The love letter and the lie: Sally Leydon Pt.2

A 27-year mystery involving a man with 14 aliases, a damning love letter and a huge bank transfer. Sally Leydon joins Gary Jubelin on this episode to share the chilling details behind the disappearance of her mother, Marion Barter, and why she's not about to give up. 

Find out more about Sally’s new podcast, The Missing Matter, here.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
The public has had a long held fascination with detectives.
Detective see aside of life, the average person has never
exposed her I spent thirty four years as a cop.
For twenty five of those years I was catching killers.
That's what I did for a living. I was a
homicide detective. I'm no longer just interviewing bad guys. Instead,
I'm taking the public into the world in which I operated.

(00:23):
The guests I talk to each week have amazing stories
from all sides of the law. The interviews are raw
and honest, just like the people I talk to. Some
of the content and language might be confronting. That's because
no one who comes in the contact with crime is
left unchanged. Join me now as I take you into
this world. In part one of my chat with Sally Laden,

(00:47):
we spoke about her mother, Marion Barthur's mysterious disappearance and
the problems with the police investigation. Now in part two,
Sally talked about the sensational evidence that came out in
the inquest regarding miss Blum, who has seen Marian around
the time of her disappearance. Mister Blum is a person
who went through life with fourteen different aliases, I also

(01:09):
asked Sally a personal question about what she most wants
to happen regarding her mother's disappearance. Let's have a listen. Sally,
welcome back to part two off I Catch Killers.

Speaker 2 (01:20):
Hello.

Speaker 1 (01:24):
I said, I offered you condolences at the start of
part one on what you've been through with your mother
disappearing twenty seven years ago, and I've got to say
the frustrations that you must feel with the roadblocks you've
hit and your effort to just keep picking yourself up
and still trying to find the answers for your mum.
So again, full credit to you and condolences that you've

(01:46):
had to go through that.

Speaker 2 (01:47):
No worry, thank you. Well, look, I tell you like
the roadblocks keep coming too. Just because we get an
answer from the coroner as well, it doesn't mean that
I've actually like twenty twenty four is one of the
worst years I've actually had in life, actually just getting
to the end of being told that your mother is
deceased and then having to work out the next steps

(02:08):
in that as a missing person and someone whose case
is a little convoluted and a little confusing. There's two
names involved. You know, it has been an absolute diabolical
time for me.

Speaker 1 (02:22):
There's bizarre twists and turns, and looking at it, I
found it interesting from a form of homicide detective point
of view. And we left part two talking about Rick
Blom or whatever he's calling himself these days. Tell us
a little bit more what you found out. Then we'll
start talking about what came out during the inquest, but
just in the lead up to the inquest, because when

(02:44):
it was the inquest held, that was.

Speaker 2 (02:46):
Twenty twenty two and it ended in February twenty twenty four.

Speaker 1 (02:50):
Okay, when the findings were handed down. Yeah, okay, So
in that period before that the matter has been referred
to the from miss persons to unsolve homicide.

Speaker 2 (03:02):
I don't think it. I don't think it ever sat
with missing persons, to be honest. It sat with local
command Byron Bay and tweeedtheads.

Speaker 1 (03:10):
Where it sat and when did it go to homicide?

Speaker 2 (03:14):
Late twenty nineteen, twenty nineteen, Okay, I was allocated a
homicide detective at a new OICEE.

Speaker 1 (03:21):
What information did you uncover before leading into the before
the inquest?

Speaker 2 (03:27):
Well, we found the ad in the paper that was
in the May and that was such a big breakthrough
for us because we had found someone who had the
same name, who was around the same age. So if
you think about nineteen nineteen ninety four, the ad was
placed and he was saying he was forty seven and

(03:50):
in nineteen ninety seven, my mom's fifty one, So you
do the math, right, They're all around the same age
and same location. Geographical and that's another thing that's blowing
my mind with this case, like everything is geographically in line,
in sync, all in the same backyard essentially. So anyway,

(04:12):
I went with the Channel seventeen. We flew over to Luxembourg.
And the reason Luxembourg is important, which something we haven't
touched on, is that on my mum's incoming passenger card,
oh sorry, her outgoing passenger card, she said that her
name was Florabella Ramchel. She was divorced. She ticked that

(04:33):
she's divorced, and she ticked that she's leaving permanently to
go and live in Luxembourg. Home duties was her occupation.
When she comes back in six weeks later a different
route on a different airline, so she's left on Korean
air she's come back in on Cathay, which we found
by the way. I like to add this because the
timeline is very tight. But we've actually spoken to captains

(04:56):
and people who worked for Cathay and they said that
was the quickest way to get from Europe to Australia
back in nineteen ninety seven. That he knew exactly the
airline code and everything we were giving him and he
just rattled off straight away for us. So that's interesting
in itself. She's flown back in from Hong Kong and
she has ticked. Now she's still Florabella Aromackel, but she's

(05:17):
ticked that she's married, and the tick is very exaggerated,
so all the other ticks are quite small on that page,
but the tick for marriage is huge. And she says
she's coming for eight days to see family. That was
pretty much it, and that she ticked also that she
was not a resident of Australia, which we thought was interesting.

(05:39):
Found out last night actually, someone commented on my Facebook
group that Luxembourg is spelt differently if you're a European.

Speaker 1 (05:47):
Oh, that's interesting.

Speaker 2 (05:48):
I didn't know that. And the way it's written on
the incoming passenger card with outgoing passenger card, it's spelt
that way. It's spelt you like a European spelling. So
that just for knowledge. I thought that was interesting pie
tid bits of information. So yeah, so anyway we fly over.
We located the address of a gentleman whose name was

(06:11):
f Ramchel. Turns out it was Finande. The m in
the ad was actually monsieur. Okay, how they how they speak,
I guess, and how they write in the newspaper. So
m F was Monsieur Fernande Ramichel, looking for love. So
we find an f Ramckel who's the same age, who
lives in Luxembourg, and we got knock on his door.

