January 10, 2025 • 56 mins
On September 12, 1996, Keli Lane gave birth to a baby girl at Auburn Hospital in western Sydney. Two days later that baby seemingly disappeared.
After years of investigation, Keli was convicted of her daughter's murder in 2010 and sentenced to 18 years behind bars. But did they get it wrong?
Keli Lane’s story has been compared to the wrongful conviction of Lindy Chamberlain. It’s been pulled apart and analysed for years.
So is she a baby killer? Or is she a woman, misunderstood?
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
You're listening to a MoMA Mea podcast. Mama Mea acknowledges
the traditional owners of land and waders. This podcast was
recorded on Hi. I'm Jemma Bath, host of True Crime Conversations,
and this is the final episode of our Hot Pod
summer series. Last year, we talked to criminologist Zanthe Mallett
about the case of Kelly Lane, who was convicted of
(00:33):
murdering her newborn daughter in nineteen ninety six. Kelly was
sentenced to thirteen years and five months in prison in
twenty eleven, but in March last year, her parole was
denied because of the nobody no parole laws introduced in
twenty twenty two. Since Kelly's daughter, Teagan, has never been found,
the parole board ruled that she should stay in prison
(00:56):
simply based on those laws. Kelly has always maintained her
innocence and her case is drawn comparisons to the wrongful
conviction of Lindy Chamberlain. So is she guilty or has
she been wrongfully convicted? And would she be released? Have
a listen to the episode and let us know what
you think about this ongoing case. It's September nineteen ninety
(01:23):
six and Kelly Lane is at a wedding in Manly,
on Sydney's Northern Beaches with her boyfriend's duncan. She's wearing
a white suit and she's smiling. She looks relaxed, happy
and in the moment, celebrating her friend's special day. Just
a few hours earlier, she'd been discharged from hospital after
(01:44):
having her second baby, a little girl called Teagan. But
no one knew, not her boyfriend, not her parents, not
her friends. They didn't even know she was pregnant. They
didn't know she'd had a baby the year before too,
who she gave up for adoption, But this time there's
(02:05):
no official adoption. According to Kelly, gave Teagan to her
father to raise before heading to the wedding, a man
named Andrew Norris or Morris. She's not quite sure who
she had a brief affair with, But Andrew has never
been found, neither has baby Teagan. It wasn't until Kelly
(02:29):
had a third child, another secret pregnancy, and another baby
she gave up for adoption that a docks worker started
digging he could account for her first child? But where
was Teagan?
Speaker 2 (02:42):
Did you kill child?
Speaker 1 (02:43):
No? I didn't, not I did not do anything like
that someone else. No, No, A jury decided otherwise, But
did they get it wrong. Kelly Lane's story has been
compared to the wrongful conviction of Lindy Chamberlain. It's been
pulled apart and analyzed for years. So is she a
(03:07):
baby killer or is she a woman misunderstood? I'm Jimmy
Bath and this is True Crime Conversations a Muma mea
podcast exploring the world's most notorious crimes by speaking to
(03:28):
the people who know the most about them. Kelly Lane
maintains her innocence. In twenty eighteen, she reached out to
Australian journalist Karen Meldrum Hannah, begging her to dig into
her case and her story for the ABC to reveal
what she says is the truth.
Speaker 2 (03:46):
I could sit here Caro and do my time. I'm
halfway through, but no way.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
I'm happy for you to go to the end.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
End. I want you to go to the end. Okay,
forward to it.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
An investigation into Teagan's disappearance began in early two thousand
and one, more than four years after Kelly gave birth
to her. In two thousand and five, an inquest was
held Coroner concluded that Tegan was most likely dead, referring
the case to the Unsolved Homicide Squad. In November two
(04:19):
thousand and nine, Kelly Lane was charged with murder, with
her trial getting underway the following year. She was found guilty,
sentenced to eighteen years behind bars with a minimum parole
period of thirteen years. That date, May twenty twenty four
is fast approaching, but the new South Wales State Parole
Authority has already knocked back her bid for release because
(04:42):
of the no body, no Parole laws that we introduced
only a couple of years ago. Kelly has served time
in some of the state's toughest prisons. She's forty eight now.
She has a teenage daughter waiting for her on the outside,
her fourth baby. Today's guest criminologist, doctor Zanthey Mallett, has
(05:02):
been in contact with Kelly personally for many years. She
knows this case and this story back to front and
she has a lot to say about it. Zanthi joins us. Now, Zathi,
tell us a little bit about your expertise and what
(05:25):
you do for a living.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
I am an associate professor of criminology. So what that
in essence means is I spend a lot of my
day working with students, teaching them the basics of criminology.
I also spend my day doing research, and one of
my areas of expertise is looking at mothers accused of
murdering their children, which is actually how I originally came
across the case of Kelly Lane and cath Folbig and
(05:48):
many other high profile cases in Australia. And I do
a lot of media work as well, engaging with the
media different interest topics, things that come up, big cases,
helping to explain those to the public. So I have
a few different hats that I wear depending on what
day it is.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
And you've waited on the Kelly Lane story quite a
bit in recent years. Is it a case that you
still think think a bit often?
