On the trail of Marion Barter

How the clues to Australia’s most mysterious missing persons case were untangled by a devoted daughter and a team of amateur sleuths.

-  SUSAN CHENER i k

In the past four years there has been a great unravelling in the story of Marion Barter, one of Down Under’s most troubling, and now most famous, missing persons cases. For 22 years the clues had made no sense. Marion’s daughter, Sally Leydon, had gone over and over the fragments of information her mother had left behind, but everywhere she’d turned doors had closed in her face.

Marion might have remained another forgotten missing woman had her daughter not persevered and refused to forget her. But Sally could never have imagined – none of us could – what would be uncovered when she was joined in her search by a group of doggedly determined amateur sleuths.

I first wrote about the baffling mystery of Marion’s disappearance for The Weekly back in 2010, and again in 2019. Also that year, The Lady Vanishes a podcast, was produced investigating Marion’s case. It has been downloaded more than 15 million times and ignited the curiosity of people around the world who set out to follow the clues and seek justice for Marion.

Finally Sally was not alone, but what was discovered – that Marion was probably the victim of a master manipulator and con artist who operated across two continents for decades – was, she says, “beyond comprehension.”

Marion Barter was a dedicated teacher at a Gold Coast school. “She loved ballet, opera, the finer things of life,” Sally says. At 51, her romantic life had been bumpy. She had been married three times – the first time to soccer star Johnny Warren. Her failed love life was a source of regret. She wanted to be loved.