(06:33):
He greeted me with a little hostility. I put my
hand out to shake his hand and he ignored my hand.
I had an interpreter with me. We were both nervous.
You can hear us walking up to the to the
front door and crackling on the rocks because I was
with the with the Channel seventeen and obviously they wanted
to capture what he was going to say to me,
right and I know, and I said to him, I

(06:55):
was sorry, I didn't. Yeah, it was I said to
Brian actually Seymour, who was with me as part of
the podcast team, and I said, my husband's going to
kill me. If he knew what I was doing right now,
he would be not very happy with me. I'm a
mother of three children. I can't be doing this. But
it was just wild. It was a wild ride. We
got up to his door. He's really rude to me.

(07:16):
I had my mom's photo. I said, do you know
my mom?

Speaker 1 (07:19):
Like?

Speaker 2 (07:19):
Do you? And he was just I don't speak English,
like wh I don't speak English? And Sarah is saying to me.
He's telling us we should go, we need to go,
and then he closed the door in our face. So
we walked off and his wife was out the front
taking photos of the boys. I'd said to the boys,
sit in the car down on the road. I don't
want you to come up and put cameras in their faces.
These people could be very innocent and they could potentially

(07:41):
not know anything. And you know, I'm not about walking
in and dropping a bomb on someone's lap and then
walking away and going, oh, sorry about that. Now you're
going to ask your husband what's the go with the
woman from Australia Like I was very conscious of that. Anyway,
he called the police. They came. We'd already seen them
that morning, which sort of helped our favor because they
knew why we were there and no harm. We were
just trying to ask some questions and see what he knew.

(08:02):
And he also happened to be a soccer player who
played professional for Luxembourg, so all these little links. It
was just wildly crazy in our brains. Anyway, we were
all spinning out by it. And anyway, during that time
when we're over there, we also found the phone number
four Finnan Ramichel's ex wife, Monique Cornelius, and so we
rang and spoke to her, and this is before we

(08:24):
went out to Finnanes because he wasn't home. We'd been
going out there every day for three days and he
wasn't there, and there was an election happening that weekend,
and we just took a punt that maybe they'll come
back for the election, because they're very liberal on voting
over there and it's a big thing. So we rang
and Manique cancered the phone and she spoke to us
for a little bit and it was a bit confusing

(08:47):
because Finan's sister in law is sister is Marion as well,
so she thought we were talking about his sister in law.
It was a little confusion. Obviously there's a language barrier
there too, but she did speak English and she did
speak to us. Fast forward, mister Rick Blum had a relationship,

(09:08):
which he denies, but Monique has shown She produced a
love letter that he'd written to her at the inquest,
which was very unusual. But they had they had a relationship. Okay,
So when we went to Luxembourg, we knocked on Finnan
Ramichel's door, and that was the real Finnan Ramchel. He

(09:28):
had had his identification stolen and Rick Blum was using
his identification back here in Australia.

Speaker 1 (09:36):
And another little twist to it was that Rick Blum
had had a relationship with.

Speaker 2 (09:42):
Yeah, with his ex wife, Monique Cornelius.

Speaker 1 (09:45):
Okay, small, well, so.

Speaker 2 (09:47):
I should probably I should probably qualify that as how
that came about. So Manique was obviously married to Fan Ramichel,
and in his statement he Rick Blum agreed that he
had stolen Fanan Ramckel's identification. So the same guy we're
knocking on his door, this guy's taken his identification. He

(10:10):
got an international driver's license in his name with his
date of birth and then he came to Australia and
he got a Queensland driver's license in that same name.
He kept the driver's license so much so that he
renewed it in nineteen eighty eight. He said it was
in his wallet on the timeline of my mum when
he was with my mum. He agrees that he had

(10:32):
an affair with my mum. He said they only met
three times and around. He said that he was there
when the for sale sign was out in the front
of my mum's house. To give you some idea, so
we know he was in that mix of when she's
getting ready to leave. He actually accused my mum on
the stand of stealing the driver's license out of his wallet,

(10:53):
because he then said, I've lost it. I don't have it,
and I think Marion stole it because she wanted to
change her name to that. And the crazy thing about
it is, if you look at Fernande, Fernand's middle name
is Nicholas, Nicholas Fernande. Rick Blum wrote Knucklus, he has
a habit of changing vowels on names. We've picked up

(11:14):
on this, and mum changed her name to Flora Bella
Natalia throw the marian In but Ramichael, so they're the
same initials as well, which we thought was quite interesting.

Speaker 1 (11:25):
I've seen that not alluding to the fact that this
is why he did it, but it's a good fraud's
his strick.

Speaker 2 (11:32):
Well, he's he has been charged. He has a long
history of fraud offenses. He's been in prison for fraud.

Speaker 1 (11:37):
I think that came out in the inquest.

Speaker 2 (11:39):
Yeah, okay, so yes, it got wildly crazy at that
point and everyone was losing their marbles.

Speaker 1 (11:46):
Well, there's a lot of Normally we'd put a whiteboard
up at this point in time, and there was information
about your mum's travels and the correlation between your mother's
travels in the time that she went to Europe in
ninety seventh and that of Rick Blombs.

Speaker 2 (12:02):
Yep. So he flew out on the Wednesday, which I
think is the eighteenth of June. And I just want
to add this because I think it's important. So mum
had resigned from her job yep, and the Friday was
end of term. So she's waited until the friday, end
of term. She's come for dinner at our house on
the Saturday, and she's left on the Sunday. So she
flew out on the twenty second. He flew out on

(12:24):
JL Japanese Airline to Japan. My mom flew out on
Korean air Plane Fly Airline and she landed in South Korea.
And just for those that don't know, when you leave Australia,
Interpol actually only make a reference of where you land
on your first point of call. So if you're going

(12:44):
to Singapore, but you're going to London by Singapore, Singapore
will be noted as your destination on Interpol and saying
when you're coming back in. So we know mum was
in Hong Kong because that's what it says on her
incoming passenger car. But that's obviously like a stopover from
coming from Europe or from the UK, so that's where
you lose all you go to the abyss pretty much,

(13:07):
and that was really frustrating because we didn't know where
she went. She did write to me, as I said
earlier in the last episode, that she'd written to me
on notepaper, and that notepaper actually came from a hotel
in Japan, Hotel Nico in Narrita. Now, when Rick Blum

(13:28):
was interviewed by police, they asked him where did you
stay when you went on that trip on the in
the June of nineteen ninety seven in Japan, and he
just very quickly remembered and said, I stayed at Hotel
Niko and Nerita, and I nearly fell off my chair.
I was like, what he said, at the same hotel
as mum was written to me on the notepaper.

