Missing TSS teacher Marion Barter: Family hope for answers from inquest

The Southport School teacher Marion Barter went on holiday 24 years ago and vanished. Now her inquest will hopefully answer the many questions around her disappearance, writes Max Futcher.

How long would you search if a loved one went missing? When would you stop?

Each year about 6000 Queenslanders are listed as missing persons, and some of them, like Marion Barter, are never found.

Her daughter, Sally Leydon, has searched for more than two decades, and this week her tireless effort will reach a major milestone.

Marion Barter was an award-winning teacher at the Southport School on the Gold Coast.

She’d been married three times including her first marriage to Socceroo great Johnny Warren. In 1997 she quit her job, and went on holiday to England.

Marion Barter and her two children Sally and Owen. Picture: Supplied

Her family were unaware she’d mysteriously changed her name to Florabella Natalia Marion Remakel, and they’d never see her again.

There were postcards for a few weeks, and some phone calls, but they weren’t told when she returned to Australia, and were shocked to learn that large sums of money were routinely withdrawn from a bank branch in Byron Bay.

“What happened when she came back to Australia, and how did she simply disappear?” asked Sally Leydon when I interviewed her last week. “There are no traces of her.”

Many people around the world are familiar with Sally’s intriguing story through the true-crime podcast The Lady Vanishes, which has been downloaded 8.2 million times.

Missing woman Marion Barter. Picture: Supplied

The investigation took her across the world; foraging through documents and speaking with past acquaintances, trying to discover what had happened. Was she alive?

Had she staged her own disappearance?

“We’ve gone down the path of going to cults and things, and yes that’s possible but my gut tells me something has happened,” she said.

Her determination eventually resulted in the NSW Homicide Unit reopening the case, and this week the NSW Coroner will commence an inquest into the disappearance and suspected death of Marion Barter.

“She actually left for her trip of a lifetime on June 22nd, 1997, so it’s actually 24 years pretty much to the day, we go to the inquest,” said Sally.

The inquest will divide hearings between Sydney, Ballina and Byron Bay, and will hear from at least 19 witnesses.

Inquest to probe why a Lady Vanishes

The hearings will focus on the circumstances of Marion’s disappearance, whether she is still alive, and the adequacy of the police investigation. Sally believes police made mistakes in the past, but she’s never received an apology.

“That’s really hard for me, Max, because obviously I’ve read the brief of evidence and there’s a lot in there I want to discuss about how things have been handled.”

For Sally, there are so many questions.

“Why did she change her name to such an unusual name, and why did she leave a trail? It was like a cookie trail,” she said.

If there are answers from the inquest, they might not be easy to hear.

“If she is alive and well and she doesn’t want to be a part of our life, that’s really heartbreaking.

“At the same time, if she’s deceased, that’s devastating as well, and if someone hasn’t found her for all that time, where is she? It’s horrible to think your loved one is lying in a ditch somewhere,” Sally said.

Of 38,000 Australians reported missing each year, the majority are found within a day. Some take years to locate.

Only a small fraction of cases are like Marion Barter.

For her daughter Sally, this week’s inquest could be the end of a 24-year search, or it could raise more questions in a baffling mystery.

Watch Max Futcher’s emotional interview with Sally Leydon on 7 News, tonight at 6pm.