Speaker 2 (06:12):
It certainly is. So I came across the case of
Kelly Lane back in twenty thirteen when I first started
writing about mothers who Murder in Australia. So I started
writing a book which came out in twenty fourteen of
that title Mother's Who Murder and Infamous Miscarriages of Justice.
And so in my book in twenty fourteen, I actually
(06:32):
raised issues of doubt that I had with Kelly's case,
and since that time, Kelly got in touch with me,
and I've been a number of times to see her
since she's been incarcerated, and I've basically followed the case,
pray closely, and raised my concerns over the years. And
sometimes that was an extremely unpopular thing to do, given
she's well known as kind of a baby killer's same
(06:54):
as cath Folbig, and so I have been using my
I guess, public profile and background in forensics and criminology
to just lay some groundwork into how we look at
these cases and why I have concerns about the reliability
of the convictions, specific in Kelly's case.
Speaker 1 (07:13):
Let's tell Kelly's story before we get to the conviction
and everything that's happened since. Kelly's story starts by the
beach in Manley, the Insular Peninsula as it's infamously called.
What was her early.
Speaker 2 (07:27):
Life like, Kelly's early life was very privileged. She was
part of this very elite group. It was a perfect
lifestyle in essence. You know, she was hanging out at
the beach all day. She was very much into water sports.
She was hanging out with all the popular kids and
her family were very embedded in the community. Her father
was a police officer, her mother was a nurse, and
(07:48):
they spent a lot of time engaged with like kids,
sports and supporting the family. So they were a very
close knit family and also very embedded in the community.
From the outside, this appears to be a pretty idyllic lifestyle,
and certainly Kelly excelled at sports. She was a very
good water polo player, and so this is something that
was part of her lifestyle from a very very early
(08:10):
age and she certainly went on to compete at a
high level in terms of her sporting ability, and that's
something that her family were very supportive of.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
Did she have a close relationship with her parents growing.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
Up, Well, that's a really interesting question because when we
get to the background of what happened with Teagan Lane,
who's the child that ultimately vanished and led to Kelly's
conviction for murder. If you look at the family history,
it's quite an unusual one in that Kelly had a
number of pregnancies before Tigan. She had a couple of abortions,
(08:44):
and then she had one child that was adopted out
before Tegan, and then Tiegan, who she claims she gave
to the biological father. I'm sure we'll get to that,
and then there was another child after that she adopted out.
And so when all of this came out in court,
what was interesting was that the family claimed to know
nothing about all of these pregnancies, and so I always
(09:05):
thought that was quite an interesting family dynamic. And with
respect to the family and Kelly, I don't kind of
want to dig in to that too much because that's
private to them, but I always thought that it was
interesting that if they'd been a close knit family, it
just surprised me that nobody was aware of these multiple pregnancies.
And that's not a conversation that was had in that house,
you know, because this was obviously a young woman that
was going through pretty traumatic events repeatedly, and that's something
(09:29):
that you would expect from most families to have noticed
and potentially offer some support with. So how close they
were is difficult to actually ascertain. Certainly from the outside,
they appeared to be a very supportive, loving family who were,
in essence, pillars of the community.
Speaker 1 (09:47):
Let's delve into that timeline you've laid out a bit more. So,
Kelly felt pregnant for the first time in nineteen ninety two,
she was only seventeen years old, and she had an abortion.
She then fell pregnant again two years later, and again
she terminated that pregnancy a bit further on in the pregnancy,
about halfway. Did she tell anyone about those experiences if
(10:09):
she wasn't talking to her family, was she talking to anyone?
Speaker 2 (10:12):
Well, again, that's quite interesting. She was obviously playing water
polo at this time. She had you would think, quite
close friends on those water polo teams. Yet again, this
doesn't seem to have been a topic of conversation. There
was some gossips certainly around it. Other girls seemed to
have recognized that she was pregnant because obviously she's in
a swimsuit all the time, But even her coach doesn't
(10:33):
seem to have raised this with her. So I'm not
sure what support or whom she was talking to at
that time about this, but certainly, and I hope she
did have support through these abortions, because I know that
they were certainly traumatic for her. This is not something
she took lightly at all, But it's difficult to actually
see evidence of that in terms of the people that
(10:54):
she was nearest to and spending the most time with
when she was in those late teenage years going into
her twenties.
Speaker 1 (11:02):
Her third pregnancy in nineteen ninety five, she's still so young,
she's only nineteen. She gives birth to that child, so
she goes full term, she gives birth to a healthy baby,
and again no one seems to say anything know that
she's pregnant. This is all fresh in my mind because
I gave birth last year and everyone could tell I
(11:26):
was pregnant. How on earth did no one know or
say anything.
Speaker 2 (11:31):
Look, I cannot answer that question. I do not know.
