Woman’s Disappearance Reveals Scammer’s Dark History — What Happened to Marion Barter?
In 1997, Marion Barter, a 51-year-old teacher from Australia, vanished in Kent, England, sparking a mystery that would unfold over the next 27 years. Now, her case is gaining the attention it deserves as new details emerge about the man who scammed not only her but several other women.
7 min readMar 5, 2024
August 1, 1997 in Tunbridge Wells, Kent, England
On this late summer evening, 51-year-old Marion Barter was on a public payphone, speaking with her daughter in Australia. A month after she started her extended journey to the UK, the mother talked excitedly about how much she loved England. So much so that she even re-scheduled her planned journey with the infamous Orient Express. It was the last time that Barter’s daughter, Sally Leydon, would hear from her mother.
October 22, 1997
Almost three months after Leydon last spoke to her mother, she got concerned. Not only because it’s been such a long time, but also because Barter never called her son Owen on his birthday. Leydon decided to report her missing — or, well, she tried to.