Speaker 1 (13:50):
So yes, it was and so crazy And this was
a stationary from that hotel, correct the leather that your
mum's written the stationary there. Yes, And there's a lot
of other coincidents, and we could go into the mall,
but I think we'll draw on some of the some
of the opinions of the coroner, what the coroner found,

(14:11):
because the inquest that went I think it sat for
twenty five days, ran for over twenty five days, so I.

Speaker 2 (14:19):
Said, it was an unprecedented amount of time. And it
was costing over a million dollars is what they told me. Yeah,
and I went, well, that's okay, because my mum's actually
worth it, so let's keep going if we need to
keep going. So but it was hard, it was not pleasant.

Speaker 1 (14:33):
Well, it was before the magistrate, the state coroner, Magistrate
Theresa O'Sullivan and she handed the handed down the findings
on the twenty ninth of February last year. But the
inquest commenced on the twenty first of June twenty twenty
one and concluded on the second of June twenty twenty three,
ran for over twenty five days. So yeah, that's that's

(14:55):
a long long inquest. I'm thinking been the other that's
run longer other than the whim to all matter, and
that's ongoing way way longer. So to explain what the
role of the coroner is, so the coroner first, then
I put it here because if listeners don't understand, the

(15:16):
corannial court is not a criminal court, so that's important.
The crannial court is an inquest and the role of
the coroner is to find out if someone's deceased, which
in the case of your mother, it wasn't determined, so
the coroner's that's been referred to the coroner to make
a determination if your mother's deceased, and then when your

(15:37):
mother died and how she died and where, time and date.
They're the type of things that the coroner's looking for.
Was that explained to you before the inquest?

Speaker 2 (15:48):
Well, I was lucky enough to befriend Mark and Fay
Levison and they had actually know you worked on their
case with Matt and they were really, you know, very
important people for me at that point, because I was
learning what I had to do, whether I needed counsel assisting,
whether I needed legal teams, how it all worked, and

(16:11):
what I was in for. Joanie also has a background
in social work, so she's actually been involved in in
quest before, and you know, she was telling me it's
a fact finding mission, is how she sort of worded
it to me, and it made sense to me that
this isn't a criminal procedure. I also kept getting told
by legal teams that, you know, the inquest is about

(16:32):
two things, Sally. One is your mum alive or is
she deceased? And two did the police do their job properly?
So as far as the coroner is concerned, they're the
two main factors that she had to consider. Then, of
course we've brought in this person who she referred to
as a significant person of interest, and we heard all
his evidence and in we pause the inquest. They vacated. Sadly,

(16:56):
they didn't tell me they vacated, and I flew my
whole family down and we got a car and hotels
and everything cost us about six thousand dollars. Three weeks
before Christmas and we arrived in Sydney and then my
lawyer rang me and said, hey, I just wanted to
let you know they vacated. I said, what does that
even mean? And he said, they've postponed it and I mean,
oh my god, well we're here. He goes, what why
are you here? I said, because we came down to

(17:17):
day early to see my dad, you know, and brought
the whole family, brought the kids. Prepared myself mentally that
I was going to be told for the first time
that my mum's deceased, and it paused, and look the
end of the day, it was a good thing because
they did go and interview more people and bring with
us to the table at.

Speaker 1 (17:34):
That time, and the police that took the matter to
the inquest was the Homicide or Unsolved homosild led by
Nigel Warren and to other offices working on it, so
you felt that inquiries were being made that should be made,
Like I've had a lot of detectives on here, and

(17:54):
you're stacking up with some very good detectives maybe you
should have got in the Queensland place, but you were
satisfied that genuine inquiries were being made, the type of
inquiries that should have been made in the first place,
and maybe we wouldn't be sitting here.

Speaker 2 (18:08):
Yeah, And look, and this is where it gets down
to the nitty gritty, as you said, like, you know,
there's an unprecedented amount of days that they've already given
to my mum's inquest, and how much it's costing. There
was a lot that Joanie and I were sitting behind
my legal team and we were literally feeding all this information,
going oh, what about this person, and what about this person?
We should talk to this person, And it just got
to the point where it was irrelevant to ask those

(18:30):
questions based on what the purpose of the inquest was about.
And I did understand that, as hard as it.

Speaker 1 (18:37):
Was, there was a lot of evidence and mister bloom
of Blum, how long was he in the witness box.

Speaker 2 (18:44):
Fall My memory is it was thirteen days.

Speaker 1 (18:47):
Okay, so fairly extensive. Cross the wife.

Speaker 2 (18:50):
His wife was there too, she I think she was
on for two days.

Speaker 1 (18:54):
So there's in the coroner's findings. There's a couple of
means that I've pulled out from the coroner, just to
put it in perspective, because we're getting your version and
I'm hearing all the details. But this is a coroner
that they oversaw that extensive inquest, and these are some
of the findings that she came to, and I'm making

(19:15):
sure that we read it out properly so we're not
misrepresenting it. So I find that mister Blum, whilst in
an intimate relationship with Marian, persuaded or otherwise encouraged her
to sell her house in nineteen ninety seven. The evidence
is not too sufficient to prove that mister Blum played
any causy role in Marion's decision to resign from her employment.

(19:36):
So breaking that down, it's she found that mister Blum
in a relationship with Marion, So this is something that's
been established, persuaded or otherwise encouraged her to sell her
house in nineteen ninety seven. So we're saying that this
relationship was that intense or whatever was going on there,

(20:00):
he's the reason why your mother sold the house.

Speaker 2 (20:03):
Yeah, well think about it too. She changed her name.

Speaker 1 (20:05):
To his Yeah, some other comments, and just breaking it
down because it's such a complex thing, as we're seeing
that will rely upon what the coroner is saying about
her fine needs. Now, there was that eighty thousand dollars
worth of eighty thousand dollars which was withdrawn from your
mother's account.

