SALLY Leydon is hoping Armidale residents can help in the search for her missing mother Marion Barter.
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It’s been more than 16 years since Mrs Leydon last saw her mum, but she still lives in hope of finding her.
“I don’t know whether she is (dead or alive) but I still think there’s a good chance she could be living another life somewhere,” she said.
Marion Barter would be best known as Marion Wilson to Armidale residents, having studied at the now defunct Armidale Teachers College.
Ms Barter hasn’t been sighted in Australia since 1997.
That year she quit her job as a teacher on the Gold Coast, sold her house and went to Britain.
The last time Mrs Leydon spoke to her mother was on the phone.
That was August 1, 1997, when Ms Barter rang her daughter from London.
“She said she missed me and I was the best daughter – and that was the last time I ever spoke to my mum.”
No one has since made contact with Ms Barter.
Customs later asserted that she returned to Australia the following day, August 2.
Bank records say Ms Barter then withdrew all the money from the sale of the house – about $80,000 – over a period of three weeks.
“All the withdrawals were of $5000, the maximum you could take out,” Mrs Leydon said.
“She could have met a man and taken the money out to start a new life. Maybe she wanted to put her past life behind her – she had three broken marriages before she went overseas.”
Despite dozens of attempts to find out information from the police and bank, the daughter has hit repeated brick walls.
Clues have linked Ms Barter to Grafton, Moree and Armidale – an anonymous call to Crime Stoppers in 2002 suggested she had been buried near the University of New England – but there has been no physical evidence to back-up the information.
There’s even the possibility that Ms Barter never returned to Australia and that she could have been the victim of identity theft.
Still, Mrs Leydon hasn’t given up hope and still yearns to introduce her children to their grandmother.
Anyone with information about Marion Barter can contact Matt Nicholls at the Armidale Express on 6776 0512. The information will then be passed on to Sally Leydon.