I don't know how your family wouldn't know. I don't
know how you can go full term and people around
you not know about that, not mention that, not saying
anything about that. I mean, her mum was attending training
sessions at the pool. How do you not notice your
daughter is full term pregnant. Her boyfriend at the time,
(11:53):
long term boyfriend, didn't know that she was pregnant and
had given birth. I can't get my head around that.
I mean, you hear it occasionally, don't know that a
woman didn't know she was pregnant and suddenly gives birth
and it's all a big surprise. But for this to
happen multiple times. It seems a very strange scenario when
everybody claims no knowledge of these babies, and yet somebody
(12:18):
surely must have noticed some changes in Kelly that would
have signified that she was pregnant. It's totally out there
to think that nobody knew anything.
Speaker 1 (12:28):
What were the circumstances around her giving birth to that
first baby? Did she do that alone? And what happened
to the child?
Speaker 2 (12:35):
So she gave birth to the first child in hospital
and it was in essence immediately given up for adoption.
So this was a decision that was made before Obviously
she went in she'd already decided although she went full term.
My understanding is that it was too late to actually
have bought in that case. She found that she was
pregnant too late. Therefore took it to full term and
(12:56):
so the next bext option for her. At that time,
she didn't feel she was able to give that child
the life she would want to, so she elected to
give that child up for adoption, and.
Speaker 1 (13:06):
She was in the birth suite by herself, no support.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
Yeah. Correct, this is a young woman going through all
of this alone. I mean, my heart goes out to
her I know that people have judged Kelly over the
years for having multiple abortions and multiple adoptions, but you know,
this is so hard, so hard emotionally for anybody to
go through. I can't imagine having to go through it
multiple times on your own.
Speaker 1 (13:32):
Her fourth pregnancy is baby Teagan, which is the reason
we're all here. Correct, born in September nineteen ninety six.
What do we know about that? Pregnancy and birth? Once
again completely secret.
Speaker 2 (13:45):
Completely secret. Nobody knew again the boyfriend didn't know now.
Teagan is, according to Kelly, the result of an affair
with an older man called Andrew Norris or Morris, and
Kelly's unsure of the surname, so we'll just call him
Andrew for simplicity's sake. He was a married man and
they began an affair. She visited in as apartment in Sydney, etc.
(14:07):
She fell pregnant again. It was mindstanding that it was
too late bought, so she went full term. And Andrew
had a partner called mel This was Kelly's understanding from
what he'd said, and it was decided between the biological
parents that Kelly wasn't in a position to raise the child,
so she would give Teagan to Andrew and his partner Mel.
She was on board with this and that they would
(14:29):
then raise the child as their own. And so Kelly
went into hospital again on her own gave birth to
Tigan after two days in hospital in Sydney. This is
Kelly's version events. She met Andrew and Mel in the
reception downstairs in the hospital where she handed over Tegan,
and then she got a taxi home where she got
(14:50):
changed and went out to a wedding later. And again
nobody in her family or her boyfriend knew anything about
the fact that she'd just given birth. She just went
out and carried on as normal. And so that is
according to Kelly, the last time she saw Teagan was
when she handed her over to her biological father in
(15:10):
the hospital as a two day old.
Speaker 1 (15:13):
And I think it's details like what you just said,
the fact that she left hospital and a few hours
later went to a wedding that people struggle with. What
do you say to that, because everyone has their own
kind of way of living. Most of us after giving
birth can't imagine going to a wedding and wearing white.
(15:33):
But you know, you can't judge another's experience.
Speaker 2 (15:37):
Right exactly and Kelly also one of the children she
gave birth to and then played water polo almost immediately after.
So you know, Kelly is quite a stoic, strong woman.
This is something she obviously wanted to keep to herself
for her own reasons. And again I respect that. You know,
nobody has to disclose these type of events if they
(15:57):
don't want to. It's their private life. And so it's
easy to judge and think, well, how is that possible
that you could go home, get changed, go to a wedding,
act like everything is normal, having just given birth and
handed over your child to her father. But as you say,
everyone is different, and this was obviously it was important
to Kelly to keep this information private, even from those
(16:19):
closest to her, and so she, in essence did everything
she could to keep Teagan the secret.
Speaker 1 (16:26):
She gets pregnant again, and I feel like I need
to ask this question. Has she spoken to you about
putting things in place to stop herself from getting pregnant
because she keeps having these traumatic experiences of having to
give the baby away or having abortions. Has she talked
to you about that?
Speaker 2 (16:46):
So Kelly was actually on birth control, Clearly it wasn't working,
and she was part of a culture in those northern
beaches at the time that was very heavily focused on drinking,
for example. And I do wonder whether there were elements
of perhaps drinking that maybe led to that birth control
not being as reliable as it could have been. So
perhaps sometimes pill's forgotten. You know, we're talking about young
(17:09):
people probably drinking too much, so she may have been
sick at times, you know, I'm just thinking about Look
at that lifestyle. These people, they're out every Friday Saturday night.
It's part of their culture to drink and to socialize.
And so she was attempting to prevent the pregnancies, but
clearly it wasn't working.
