Mothers Who Murder (19 page)

Robert Lane, Keli’s father, also took the stand and gave evidence that he at no time had any idea his daughter was pregnant, but that he could not believe Keli would ever harm a child regardless of the surrounding circumstances. Lane’s mother, Sandra, did not attend the court throughout the proceedings, but was summoned and asked to comment on her views of abortion and ex-nuptial births. She said she would have supported her daughter regardless of local negative opinion. (Remember, the Lanes were a prominent, successful family in a small close-knit community – which may have fuelled Lane’s fears of rejection by her family.) This appears true, as they did hire a high-powered barrister to defend her, so perhaps Keli’s fears were all imagined.

Keli herself did not initially want to give evidence in her defence, and she could not legally be compelled to do so. The coroner and Lane’s QC discussed that Lane might have been concerned that she might incriminate herself while under oath. After some discourse, Lane did reluctantly take the stand, but Abernethy reminded her that she was not obliged to answer any questions that she
felt might incriminate her. This was especially relevant as by this stage it was clear that, as Tegan Lane could not be found, Keli was going to remain the focus of a police investigation into Tegan’s disappearance. Therefore it was important as she did not want anything she may say at the coronial inquiry to be used against her in the future should the case progress to criminal proceedings. Obviously, Lane believed the circumstances surrounding Tegan’s birth might do just that, as when she did finally take the stand, on the last day of the coronial inquest, she would only confirm that she did not wish to answer the question posed to her – what happened to Tegan when she left hospital with her. This sent the media into a frenzy and from then onwards Keli and Tegan Lane were headline news.

Over a year after the whole process began the hearing was coming towards its conclusion, but Abernethy was really no closer to finding Tegan Lane. After various breaks in proceedings to allow evidence and witnesses to be sourced and after the months taken to search all the records and contact all the witnesses, Coroner Abernethy released his report on 15 February 2006. It raised several key points: 1) no body had ever been found (that remains the case to this day); 2) Lane had put her first and third children up for adoption; and 3) baby Tegan could have been given to the biological father. However, he also concluded damningly that in his opinion Tegan was dead, although there was currently insufficient evidence to charge anyone. He recorded an open finding, meaning the case would remain undecided, and ordered that all of the information be forwarded to the homicide section of New South Wales Police.

Ten years after Tegan’s birth, the New South Wales homicide squad assembled a task force to investigate and hopefully solve the strange case of the missing child. The task force included two detectives, as well as fifteen other intelligence and police staff. They had a mammoth job in front of them – including re-checking all the birth records for the relevant period, as well as all school records nationwide of ten-year-old female children. All details were again meticulously cross-referenced, and DNA samples were collected from over 1000 children. All of the 86,430 female babies born in New South Wales between 1996 and September 1997 were checked, and none could be Tegan Lane. Glebe morgue investigated the death records of unidentified deceased children, but again none could be the missing child. The police determined that there were no ‘foundlings’ in New South Wales in 1996, the term used by the Department of Health for babies abandoned at police stations, hospitals or other places where someone is likely to find them. Forty-one men were found across Australia with the name Andrew Norris, all of whom were investigated and discounted as possibly being Tegan’s father, following a search of the following records:
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• electoral rolls for a person of those names living in the Balmain/Rozelle area in 1996
  
• University of Sydney (as Lane thought he may have studied there) records for persons of that name enrolled in the last twenty years with birth dates between 1960 and 1970
  
• New South Wales Water Polo Association, and various water polo clubs, records
  
• Roads and Traffic Authority (RTA) records
  
• Centrelink records
  
• Australia Post records
  
• Department of Fair Trading records regarding the lodgement of rental bonds
  
• police records concerning reports of missing persons by the name Andrew Norris
  
• Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages records for persons called Andrew Norris born between 1960 and 1976.
  

The police were exhaustive in their search for Tegan Lane and Andrew Morris/Norris. The continued media coverage did occasionally yield new information. The police hotline ‘Crime Stoppers’ brought in fifty leads, mainly providing the details of children the caller believed may be Tegan. All were investigated, all were ruled out.

