The Beginning

Evelyn retraces her steps to the beginning, when her mother met and married Willy Wouters, aka Ric Blum. And we chase down leads that yield stunning information about Mr Blum and about Marion.

Music credits:

Theme: Identity Crisis - Myuu - thedarkpiano.com

The Order’s Theme - Myuu  - thedarkpiano.com

Round That Corner - Myuu  - thedarkpiano.com

Countdown - Myuu  - thedarkpiano.com

Poltergeist - Myuu -  thedarkpiano.com

Silent Turmoil - Myuu -  thedarkpiano.com

Belgian Folk Muisc - Belgium-Stokkendans

Rising Tide by Kevin MacLeod

Free download: https://filmmusic.io/song/5027-rising-tide 

License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license 

Artist website: https://incompetech.com

Ivory by Luca Fraula

Link: https://filmmusic.io/song/8312-ivory

License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

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Episode Transcript

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, I'm not.

Speaker 4 (00:30):
Sure if it was intentional or if there's something more foul afoot.

Speaker 5 (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 4 (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 4 (01:01):
I am one hundred percent sure, one hundred percent sure
that somebody knows something.

Speaker 1 (01:09):
The Lady Vanishers episode fifty four. I'm Alison Sandy.

Speaker 7 (01:19):
And I'm Brian Seymour.

Speaker 1 (01:22):
Belgium, nineteen thirty nine, World War II was broken out. Traditionally,
Belgium has always tried to stay out of conflict, and
true to form, the Belgian government had already announced its
intention to remain neutral. They did this in World War
One two, but Germany still invaded, so the nation's leaders

(01:48):
knew they were only buying a little time. As expected,
Belgium's economy and people were depressed. It was during this year,
on July ninth, to be specific, that Willy Copperol was
born in Tournay, about one and a half hours west

(02:09):
of the capitol. His father, Desiree David, was born in
nineteen oh five in Gellenden, a tiny Belgian village with
fewer than fifteen hundred people. His mother, Maria Coppernol, was
born in nineteen thirteen, also in Belgium. Desiree David died

(02:30):
in nineteen forty three of peritonitis, and Maria, who was
pregnant with Willy's younger brother, also called Desiree, lost her
leg when a bomb apparently fell on her bed. So
Willie was placed in an orphanage, where he would remain
until nineteen fifty one, six years after the war ended,

(02:52):
when he was almost a teenager. Willie's other younger brother,
Freddie David, died in nineteen eighty nine when he was
just forty eight years old. Apparently he fell to the
ground when he got out of the car. Cause of
death is believed to be an aneurysm or heart attack.

(03:15):
Shortly after, so did Maria and her second husband, Andre Wooters.
The three of them all died within twelve months of
each other. You'll remember that only a few years earlier
they were all working together in the family's furniture business.

Speaker 5 (03:35):
Hello, Madam Willie David is my first cooking and when
you talk about Maria Kupernon, in fact, his mother was
my mother's older sister. The last time I had contact
with my cooking was in two thousand and seven, during
one of his visits to Belgium.

Speaker 8 (03:54):
I am one of the youngest.

Speaker 5 (03:56):
In the family, as my mom was the eleventh of
thirteen children, and Aunt Maya was among the orders.

Speaker 1 (04:04):
This is from Blum's cousin, who last year responded to
emails from one of our devoted listeners who wishes to
remain anonymous, advising her that his aunt's uncles and mother
were raised by extremely upright parents. He said they had
a Dutch speaking Catholic father, Charles Coppernall, who had quote

(04:25):
high principles.

Speaker 5 (04:26):
I know that my mother told me a lot about
how my cousin had done a lot of stupid things
and had been in prison, especially in France. He was
not allowed to come to Belgium anymore. Principle, and my
aunt sometimes went to England to see him. My couldin
had started a career in the Gendarmerie as a horse

(04:48):
rider and married well in Brussels with someone from a
good family.

Speaker 1 (04:53):
We understand he's referring to Janine Leroy, who had two
children to him, including a son called Gayton.

Speaker 5 (05:00):
Unfortunately, he had a very badfall from his horse and
what Declaire hunched it from the short amerily and later
there was a divorce.

Speaker 1 (05:10):
Just for completeness. Willie very briefly married again, at this
time to a woman called Nicole Reynold.

Speaker 5 (05:17):
My mother said that this has tacted him greatly psychologically
and unfortunately leading down a slop. He then started bouncing
checks and that kind of his chief. I have the
impression that my mother used to tell me about the
trips to England. Around nineteen eighty to nineteen eighty six,

(05:39):
both my aunt and her three sons ran finisher shops
in Belgium and Luxembourg. It was in his family business.

Speaker 1 (05:49):
He said. His aunt Maria was a bit rejected by
some of her siblings because of Willie's mistakes.

Speaker 5 (05:56):
He still has a brother, but they have no contact. However,
I think he had contact with what the cookings of
ours in TURNI.

Speaker 1 (06:04):
And that Blum's youngest brother, Desiree, is still alive.

Speaker 5 (06:08):
Didier kept in touch with one of my own's a
million's daughters.

Speaker 1 (06:13):
It was the information from this cousin which led to
the discovery of Charlotte, a pseudonym we used to protect
her identity.

Speaker 5 (06:22):
I had a cooking, Michelle Copennaut, who died in twenty ten,
a little before my mother. I know from an uncle
that really had an affair with my cookin's widow a
few months after his death, and he is said to
have this possessed her of a certain amount of money.

Speaker 1 (06:43):
We passed this on to Tom and Yannick, and the
rest is history. It seems. Willis many years and the
orphanage left its mark. You may recall this one story
he told Everlyn about his life, the time.

Speaker 4 (07:01):
He used to bury people alive when he was growing up.
That one of the things that he liked to do
in the village, him and some of his friends. Someone
had harmed one of the girls in the village, so
they got the guy and they buried him alive. With
hungry cats, and that this is you know, how they

(07:22):
used to take care of people.

Speaker 1 (07:24):
It's hard to separate fact from fiction with Rick Blum. Remember,
he has also told people that his entire family died
in Nazi death camps, which is completely untrue. At the
very least, he seems to have had a troubled upbringing,
abandoned by his parents, raised by strangers, forced to fend

(07:45):
for himself at a time where everyone was fighting for survival.
We do know for a fact that his daughter, Evelyn,
had a difficult childhood, enduring abuse and trauma, thanks partially
at least to her father's total lack of interest in
her well being. However, she grew into a very different person. Here,

(08:09):
she recalls when she found out Blum was her real father.

Speaker 4 (08:14):
It was around the age of fifteen, maybe sixteen years old.
I had an interaction with my stepfather. It wasn't a
very nice one, and he threw some passports at me.
He said, you're not my daughter. He saw at me,
you get out of this house, and then he said
some other things which I can't repeat. That really bad.

(08:36):
It wasn't told to me in a very nice way.
So it was it was incredibly shocking. So I think
I just wandered around the streets of Melbourne numb for
a couple of days. I didn't know who I was,
so and that was the experience of how I found out.

Speaker 1 (09:00):
We leave Luxembourg earlier the day after meeting with Monique
to drive back to Brussels, but not before taking a
detour to travel to Rick Blum's hometown, Tournay. Heading into
Tournay and seventy thousand people, quite large, but not far

(09:21):
from the boarder from France, Litl is only twenty kilometers away,
and we're heading to the police station, but not before
getting a nice cup of coffee. I didn't know what
to e throw from Tornae. I hear it's a medieval town,
so I can see some a little bit further up,
there's some nice spires and looks really pretty. It's not

(09:45):
really on the tourist route though, so it's one of
those things that you'd only go to if we're going
out of your way and had a reason to. Generally,
it's no Bruges. While we're here, we're planning on seeing
a house that was in the name of Freddie David.

(10:05):
We don't know if that's the real Freddie David arm
or actually Brick Blum using the name Blum using the
name Freddie David. So we're not quite sure which one
it is, but we're going to check out the house anyway.
The alleged home of Freddie David is a two story
red brick terrace apartment down a narrow alleyway. Within a

(10:27):
few minutes walking distance is the Grand Place, home to
the city's historic Belfry and the fabulously Gothic Cathedral of
Our Lady, which dates back to the twelfth century. Like
the Belfry, it's a World Heritage Site. There's also a
statue of Marie Christine de la Lange, who was the

(10:48):
governor's wife back in the sixteenth century and when he
was away and the city was invaded, she successfully led
the defense against a Spanish army general, the Duke of Palmer.
So here I am in Tourney, and it is a
very working class town, there's no doubt about it. And
I'm not far from the police station where I just

(11:09):
went in and for chan it's lunchtime, so I didn't
get to speak to who I needed to speak to.
This lovely young officer asked me basically what I thought
of the town, and I said, oh, it's really lovely.
It's medieval and really pretty. I really like it.