Speaker 1 (17:29):
She has a third baby, a fifth pregnancy, and she
gives birth in nineteen ninety nine, again the same secrecy,
like her first, like her second. What happens to that child?
Speaker 2 (17:42):
So this is where it gets interesting. So this child
also sheururns up a hospital without any support, and again
she gives up this child for adoption through social services.
Now why I say this is interesting because generally people
follow a pattern of behavior and it's the easiest form
of behavior for them, what they find works best. So
(18:04):
this case never worked for me, because you have two
abortions when Kelly caught the pregnancies early enough. Then you
have a third pregnancy where she didn't catch it early enough,
so she made a decision in the babies and her
best interest to adopt, and then the Crown would have
you believe that there was a fourth child that she
allegedly decided instead of leaving at the hospital, instead of
(18:27):
adopting out via social services, she decided instead to kill.
And then the fifth child again goes to find the pregnancy,
but she gives up to adoption. So that's what never
worked for me. Why would somebody who knows there's a
process by which they can legally and ethically provide for
(18:47):
their child, why would they, in the middle of that
decide to kill their child and then revert to plan
A again afterwards and again adopt with the fifth child. This,
criminologically speaking, doesn't work. This doesn't follow any behavior pattern.
I recognize there's no insinuation that at the time of
Teagan's birth, Kelly was suffering from any post traumatic stress
(19:10):
or post natal psychosis for example, that would lead her
to really subverting her behavior that she knew would work.
The plan that she knew would work and go to
such extreme lengths. Why would you do that? You could
just leave the baby in the hospital and walk out.
So behaviorally, it made no sense to me that she
(19:31):
made that decision with Teagan.
Speaker 1 (19:33):
Especially considering the first adoption went according to plan exactly.
Speaker 2 (19:37):
There were no problems with that. People would have you
believe that Kelly was kind of this very cold, hard
person and she didn't struggle through that emotionally, but she
absolutely did. When you speak to her about the loss
that she felt adopting out her children, you know, that
was very raw for Kelly. So this was a very
hard thing for her to do. And so for me
to accept that somebody who suffered through giving up their
(20:00):
child for adoption twice but in the middle has the
capacity to kill a child. I just can't understand that process.
I don't see evidence for that process. So that is
where I kind of came to this. I was like,
there's a problem here. This does not make any kind
of sense.
Speaker 1 (20:23):
You're listening to true crime conversations with me Jemma Bath.
I'm speaking with forensic criminologist doctor Znthey Mallett about the
disappearance of Teagan Lane and the conviction of her mother, Kelly.
Up next, we look at how police got involved in
this story and the supposed evidence that saw her convicted.
(20:47):
How did the police become involved in this because the
third baby is adopted out and then that's when the
police start getting involved.
Speaker 2 (20:55):
What happened, Well, first of all, social services got involved.
So when the adoption of the fifth child occurred, an
individual who's working for social services started looking at Kelly's
history of adoptions and noticed that the hospital records demonstrated
that there was a middle child. So we have adoption one,
then we have Tigan and an option two, and then
(21:16):
they started to look at okay, so we know where
baby one is and obviously we're processing baby three. The
question is where is baby two? Where is Tigan? And
that is where all of this started. And because social
services couldn't locate baby Teagan, eventually this was reported to
police and police started to look at Tegan initially as
(21:37):
a missing person and obviously eventually prosecuted Kelly for murdering
Tigan because they failed to actually locate Teagan.
Speaker 1 (21:47):
It did take quite a while because she gave birth
in nineteen ninety nine and she's brought in for questioning
two thousand and one, So there's a bit of time
in there. Obviously a lot of the time, the justice
system takes a bit of time here, so I'm sure
there was lots going on there. But when she's brought
in for questioning in two thousand and one, she's pregnant
again around seven months and this child she actually keep
(22:10):
pep And I want to bring this up because the
circumstances around this pregnancy, this child that she ends up
becoming a mother to. For her, this was like a
new start, wasn't that she was about to tell her
family that this was her first child.
Speaker 2 (22:26):
Yes, and actually saying there was a lot of things
going on in the background. I'm not even sure there was,
to be honest, because if you look at Kelly's demographic
in terms of there's been a report to police, we
don't know where this child is, so they would have
looked at Kelly and her family. You know, she was
still a sportswoman at this point, but she was also
moving into teaching in schools, and she had a job.
(22:48):
Her life was going well, and she was from a
fairly affluent neighborhood. And this is not the kind of
person who the police will have looked at and thought, hmm,
there's a problem here, you know, has something sinister happened
to this child? Because Kelly just does not fit the
picture of somebody who would intentionally harm or dispose of
a child. So I'm not sure the police were particularly
(23:09):
active in those early days because I don't think they
really thought that Tigan had ever really been at risk,
because she's got this very supportive family who are well
known in the community, and she just doesn't fit the
picture of a woman who would intentionally harm her child.
Speaker 1 (23:26):
How distressed was Kelly during that early questioning time, because
obviously she's being accused of something horrendous, but she was
also terrified about all of the other things kind of
coming out to her world, wasn't.