In 2007 Keli had yet more bad news when her marriage broke down. This was possibly as a result of the strain of the ongoing investigation, together with the fact of the birth of the three children outside of their relationship – all of which had remained a secret, even from her husband, until the pretence could no longer be maintained. Or maybe Lane pushed her husband away, believing that her fate was sealed and he and their daughter would be better off removed from the situation, as the media storm surrounding the case continued in earnest. She also lost her job at Ravenswood School. Lane’s secrets, which she had worked so hard to keep, were laid bare for all to see, as were the lies that she told to protect herself. Her medical records were scrutinised, the late-term abortions detailed. People were looking at her strangely in the street. She had become infamous.

Tegan Lane’s location remained a mystery. No family could be found that could be caring for Tegan, and the police now believed that Keli Lane had murdered her daughter some
time between leaving the maternity ward at the hospital and arriving home to meet with Gillies to get ready for the wedding. So the search for Tegan continued, but now the police were searching for the child’s body. After a tip-off in August 2008, the police elected to excavate the gardens around the home Gillies had bought in Gladesville, and although the police used cadaver dogs in an attempt to find Tegan’s remains, nothing was found. The media was informed of the intention to excavate the garden of Duncan’s old home, and a press conference convened at the local police station. The reason given was that the police believed there was a chance that Keli briefly visited the property after she got out of hospital. The media pack descended on the house, which by now was swarming with police and forensic personnel. Even though the case was by now years old, any development could see it return to the front pages, with reports of the excavation making it to
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the next day. Pictures of the search were accompanied by images of Keli and Duncan. This caused significant distress to the entire Gillies family, as they too were only now learning the secrets of Keli’s former life, a life she had allegedly shared with Duncan.

Late in 2009 Keli Lane finally appeared in court to hear the charges against her. She was accused of murder and two counts of perjury, to which she plead not guilty. Bail was granted at the initial hearing; this was not opposed by the Crown as Lane had not been in custody since the coronial inquest and there was little chance of her absconding now, although she did have to relinquish her passport. Bail was set at $30,000 and was guaranteed by her father. As a further enforcement, Keli was required to attend Dee Why Police Station every day. On leaving the courthouse, Keli’s solicitor read a prepared statement, in which Lane main
tained her innocence of hurting Tegan and her intent to continue to help police with their inquiries to find her. The statement also asked for anyone with information about Tegan’s whereabouts to come forward.

THE EVIDENCE AND COURT CASE

This case was made hard for police and prosecutors as there simply was no forensic evidence to prove the accused had murdered baby Tegan. Their case against Keli Lane was purely circumstantial. That is not to say it was simple; the prosecution put a lot of evidence before the jury.

Keli Lane was tried in the Supreme Court of New South Wales before Justice Anthony Whealy, the trial beginning on 9 August 2010 and running until 6 December, prior to which there had been the usual pre-trial hearings to determine what evidence the jury would hear. Lane was being indicted on four counts: first, murdering Tegan Lee Lane; second, three counts of perjury, all relating to the false statements Keli Lane made in relation to the affidavits when her children were adopted. The first two affidavits focused on Tahlia’s adoption, the third related to Aaron’s adoption.
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These were filed and therefore became part of the paper trail that led to Lane’s trial.

The Department of Public Prosecutions assigned the case to Mark Tedeschi QC, New South Wales’ senior prosecutor. A highly experienced prosecutor with over thirty-five years’ experience, Tedeschi has prosecuted some of Australia’s most infamous cases, including Ivan Milat following the backpacker murders in New South Wales in the 1990s and Kathleen Folbigg, found guilty in 2003 of murdering her four children. Experienced QC Keith Chapple led Keli’s defence team.