Speaker 8 (11:22):
And she's so very poor though.

Speaker 1 (11:23):
It's very poor, which of course is true. There's no
sign of any affluence and a lot of emythy shops,
but the medieval history is amazing. I just can't get
over how much this city really has to offer. It's
an old, fortified city, there's a lot of nancial architecture

(11:44):
and it's just beautiful. So definitely recommend coming to Tournay.
Tournay is one of the oldest cities in Belgium. It
was fortified under Emperor Maximian in the third century AD
and was very wealthy in the Middle Ages. The city
is predominantly French speaking, and much of the population here

(12:07):
considers itself more French than Belgian. Like Luxembourg, It's had
many rulers and is the only Belgian city which was
once part of England. When Henry the Eighth reigned, he
defended the Stronghold, building an enormous tower and castle, with
sentries and bow men posted there. The tower has now

(12:30):
been turned into a weapons museum, most of which are
from World War II. Tournay was badly damaged in nineteen
forty when the Germans invaded, and a lot of the
city has had to be rebuilt. Now back to Evelyn
and her interview with Liam Bartlett from Spotlight. Much of
this was mentioned in my earlier interview, by there are

(12:52):
extra bits and pieces which provide more context to her recollections.

Speaker 4 (12:56):
I went back to the to my stepfather's house when
he wasn't home, and then I went into the wardrobe
and I went looking for things, and that's where I
found all the photos with my mother and Rick Bloom
as he's called now, And I took those things.

Speaker 3 (13:16):
And they were all the early fo all the.

Speaker 4 (13:19):
Early photographs, and they looked so happy and so in love.
So yeah, I thought, Yeah, there's someone out there that's
that sort of cares about me, and that I'll find
that person. Yeah, But it wasn't straight away. I didn't
move on that straight away because my life was pretty

(13:39):
hectic for many years. I didn't really get a chance
to act on it until I was into my twenties.

Speaker 7 (13:45):
Evelyn is talking about the photographs of herself with her
mother before she died, and images from her mum's wedding
to Rick Bloom then Willie Wooters.

Speaker 3 (13:54):
Those photographs are quite how can I put it there?
Those photographs are quite reflective of what looks like a
good relationship, doesn't it.

Speaker 4 (14:07):
Yes, I would think so.

Speaker 3 (14:09):
Much happier days. Obviously it went downhill very quickly, but
it's quite interesting to look back on.

Speaker 4 (14:15):
I don't know what to make of it. I think
that my mother and he may have loved each other.
It looks like that. I've only got the photos to
go on. The stories about their relationship are certainly very
different to what the photos look like, so I'm not sure. Really.
I don't think their relationship was long. I think that

(14:37):
he was already married and already had had children, and
he lied to her.

Speaker 3 (14:42):
Do you think he was married when he married him?

Speaker 5 (14:45):
Um?

Speaker 4 (14:45):
Well, what I understand is that he was married. She
was just nineteen. My grandmother found out he was married.
He very quickly divorced, and he hadn't been with his
first wife for very long and then he married my mother.

Speaker 3 (15:02):
So he could have been a bigness.

Speaker 4 (15:04):
He could have been anything.

Speaker 3 (15:06):
It's been hard, has it for you to sort of
nail down those dates from the records and his actions.

Speaker 4 (15:12):
It's been near impossible to nail down anything, So.

Speaker 3 (15:18):
Help me out here when you're born, He decides quite quickly,
that's it. I'm off the relationships over. Is that? Am
I interpreting it right?

Speaker 6 (15:30):
Well?

Speaker 4 (15:31):
You might be, but your guess is probably as good
as my guess. I don't think anyone actually knows, and
that's what the problem is. We can only go buy
the paperwork that's there and it looks like they came
to Australia together. No one really knows what's happened from there.

(15:53):
There's just the stories that people share. My mother, I think,
was going back and forth overseas. She had some different places.
She stayed here in Australia. I believe I was just
a couple of weeks old and I was sent on
a plane back to my grandmother's in here in Belgium,

(16:14):
so I wasn't with her the whole time. I don't know.
I don't know how long they were together for or
not together for. I think she married my stepfather in
seventy two, so I would have been around two years old.
But again I'm not really sure.

Speaker 3 (16:31):
When you did get the chance to track him down,
how old were you when you had a first conversation
with him.

Speaker 4 (16:38):
I would have been around twenty five, maybe twenty six
years old around that time. Yeah, so nineteen ninety five.

Speaker 3 (16:48):
And how did that first conversation go.

Speaker 4 (16:51):
The very first conversation was a phone call. There was
very short, very sweet. He seemed happy to hear from me.
He had been pre told by their consulate in Australia
that he had a daughter, so it was I didn't
have to call him and announce myself in that way.

(17:12):
He was expecting my call and we just organized to
catch up for dinner and then then we met in
near an overtwel in Melbourne, went to some restaurant for dinner,
and that's where he proceeded to tell me that he
was a coin dealer, international traveler dealing in coins.

Speaker 1 (17:34):
He had a.

Speaker 4 (17:34):
Briefcase with him that was full of cash. You just
got back from a big trip overseas where he sold
lots of coins.

Speaker 3 (17:42):
That's what he told you. Did you see the cash?

Speaker 4 (17:44):
No, I didn't. I didn't ask to. I was just
excited just to meet my father, so I just enjoyed
the dinner. And for the first first time.

Speaker 3 (17:55):
Did you ask him in that conversation? You know what
happened that. I mean, all those years, what what what
went wrong?

Speaker 7 (18:04):
Uh?

Speaker 4 (18:04):
Yeah I did. I did ask him. I said to him,
how come you never came in looked for me? And
he said, I didn't. I didn't know that. I didn't
know anything about you. My first knowledge of you was
the Consulate calling me to let me know I had

(18:27):
a daughter. I didn't even know your mother was dead
until now that you've told me.

Speaker 3 (18:32):
Did you believe that?

Speaker 4 (18:35):
I'm not sure I believed it, but I accepted that
that's what he said at the time. I didn't question
it further.

Speaker 3 (18:42):
You wanted to believe it?

Speaker 4 (18:45):
Oh no, Oh no, I know absolutely. Just I am
still struggling to come to terms with how much he lies,
and you know that's just one of all his lies.

Speaker 3 (19:01):
How many conversations have you had with him all up.

Speaker 5 (19:05):
All up?

Speaker 4 (19:06):
I mean, it would be probably less than ten times
that I've caught up with him, but I can't give
you an exact number because I don't remember each time clearly.
I just remember the times where there were things said
that left me left me really just feeling traumatized and

(19:29):
scared and unable to process. Well I had been what
he would whatever it was that he was saying to me, So,
I have those sorts of memories.

Speaker 3 (19:38):
Can you talk to me about some of those conversations.
I mean, clearly, he's never taken it a step further,
Clearly he doesn't want to be part of your life
and has never made any attempt to do so. But
what sort of things has he told you in those
times that you have had a father daughter conversation, if
I can put it that way, Yeah, I.

Speaker 4 (20:00):
It that way. But yeah, So in the first couple
of meetings with him, I spoke to him about an
inheritance from my grandmother and she owned a property in Brussels,
and I felt that something had gone amiss with that

(20:23):
whole settlement procedure. And he said that he would be
doing a trip to Belgium soon and he may know
a friend of a cousin or a distant cousin of
someone to have something to do with my family. He'd
find something out and that when he came back, you'd

(20:43):
get in touch and let me know if he'd been
able to find any information out about it. He told
me that he thought as well that my mother was
a slut, and.

Speaker 3 (21:02):
He said to you, he said that to me this
is the woman that he married.

Speaker 4 (21:05):
The woman, Yes, yeah, Why.

Speaker 3 (21:08):
Would he say that? Why would you paint your mother
in that light to you years after she'd passed away.