Speaker 2 (20:23):
So on the fifteenth of October. So if I wind
back early when she just like after, she has come
back in five thousand dollars every day was being withdrawn.
We found a letter that my grandfather had kept that
my cousin gave to me, which says there's increments of
five hundred dollars in there as well. So there was
a bit of controversy as to whether it was five
thousand or five hundred. I stand firm that the lady

(20:45):
said to me five thousand. My husband was sitting at
the dinner table and Renee was too, and it's been
said forever that was five thousand. So she did bank
with the Commonwealth Bank, and she also banked with Colonial
State Bank. So and at the very outset in the
InterQuest were trying to tell me that my memory was
wrong and that my mum didn't bank with the Commonwealth Bank.

(21:05):
But then I was very pleased to see when the
Commonwealth Bank came in and throughout a whole statement of
all of the bank accounts that she'd held with them,
and I see, I'm not delusional. She did bank with
the Commonwealth Bank, and so there was a bit of
that going back and forth. But then there was a
pause through like the end of September early October. But

(21:25):
on the fifteenth of October, eighty thousand dollars was electronically
transferred out of my mum's bank account. What really upsets
me if I go back to the very beginning of
nineteen ninety seven, the police officer actually writes this on
the police report, that eighty thousand dollars was electronically transferred.
He says in it, it's assumed to buy a house overseas.

(21:48):
And I'm like, where did you get that from? And
so what I'm upset about in that instance is if
he knew that eighty thousand had been transferred, why didn't
he get the bank statement to see where that thousand went,
because that would actually tell us where we are. I
would not be doing this half my life if that
simple thing had been done. And the reality of it

(22:09):
is that the eighty thousand dollars Rick Blum handed in
a document and I don't know if he did this
on purpose or not, but anyway, he gave a document
to the coroner that was a statement from Commonwealth Bank
in Ballina showing his address. So that was the purpose

(22:29):
of that document. And when I looked at it, I
looked at the date and I went, oh, my god,
that's the fourteenth of October. And he opened a bank
security en below that day, so hiring Nigel Warren and
I'm like, Nigel, have you noticed that? And he case, no,
I haven't yet. And it was just mind blowing for
me because I went, I just put two and two together.

(22:52):
And there's been no official anything for mister Blum. I
just want to say that there's nothing to say that
he he was involved or not. The Coroner's made her
comments about it, but it just seems a little coincidental
to me that on the fourteenth of October he opened
a bank security envelope. He was the only person, his

(23:13):
wife was not noted on it or anything. And then
the next day eighty thousand dollars comes out of my
mum's bank account. He closes that bank security envelope thirteen
days later.

Speaker 1 (23:23):
Okay, we can't make assertions. They're just the facts.

Speaker 2 (23:26):
So the facts.

Speaker 1 (23:27):
We're presenting the facts. But the coroner can offen their
opinion in regards to these matters, especially after an extensive inquest.
And this is what the coroner said in regards to
the withdrawal of a large amount of cash by your mother.
I repeat the finding I have made that three hundred

(23:47):
and four that there is sufficient factual basis to make
a finding that Marion withdrew the sums of money in
August nineteen ninety seven and transferred eighty thousand dollars to
an unknown account in October nineteen ninety seven on the
encouragement of mister Blum and in circumstances where Marion believed
that she was in a relationship with him. However, as

(24:09):
counsel assistants submitted, there is not enough evidence for a
finding to the requisite standard as to whether and when
mister Blum actually received some or all of Marion's money. Okay,
so she's saying there. My interpretation of it is that
he was involved in the withdrawal of the money, that
they can't say whether he received all of it or

(24:30):
some of it.

Speaker 2 (24:30):
Yeah, that's it. And if I can make a point
here too, Gary, that something that's sort of only just
come to me in probably the last twelve months is
that Joanie and I quite often chat about, you know,
when when did my mum pass away? Like, at what
point can we firmly say she's not here anymore? And

(24:51):
we were sort of talking about the fact that she'd
sent postcards to everyone and led us to everybody, and
she was keeping everybody. They were like little droppings of
you know, here I am, this is where I've been. Oh,
I've visited here, I'm going here. I'm going to Amsterdam
to see the sunflowers. She was doing that, and so
we sort of had a hunch of where she was
going and what she was doing, and the fact that

(25:12):
Christmas was upon us. She could have actually just kept
in touch with Owen for his birthday. So Owen's birthday
is the eighteenth of October, so think about this Monday,
the eighty thousand dollars comes out on the fifteenth of October,
three days later his birthday. She doesn't ring him on
his birthday. If she was intentionally trying to disappear herself,

(25:34):
didn't want me going to the police saying, hey, something's wrong.
She just would have sent a card or done something
at that point is our belief, just to buy her
a bit more time.

Speaker 1 (25:44):
I understand what you've had.

Speaker 2 (25:45):
I mean, then she's got till Christmas until the next
point of call. So Joanie and I've been toying with
this for a while. And what makes my heart break
even harder is that if you think about I ring Owen,
he tells me that hasn't spoken to her, then I
s bring him the next day. So that's the nineteenth.
Then on the twentieth, Chris and I believe that when
we went down, But regardless, the twenty second is when

(26:07):
the police have written we've been to Ironbay Police. That's
only seven days from when that eighty thousand came out.
Why was that information was fresh at hand? It could
have been absolutely solved in that.

Speaker 1 (26:20):
Whole talking hypothetically here, But if you came in and
reported that to a police station, the information that you
had available at the time, to follow up those bank records,
check on the names, all the inquiries that could have
been made at the time, it would have been a
very simple, simple exercise. Where that would have taken us
taken place, I don't know, but it would have been

(26:42):
a simple way.

Speaker 2 (26:43):
And to be fair, I didn't know about the eighty
thousand at that point, but they did because he wrote
it on the file and I didn't learn about that
until I got the Freedom of Information file in twenty eighteen.

Speaker 1 (26:53):
Well, they're the type of inquiries you make, like if
someone's missing, if they're an our adult and they've got
bank accounts, are they accessing their bank accounts, are they
receiving a pension? All sorts of things that you would do.
The Corona also stated in the findings regarding mister Blum
being in contact with your mother following her return to
Australia in August nineteen eighty seven, which I think is

(27:15):
a significant, significant thing. And this is the comments of
the coroner after hearing all the evidence. There is a
sufficient basis for me to make a finding that mister
Blum was in communication with Marian and played some role
in her life following her return to Australia in August
nineteen ninety seven. So gone overseas, come back, money withdrawn,

(27:41):
he's around there at the time. This is the coroner's finding.
It's not not our speculation or assumptions.