Speaker 2 (23:41):
She absolutely, And so initially she was being questioned looking
for a missing child, remember, So it wasn't until much
later in the process that they believed Teagan was actually
to see So initially, you know, she was talking to
place almost as that witness handing over the child. She
was trying to be as helpful as possible, but obviously
very concerned that all of these secrets she tried very
(24:02):
hard to keep from her friends and her family were
going to come out as part of this process. You know,
her family, as I've said, are the hypher profile in
the local community, the stand up citizens, you know, police
officer and a nurse and very engaged locally. Everyone knows them,
and she is absolutely terrified that people are going to
find out about all of these secret pregnancies, including her
(24:26):
family remembers. So yeah, she was very, very worried. And
I've heard covert phone calls from slightly later in the
investigation when she knows that they are looking at her
in terms of Tiagan having been killed, and she's talking
to her mother for the first time and at this
point her father doesn't know, and you could tell she
(24:47):
was absolutely terrified about what would happen when all of
this information came out, and it was it was a
really hard call to listen to, actually, because you could
really hear the distress that she was going through. What
was she scared would happen, reputational damage to the family,
Everyone was going to find out that she'd been keeping
all of these dark secrets. And I think the family
(25:09):
were genuinely worried that too. You know, they're standing in
the community, could have been at risk here, especially if
she's being investigated for murder. Remember, and her father's a
police officer. This was going to be extremely challenging for
the entire family.
Speaker 1 (25:24):
Obviously there's big lies like pregnancies and children being born.
But I think one of the other things a lot
of people struggle with other little lives, the lots of
little white lies that she tells amongst everything. She kind
of makes up where her family is from and her
parents are in Perth right now and all that kind
of stuff.
Speaker 2 (25:43):
Yes, so when it came out at trial, she'd made
up yeah, as you say, lots of little white lies
as to why she didn't have any support people present
with her, who was going to be picking her up
leaving the hospital, why there was no one there. There
were lots of white lies, and a lot was made
of that during the case by the Crown, indicating that basically,
(26:03):
if somebody can be demonstrated to be a liar, and
there's no doubt that Kelly led, she would openly admit
that herself there for the world to see. But a
line was drawn between telling lies and being able to
murder a child, and again that's not the same thing.
I challenge any of the listeners to put their hands
on the hearts and say they've never told a lie
(26:24):
to keep something secret that they didn't want people to know.
We all have people lie all the time for many reasons.
And when you're trying to keep a secret as big
as Kelly's secrets in terms of the births of the children,
then I think some of her lies you can understand
why she was telling those to cover her tracks, and
so yes, I would just challenge anyone to judge her
(26:44):
about the lies and consider whether they've ever told lies
to keep their secrets hidden.
Speaker 1 (26:51):
What about the lie or the accidental misnaming of Andrew,
Can you tell us about that, because you alluded to
it a bit before, But what were the two scenarios
where she said Norris and then later she said Morris.
Speaker 2 (27:06):
Well, yeah, she wasn't entirely sure what her surname was.
And I've spoken to her about this. She's got really
clear memories of what he looked like. She dated him
for some time. She could describe the apartment where he lived,
what it looked like, and that apartment is certainly there.
The issue with the names is an interesting one because
you've got to remember that I've looked for other reasons,
(27:27):
things that might explain this. You've got to remember that
this is a married man for a start, and in
that scenario, she's younger than him. Is it possible that
he never even told her his real name? This is
an illicit affair he's trying to keep to himself. So
I always wondered whether his first name probably was Andrew,
because obviously you're going to respond to your name. That's
(27:48):
a harder lie. If you start saying, oh, call me Mark,
my name's Andrew. You're not going to respond to your
name when people call you. So you might keep your
first name, But would you in fact lie about your
second name if you are trying to keep an affair secret?
Speaker 1 (28:01):
But said his wife knew, and if somebody is going
to prison, wouldn't they come forward?
Speaker 2 (28:09):
Well, all these great questions. I'm not sure at what
point mel as Kelly says Andrew told her the name
was of the partner. I don't know what point she
was informed of the pregnancy. So that's obviously something that
we can't confirm. This is all kind of hypothetical out there.
So would you come forward? You would think so, wouldn't you?
(28:31):
Were they fearful that they were involved in something illegal,
with some sort of illegal adoption. I mean, people have
asked me that it's like, well, he would have had
to adopt it. Well, not if he's the biological father.
I don't think people would have thought anything of the
fact that if this situation had been reversed that the
biological father says to the mother, you take full custody,
(28:52):
and everyone starts going, well, you'd had to have adopted her. No,
you wouldn't, you're the biological mother. But because it's the father,
people seem to struggle more with him wanting to take
on that child. And I think that's just a cultural
thing actually, Okay, But so we don't know when mel
actually found out and would you come forward? I mean,
but are you going to have to give that child
at that point? And did they leave the country? Are
(29:14):
there all sorts of other reasons why they may have
heard nothing about this. I mean, you would think that
you'd have to have literally been living under rock to
be in Australia and not know about the Kelly Lane case.