Speaker 4 (21:14):
I mean, I can't answer that question. I don't know
why anyone would say something like that about someone that
they apparently loved, someone that's dead. They're not there to
defend themselves and to someone that you meant to care
about your daughter. They just there's nothing about that that

(21:36):
I can provide an answer for that makes any sense
to me. I thought he was just horrible. And then
he went on to tell me that he had found
out some information about my grandmother's inheritance while he was overseas,
and that there's not a rumor rumor is the wrong word,

(21:59):
but there's a sort of an understanding in what's left
of my family, people who I've never never met, but
who are aware of the two children of Alner. They
live in Australia, and the understanding is that there was
some sort of arrangement made where my grandmother's second husband

(22:24):
could keep the state in exchange for the daughter being
given as a I don't know, you know, the stepfather
in Australia could keep the daughter and the step grandfather
could keep the money. So that doesn't make a lot

(22:44):
of sense. It makes no sense. I didn't speak to
him again after that for quite a few years. It
wasn't something I was able to at all understand. And
it's not that I can't, it's not so much that
I still don't understand it, but I mean, but at
that time, that you know, the delivery of something like

(23:05):
that was just it was it was very painful. I
could barely repeat it to my partner at the time
at the time, just that that the idea that something
like that might have happened, or that that someone who
is meant to be my father said something like that
to me, Like I just it was just so out

(23:29):
of this world to try to understand what any of
that meant. But I knew he was no good, that,
you know, after he said those things to me, I
knew he was he was no good. I didn't want
to have anything to do with him.

Speaker 3 (23:45):
So that impression that you got help him being no good, Yeah,
it was just from those nine or ten conversations you've
had with him in your life. Yeah, you worked out pretty.

Speaker 4 (23:55):
Quickly, pretty quick. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (23:56):
Yeah, when was the last time you spoke to him.

Speaker 4 (23:59):
So then fast forward a few years after that last interaction,
my then partner thought that I should contact him. He
was putting a great deal of pressure on me to
contact him because he thought that maybe I had initially
over dramatized those initial meetings and that maybe I would

(24:22):
be able to get some sort of I guess the
therapy closure. Yeah, from having some contact with him, and
so yeah, at his bequest, I guess I just sort
of went forward that way and I made contact with
him again, and it was it was immediately bad. He

(24:45):
answered the phone, I said who it was, and he said,
what do you want? And then he said, you know
you are you have something. I can't remember exactly how
it went. You know, you know, how dare you ring me?
Or you have no right to ring me? I transferred
you ten thousand dollars to try and help me, and
you didn't even have the decency to say thank you.
I was just on the other end of the phone.

(25:07):
What is this guy talking about?

Speaker 3 (25:10):
Is that right? Did he give you money?

Speaker 6 (25:11):
No?

Speaker 4 (25:11):
Can give me a cent? He said, I'll go and
I'll go and look into it, check into my bank statement,
and then I'll contact you back and then he came
back and he said, oh, you know, something wasn't right,
but okay, I'll talk. You know, I'll talk to you
because I didn't. I didn't give you that money. It
was just odd.

Speaker 3 (25:31):
Was he worried that you'd turn up on his doorstep
in New South Wales, up in Balana or something and
make yourself known to his current wife and his two kids.

Speaker 4 (25:42):
I'm not sure. I mean he may have been. He
gave me a photo of his two children and he said,
they this is your brother and sister.

Speaker 3 (25:52):
Well they are half brother and half sister.

Speaker 4 (25:54):
Yeah right. He said that his wife wasn't comfortable to
tell them about me, so he said that she knew
about me and while he was away overseas, because he
was gone for months and months, and I did have
the number of the house, so I did call the
house to ask if he was around, and his wife

(26:16):
answered the phone and when I said who it was,
she said something like, yeah, sure you are, and was
very cold. She just flung up on me. So all
of the interactions were just odd.

Speaker 3 (26:32):
So you've never spoken to that half brother, half sister.
Never do they know you exist?

Speaker 4 (26:36):
I would imagine they do by now?

Speaker 3 (26:39):
Was that the final conversation with your dad.

Speaker 4 (26:42):
No, no, no, there's a bit of a story to
the final conversation. So there's three final meetings, if I
can put them that way. There in my early thirties.

Speaker 3 (26:54):
So this is quite a long time agovernment.

Speaker 4 (26:56):
Yeah, quite a while ago.

Speaker 3 (26:57):
So the last time I talked to him was what
years ago?

Speaker 4 (27:00):
Yeah, yep, around twenty years ago.

Speaker 3 (27:03):
Haven't been No, why is that? What did he say
that last conversation that was so bad?

Speaker 4 (27:09):
Well, first off, he was at my house and he
wanted to share with me something important that as his daughter,
there's something he could do for me so that I
could look after myself better. Was that he could teach
me how to poison people. And he went through a

(27:33):
very descriptive method and then finished by saying that if
I ever needed to use that method on anybody, that
it would be through poisoning food. They would develop flu
like symptoms within a couple of weeks, and then within
a week or two they'd be dead and it would

(27:54):
be untraceable. At the same time that he was sharing
that with me, that he was sitting in my home,
he'd met my children, his grandchildren, and he was saying
that he there and he was bragging to me about
when he was younger that he and some of his

(28:15):
mates what they used to like to do bury people
alive with hungry cats. And you know that this is
this is a style of seeking revenge. He was just
he was.

Speaker 7 (28:25):
He was.

Speaker 4 (28:26):
He was a scary character. Then after that meeting, he
came back to Melbourne, so he wasn't I was in Melbourne,
he wasn't. Some weeks later asked me to meet him
in the city at a cafe. He pre warned me
that he had a proposition for me, so along I went.
I met him and he started to say to me

(28:47):
that in this world, there's only two ways you can
really look after yourself financially, and one is with your
mind and if you have something created that you can
come up with and you'll be able to be self supporting.
But that clearly you don't have that, and so your
only other option is to sell your body. And then

(29:11):
he said to me, but I have another proposition for you,
and that is I just need to get legal documents
drawn up in regard to life insurance, which I'm going
to go overseas and there are people who will be
signing these documents and then you don't need to worry

(29:34):
about the people. I'll be taking care of them, and
then we'll I'll split the proceeds with you.

Speaker 3 (29:43):
Or was that a suggestion to be involved in some
sort of criminal activity.

Speaker 4 (29:47):
Well, I definitely think it was a suggestion to be
involved in some sort of criminal activity. But I also
wasn't sure what he was suggesting, because he was talking about,
you know, life insurance and taking care of people. I mean,
I barely made it out of that cafe to my car.

(30:10):
I had a terrible migraine. I was sick. It was terrible.
I was literally unable to process what he had said,
and I didn't want to. I didn't want clarification on it.
I just wanted the whole situation just to just to
go away.

Speaker 3 (30:25):
Well, that there's a biological father suggesting that you prostitute yourself, Yes, yep,
he was serious.

Speaker 4 (30:32):
Well, I think that maybe it was more a manipulative
tactic to let me know that that would be my
only option if I didn't go ahead with what he
was proposing, which and I don't understand what it was
that he was proposing, but obviously it wasn't anything good.

Speaker 3 (30:53):
That's beyond strange.

Speaker 4 (30:54):
It's beyond strange. I mean, honestly, I thought, after he
had shared stories with me about burying people alive and
trying to educate me on how to poison people so
that he could empower me to kill people, that that is,
I mean, that is the literal sense of what it
was that he was saying to me. So putting that

(31:15):
together with then these suggestions with life insurance policies taking
care of people, I was just my brain went into
full imagination of what that could mean. I was deeply,
deeply ashamed, and.

Speaker 3 (31:33):
Well, no, wonder you were physically ill? Yeah, yeah, and
that was it. That was the end. You've cut off.

