaker 6 (59:30):
Monique are describing a very good.
Speaker 5 (59:32):
Liar, a very good, absolutely absolutely good liar.
Speaker 6 (59:38):
What else in his personality? What sort of person do
you think?
Speaker 5 (59:42):
He is a very poor guy, a very poor guy,
and he showses women. His partners were always women, and
that there he has a big advantage. He was not
an ugly man. He could many things very good. So
(01:00:06):
you understand me and and always well never, oh yes,
let's do here, let's do say he left. He did
leave me completely free. I was if he had tried
me marriage or something to never, I was free and
(01:00:31):
he was disciplinable.
Speaker 6 (01:00:33):
Do you think he is capable of violence?
Speaker 5 (01:00:37):
Oh yes, oh yes, in the biggest dimension, in the
highest dimension. He made me once sign a paper where
there was nothing written, nothing on it, nothing at all.
But I saw you have to sign sign it now signing,
(01:00:59):
and so in his aggression that is serious money. I
saw him capable, must have just before I saw him
out of the country. If you come back once, I
will immediately go to the signed that and I signed it.
But at night I made a retraction with a letter
(01:01:24):
RECOMMANDI you know what it is electa eletter RECOMMANDI.
Speaker 6 (01:01:29):
Yes, like it's a Swan statement.
Speaker 5 (01:01:31):
It must be it is. It must be delivered. And
if they not deliver, you can go to to justice,
to the police of Arlon. Arlon was in Belgium.
Speaker 2 (01:01:44):
Monique lives in the city of Arlon. It has a
population of just over twenty eight thousand, making it the
smallest provincial capital in Belgium.
Speaker 5 (01:01:52):
And I retracted May and then he had disappeared, Chuck,
I was good, good, well, the school began in three weeks.
Speaker 6 (01:02:09):
I he was vanished and that was the last time
you saw him.
Speaker 5 (01:02:14):
No, after a year, I was I was very ill.
I got the depression because if I understand not what
happens to me, that can be very destructive for someone
who wants to understand and has questions like why what happened? Why?
(01:02:39):
Why are you right? Are you to throw him away
of country like that? He could very good play the
role of a victim. That he could best the role
of victim. His family all burned or everybody burned in
(01:03:02):
Auschwitz or somewhere, and he alone on the streets of Berlin,
in the stones, nothing to eat. Nothing. The English came
and got him to Australia, where a family has adopted it. Nothing.
Nothing is true of that. But he could tell itself
that you would a woman in any case, it will
(01:03:26):
also axt on women's emotionality. I am not too emotional.
I can't think. Also that he was a master in
an English master.
Speaker 6 (01:03:41):
Do you believe he has had anything to do with
the disappearance of Marion Barley?
Speaker 1 (01:03:46):
Yes.
Speaker 5 (01:03:47):
He always told me, Monique, let's make a world voyage
with I buy a ship with a veil, you know,
uh siege if that would be fine? But then here, Monique,
(01:04:10):
what are you doing on the ship with a man
like him. I have no possibility to get away. I
don't come with you. I have seen weapons, I see
the gun.
Speaker 6 (01:04:21):
So Monik, all of this, all of this experience for you,
all of this, however you want to whatever you want
to call it, experience, adventure, saga. Let me go backwards.
When you met Rick Bloom, Who did he say he was?
Speaker 5 (01:04:34):
What was his name, Frederic Deva? Then WILLI bou bou
be or muti? And that is a badge?
Speaker 6 (01:04:44):
Then what reason did he give you for changing his name?
Speaker 5 (01:04:47):
I am at the English Embassy. I'm a special agent,
and I must have those different identities. I must here.
Speaker 6 (01:05:00):
Ah, that's the reason he gave you for changing.
Speaker 5 (01:05:02):
Yeah, one day I saw him pulling up from the
soil an identity card. So what do you do with that?
It's not your identity, Monique. He opened and showed me
at least ten identity cards different. Are you crazy? What
(01:05:24):
do you do with the identity? Cut Monique? That's my profession.
I believed it, but then I know I didn't believe
in everything anymore.
Speaker 6 (01:05:35):
Yes, that's when you write a letter.
Speaker 5 (01:05:36):
Yeah, that's why I live still over Yeah.
Speaker 6 (01:05:39):
So when you look at this in total, how has
this affected your life?
Speaker 5 (01:05:44):
In nothing, I have become strong much. I have nobody.
I have only myself and I look in the eyes
of Frederick. Or what do you say, piece of fear,
piece of fear? If you show up one time, I
(01:06:07):
will go to squeeze. He never showed one time. He
showed up. Money, come back, come back. We have discovered
in Australia in the passage of Cook Cook passage an
old Spanish ship and it's full of silver. Come we
will get that. He was finished. I said no. I
(01:06:31):
just said no.
Speaker 6 (01:06:32):
And what do you think then, of the way he's
treated all the other ladies widows here in Belgium.
Speaker 5 (01:06:40):
I understand the ladies. A woman who wants to live,
she wants still to have emotions. She wants it to
have a life she has never had. I understand that.
Very good, very good. I would never do it because
I have herd that experience.
Speaker 6 (01:07:02):
Do you feel sympathy for them?
Speaker 5 (01:07:05):
Oh? Yes, so a bit, very bad, very big sympathy.
Speaker 6 (01:07:13):
Well, why do you think that the police in all
these different countries have never been able to to really
get to the bottom of.
Speaker 5 (01:07:22):
The truth because women don't give up their emotions so easy.
Must be very strong and say that was answer? Not
not as men? Perhaps I will have my satisfaction. You will,
(01:07:45):
you will die, my dear, No, I will begin, I begin.
Speaker 7 (01:07:52):
You are.
Speaker 5 (01:07:55):
Nothing for me, less than nothing you are.
Speaker 6 (01:08:00):
Do you think he's managed to escape a lot of
his problems because the victims have been embarrassed.
Speaker 5 (01:08:06):
They have been through through really because at a certain age,
many women are alone and the family is a family.
Speaker 4 (01:08:20):
It is what it is.
Speaker 5 (01:08:23):
You have to go alone to that. And then he
must be a little bit. I was younger.
Speaker 9 (01:08:31):
That was my fault.
Speaker 5 (01:08:33):
I will do it without you your blood fast.
Speaker 6 (01:08:38):
So what did you think of him taking your former
husband's identity?
Speaker 3 (01:08:46):
Bloody?
Speaker 6 (01:08:48):
So he took advantage of you by taking your husband's identity. Yeah,
and then down the track Marion Bart Yeah became.
Speaker 5 (01:08:57):
Missus woman Florabella Missus the remarkaal.
Speaker 2 (01:09:02):
Yes, coming up, we traveled to where it all began.
Speaker 6 (01:09:14):
We've heard so many stories from so many different women
that are essentially the same story in their connection with
Rick Bloom, Willie Wooters, Frederick Bird a very whatever he
calls himself at a particular point in time, a lot
of his approaches to these lonely women have been the same,
(01:09:35):
and they've ended up in the same tragedy. Well, one
sort of person, what sort of man is capable of
doing that to somebody else?
Speaker 2 (01:09:55):
If you knew Marian or have any information about her
or her where about, we'd love to hear from you.
Our website is sevennews dot com dot au, slash news
slash the Lady Vanishers, and you can also message us here.
You can also send us an anonymous tip at the
(01:10:16):
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,
(01:10:37):
Sound design, Mark Wright Graphics, Jason Blandford transcripts and translation
Estelle Sanchez, the theme and much of the music by
Nicholas Gasparini at the Darkpiano dot Com. Thanks again to
the Allians Francis. This is a seven News production.
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