But I talk to people all the time and I
mention these really high profile cases and people go, I'm sorry, who,
and I'm like, where have you been? Like, where were
you during this court case when it was on the
(29:36):
news every single day and it's in back in the
media and back in the media since two thousand and
ten when Kelly was found guilty of murder, and yet
people don't know, they haven't seen it. So did they
not come forward because they didn't want to get involved?
Did they not come forward because they don't even know
what happened? I don't know.
Speaker 1 (29:57):
This is one of those cases that just has so
many questions. Did the crown have an idea? Did they
paint a picture about how Kelly would have or could
have murdered her daughter?
Speaker 2 (30:11):
Well, again, that is a very contested point because Mark Dedeski,
who was the DPP crown prosecutor on this case, very
senior barrister, very accomplished, loved cases that are unwinnable. So
he was also responsible for Catholbigg's conviction. And I will
just leave that sitting there as a very heavy weight YEP.
Basically in front of the jury, Tedesky suggested that Kelly
(30:34):
could have killed Teagan and disposed of her the building
site of the New Olympics, because this is coming up
the two thousand Olympics, and so that was put out
there as a possibility. He was then made to retract
that because there was zero evidence that that was the case,
and so the jury were told to ignore that hypothesis.
And then obviously the jury are told to ignore that.
(30:57):
But the problem is, we know from looking at the
way juries work, if a jury is actually told to
discounter remark that's been made, it actually imprints it on
their brain. It makes it more important in their memory.
Then it was originally so what he had done by
dropping that little bomb in there was give them a
mechanism by which it could have been possible. The fact
(31:20):
that there was no evidence for it didn't really matter
in terms of his case. He'd given that to them,
and so that was something that I believe was heavily influential,
even though the jury were told to discount.
Speaker 1 (31:31):
That's so interesting. I hadn't even thought of that. It's
a criminal procedure that's used in trials. But the jury
a human. You can't just discount something and like take
it out of your brain and put it in the bin.
Speaker 2 (31:44):
Now and imagine somebody goes to you, oh, so you
just heard that. Now, that's so important that I want
you to ignore it. Yeah, that's basically what it said.
It's like that you shouldn't have heard that alarm, alarm,
red flag right now. How do you then just wipe
that from your mind? You can't, so it just kind
of sits there, festering away as a possibility. You can't
(32:07):
suck it back out of the world.
Speaker 1 (32:09):
Was there anything else that struck you about the investigation?
Then there's a coronial inquest and now the trial which
we're talking about, But was there anything else that struck
you about that process and perhaps the things that you
kind of have alarmed Bels about now?
Speaker 2 (32:26):
I think there were certainly avenues and investigation that were
not followed up. Again, I think it took a really
long time for the police to consider that Kelly could
have murdered teaken, so so much of that information that
could have been captured in those early days was lost,
and I think that was very detrimental later on, and
I think that certainly by time we got to trial,
we're definitely in that cultural place where a woman's been
(32:49):
accused of just about the worst thing that the community
can see. That a woman can be accused of harming
their own child, and when you look at that through
the lens of the multiple abortions, the multiple births and adoptions,
I think it was really easy by time they got
to the trial for everybody pretty much to have judged
(33:11):
on the basis of all of that, and then the
lies came out. And this to me was always problematic
because for the first year, as I said, the behavioral issues,
like the behavior pattern didn't work, and so there was
no psychological reason for her to have done this. And
so it can be easy for people to get caught
up in an emotional rollercoaster, and they do when children
(33:32):
are harmed. They are very motive cases, allegedly when children
have been harmed or even murdered. My backgrounds as a
forensic scientist, so I've always been taught to step back
from that and only look at the facts and the
evidence and what does that tell us. And the facts
and evidence here are that there's nobody. Clearly you know,
this is a no body case. It's a very infamous one.
(33:52):
There's no forensic evidence that any crime has ever been committed,
let alone murder. There's no witnesses to any crime. All
of Kelly's friends said when they've seen her were children.
She's great with kids. I mean, she went on to
be a teacher. Kids loved her right, and even after
the police were investigating her, she's still babysitting for her friends.
So none of her friends have any kind of concerns
(34:14):
of any kind of issues with children. And there's no motive.
And so when you look at all of that strip
back that emotion that comes with somebody who is allegedly
harmed a child. No witness, no evidence, nobody, no motive.
So what is there. There's a missing child that was
the basis on which he was found guilty. We don't
know what happened to Teagan. I've never seen a case
(34:34):
like it.
Speaker 1 (34:36):
I know I'm part of the media, But is the
media to blame? Does the media need to take something
away from this, because this isn't a story that was
a tiny little insert in the paper, This was water
or coverage.