Speaker 4 (31:38):
And then then then the end came. A week or
so after that conversation where he contacted me, I obviously
told him that I wasn't interested in being involved and
whatever it was that he was doing. Then he called
again and said he was coming to town, asked me
to pick him up from the airport, that he he'd

(32:00):
had some business to take care of, and then he'd
come for dinner. It might sound strange that I still
went ahead to see him again, but I was. I
was scared of him at this stage and I wasn't
I wasn't really sure what to do. Like, I wasn't
sure whether if I didn't outright a rejection of him,

(32:21):
whether that would put me in danger or not. I
just didn't know. So I picked him up from the
airport where he presented to me a bottle of Bollinger,
and we got to the car and said, just you know,
drop me off and I'll be back for dinner. You
take this home and put it in the fridge and
get it chilled for us. So I dropped him off,

(32:45):
and he was laughing as he got out of the car,
saying that he was just had to go and collect
like a forty or a fifty thousand dollars cash off
someone who only had his phone number and would never
be able to trace him or get that money back.
He was sort of bragging about that, jumped out of
the car, and then I took the champagne home, put

(33:06):
it in a fridge, and never heard from him again,
and the next day's number was disconnected. That was it,
and that was it. And that champagne bottle I put
in big black texture on it, poison, and it sat
on the top of our fridge for months, days later,
I took it down to the Haran police station and

(33:28):
I went in there and I said, I asked them,
you know, can someone help me? I think that someone
has tried to poison me. And I don't know what
the police thought of some young woman holding a bottle
of Bolinger saying help me, someone's trying to poison me.

Speaker 3 (33:44):
I probably thought you were completely lupid. Yeah, I understand
why you would be paranoid. Yeah, So he's never turned up.
That was it? That was it, twenty odd years ago.

Speaker 4 (33:54):
Twenty odd years ago.

Speaker 3 (33:56):
Can we just go back to the bit about the poison?

Speaker 4 (33:58):
Sure?

Speaker 3 (33:59):
So why did he Why is he giving you advice
about poisoning to kill? This is unprompted advice.

Speaker 4 (34:09):
It's unprompted.

Speaker 5 (34:09):
Yes.

Speaker 4 (34:11):
We were having a conversation about my stepfather and some
of the things that I had been through as a
younger person with my stepfather, and he said that he
asked me for He said, I want to know where
he lives. I have a writer, you know, as your father,
to do what I must do and get get the

(34:33):
revenge or something like that. The implication was that he
wanted to cause physical harm to my stepfather. And I
said to him, you know, like, oh, no, you know,
I don't. I don't do that. And then I think
from there it was sort of like, well, then if
you're not going to allow me to do what I
want to do, then the least I can do for

(34:54):
you is to teach you how to take care of yourself.
You should know how to poison people. That was and
the cause of the conversation.

Speaker 3 (35:02):
That's a bizarre He initiates a conversation about poisoning people
to kill them.

Speaker 4 (35:09):
I mean bizarre as a word, yeah, bizarre. I mean
I see him as a as a criminal. I don't
see him as bizarre. When I think of bizarre, I
think of someone in a clown. So I don't think
it's very funny. I don't know what's going on there.
I don't have answers, but whatever it is, it's not good.
It's dark, and I think he's capable of anything. It's

(35:32):
more than twenty years ago. I don't walk around anymore
frightened for my life, but at the time I was
frightened for my life. I couldn't give you an explanation why.
A combination of all of the conversations that he had
with me, the dreadful way in which he treated me,
and I was scared, and not just any normal fear.

(35:57):
When I took that bottle to the paran station. I
went there because I thought I was I believed in
an attempt at my life had been made. Intuitively, I
believed that.

Speaker 3 (36:10):
So did they end up testing him?

Speaker 4 (36:12):
Oh no they no, they no, no, No, they didn't
take it, didn't check me seriously at all.

Speaker 3 (36:18):
Here's the weird thing. Yeah, it stopped me. If you
think I'm being melodramatic, but when he's talking to you
about poisoning people and he describes the symptoms, the symptoms
he's describing almost identical to what your mother had just
before she passed away at the age of thirty one.

Speaker 4 (36:38):
Yeah, well, the autopsy report says that she presented at
her doctor seven days before death with flu like symptoms, yes,
or throw tohn solidis or flu likes. She wasn't diagnosed
as having ton solidis, but just with those sorts of symptoms.

Speaker 3 (36:58):
I mean, is that just a complete coincidence?

Speaker 5 (37:00):
Oh?

Speaker 4 (37:00):
I mean again, how can I answer a question like that?

Speaker 3 (37:04):
I have you been through that year?

Speaker 4 (37:06):
Of course?

Speaker 3 (37:07):
Yeah, of course, is it possible? I mean, when's the
last time your mother had contact with this play, do
you know?

Speaker 4 (37:15):
I don't know. She died in nineteen seventy seven. I
was seven years old, so my ability at that age
to place her locations with him is not really that great.
But I think from what I understand, she did go
to see her mum in Belgium in nineteen seventy seven,

(37:39):
so herself, her mother, and her brother. I think they
were all together at the house in Brussels, And I
can imagine, even though I've heard stories that you know,
my mother wanted to get away from him because she
thought he was a crook and that she found him

(38:00):
to be violent, and you know that she underwent trauma
trying to start a new life away from him. I
believe that he was her first real love, and she
had a child with him. I can't imagine that she
would have been over him like that. If she was

(38:22):
in Belgium seeing her mum, I can imagine that she
would have made contact and seen him, even just to
talk a cup of coffee, to talk about children. I mean,
isn't that Isn't that what normal people do? They trying
and connect with other people that are meaningful to them

(38:43):
in their life.

Speaker 3 (38:44):
And he was coming back and forth a lot.

Speaker 4 (38:46):
It was back and forth a lot, So.

Speaker 3 (38:49):
It's a reasonable proposition.

Speaker 4 (38:51):
It's a reasonable proposition that.

Speaker 3 (38:53):
In the final months weeks of her life she had
some sort of contact with him here in Belgium.

Speaker 4 (39:00):
So it's reasonable to think that it'd be better if
it could be proven. When my family passed away, in
talking about my grandmother and her ownly two children, I
grew up always feeling that there was something about that
that wasn't right. It is so it's so strange. Does

(39:20):
how does a whole family just get wiped out? You know,
like one's person's in their sixties, one's thirty one, one's
twenty five years old? How is that even? You know what?
Were they all born genetically you know, predisposed to terrible
diseases or you know, how does something like that even happen?

(39:41):
For me, it was always a question and it's still
a question. But I just people just used to treat
me like there was something you know, you just accept
the fact that they're dead, like you know that that
happens and normally has happened in life. I always thought,
you know, it's really strange. I just I couldn't explain it.

(40:03):
But I always felt that something nefarious had happened, that
there was something dark about it. And of course, when
I met him, and then when he started telling me
he thought my mother was a Slatin, And you know,
as as I got to know him a little bit
better and the sorts of things he was saying, all
of a sudden in my mind I connected those things

(40:26):
and thought, you know, could it be possible, that's all.
Could it be possible that this person is the person
that's responsible for this really shitty life that I've had, Like,
who could it be? But I don't have answers for that.
There's still questions.

Speaker 3 (40:45):
What about the dates? Have you looked at the death dates?
You know how many weeks it was in between your
your grandmother passing and your mom And I don't.

Speaker 4 (40:59):
I don't, I don't have the documents. I'm not sure
interesting it would be.

Speaker 3 (41:03):
It would be so as this story unfolds for you,
because it's it's unfolding for everybody who's been affected. But
as the details become more and more public, and as
you become more aware of all these details, knowing the
sort of trail of human.

Speaker 4 (41:24):
Destruction, it's devastating.

Speaker 3 (41:26):
This guy has left behind and you share his DNA.
How does that make you feel? Is there a sort
of sense of what shame? Guilt? How do you cope
with it?

Speaker 4 (41:41):
Well, for a long time there was deep, deep shame.
I'm not really sure how. I'm not really I don't
know how to sort of explain it. How I sort
of came to deal with that. I think, I mean,
I I had a lot of help, support groups, ashram psychologists, counselors,

(42:06):
I was. I built a massive network of support around
myself to try and unpack things. And I think eventually
I just came to the realization that I'm not defined
by another human being. I'm defined by my own actions

(42:29):
in this life, and that by building a life that
was meaningful to me, based on honesty and having good
values and integrity, that that's sort of who I became.
It's just not how I started off. I'm not saying
I started off that.

Speaker 3 (42:50):
Way, because so there was a lot to unhap and
there was a lot.

Speaker 4 (42:52):
To unpack, and I had to sort of reinvent, not
reinvent myself in a false way, but more recovery, like
the recovery of myself was what was needed to.

Speaker 3 (43:05):
Get back to who you want it to be.