Speaker 2 (27:48):
Well yeah, okay, let me explain the Joanie and I
have done a massive dive on mum's timeline because that
was something that wasn't really the focus. We felt even
during the inquest, like there wasn't really a lot of
that about her coming back in at that time and
what happened. So we know that her passport lands back

(28:09):
in Brisbane on the second of August. She's written on
her in coming passenger card that she's staying for eight
days and staying at the Novtell Hotel in Brisbane, so
that takes us up to the tenth. On the eleventh,
Rick Blum purchases a car for four thousand dollars. It's
a Russ bucket from a local car dealer that we

(28:29):
have spoken to who remembers the transaction quite well. He
said that there was a woman with dark hair sitting
in the car across the road waiting for him while
he was purchasing that car. This is in Woombar on
Northern New South Wales. Two days later, my mum's Medicare
card is used at Grafton. Three days later money starts

(28:49):
coming out of her bank account and Barren Bay some
days in Burley, which is back up in Queensland. So
back in those days it probably was about a two
and a half hour drive. Right now, people who have
followed me from the beginning will know that mum left
her car with me, so she had no car, no house.
Where was she what was she doing during that period

(29:11):
of time? And all her pings are happening in northern
New South Wales and then she disappears at the eighty
thousand dollar mark for the fifteenth of October.

Speaker 1 (29:24):
Money's gone out.

Speaker 2 (29:26):
So that's her timeline. That's all we know, but it
is quite interesting when you look at it.

Speaker 1 (29:33):
The coroner also made the following comments. Mister Blum's evidence
in the final days of the inquest, when asked by
counsel assisting, would you like to say anything further in
relation to the disappearance of Marion Barter was extraordinary. This evidence,
along with his lies and deception throughout the inquest, has

(29:54):
convinced me that he does indeed no more than he
is saying. I make the following further findings regarding mister Blum.
One that he has further knowledge about the circumstances of
Marian's travel overseas. Two, that he has further knowledge of
his relationship with her, in the months prior to her disappearance.

(30:16):
Three that he has further knowledge of her circumstances following
her return from overseas. Four that he has further knowledge
of the withdrawals and transfer of the money. And five
that there is sufficient basis for a finding that he
was and is deliberately unwilling to divulge this further knowledge
to the court.

Speaker 2 (30:38):
Again, pretty damning, but I was just left at that point.

Speaker 1 (30:46):
Yeah, I want to talk about that when the actual
findings come down. Let me just read this on and
I put it there. I'll put it in so what
we're talking about that, hopefully we can get it out there.
I should put on record that the Coroner's court is
not a criminal court. No person is on trial when
they appear at inquest. We cannot say mister Blum was

(31:09):
involved in your mother's disappearance. We're just relaying the findings
of the coroner. If there was sufficient evidence against the
known person, the coroner has the option of suspending the
inquest and referring the matter to the Office of Director
of Public Prosecutions. And this was not the case in
your mother's inquest. So I'm putting that disclaimer out on
what we're talking about. So we're making it very clear

(31:32):
that yeah, these are the findings of the coroner, but
the matter wasn't referred to the DPP. But hearing those
type of comments and I pick up on your body
language now and just it's almost like it's an anti
climax for you, isn't it.

Speaker 2 (31:50):
It's really frustrating, very frustrating to get to all that,
like it's taken. It took me twenty six years to
get to that point. And you know, if you think
about all the twists and turns and the upheaval that
I've had to go through with even just having her
listed as missing then they say she's located, then they

(32:12):
say she's not located. Now she's a missing person on
the national Register. Go and be the face of missing persons. Actually, no,
you can't be the face of missing persons. Like it's
just been a massive ride for me, and I do
this now still because I don't want anyone else to
have to do what I've had to go through. And
it needs to change on multiple levels. It needs to

(32:32):
like the police need to understand their language and how
they talk to people who are living in this world.
There needs to be government bodies who need to look
at some of these policies and procedures about things like absentia.
You know, in other countries, if someone goes missing after
seven years, the next of kin can actually access their
private information. If I'd been able to access her private

(32:53):
information seven years after she went missing, I would have
probably got things like the Medicare card with a potential
address on it and a phone number for me to
be able to work out where she is, or look
at her bank statements while those things were still available
before they're destroyed. And this is where it gets hard
because some people go, why Sally only looking now, I've

(33:14):
been looking forever. But you know, it's the restraints on
you as someone living with a missing person, even as
the next of kin, you are absolutely powerless until such
time as you get a death certificate. And you know,
I go back to the scenario where I'm reading through
the file and I've got the coroner's court actually requesting
a P seventy nine B form multiple times over that duration,

(33:36):
and there was no one handling the case. So therefore
no one had done a PECE seventy nine B form,
which is a form that you fill in and send
into the care the police fill in and send into
a coroner if a person has not been seen or
sighted and deemed potentially deceased within a year of that
person going missing. And that didn't happen for my month.

Speaker 1 (33:53):
So all these little failings the coroner didn't miss the
police in regards to it. The coroner also made some
comments in regards to the adequacy of the police investigation,
because this inquest was interesting. It was about whether your
mother's still alive and the adequacy of the police investigation.

(34:14):
So that was the terms of reference that the coroner
was finding and this is a finding that she handed
down regarding the police investigation that coroner stated. I would
also add the detective Chief Inspector Brown gave very clear
and useful evidence to the court about what he expected
should have happened in nineteen ninety seven. The resistance in

(34:35):
this inquest by New South Wales Police to accept the
inadequacies of the initial police investigation in nineteen ninety seven
is difficult to understand in circumstances where a senior police
officer has given what is essentially expert evidence and what
should have happened. So it looks my take on that
they were still digging down that I know. We did

(34:56):
everything that we could do.

