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An award-winning teacher and mother-of-two has been declared dead by a coronial inquest more than 26 years after she was hoodwinked by her lover and vanished without a trace.
The mysterious circumstances surrounding the 1997 disappearance of Marion Barter, 51, were laid bare by NSW coroner Teresa O’Sullivan on Thursday.
She found the woman had been “exploited” by her lover Ric Blum, who convinced her to sell her house, deposit $80,000 into an unknown account, and travel overseas with him in June 1997.
Shortly before embarking on an extended overseas trip, the inquest heard Ms Barter changed her name to Florabella Natalia Marion Remakel.
Ms O’Sullivan said she made the change because she was in a relationship with Mr Blum, who she knew as Fernand Remakel, and “sought to share a name with him”.
In his “unsatisfactory” evidence, Mr Blum gave “contradictory” accounts of how the couple met but the coroner concluded they had entered into a relationship in early 1997.
“Mr Blum encouraged her to start a new life with him,” she said.
“He clearly did not intend to pursue a relationship because he was married with children.”
The inquest heard the couple travelled together in England “for at least some period of time” before Ms Barter secretly returned to Australia on August 2, 1997 without telling her family.
The inquest heard Mr Blum “suggested they start a new life together in Luxembourg” and encouraged Ms Barter to transfer $80,000 from her bank into an unknown account.
Ms O’Sullivan found Mr Blum had “exploited” Ms Barter and he had a tendency to “misrepresent himself to single vulnerable women for financial gain”.
She said he had withheld valuable information from the inquest about the “troubling” circumstances before Ms Barter’s disappearance, including their relationship, her travel overseas, and the transferred funds.
“The evidence, along with his lies and deception throughout the inquest, have convinced me that he does indeed know more than he is saying,” the coroner said.
“There is a sufficient basis for a finding that he is deliberately unwilling to divulge this further knowledge to the court.”
However, she judged it was a “matter for police” as to whether to refer Mr Blum to the Director of Public Prosecution for criminal charges.
Ms O’Sullivan strongly criticised the police investigation into Ms Barter’s disappearance in 1997 as “not adequate”.
She said “very little was done” for the first 10 years after Ms Barter was reported missing by her daughter on October 22, 1997.
The inquest heard a missing persons investigation was not opened and the case was not investigated for nearly a decade.
“A failure to open an investigation … led to the unavailability of crucial evidence surrounding Marion’s disappearance, which has resulted in (her) disappearance remaining unsolved,” Ms O’Sullivan said.
The award-winning teacher was listed a missing person in 2007, but subsequently classified as ‘located’ by police in 2011.
The coroner said the police decision was “incorrect” and had a “serious impact” on the availability of evidence in the case.
She noted there had been “resistance in this inquest by NSW Police to accept the inadequacies of the initial investigation”, which she found “difficult to understand”.
After the years-long inquest into Ms Barter’s disappearance, the state coroner concluded the mother-of-two was dead.
Ms O’Sullivan said Ms Barter likely died after 15 October 1997, but she was unable to determine the cause, manner, or location of her death.
She recommended the case be kept open by the unsolved homicide squad for ongoing investigation.
In a statement to the court, Ms Barter’s daughter, Sally Leydon shared a touching tribute to her “very generous” mother.
“(Ms Barter) was a kind, caring soul with a wicked laugh,” her daughter explained.
“She was intelligent, she was cultured, and she had many friends who love and miss her.”
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