Speaker 4 (43:07):
Yeah, and that's what happened. And then somehow those sort
of shackles of shame, I guess, fell off, and it
just stopped being part of my life, and you know,
time went by and time went by. Although being re
immersed in this now, you know, I can say that
the weight of it is definitely back. But I'm probably

(43:28):
got better skills for being able to deal with it
than I did the first time around, for sure.

Speaker 3 (43:32):
But in many ways, you are also one of the victims. Yeah,
that's the thing is I mean, you were as much
a victim, if you don't mind me saying that, as
as all the women that he has.

Speaker 4 (43:44):
I mean, if he can do to his own daughter,
I mean, what does that say about him and what
he is capable of?

Speaker 3 (43:53):
So well, that really sort of answers the question. I mean,
that's you know, so it has played on your mind
to a massive amount, a.

Speaker 4 (44:01):
Massive amount, And I don't want him to be my father,
obviously I wish he wasn't, But that is the person
that I'm biologically connected to. I've sitting in rooms and
listened to how he's devastated other people's lives, and it's
it's sickening.

Speaker 3 (44:20):
Are you amazed by the length and breadthought. I mean,
it's such a when I use that term trailer destruction,
but it doesn't it doesn't really cover it doesn't.

Speaker 4 (44:31):
It doesn't, it doesn't stop. We went while we were here,
we went to try and get a document translated, and
we discovered, for example, just a little, just a little
thing while we were here that I've been left with
a I think it was like a in today's equivalence,
nearly three hundred thousand dollars debt to the state in
Brussels that he's managed to pass on to me that

(44:54):
I was unaware of.

Speaker 3 (44:55):
You have a tax deb Yeah, yeah, and you've only
just discovered.

Speaker 4 (44:58):
That, right, Yeah, not obviously not my debt, but something
that he's passed on to me.

Speaker 3 (45:03):
How has he done that?

Speaker 4 (45:04):
I think that the investigation into it is still being unpacked.
It's not one hundred percent clear, but it looks like
he was using the name of his deceased brother to
maybe accumulate assets as well as debts, and then he

(45:26):
used his legally known name to renounce his estate to
his deceased brother, even though it was his alias was
his deceased brother so he renounced himself legally from his
own debt in this other name. And then the way

(45:47):
that the laws work here is that it just the
succession follows on to whoever the next person in line is.
And so they've been waiting for ann answer from me
for a while about this. So we're going to sort
that out while we're here as well.

Speaker 3 (46:03):
Yeah, so he doesn't want to know you as a daughter,
but he's happy to pass on a three hundred thousand
dollars tax debt in Belgium.

Speaker 4 (46:09):
So it seems it just never stops, does it. It
just gets worse. It's not like, yeah, it's not being
unpacked and that's it. There's an end to what he's done.
It's the more digging, the worse it's getting. So I'm
not quite sure what that's going to uncover, but I
think the digging needs to continue.

Speaker 3 (46:31):
Well, what other questions that you still want to answered?

Speaker 4 (46:35):
Ever, for myself, I don't think I do, because if
I start to want to have questions answered, then I
think that it will derail me because the answers won't
ever be forthcoming. So I think for me it's probably

(46:57):
better as it may be left eye known I'm not sure.
I mean, it would be good to know, obviously what
happened to my family, but wanting to have answers to
that was it stopped me from being able to live
life for decades. So I don't want to I don't

(47:18):
want the rest of my life to be like that.
But I guess I would like to know, though. But
even more importantly is what's happened to Sally's mother?

Speaker 5 (47:31):
Well?

Speaker 4 (47:32):
I know where my mother is, but where is where
is Sally's mother? That's I think that question needs to
be answered.

Speaker 3 (47:41):
Do you think he'll ever tell the truth to the
coronial in quest? Do you have any confidence in that?

Speaker 4 (47:47):
No? No, I think that he'll find it funny that
he gets to keep it to himself. But I believe
that it can be found out without him having to confess.
I think that they I think that they should investigate.
I even think that a lot of digging should happen,

(48:09):
real digging, real digging.

Speaker 3 (48:11):
Did he ever tell you why he used so many names,
so many aliases?

Speaker 5 (48:16):
Oh?

Speaker 4 (48:17):
Well, I mean that was something I didn't know anything about.
I've only learned that more recently. So I asked him
about the name on my birth certify which was different
to the name that he was using when I met him.
So on my birth certificate, his Willy Woters and the
Consulate when they found him for me, they said that

(48:39):
he was Frederic de heather Diary. So I did ask
him about that. He said that he lost his family
in the Holocaust and that he was five years old.
His mother, father, brothers, and sisters had all been gassed,
and that he was the only survivor taken in by
a German family. The family changed his name to Wooters

(49:02):
to protect him and they raised him.

Speaker 3 (49:05):
Well, that's that's a terrific story.

Speaker 4 (49:09):
Yeah. I had to tell my daughter the unfortunates. I said,
do you know that that story about our family that
I've told you that, you know, this is sort of
part of our history. There's a very real chance that
it's probably not true. And she said she was just like, oh, well,
I have my identity attached to that story. You need

(49:32):
to find out what's going on. So my daughter wants
to know too.

Speaker 3 (49:36):
It's a pretty low act, isn't it. Yeah, making out
that you're a Holocaust survivor.

Speaker 4 (49:40):
Yeah, yeah, it's terrible. I think he was from what
I understand, he was put in an orphanage, why his mother?

Speaker 3 (49:48):
Is there anything that's come out in the inquest that's
really surprised you?

Speaker 4 (49:52):
Well, he obviously said that he didn't have any contact
with me or know anything about me. I'm not I'm
not sure exactly what it was. I can't quote it.
I found it terribly difficult to watch that in quest,
so I didn't see all of it. But just I
think he knows something about me but has had nothing
to do with me or something like that. I mean,
that's just an outright lie. That's a lie in the inquest?

Speaker 3 (50:15):
What has been more than one? So? Yeah, isn't that
the danger of living a life like that for so
many years? Well, you're going to get caught somewhere along
the line, aren't you. Do you think it's about time?
Do you think that there is a good chance that
justice will finally be delivered to your father?

Speaker 4 (50:33):
I hope, so, I hope. So there's a paper trail there.
It just needs to be found. People need to know
what's happened, you know. God forbid, if there are other
families out there with missing people and they haven't been
able to identify the person that was in contact with them,

(50:56):
maybe there'll be answers for lots of people through this, And.

Speaker 3 (50:59):
That's the other thing. It's a really good point, isn't it,
Because who knows how this sort of story unfolds. Do
you think we've got to the bottom of it, or
could there be for example, other women, other wives, other
people who may have been victims.

Speaker 4 (51:19):
Anything is possible, isn't it. We know that there are
lots of victims so far in regard to financial fraud,
and even though we just call it outright theft and
threatening people, intimidating them, standing over them, the stories are
there already of multiple experiences of that by people, about

(51:44):
how far it goes anything's possible.

Speaker 3 (51:47):
You used to term earlier about it getting dark, getting
very dark. I think that's a really good way of
putting it. One thing I find especially dark is this theme,
this pattern that seems to come up with many of
the women that he meets about asking them to go
to the hospital have a liver check, and this supposed

(52:07):
fascination with poisons. What do you make of all that.

Speaker 4 (52:11):
I don't know what the liver check is about. I've
listened to the poisons expert or a sort of an
explanation of what these things might be. And I understand
that if someone's been poisoned and they've bleached their hair,
for example, then that that would hide, that would conceal

(52:34):
the poison that would be present in their hair. So
you know, I mean, I just don't I don't know.
Anything is possible. That there's a lot of things that
he has said that I guess, you know, confessions of somebody.
It sounds like confessions of somebody that's that's proud to

(52:56):
be doing those sorts of deeds in life.

Speaker 3 (53:00):
But has he really in some of the things he's
told you, for example, has he really done them? Has
he perpetrated some of these acts perhaps crimes? Or is
he just a fantasist?

Speaker 4 (53:11):
Don't know, don't know. I even thought when he told
me that a deal had been struck between my step
grandfather and my stepfather regarding, you know, who keeps the
money and who keeps the girl sort of thing, that
I had just a feeling like that he was in

(53:34):
a way that maybe he made the deal that it
wasn't them, and that he was enjoying telling me that
he'd done that to me, but without directly telling me
that it was him, using other characters. So but again
there's no way to know, and my interactions with him

(53:57):
left me feeling not just very scared, but also importantly,
the impact on me was that I thought I was
losing my mind. I thought maybe I had lost my mind,
and so it was. It was a devastating impact on
me emotionally and mentally, like the years of what I

(54:19):
had to work through, it was just devastating.