Speaker 2 (34:58):
It was hard. My husband and I both were challenged
by New South Fois police barrister. It was pretty pretty rough,
if you know. And it was captured and put on
the Lady Vanishes. We actually did all of the episodes
about the inquest and people were watching live. There were
thousands of people following along on YouTube. And yeah, it

(35:22):
was not pleasant for me. And that whole theory about
you know, an inquest is about looking after the family
and making sure the family are okay. That was not
the case at all. Like that's when I went on
heart medication because I was getting put through the ring.
We were getting quizzed, like Chris and I both getting
quizzed about when we booked our holiday to go skiing.
And you know, why didn't I write down notes when

(35:44):
mum rang me on that phone, that last phone call,
and I was trying to explain to she wasn't missing,
she was not missing when we booked our holiday or
when she rang me on the phone. Do you write
down every time your mum talks to you on the phone.
Do you make a little note in the diary, Hey, mum,
said this, and it was this time, in this date,
it doesn't happen. That's not logical to do that, and

(36:04):
I was getting quizzed and criticized for not doing that
as a twenty three year old at the time, and
also the criticism of me I didn't walk into the
police station and use the word missing. So I think
that's mainly what the coroner is referring to there, and
that was hard to hear for a lot of people.

Speaker 1 (36:22):
I think I said to you at the start when
you said that, don't put any blame on yourself. You've
done more than what most people would do. I think
the point here I'd like to make because the people
assume the way I finished my career this is a
chance to beat up on the New South Wels Police.
Not at all. I'd like to think if we make mistakes,
we make sure these mistakes do happen again. And I'm

(36:44):
heartened by the fact that it looks like Inspector Brown
call them out on the failings. It's sad that the
coroner is saying that the police were still resistant to
acknowledging it, because I think the best thing if a
mistake has been made, acknowledge them stake and move on.
I know, not just from your matter. I know practices

(37:05):
in missing persons have been improved in recent times, and
I hope this is a lesson. And it might be
in part because of the noise that you've made to
make sure practices have been improved, but I hope people
listening understand the impact of if things aren't done properly
from the start. This is now twenty seven years down

(37:26):
the track or more, carry that.

Speaker 2 (37:29):
Burden, and I twenty eight years in June.

Speaker 1 (37:33):
I hadn't actually thought of it until I sat down
opposite you here today. It's not just the fact that
the frustration of not finding out what happened to your
mother and problems or mistakes that were made in the
initial investigation, but the fact that you had to for
the carry with you based on information that the police
have provided to you that your mother just doesn't want

(37:53):
to talk to you. So that's another burden that you've
had to carry.

Speaker 2 (38:00):
I just ignored that. I just keep it. I'm like, oh, no,
my mum loved me, you know, so you know it's
it's yeah, yeah, I don't need them to tell me otherwise.
But I knew something was wrong and I knew there
there was a man in the car, and I just
got my brain was just going a million miles an hour,

(38:21):
going something's not right.

Speaker 1 (38:23):
Well, the coroner, and this is what the coroner is
required under section eighty one one. There's a couple of
key things that the corona has to come to a
conclusion that the inquest and I'll just read those out
and then we can talk about that too. In REGARDSS
to the identity of the deceased, the person who died

(38:44):
was Flora Bella Natalia Marion Remarkable formally known as Marion
bart Date of death. Unable to determine the exact date
of death. I find that Flora Bella Natila Marion Ramachel,
formally know and as Marion Barta, is likely to have
died on a date after the fifteenth of October nineteen

(39:05):
ninety seven. Place of death. I'm unable to determine the
place of Florabella Natalia Marion Ramachel formerly Marion Barthur's death.
Cause of death. I'm unable to determine the cause of
death of Florabella Natalia Marion remark El formerly known Marion
Bartha's death. So doesn't he the cause? Place? Day to death,

(39:29):
suggesting after the fifteenth of October, in regards to the
manner of death, I'm unable to determine the manner. So
for all your battles, all your endeavors to find out
what's happened to your mum, all these years later, the inquest,

(39:50):
the build up, seeing all these things that have played out,
and getting what you've seen, which the coroners obviously commented
on about the Rick Blum and the issues issues. There
is unreliability and you're left with a basically acknowledgment that
your mother's died, but we're not sure how. We're all why.

Speaker 2 (40:11):
It's a chronic week. My father in law died on
the Sunday, so Chris was busily packing up his accommodation
where he was in care on the Tuesday, and we
flew down on the Wednesday. Caught up with one of
my best friends that I was working at Pizza Hut
with when I was eighteen. We've been friends our whole
lives pretty much from there. He came and met us

(40:34):
in the city just to come and say hi. There's
a couple of us just gathering having a drink before
the coroner's findings. The next day go to the coroner's
findings by hear for the first time my mom's deceased.
He then died the following Wednesday. He had a problem
with his heart and he died. And so within a
week I lost one of my best friends, I lost

(40:56):
my father in law, and I got told my mum's deceased.
That point, for me with Mum, I felt like everyone
just wished me well and went about their business. So
the legal teams, the lawyers, crownslistors.

Speaker 1 (41:10):
But you've had a victory.

Speaker 2 (41:12):
No, we're just like they all just left. Like I
literally just was there by myself. I had so many
people come, like it was amazing. I had people come,
they all wore green, had made massive support for mum,
and that just made me feel so much better being
in that situation. But from a legal standpoint and from
the police, I've just been told that they've got eight
hundred cases and they've got to prioritize that my mum's

(41:35):
case is open but inactive and good luck. Because Joanie
and I had decided we were going to go on
a trip overseas to do more research about the things
that we knew we needed to do, and we did that.
So yeah, it's been wild It's been a wild ride,
and it doesn't stop just because the coroner has said

(41:55):
what I felt for a long time. I was very
grateful for the coroner. She had really good I just
had a nice way about her. She greeted me, well,
she recognized me. She did a good job I think
of managing an inquest that was very hard to sit through,
very very hard to sit through. So I'm very grateful

(42:17):
to her and everybody who worked on it, the crownslstitors
and the current you know, homicide team. But it just
makes it hard when her findings stopped short of pushing
it forward for further investigation.

