Conman dad terrified daughter with ‘lessons on poisons’
A convicted conman questioned over the disappearance of a Queensland teacher spoke in horrifying detail about how to kill people with homemade poison, his daughter says.
A convicted conman questioned over the disappearance of a Queensland teacher spoke in horrifying detail about how to kill people with homemade poison, his daughter says.
Ric Blum gave evidence under oath at the inquest into the presumed death of Marion Barter that he met his daughter, Evelyn Reid, only once, as a baby, and had never seen or spoken to her since.
Yet Ms Reid has told The Australian of her as an adult making contact with Mr Blum, only to be terrified by his dark tales of torture and murder.
I always thought I had a father out there and that if he knew how hellish my life was, he would come and rescue me from it,” Ms Reid said.
“So later on in life, I sought him out. He was a nightmare.
“He spoke in a manner about my dead mother that was utterly disgusting, said things that left me in a state of shock.
“I just really didn’t want to have anything to do with him.”
Marion Barter disappearance
How deep and dark does Ric Blum’s backstory go?
He’s the shadowy figure looming over Queensland mum Marion Barter’s disappearance. Fresh claims continue to emerge painting Blum as a master manipulator.
Accused Casanova conman denies dabbling in poisons
A man who has become the focus of inquiries into a schoolteacher’s mystery disappearance has denied having an interest in poisons.
Conman dad ‘gave lessons on poisons’
A convicted conman questioned over the disappearance of a Queensland teacher spoke in horrifying detail about how to kill people with homemade poison, his daughter says.
Conman ‘gave false evidence’ about daughter
The alleged serial fraudster who denied killing Queensland teacher Marion Barter gave false evidence when he said under oath that he’d never been in contact with his daughter, witnesses say.
Curious case of alleged conman and missing coins
It’s the conman’s collection – a combination of unusual artefacts and rare coins traced back to alleged serial fraudster Ric Blum.
New claim in missing mother mystery
A convicted conman questioned over the possible murder of his missing lover – the former wife of a Socceroos legend – is facing new claims he ripped off a widow.
Deceit and duplicity: the toxic trail of Ric Blum
The stone cold mystery of missing mum Marion Barter and her secret ties to conman Ric Blum has sent sleuths into overdrive. Here’s everything we know about the case.
Blum claimed entire family ‘exterminated’
Neighbours of the convicted conman — linked to missing mum Marion Barter — tried to raise the alarm when his bizarre stories began to unravel. Other lies were more disturbing.
A 40-year con, yet citizen swindler still here
Ric Blum, a central figure in the mystery of a missing teacher, became a citizen and claimed welfare for decades despite a serious criminal history abroad.
Border alerts failed to apprehend fraudster
A convicted conman who had an affair with a Queensland teacher just before she vanished was previously on a border watch list as authorities considered charging him with citizenship fraud.
‘If authorities acted … he’d have never met mum’
Missing teacher Marion Barter’s daughter says officials should have taken action against a convicted conman when they first concluded he’d obtained his citizenship fraudulently.
Conman should never have been able to become an Australian citizen
Marion Barter’s daughter Sally Leydon has every reason to be upset, angry and frustrated over the light touch shown by authorities to Ric Blum.
Bumbling case of serial fraudster
For Immigration, Mr Blum’s presence remains unfinished business.
Blum’s victim speaks out: ‘My God, I hope he suffers’
After conman Ric Blum connived is way into her home, Andree Flamme went right to the top but was never contacted by police. She tells her story for the first time.
Conman made quick buck on coins, were they stolen from widow?
He’s a prominent figure at a missing teacher’s NSW inquest, and now serial fraudster Ric Blum has been found selling the exact same type of coins he’s accused of stealing.
Fraudster’s wife warned ‘he has a gun’
Serial conman Ric Blum’s estranged wife warned her new partner he had a gun in the car when he turned up at a Belgian ferry terminal, a new witness says.
Conman Blum ‘got me at a low point’
A woman says serial fraudster Ric Blum got her at her lowest before threatening to send intimate images of her to her family, friends and church.
