She Simply Vanished

In 1997, devoted teacher and mother Marion Barter was on a dream holiday in the UK. A week later she’d vanished, leaving family and colleagues in shock. Susan Chenery investigates the baffling case.

When Marion Barter boarded a flight to London in June 1997, it was for a year-long sabbatical, the big adventure. All her life she had wanted to go on the Orient Express and now she was on her way. She had left her job, sold her house, she was cashed up, she was free. She was going to visit all the places Jane Austen lived, she excitedly told a friend two days before she left.

But those who loved her would never see her again. When she vanished, Marion left behind a trail of bewildering behaviour, unanswered questions and a mystery that only deepens with the passing years. In her last months in Australia, Marion had been keeping secrets – secrets that throw any investigation into her disappearance into disarray. As her story unravels and conflicting information emerges, friends and family could be forgiven for wondering if they really knew her at all.

Marion Barter, then 51, was a primary school teacher, passionate about her work with children, a cultured, gentle, slightly eccentric person. A highly sought after teacher, she had moved around and changed schools, had a bumpy romantic life and been married three times, the first time to the soccer legend Johnny Warren. Her failed love life was something that caused her sadness. She wanted to be loved, to be in a relationship. Creative, a dreamer, her houses were always beautiful, says her friend Janice White. She owned paintings by Norman Lindsay and Arthur and Jamie Boyd, none of which have ever been found.

In her last conversation with her daughter, Marion gave no indication that there was anything wrong. Feeding coins into a phone box in Tunbridge Wells, she said she was having “such a lovely time having morning tea with old ladies” and that she missed her daughter Sally. They spoke until she ran out of coins. “She said I was the best daughter and that was the last time I ever spoke to my mum,” says Sally Leydon now.