Speaker 1 (42:30):
Yeah, well one of the recommendations New South Wales Commissioner
of Police cause the investigation into the death of the
missing person to be referred to or remain with State
Crime Command Unsolved Homicide Team fromgoing investigations, review and monitoring.
So yeah, there's a yeah, as you'll flag, there's a

(42:53):
lot of cases there, hoping that gets the attention. But
I understand what you're saying, like the build up, you've
got all this information, You're thinking, Okay, are we going
to get some form of justice or at least find
out what's happened to her mother, and then that's been Yeah,
yes she's deceased. But you're left with where do you

(43:16):
go from here?

Speaker 2 (43:17):
Yeah, and look in there's I've come across quite a
few missing person's cases where a person might be missing,
but the police don't deem that person to be missing.
And you know, that was me for a long time.
And therefore, I mean I was in a different circumstance
where my mum had sold her house, so she didn't
have a house to you know, deal with or contend

(43:38):
with and things like that, but she did have a
bank accounts, and I think I mentioned that, you know,
they kept taking the monthly fees from my missing person's
mum's banks account, and they were very kind and they
just like credited them back to the account. And it
wasn't a huge amount of money. But you know, I
think of all those things, and I've spoken to some
people who were married to somebody who's gone missing, but

(44:01):
they don't deem that person missing in a legal sense
of the word. They don't get a death certificate, and
therefore they can't sell the house, they can't move forward.
They're locked in this world because of the privacy issue
because that person they believe could have chosen to go missing.
And I kept getting told all the time through my journey, oh, well,
it's not a crime to go missing, Sally, and I said, well,

(44:21):
maybe it should be because the amount of money and
time and effort and we spend and government money and
tax payer money to go and find missing persons. And
when you're talking forty thousand people a year agoing missing
and there's no fund in.

Speaker 1 (44:35):
Australia offense in New South Wales, I'm not sure if
it's applicable to it. But public mischief where your actions
cause the police to investigate, to investigate the crime. Maybe
maybe I don't know. I said that the start. I
want to ask you a question, what's the best outcome
you could get with your mother's disappearance? Now? Best if

(44:58):
someone said, are you really hoping for?

Speaker 2 (45:02):
I would really like justice to be served. My mum
was a person. My mum matters. Hence why I've started
my new podcast called The Missing Matter, because the missing
do matter, and you know, justice needs to be served
and it shouldn't be judged upon whether one case should

(45:22):
be go forward or not. It should just be a
case of if the evidence is there and there's something
to move forward on, they should.

Speaker 1 (45:30):
So with the new podcast, what are you hoping to achieve?

Speaker 2 (45:37):
Well, the podcast The Lady Vanishes ended when the inquest ended,
and you know, to be fair to Channel seven, I
guess I was with them for six years. It was
a very long journey with them. When they first met me,
they were like, oh, yep, we'll whip together seven or

(45:57):
eight episodes, it'll be done. We'll get the story out
there and hopefully we might find something. But it became
this ongoing live investigation that we were telling the story
in real time, so it became bigger than ben Her
for us. And you know, my goal was to get
to an inquest. I said that from the very outset.
I said, I I just want a proper investigation. I

(46:17):
haven't felt like I haven't had that, and I feel
like going to inquest would be a really great opportunity
for us to do a proper investigation into what's happened
to my mum, and I'll be satisfied with that. That
then changed a little bit in my head because I
then got the death certificate. Sorry, well, I was told
that she had passed, which allowed me to get the

(46:38):
desk ticket. That's a whole nother story in itself, and
I just I don't know. I last year, I was
just sort of recording myself because I'd become this person
who records everything now because of probably the trauma of
not recording and being in a position of not having
that as evidence or information. And so that's who I've

(47:01):
become as a person. That drives my family bananas. I
tell my kids to record everything, and just when I
say record, if I get off the phone to somebody,
I would just do a voice memo to myself to
remind me of what happened in that phone call, because
I know too often I've done that, or I'm in
the car and then you forget and then you go, oh,
what did they say again? So it became very important
for me because I wasn't getting a lot in emails

(47:23):
or in writing. It was all verbal. So I would
get off the phone and I'd jump on my voicemails
on my phone and i'd actually voice memo myself. And
that became a thing last year too, when I was
trying to go through all the hoops that you go
through when a person is actually declared deceased. Who's missing.
That's a whole nother ballgame. I mentioned that my father

(47:43):
in law and one of my best friends died the
same week as my mum. Their affairs were tied up
very quickly, you know. I came down to the funeral
for my friend within ten days and he's having a burial,
and you know, we're going through those motions, and I'm
sure there's paperwork and things after that. It took me
up to December, from the same time, from February to

(48:04):
December before I actually had any formal closure of mum's life.
And for me, it was just this part of the
journey where I had to process and go through everything.
So I was documenting that journey for me myself. And
then Joanie and I of course had decided we were
going to go overseas and we were going to do

(48:24):
our own investigation on the things that weren't addressed at
the inquest. I asked her to come with me. She
said yes, and so that became a thing, and we
went away in October for three weeks and we found
some things, and so it became a thing where people
were asking us, you know, when are you going to
tell us When are you going to tell us what
you found? Because by this point I've got twenty seven

(48:46):
thousand people following on Facebook now from my mere thousand
back in you know, twenty thirteen. So I'd built up
this amazing community of people who care, which is what's
really given me the strength to keep going, I feel
over time, and they all kept saying like, when are
you gonna tellus? When you gonna tell I'm like, well,
I don't even know if I want to tell anybody,

(49:07):
Like maybe I just want to do it for myself,
and maybe I just want to, you know, find out.
But I felt that they'd all been so dedicated to
the purpose of helping me and coming up with these ideas,
even the little comment about the Luxembourg as recently as
last night, Like these people are so invested. I felt like, okay,
maybe we could tell them. And then I was trying
to work out how we would do that, and it
just so happened that the idea of doing our own

(49:29):
podcast with Joanie and I came to play. So Johnnie
was really nervous. She's like, I've listened to podcasts for
twenty years. I've never been on one word, certainly not
our own. So it kind of just came out of nowhere.
I've been talking and you know, using hashtag the Missing
Matter for so long and Marian matters, and then I
started thinking about it. I'm like, you know what, everyone matters.