Speaker 1 (54:22):
You.

Speaker 3 (54:22):
But you genuinely thought he was a dangerous man.

Speaker 4 (54:26):
Oh I did.

Speaker 3 (54:26):
Yeah, that was and here is a person who's willing
to forgive because you sort of almost wanted that relationship
to work, so you were quite open, and yet you
came away feeling as though he was capable of bad things.

Speaker 4 (54:43):
One hundred percent. I came away feeling that way.

Speaker 3 (54:47):
So maybe he's more career criminal than Walter Mitty.

Speaker 4 (54:54):
He might be potentially a lot, a lot worse than
we all think this. We might be just only scratching
the surface with our understanding of him at this stage,
which is why it's so important that he's investigated properly
and that his movements are tracked properly.

Speaker 3 (55:16):
I struggle with the whole idea that you have never
been interviewed properly by police.

Speaker 4 (55:23):
I'm not sure how that works. Maybe the police need
to be given the green light to go ahead and
start gathering evidence.

Speaker 3 (55:31):
I'm not sure, or maybe the coroner will order exactly that.

Speaker 4 (55:36):
I hope, So, I hope. So people need answers. I've
lived with this for a long time, but Sully needs answers.
And there's a lot of people that are coming out
even telling their story that maybe wouldn't share their story
because of how humiliating it is if it wasn't for

(55:57):
the fact that there's someone out there with a missing mother.
And I think that hopefully that that prompts small people
to step forward if there are more people out there.

Speaker 3 (56:08):
People don't just vanish from the face of the earth,
do they not. No, Marian's got to be somewhere.

Speaker 4 (56:14):
To be somewhere, to be somewhere. You can't imagine that
she would not want to talk to her daughter. I mean,
that's just insanity to me to think that that's even
a possibility.

Speaker 3 (56:31):
Let me ask you this, especially as a woman. Forget
about being a daughter for a moment, but as a woman,
because as you know, 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 Dad

(56:55):
of very whatever he calls himself a particular point in time,
a lot of his approaches to these lonely women have
been the same, and they've ended up in the same tragedy.
What sort of person, what sort of man is capable
doing that to somebody else? To exploit and take advantage
of a woman.

Speaker 4 (57:15):
In that way, I see it as somebody that is opportunistic,
somebody that has no feeling for their fellow man. Because
lots of people are lonely. It's not a crime to
be lonely or to be vulnerable. But to understand that
about people and to then actively work to take advantage

(57:38):
of them is I don't have I mean, to me,
it's just disgusting. I don't have the acumen to really
explain it. It is to me, it's sociopathic in its nature.
That's how I see it, and I see it that
way because this isn't about just leaving somebody just broken

(57:59):
hearted because you know, they thought that they had someone
that loved them, but now they're back to being lonely again.
This is about taking people's life savings from them and
their personal belongings from them that they needed to support
their families or to retire on. These are people whose
lives now are completely and utterly destroyed. There's women out

(58:24):
there who have to have their children look after them
when they wanted to look after their children. This is
I mean, how do you do that to people's lives?

Speaker 3 (58:35):
Well, you put it well, I mean you're not only
exploiting their emotions, but employing.

Speaker 4 (58:42):
The emotions for the purpose of taking those things. So
it's more than just exploitative.

Speaker 3 (58:50):
Yeah, you can't get much lower.

Speaker 4 (58:53):
No.

Speaker 7 (58:54):
Liam then goes on to ask if Evelyn is happy
with the interview. She tells him that she is.

Speaker 3 (59:00):
Well, I think you I think the way you put it,
you know, it was really nice, and you brought that
into the conversation, which was even nice. The way you
did it about Sally, I think that's really that's lovely.
There's someone who's just, you know, she just won't give up.
I really admire that. I think it's fantastic. She's just
been going and going and going against all lots.

Speaker 4 (59:19):
And I'm still keeping exactly that is in your imagination.
Get over it.

Speaker 3 (59:27):
But when you think about it. You're doing the same
thing in a sense because of no fault of your own,
because of your circumstance, and you as a little girl
being shunted here and shunted there and then it's pretty
it's very rough. But you've still managed to come back
from that and that was an easy which is a
credit to you.

Speaker 4 (59:46):
And then so I understand why people don't come back I.

Speaker 3 (59:53):
Talking about with the homesess. But but the point is
that you've actually not only turned that around, but you
were still in there essentially almost a representative for your mum.
I mean, if there is a darker side to that ending,
even if there's not, I'm sure she'd still be very
proud of the way that you still helping the fight.

Speaker 4 (01:00:14):
Well, thank you for saying that. I think that these women,
these lost women, deceased women, then they need to be honored.
All of them need to be honored because they haven't
had a voice. Their voice is gone. None of us
know what happened to them, what they went through, and

(01:00:35):
so we all have to do our bit to try
and uncover that as best as we can for them
and be their voice.

Speaker 3 (01:00:42):
Do you think of your mom's memory?

Speaker 4 (01:00:45):
I mean I've got very fond memories of my mum.
I was close to her, So it's been nice being
here in Brussels. You see the little girls walking around
and they're done up like little dolls and chasing their
parents around, Papa Papa. I don't get to hear that
in Australia in the same way, and that's you know,

(01:01:08):
that's how things were for me when I was a
little girl. So it's beautiful, it's nice. It's also odd
just looking at the same situation again but still having
no answers, you know. I mean, no matter what gets
done here, there's no bringing back my mother. She's gone.

(01:01:31):
My grandmother's property in Brussels, it's gone. You know, somebody's
purchased that legitimately, it's gone. My mother's jewelry that my
stepfather would never give me even a little near place
that she bought for me. Those things they're gone. You know,
things are gone. We all have to sort of move

(01:01:55):
on with our life. But you know, for Sally, it's
different because that closure is not there. So I'm going
to find out. I've got to find out what happened.
I think that the least, that's the least that the
coroner can do is asked for an investigation, and tomanswers.

Speaker 7 (01:02:24):
It's hard to imagine how traumatic Evelyn's life was made
by her biological father, especially when she also had to
endure a very difficult and traumatic upbringing. You might recall
an episode forty eight we mentioned that after Evelyn's mother, Ilona,
died at the wheel of her car from a possible

(01:02:46):
heart attack in nineteen seventy seven, law firm Morris Blackburn
wrote letters to the coroner and the ombunsman in Victoria
requesting a death certificate and a copy of the post
mortem examination in relation to a worker's compensation claim being
pursued by Ilona's dependence. This confused us and as Elona

(01:03:07):
was not at work when she died. Also, we remembered
Evelyn telling us that Rick Bloom had birth certificates for
her and for her stepbrother, showing Rick as his father
using the name Willie Wooters. Who was actually making the
worker's comp claim on behalf of the children? Was it
Michael Reid or could it be Rick Bloom using the

(01:03:30):
birth certificates to fraudulently claim on their behalf And what
could be the basis for such a claim? We asked
Evelyn about it, and she told us Michael Reid changed
her name just after her mother died to Evelyn Read.
Although it was not done legally, Evelyn thinks that Michael
did get some money from a worker's compensation claim on

(01:03:52):
her mother's death. In a letter written by a lawyer
from Maurice Blackburn in February nineteen seventy eight, they spell
out their frustration about the delay in getting a post
mortem report for a loner.

Speaker 9 (01:04:06):
Such a delay appears inexcusable, particularly when a possible workers'
compensation case is involved. As under Section forty one B
of the Workers' Compensation Act, the claim has to be
notified to the employer within six months from the date
of death. It is rather difficult when the deceased's dependence
cannot find out what was the cause of death and

(01:04:28):
hence former judgment about whether they have a good worker's
compensation claim.

Speaker 7 (01:04:32):
We wondered how the post mortem report would affect whether
or not they could mount a worker's compensation claim. Now
we asked Evelyn about whether her stepfather was involved.