Speaker 2 (34:48):
I'm not sure that media is strictly to blame, because
I think the community is also choosing to consume certain
types of media, right, So I think it's easy to
blame the media and say, oh, we're all taken up
by the way media presents a story. And certainly there's
an element of that, the media outlets have a choice
to make about what they're putting on the coverage they're
giving it. I mean, I'm making zero commentary about this case,
(35:11):
but look at what is happening with the defamation case
of Limen currently, you know, ongoing what a mess, right,
But the media, certain media outlets are choosing to present
that in different ways depending on their perspectives and competition
across the networks. Right. So, certainly the media has an agenda,
there's no denying that with a story, but there's also
(35:33):
we have a choice of what we listen to, what
we watch. We can be thoughtful human beings and not
just accept everything that is presented to us by the
media blindly. So we are still adults who can still
process information and make objective choices.
Speaker 1 (35:51):
I do want to give people the benefit of the doubt, though, because,
like you said, with the jury being forced to forget
about a certain point, when certain headlines say someone is
a psycho, mum or they use phrases that kind of
stick in your head. And with Kelly, it would have
about jumping on all those white lies and putting her
(36:13):
up as a liar and all those kinds of language tools.
It does kind of sink into people's brains.
Speaker 2 (36:20):
I think she was painted as cold more than crazy.
This was a cold, cold hearted woman who could have abortions,
she could give up for adoptions, and this was obviously
having no impact on her emotionally. Well, that isn't the
Kelly that I met. It isn't. But that's the point,
isn't it. There's stories that are on the television. They
don't really reflect the real person necessarily, and their viewers
and the listeners don't get to meet that person. And Kelly,
(36:44):
under advisement, didn't give evidence in her defense. And obviously
everyone has the right to remain silent and not speaking
their defense, and that was obviously what her defense counsel
thought was best for her. And that's quite common because
if you give a statement in court, you can then
be cross examined and that can open up a whole
can of worms. So many people don't speak in their defense.
(37:05):
Some people would think that that is suspicious, Well, why
wouldn't they defend themselves? But it's often the best course
of action for accused persons. They will take their counsel's advice. Obviously,
that's what the council is there for However, I think
if Kelly had spoken in court, she's very intelligent, she's
very articulate, she would have expressed I think, more emotion
(37:26):
then she did walking in and out of court. And
you remember the images of her crossing that press gallery
every day, just trying to hold it together.
Speaker 1 (37:34):
Right, You're right. She looked cold because we didn't hear
from her.
Speaker 2 (37:38):
It looked cold because we didn't hear her voice. And
I think had she spoken, I think that was a
big mistake by the defense, actually, that she didn't have
her voice. And I think now whenever Kelly is released,
she's still incarcerated at this time, then she will still
maintain her innocence, She will still fight to have her
(37:58):
name cleared, and she wants to have her voice, because
she gave up that opportunity during the trial under advisement,
and now I think she thinks that that was a mistake.
Speaker 1 (38:20):
By the time Kelly was convicted, she was found guilty
of murdering Tagan in twenty eleven, she was given eighteen
years with a non parole of thirteen years. Were you
surprised when that result came through?
Speaker 2 (38:33):
So, I think looking back at how Anthony Wheley who
was the judge in that case actually passed down that sentence.
I think he's always had concerns about the reliability. I
don't think he ever felt that the conclusion was reached
beyond reason, no doubt, but he's obviously bound by the
jury's decision, and I think he took into account all
of those mitigating factors at sentencing. So eighteen years is
(38:57):
basically the minimum he could give her eighteen years maximum
term with the thirteen and a half years minimum where
she would be eligible for parole. And so we are
talking about a murder charge. There are sentencing guidelines and
whilst judges do have discretion within that to look at
both exacerbating features for sentencing and mitigating so things that
(39:18):
would make the sentence at the lower end or the
higher end, depending on the particular circumstances of that crime.
I think he gave her the minimum terms that he could.
Speaker 1 (39:31):
At what point did you meet her, because we've ascertained
that you have a relationship with her. How did that
come about?
Speaker 2 (39:38):
So when one book came out, I'd raise concerns about
this case for all the reasons I've mentioned. You know, nobody,
no witness, no evidence, no motive, and Kelly contacted me
and asked if I would be willing to speak with her,
and I said yes, and so I visited her in
silver Water a number of times, and I did a
piece of sixty minutes a few years ago with Ali langdon.
Speaker 1 (39:58):
Do you think the woman you've met is capable of killing?
Speaker 2 (40:02):
You know, I've met a lot of different people in
a lot of circumstances as a forensic criminologist, and I'm
not a naive person. I'm pretty skeptical, and no, I
don't think she could not intentionally. I don't think she
would intentionally harm a baby, met her parents, and I
know her partner, so I would say my relationship is
(40:22):
very much professional. However, I am not an advocate for Kelly.
I simply speak what I think to be the facts
of the case. I raise issues around what I think
are some of the problems. Whether I think Kelly is
quote innocent or not isn't the point. And I've never
publicly commented on that because I think my position is
(40:43):
one of an objective observer of facts. And so if
I start saying, well I think she did it or
I think she didn't do it, that isn't really relevant
to my point. My point is, is there evidence beyond
a reasonal doubt that Teagan Lane has been murdered by
Kelly Lane? And the answer is no.