(49:52):
Matthew matters, Janine Vaughan manters, James matters. You know, they
all matter. It doesn't matter where they've gone missing or
how they've gone missing, if they're still not found, they matter,
and we need to we need to look after those people.
So it kind of became a bit of a journey
for me as to what I've had to deal with
in the Missing Matter podcasts, but in the hope that

(50:15):
we can actually help other people in that same space.

Speaker 1 (50:17):
Well, I honestly think you're inspiring the people who have
been in the same situation, and let's hope there's not
many people in but yeah, I said the same thing
to Mark and Vay Levison. Yeah, they have inspired people
and helped people. I think you're in that position because
you understand. Unless you mean in that position, you don't

(50:38):
really get it. And the other flip side of it,
too is making people accountable with responsible for investigating people's disappearances.
There needs to be that accountability. I think you've done
a great job. I'm disappointed you didn't get in the
Queensland Police and then swapped over the New South Wales.
I could have used you on some investigations. You're very thorough.

Speaker 2 (51:00):
Well I've had to be, I guess, but that's just
who I am as a person, I think, and I
really I was so passionate about it too, and I
just look, the circumstances of me getting in were just
a little bit there. With my husband, he was like,
I don't know if I want you to be a
police officer and you know, out on the beat at
nighttime and us having babies, like it was more about that,

(51:23):
and I chose to be a mom. Yeah, And you know,
I'm so glad I did because I've got three great
cook great children and that's that and being a wife
to Chris, who's just been my rock. He's we've been
together for thirty years now and he has been through
all of this with me.

Speaker 1 (51:42):
What's your happiest memory of your mom?

Speaker 2 (51:46):
Oh, she was a very good cook, and I'm I
am really happy that I have actually got her cookbook
that she had and she's had that from when she
was young, so you can see. And I love this
because her writing was absolutely meticulous and beautiful and like
very school teacher esque. And then it gets to the

(52:08):
end and it's just scroll. And I remember Gary Adam
Castleton during the inquase, he was trying to read one
of her postcards and he mentioned that he goes, I
can hardly read her writing, and in it the back
of the book she actually, this is how my mum
became who she was later in life. So she'd be
on the phone and her girlfriend's telling her about her

(52:28):
carrot cake recipe, and she'd be writing it down on
the back of a Christmas card or a back of
you remember those little flip diaries that used to have
with the pieces of paper and you'd frip them off.
So she'd write little scribbles of what recipe it was,
and she'd just chuck it in the back of the book.
So I've kept it exactly as it is, her Pavlova
recipes in there. Any of my girlfriends will, I'm sure

(52:51):
agree that the Pavlova recipe is pretty amazing, so I'm
pretty renowned for that. I've tweaked it a few times
with a few different topics, but it always reminds me
of my mum, and cooking for me is my happy place,
and memories for her out of her cookbook, which.

Speaker 1 (53:05):
Is lovely, fantastic, fantastic. We've dug very deep into comments
from the coroner, and I just want to it's probably
a good way to finish that. This is what the
coroner said about you and your efforts to get justice
for your mother. Okay, So I'd like to acknowledge and
commend Sally on her unwavering commitment and participation in the

(53:28):
coronial investigation and in quest to find out what happened
to her mother. She's shown for the tude, dignity, resilience,
and grace throughout these proceedings. That's pretty nice.

Speaker 2 (53:39):
It was nice to hear that because I had been
through the ringer, so I was very happy to see
her and go, I'm really happy that you've said that, Coroner,
because I did try very hard to stay composed, and
there was times where I wanted to scream. I did
have There was a moment where I actually asked Rick
Blum if he murdered my mother on the stand, and

(54:03):
he said no, and then he got up and he
left and they helped him off the stand into his
wheely walker, and he walked out of the courtroom and
most of the people had left, and I remember leaning
forward to the police commissioner's help. Her counsel sorry, yes,
and she had a box of tissues, and I said,

(54:23):
would I please be able to have a tissue? And
she handed me the tissue and my whole body just
went into an absolute freak of stress. I was shaking,
i was crying. I had my head down in my lap.
My whole body was convulsing. I've got the homicide team
behind me, and my husband's yelling at them, going do more,

(54:45):
like this is crazy, Like you know, she's look at her,
she's looking how she's coping. So I don't break down.
I'm pretty tough. I'm a pretty tough cookie. But that
was a bad moment for me because I just felt like,
you get to that point and they say no, no,
and he walked away, and I just went I just
felt like my heart just fell on the floor.

Speaker 1 (55:08):
Yeah, I can understand that was.

Speaker 2 (55:09):
Bad, but anyway, you pick yourself up and you keep going, right,
there's no point in well.

Speaker 1 (55:15):
I think the greatest compliment you can have as a
detective saying that I wouldn't want that person after me
and the person that might have knowledge or involvement in
the disappearance of your mother, I wouldn't like to be
that person with you on the tail.

Speaker 2 (55:32):
So well, sadly didn't get to me. Joanie, she's a cracker,
she's all over it, and we've been working together for
six years and she keeps saying to me, I'm going
to keep going as long as you want me to.
I'll keep going.

Speaker 1 (55:44):
I love the passion and dedication and that's what it
takes and never never give up on it. And it
will also shout out to anyone that's got any information
about that, bring it forward to the police. It's still
been handled and is a detective Chief Inspector Nigel Warren,
the officer in charge. I've at work with Nigel. I
know he's work and he's a good operator to pass

(56:06):
the information.

Speaker 2 (56:07):
Yeah, he's a good guy. And we've also got a
website too called the Missing Matter, and we've got an
anonymous tip line on there too. So sometimes people have
said to me, I didn't feel comfortable going to the police,
so I didn't feel comfortable going to the media. And
they've wanted to contact me, and I keep everything as
tight lipter as you can get, and I pass on

(56:28):
everything to the police via that means if they choose
to allow that to happen. It's been very difficult to
manage that, but I think it's important to have it
there just in case, just for people to feel comfortable
if they do know something.

Speaker 1 (56:42):
Okay, Well, thanks Sally, thanks for coming on the podcast,
and I hope you get the answers that you're seeking.
You deserve it.

Speaker 2 (56:49):
Thank you very much. Thanks for everything you do too.
I think I think you've done amazing things in life,
so thank you. Bat never need to na