Speaker 4 (01:04:42):
My understanding is that he instigated this claim on behalf
of Chris and I. Of course we were so young,
we had no idea about it. When I think back
to a little later in life, when I was a teenager,
he made mention of money being set aside for Chris
and I, and around the age of eighteen, I asked
for the money was basically told to go to hell,

(01:05:02):
probably not in those words, but something of that nature.
I did my own snooping around a bit later and
found that a worker's compensation case had been lodged and
a financial contribution towards Chris and I was put aside.
I remember I had to write a letter to someone
to access the funds, and I recall that it had
been almost all cleaned out. I understand that he had

(01:05:27):
had access to it previously.

Speaker 7 (01:05:29):
We also asked Devilen about the possibility that Rick Bloom
may have been involved, as he already had a long
history of fraud by the time Aloner passed away.

Speaker 4 (01:05:39):
I don't know whether Rick was involved in this, whether
there had been any pre existing agreements or arrangements between
the men, or if in fact it was Rick making
this claim. There is no reason why it couldn't be
Rick instead of my stepfather. One thing for sure. Either way,

(01:06:00):
stepfather either got paid or he knew about it. I
do recall he was very cagey about it and didn't
want me to find out any information. I recall that
he was not happy when I found out the little
information I could.

Speaker 7 (01:06:16):
Michael Reid told us that there was a worker's compensation
payment of about eighteen thousand dollars relating to Ilona's death,
and he claims the entire amount went to both Evelyn
and her brother Chris. As to how Elona's death officially
from natural causes could be grounds for a worker's compensation claim.

Speaker 4 (01:06:35):
I'm not sure about this one, but I was told
by him that it was because she died on her
way home from work. Also, I think the report mentions
that the person who found her in the car was
also the same person her boss or colleague. She was
a hairdresser.

Speaker 1 (01:06:55):
Aloner worked at an Edward Beiale hair Salem, not far
from where she died. We found a letter from another
law firm acting for the insurer of Edward Beale, who
also wrote to the coroner requesting the post mortem as
they were defending against the workers comp claim. Evelyn also

(01:07:15):
says that a document about her grandmother's estate in Belgium
stated that Willie Wooters aka Frederic de HEEEVERI made a
private agreement on behalf of his children a loner, Evelyn
Wooters and Christopher in regard to the estate.

Speaker 7 (01:07:36):
We want to revisit something we've mentioned briefly before. One
of the first things that ran alarm bells for us
was Marion's choice for her new name, Flora Bella Natalia
Marion Remachel, Remachel we now know was the name Rick
Bloom was using. Marion kept her own name, adding Natalia.

(01:07:57):
We're not sure why she chose that name and Floraarabella.
In episode eleven, we revealed that our former colleague in Luxembourg,
journalist Sarah Kaymes, had discovered that Flora Bella was the
name of a line of crockery made by the villar
Roy and Bosch company in Luxembourg.

Speaker 2 (01:08:16):
Hi, Brian and Allison, my press contact from villar Roy
and Bosch, got back to me today. She did some
research into my questions and here's what she found out.
The Florabella line first went into production in the early
nineteen nineties and was made until about nineteen ninety four.
It was distributed worldwide, so it is possible that Marion
could have bought Flora Bella china made in Luxembourg in Australia. However,

(01:08:40):
my contact also told me that this particular design was
never hand painted, so they weren't signed by decorators. While
it is possible that Marion might have owned a Flora
Bella set, the Villaroy and Bosch theory does not provide
a connection to the name Remachel Best Sarah.

Speaker 7 (01:09:00):
In May twenty nineteen. Since then we've learned more. This
was Rick Bloom giving evidence at the Coronial Inquest on
February sixteen, twenty twenty two. He is answering questions about
his affair with Monique Cornelius in the early nineteen eighties
in Luxembourg.

Speaker 8 (01:09:18):
She introduced me to the Bosch there bush dinner plate
and all that, the Bosch factory in Lixembourg, and I
went with her to a concert. She introduced me to
all the people you had to know in Luxembourg.

Speaker 7 (01:09:39):
Monique subsequently told police that Rick was lying. She did
not introduce him to Villeroy and Bosch tableware, and she
has never been to their factory. We're not sure why
Rick would make this up, but he appears to have
inadvertently solved the mystery of why Marian chose the name Florabella.

(01:10:00):
Villarroy and Bosch Australia answered questions we put to them,
confirming that the Floribella tableware pattern they made in Luxembourg
was available in Australia between nineteen ninety two to nineteen
ninety four and in Queensland through the David Jones department stores.
To summarize, Rick has admitted he was introduced to Villarroy

(01:10:22):
and Bosch tablewhere he claims in the early eighties. Vill
Roy and Bosch manufactured the Florabella range in Luxembourg from
nineteen ninety to nineteen ninety nine. It was available in
Australia between nineteen ninety two to nineteen ninety four, the
same year that Rick Bloom placed a personal land using
the name Fernand Remichel Marion changed her name to Flora

(01:10:45):
Bella in nineteen ninety seven when she was having a
relationship with Rick Bloom aka Fernand Remical. Did Marion buy
the tablewhere before meeting Rick? Did Rick buy it for
her as part of his well practiced love bombing. Regardless,
it now seems most likely that Marian chose the name
because she liked this tableware collection and was planning to

(01:11:07):
start a new life in Luxembourg with her new boyfriend.
A search by police could quickly discover if Rick Bloom
owns any table where from this collection. Even without that,
Rick's admission that he was familiar with Phileroy and Bosch
seems to confirm once and for all Marian's odd choice
of name. And we have an update about poisons. You

(01:11:41):
heard earlier that Evelyn claimed her father outlined a very
specific method of fatally poisoning people that would produce flu
like symptoms and that the victim would die within one
to two weeks and that it would not be detected
in a post mortem examination. Will not share the details
of this method for obvious reasons, but we did reach

(01:12:04):
out to our poisons expert toxicologist and Chappelle in Pennsylvania.

Speaker 6 (01:12:09):
I'm a board certified toxicologist. I have a PhD in
pharmacology and toxicology from Saint Joseph's University in the United States,
and I've been working in the chemical industry and the
pharmaceutical industry now for over twenty five years.

Speaker 7 (01:12:25):
As you know, we and the Lady Vanishes have spoken
to someone who has given us. What they claim is
a method for fatally poisoning someone told to them by
a person of interest in our investigation. Now, I had
no idea whether or not this method could achieve what
its stated purpose was. That's why I'm approaching you. You've

(01:12:46):
had a look at it. What your impression could someone
kill using the method that I've explained to you.

Speaker 6 (01:12:54):
So I don't want to be giving advice and guidance,
of course, so all of this is on a true hypothetical.
Food born illnesses are nothing to sneeze at. I guess
I could say food born illnesses is one of the
most common poisons that you will find across the world.

(01:13:15):
That's why we have such active in the United States
Food and Drug Administrations and in other countries as well
to protect the food supply. And there are a number
of natural toxins that are produced by bacteria and fungi
and such that when they get into the body, can

(01:13:36):
cause a problem. So what normally happens is that, let's
suppose you're eating lettuce and the lettuce is contaminated with
perhaps E. Coli or Lysteria bacteria. When you eat that
and it gets inside your body, the acid in your
stomach should break down a lot of that those toxins
and such. But if you are compromised or there is

(01:13:58):
something else going on or maybe overwhelms your immune system,
that bacteria can continue to flourish in your intestines and
produce these different toxins. So some are easy to see
in some kind of blood screen because they're pretty common.
They look for those different toxins that might come from

(01:14:19):
again equali, Salmonella, Listeria, Legionnaire's disease, all these different kinds
of bacteria, others which are not quite as common you
might have to do some kind of special test for.
And many times these other kinds of toxins that are released,
like the botulism toxin, those tend to be different adverse

(01:14:41):
effects that you would see. They tend to be neurotoxins.
So the adverse effects are not necessarily throwing up, violent diarrhea, cramping.
It tends to be more of a you know, sleep
neurological effects, like you might become more sleepy or have
problems with some of your muscle functioning, and that's eventually

(01:15:01):
can be what kills you. So it really depends on
the kind of toxin that we're talking about now, the
botulinum toxin is one of the most toxic, you know,
the least amount that can kill you. You also don't
see it very often because of modern food practices. So
botulism is an anaerobic process. It thrives in an anaerobic environment,

(01:15:27):
which means there's not oxygen. So you'd really have to
look at the symptoms of the person to be able
to give you a clue on what poison it might be.

Speaker 7 (01:15:37):
A few questions are using out of that. Just you
mentioned symptoms with the cold and flu, lock symptoms match
any of those toxins.