As part of the case against her, the prosecution wanted to include information about Lane’s drinking habits. The Crown said that Lane’s drinking and socialising were relevant as relating to her potential reasons for not wanting to keep baby Tegan, as well as providing a possible reason as to why Lane may have become pregnant in the first place – that her heavy drinking made the contraceptive pill she was taking ineffective. This would also help explain why she was falling pregnant with such regularity. The Crown presented three motives to explain Lane’s repeated actions to rid herself of her unwanted children – two by adoption and one allegedly by murder. First was Keli’s dream to represent her country at the 2000 Olympic Games, second was her desire to keep up her active social and sex life, and third was her fear of being rejected by her friends and family were they to find out she was pregnant.

Tedeschi and Justice Whealy continued to hotly debate what evidence the jury would be allowed to hear. The Crown argued that three lies were key to going part way to proving Keli killed Tegan. These all related to the various stories she told over time about what happened to Tegan after they left hospital. Whealy was not convinced that Keli’s lies could prove her guilty of murder. In the end, Tedeschi won, and the lies were heard by the jury.

Tedeschi went in hard from the beginning, asserting to the jury that the reason Lane wanted to leave Auburn Hospital as quickly as possible on Saturday 14 September 1996 was that she simply wanted to attend a wedding. Apparently, this wedding was important to her – according to the Crown, more important than her daughter’s life. The judge took pains to highlight that Lane was not bound to remain at the hospital after she gave birth to Tegan –
she had been discharged and was free to go whenever she wanted – and that the Crown had no evidence she had in fact snuck out as they suggested. She may simply have taken an opportunity to leave quietly. Justice Whealy also took pains to point out to the jury that just because they were going to hear evidence that Keli had built a mountain of lies to hide her three secret children, lying did not make her a murderer.

In its final address to the jury, the Crown did rely on the three lies that Tedeschi claimed Lane told, which they believed proved her guilt beyond reasonable doubt because they pointed to ‘consciousness of guilt’. These related to a fax Lane sent to Virginia Fung on 25 October 1999, in which Lane said in writing that she had given Tegan to a couple that she barely knew she thought had since moved to Perth. The second focused on an interview with Detective Kehoe in 2001, in which Lane said that Tegan had been handed over to her biological father, Andrew Morris. The third lie was almost a repeat of the second, except that it was told in a recorded interview with Detective Richard Gaut in 2002 in which she said that the natural father’s name was Andrew Norris. The prosecution submitted to the jury that Lane told the lies to hide the fact that she had murdered Tegan. This corresponded with the Crown’s opening – that she’d told these same lies ‘because the truth is too dreadful to admit, that is, the accused got rid of her baby daughter, Tegan, by killing her and disposing of her body’. The reason put forward for Lane not giving her second child up for adoption was that she simply didn’t have the time, as she was only cleared as physically fit for induction two days before the wedding. Giving birth and then getting discharged from hospital in time to get to the
wedding was very tight as it was. The Crown made the following statement:

Lane did not give evidence in her defence, and the defence didn’t call any witnesses. The evidence, in factual terms, presented by the Crown against Lane was largely uncontested. The inferences that were drawn from the facts were what was in dispute. To find Lane guilty of murder, the jury had to decide if the Crown had established
beyond reasonable doubt
(the legal criminal standard) each of the following: a) the death of Tegan Lane; b) that it was the deliberate act of the accused that caused the death of Tegan Lane; and c) that the act causing death was done by the accused with an intention to kill Tegan Lane. If the Crown failed to convince the jury of any one of those parts, they were bound to find her not guilty and acquit her of murder.

All that was left was for the jury to make their decision. At around 11.15 am on Monday 6 December 2010, the jury retired to consider its verdict. This was not a straightforward case, and the deliberation of the jury (comprising six men and six women) was slow and anguished. After a week they did reach a unanimous decision about the lesser charges of perjury, but they hadn’t been able to reach a unanimous verdict for the charge of murder and it was unlikely they would be able to do so. The judge told the
jury that a verdict could be reached if eleven of the twelve agreed.
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The jury returned to their deliberations.