Conman Ric Blum ‘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.
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, new witnesses say.
Ric Blum last year said at an ongoing inquest into Barter’s disappearance and suspected death that he had only seen his daughter Evelyn Reid once, as a baby.
But Ms Reid says she reconnected with Mr Blum as an adult, and that he talked to her in disturbing detail about how to kill people with homemade poison.
Family members have now spoken out in support of Ms Reid, with her half-brother saying she talked to him at the time two decades ago about meeting Mr Blum.
Ms Reid was in Melbourne and raised concerns that Mr Blum may have poisoned a bottle of champagne given to her as a gift, he said.
“She was living in Camberwell, I remember very specifically, and all of a sudden he appeared in her life,” the brother told The Australian, speaking on condition his name be withheld.
“Somehow they connected, maybe through her wanting to know who her dad was. I remember when she met with him he came over and he brought a bottle of champagne.
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“There was just something really odd and weird; she mentioned she felt really unsafe around him. She was just absolutely petrified of this guy.”
He recalled his sister speaking along the lines of Mr Blum mentioning how to poison champagne via a needle through the cork.
“She looked closely at the champagne bottle because I think she was paranoid, and she said to me that the champagne foil had been removed and it had been put back on and it looked like the cork had been tampered with,” he said.
“She never wanted to see him again. She was very affected by it. She was like: ‘who is this guy’.”
Another relative, Marika Messerer, also said she was aware Ms Reid had been in touch with Mr Blum. “I told her, put your purse in your pocket, because I know him, he was a con artist,” she said.
Ms Messerer had a blunt response when told Mr Blum had denied speaking to Ms Reid, her second cousin.
“Oh bullshit,” she said.
“She met him and she said he told her he was an antique coin collector.
“But Evelyn said he looked like he was a homeless man. She said it didn’t look like he had money, he was very poorly dressed.”
Ms Messerer said that when Mr Blum first met Ms Reid’s mother, Ilona Reid, he falsely represented being unmarried without children.
“My aunty (Ilona Reid’s mother) got a private detective and she found out he had a wife and two kids,” she said.
“My aunty was a very clever woman. She wanted to find out what was happening and Ilona was very young, about 19.
“She told him ‘you’re married, get away from my daughter’, but he divorced quickly.”
Illona Reid “fell in love” with Mr Blum, but the relationship fell apart and he played no role in raising his daughter.
Mr Blum, who has used 50 aliases and was jailed in France for fraud, was known to Ms Messerer as “William Wouters”.
He has admitted he had an affair with Barter shortly before she vanished in 1997 at the age of 51, but denies knowing what happened to her.
The NSW Coroners Court declined on Monday to answer questions including whether a formal statement would be taken from Ms Reid.
Barrister Bradley Smith, representing Barter’s daughter Sally Leydon, said in his closing submissions that the Coroner had the power to refer people to the Director of Public Prosecutions for perjury.