Speaker 6 (01:15:45):
When I think of cold and flu, I think of congestion,
body aches, running nose, that sort of thing. Many of
these toxins again are a result in extreme cramp, diarrhea, vomiting,
you know, really attacking that gut lining. And then eventually

(01:16:08):
when you become more compromised, or if that toxin gets
into the bloodstream, then you can start to see other
organs begin to become affected and then you end up
with like systemic sepsis organ failure.

Speaker 3 (01:16:20):
What about this?

Speaker 7 (01:16:22):
Is it possible for something that talks and lack bunch
and bunchel on them to kill within three to seven days.

Speaker 6 (01:16:27):
Yes, absolutely, if you have a high enough concentration in
your body. Now, again, your body has a tremendous capacity
to fight off different bacteria and toxins and such, and
so if you are more elderly or the young, or
maybe you've got some other underlying condition, you are more susceptible.

(01:16:50):
So it really depends on your immune state. You can't
say every healthy person would be able to fight off
you know, these kinds of things. But it's the same
with the food borne illnesses. You see a broad swath
of people that can become sick if you have some
kind of outbreak with a food borne bacteria.

Speaker 3 (01:17:08):
And is it possible for someone to.

Speaker 7 (01:17:11):
And again we're not going to discuss the method that
I've passed on to you. We're certainly not giving anyone
a blueprint for how to potentially do something like this.
But more very broadly, is it possible for someone to
create this kind of toxin using you know, everyday things.

Speaker 6 (01:17:27):
It's possible, but you've really got to make sure you've
got that that bacteria in the system. So again, something
like botulism would be harder because again that's an anaerobic bacteria.
So it thrives where there's not oxygen, So you've really
got to find, you know, hot spot for botulism that bacteria.

(01:17:51):
So it's a little harder. I'm not saying it's unrealistic.

Speaker 4 (01:17:56):
But it isn't.

Speaker 6 (01:17:58):
It's not like I'm going to be like, hm, I'm
just gonna ri up some in my bathroom. It really
has to be a calculated, very thoughtful process to try
and be able to culture these kinds of thing without
getting sick yourself. Because again, let's not forget that these
are very very potent toxins. So you have the bacteria,
bacteria produces the toxin, and the toxin is what is

(01:18:20):
the problem. So you know it's not it's you know,
it's dangerous for both sides.

Speaker 7 (01:18:26):
I would say, when you first read that method that
I sent you, did it stock you with something that
was feasible?

Speaker 6 (01:18:34):
Feasible yes, lucky maybe, yes, not guaranteed. Again, the method
you described was it reads well on paper. Let's put
it that way. It would be really great and nag
at the Christie type scenario, but you know, again, I'd
have to really think about it more. I'm not I'm

(01:18:57):
not convinced one hundred percent let's put it that way.

Speaker 7 (01:19:00):
It struck me as well. I was deeply didstood when
I read it, because it was clearly not a random
scat of round outline. It was the measured thoughts of
someone who divided some time and attention to doing these
That was my impression, was that your impressions.

Speaker 6 (01:19:15):
Yes, And it strikes me as curious as they thought
it might work on that person, So I think that
there must have been some kind of trial and error.
So was there any kind of similar type death? A
lot of times you'll find that that, Well, you're the

(01:19:37):
expert when it comes to crime, but I've watched enough
crime shows to know that they don't try that on
a human the first time. They've got a practice on
it to see if it has its desired effect. So
it wouldn't surprise me if there were some maybe other
evidence of a cat or a dog or some other
kind of animal, horse, whatever, that may have passed under

(01:20:01):
suspicious circumstances as they perfected and tried this method.

Speaker 7 (01:20:06):
Yeah, and just lastly, how easy or difficult would it
be to detect this kind of toxin in a post
mortem exam? Would an examine and necessarily even be looking
for it.

Speaker 6 (01:20:16):
So, going back to this scenario, an isolated case, you
would look at how the person passed, what was the
progression of the symptoms. There is typically a standard battery
of tests that are done looking for the toxins associated
with the common bacterias again, the E. Coli, the salmonella, listeria,

(01:20:40):
there's a whole host of these kinds of things. Something
like botulism. Looking for the botulinum toxin is not on
a common panel because it's again it's harder if you
don't see it as often, and according to my research,
it takes a couple of days to run the test
and it is a specialized test, so they wouldn't necessarily

(01:21:05):
see it in a quick screen or in a common screen.

Speaker 7 (01:21:10):
That's great, and I'd asked everything I'd wanted to. I
guess lastly, how unusual is this kind of request in
your experience?

Speaker 6 (01:21:17):
Well, you know, through my website, I often get strange
requests in terms of, hey, I'm writing a book, could
you help me tell me if this person might die
if you do this, And I tend to avoid a
lot of those. But you know, the lady Vanishing has
a bit of a street cred around here, so I

(01:21:40):
think it's a little different, But no, I don't often
get those questions.

Speaker 7 (01:21:44):
On the question of liver function. Two of the women
our person of interest was involved with, he requested they
both get liver function tests just out of the blue.
They didn't have any history of liver problems, they were healthy. Otherwise,
is that a could that in any way be an
indicata for someone attempting to employ this method?

Speaker 3 (01:22:04):
Would it be of any use?

Speaker 6 (01:22:05):
So, your liver is an extremely critical part of your
body's ability to defend itself against toxins that are from
the outside world, you know, things that you breathe in
the air or might eat, but also through your own
metabolic processes. Your metabolism to eat the food, to process

(01:22:27):
the food into energy naturally produces waste. It is abnormal
to ask someone to go get a liver function test,
especially if they don't show any other symptoms or you know,
if they if they're not precluded, maybe they have orrhosis
or something where you've got an ongoing chronic condition in
your liver and they want to you know, you want

(01:22:48):
to just check and make sure everything's going okay. To
ask for it alone is quite is quite strange. There
was one more thing that I thought was interesting when
we had talked about they had asked the people to
dye their hair. Yes, so if somebody was asking someone
to dye their hair, you might detect certain a means

(01:23:12):
in their blood screams. But you have to be looking
for that. So I find it interesting like they might
want to you know, and again I don't know all
the details, but the idea that they would want to
add something to the body which they thought might confuse
a blood test, or add something into a blood test

(01:23:33):
that might you know, I'd have to do some more digging,
but that's you know, you commonly see a means and
other kinds of these are dyes that you would find
in different hair coloring solutions.

Speaker 7 (01:23:46):
Thanks for hoping us.

Speaker 6 (01:23:48):
No problem. Good to talk to you, Brian.

Speaker 1 (01:23:52):
We've been told a Learner apparently had scarlet fever as
a child, which may have compromised her immune system, although
neither the autopsy nor her own doctor could determine a
definite cause of death, and complaints were made to the
state Ombudsman relating to laboratory tests to determine Ilona's cause

(01:24:14):
of death being delayed for more than six months. When
they're usually undertaken within days. This was due to a
massive work backlog, a chemist report not being filed, and
difficulty recruiting enough qualified toxicologists to do the work coming up.

(01:24:40):
We hear from Evelyn's brother Chris.

Speaker 5 (01:24:44):
Said to me, so, I think that she was really
in love with Mike.

Speaker 2 (01:24:46):
She really loved you, really love William at the time,
but then I found out what he was about.

Speaker 1 (01:24:51):
And her stepfather, Michael Reid.

Speaker 8 (01:24:55):
When I kissed her goodbye in the morning of the
day she died and she'd asked me to meet her
for lunch, her lips were very cold, and I said,
that's a kiss of death.

Speaker 3 (01:25:04):
That is terrible.

Speaker 1 (01:25:19):
If you knew Marion or have any information about her
or her whereabouts, we'd love to hear from you. Our
website is sevennews dot com dot au forward slash news
forward slash The Lady Vanishers, and you can also message
us here. You can also send us at anonymous tip
at www dot Lady Vanishers dot org. If you like

(01:25:45):
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, writer
and producer Sally Eels, Sound design Mark Wright, Graphics, Jason Blamford,

(01:26:08):
translation and transcripts Astelle Sanchez, voice actors or Willian Ritter,
Bonnie Durcell and the Brisbane Newsroom. The theme and much
of the music by Nicholas Gasparini at the Darkpiano dot com.
Thanks again to Alliance Franseille. This is a Seven News production.