Missing mum inquest extended amid new evidence
An inquest into the presumed death of Queensland mother of two Marion Barter will hold extra hearings to examine new evidence.
Conman’s $80,000 mystery ‘mugging’
Serial fraudster Ric Blum was ‘calm and relaxed’ when he told officers he had just been squeezed unconscious and robbed of €50,000 in a Gold Coast car park, police reports reveal.
Fraudster’s unguarded moment caught on camera
Momentarily left alone in a police interview room, with a camera still recording, convicted conman Ric Blum dropped his head and appeared to utter a single audible word.
Premonition of burial site sparked search for missing teacher
Police searched a rural area of NSW for the grave of missing teacher Marion Barter after a man reported a vision of where she was buried.
“
Years went by without further contact until a boyfriend insisted that engaging with her father could heal some of her trauma.
“So I sought him out again,” she said. “This time, I did get to see evidence of why I was so disturbed by him the first time around.
“He wanted to teach me how to poison people. I ended up being terrified.”
Police have contacted her only once, during the ongoing inquest into Barter’s disappearance, and had not taken a formal statement, she said.
Mr Blum last week strenuously denied separate allegations he may have wanted to poison a Belgian widow he is accused of defrauding, one of a growing number of women he allegedly deceived and exploited over decades.
Describing those claims as “completely untrue”, Mr Blum said the only poisons he knew were those in general home use.
He also denied to police and at the inquest that he murdered Barter, though he has admitted they had an affair just before she vanished in 1997.
Ms Reid, 53, says when it comes to the relationship between her mother, Ilona Reid, and Mr Blum, she knows only what she has been told by family members.
Those stories are as astonishing as almost everything else that has been revealed about her father.
Ms Reid’s mother was from Hungary and migrated with her family to Belgium, where she formed a relationship with Mr Blum.
According to an aunt, her mother was wildly in love with Mr Blum, but a private investigator hired by her suspicious family “found out that he had other wives and other children”.
Ms Reid’s mother ignored her family’s warnings about Mr Blum, only to later discover for herself “how horrible he was”, the aunt said.
“The story … is that she fled Belgium to get away from him,” Ms Reid said.
“The story (the aunt) told me was of this crazy man in a Porsche on the Euro freeway where you can drive a million miles an hour, with a gun, trying to get to the boat before it sails off – and that that was him.
“I have no way to sort out what is fact and what is fiction of any of these things.”
Not long after her mother arrived in Australia, so did Mr Blum. Her mother had met someone else on the ship, and Mr Blum played no role in Ms Reid’s early life.
On the afternoon of Wednesday, July 13, 1977, Ms Reid’s mother was found dead, slumped over the steering wheel of her Holden Torana sedan on Chapel St in Melbourne’s St Kilda. Ms Reid was seven years old and her mother, a hairdresser, was only 31.
Official coronial file documents state that she died of heart failure. No alcohol, common drugs or poisons were detected, the file states.
“My grandma only had two kids, my mum and my uncle. All three of them died in 1977,” Ms Reid said, adding that the deaths had left her with lifelong questions.
When she later reconnected with her biological father, Mr Blum, she told him of other distressing events in her childhood.
He responded by detailing a way to kill someone with homemade poison without leaving a trace, she said.
“He disclosed a method to me and it’s like a tattoo – I’m scarred with it for all my life,” she said.
“What he said is that as his daughter, I should learn the things that he knows how to do.
“He was sharing with me all sorts of stories – when he was growing up, what they used to do to people in the village when they did wrong things to a girl, they’d bury the guy alive with hungry cats.
“He was just constantly talking about sort of killing people.”
She became so scared of her biological father that when he gave her a bottle of Bollinger, she took it to Prahran police station.
“I said ‘I think someone’s trying to poison me’. I got the whole sort of ‘You poor crazy girl’,” she said.
Mr Blum, 83, who was jailed in France for fraud, is known to have used 50 aliases.
His testimony that he and his daughter had never spoken was “just not true”, Ms Reid said.
“I tracked him down through the Belgium consulate under the name Frederick De Hedervary. He’s on my birth certificate as Willy Wouters.”