Speaker 1 (41:01):
You've said you've visited her a few times. What do
you guys talk about? Are you talking about her appeals
and when she's going to get out, if she's going
to get out, all of that kind of stuff, all.
Speaker 2 (41:11):
Of that, trying to look at more options for potentially
finding Tigan, finding potentially more Andrew Norris Morris's who haven't
been previously identified. I visited Kelly with one of her
representatives from r MIT's Innocence Initiative DOTOR. Michelle Reuter's runs
that and she's worked with Kelly for many years now
(41:33):
trying to progress her case. She's still very heavily involved
with that. So yeah, we talk about all of that,
getting a better likeness of Andrew Norris, for example, what
are the options, where's the information how to progress the case?
So yes, we talk about all of that, and she's
always very consistent in her story. I don't get the
sense that I've necessarily heard the truth of all of it.
(41:55):
I think Kelly is still very secretive. However, she is
very sure of parts of the story of what happened,
and I believe she is telling her truth, even though
I don't believe it's necessarily the entire truth. But again,
you know, this is a woman's life who has been
raped over since twenty ten and she was found guilty.
(42:18):
So is she still keeping secrets? Yes, I think she is.
But is she entitled to keep secrets given her whole
family life and all of these things she desperately wanted
to keep hidden us splashed all over the media. Well, yeah,
I think she is. So if she's not telling me everything,
then what obligation does she have to do?
Speaker 1 (42:35):
So how's she doing in prison?
Speaker 2 (42:38):
So it's very difficult for her at the moment because
I'm sure we'll get to this. But her parole was
recently refused a couple of weeks ago, and so her
period of parole is up in May, and so she
would have served her thirteen and a half years. She's
been on day release, and so we were expectant that
she would be released after thirteen and a half a
(43:00):
minimum term, because she's basically been the model in mate.
You know, she's worked with others on diet and exercise, regime.
She's really done everything she can to improve the lives
of her fellow females she's been incarcerated with, and she
hasn't done that. I don't think for brownie points, she
could have just sat through her thirteen and a half
years and just not caused any trouble and you know,
(43:21):
therefore met her minimum parole period. But Kelly is somebody
who ultimately likes helping people and working with people. She's
a very people centric person. She's got great social skills,
communication skills, and so I think she's generally done things
whilst being inside that have helped her and that have
helped other people to get through that time. But now
(43:42):
her parole has ultimately been rejected, I think it's going
to be a very difficult time for her because it
was rejected on the grounds that she was eligible because
she's not disclosed the location of Tigan's remains or body,
and she's fallen under the new nobody no parole laws
that were brought in, and so I think that is
(44:03):
going to be particularly a huge psychological and emotional blow
for Kelly and her family and supporters because these laws
are new, and had they not been in place, you
know when she'd met the minimum parole period. I have
no doubt she would have been released in May.
Speaker 1 (44:20):
Let's touch on those laws because the reason most people
will have heard of them was because of the Chris
Dawson case. They came in at that time when he
was being sentenced, because Lynnett Dawson's body was never found.
What are your concerns with those laws? They are so fresh,
we're just seeing them being used now.
Speaker 2 (44:38):
Yeah, they are very fresh. And as you say, they
were brought in really in the way Chris Dawson because
changes were made to the legislation to suggest that. And
I can't remember the exact wording, but it basically says
that if an offender is to be eligible for parole,
they have to have basically satisfied the authorities that they've
done everything they can to assist them with the location
(44:59):
of the victim's body or remains. If they don't do that,
they are ineligible for parole. And so this is really
to incentivize people to obviously disclose the victim him's location.
And so with Chris Dawson, he's been found guilty of
murdering his wife, Lannette, forty odd years ago and so
it was brought in, to my mind, almost as a
(45:21):
knee ject reaction to cases, high profile cases of that nature.
And so the issue with this is if somebody cannot
disclose the location of remains. Kelly has always maintained her innocence.
Your note. If you cannot therefore disclose where the victims
remains or body is because there is no remains, you
(45:42):
know you generally don't have that information, you get caught
up in this. And there's no evidence that these laws
actually do incentivize people. Certainly not going to impact Chris Dawson.
He is an elderly man who's received a very significant
term for murder, so he's never going to be eligible
for parole. Unless something really unusual happens to appeal that
(46:02):
I'm not expecting. Then Chris Dawson is going to die
in prison. And so the reasons these laws were brought
in not going to impact the people that they were
brought actually in to effect, and so I think Kelly's
been caught up in that. And my bigger issue with
this is that these laws are brought in to help
the families, right, So in Chris Dawson's case, it's to
(46:25):
help Lynette's family. Lynette's family is still desperate to know
where she is. They want them at home, they want
to bury her or do whatever rights suits their family.
And families really suffer with that when they don't have
remains to give those rights too. And so the law
has been brought in to help those families. But in
Kelly's case, Teagan is Kelly's daughter, So obviously Kelly's family
(46:49):
remains very supportive of Kelly, supportive of her innocence. And
so who is it serving to keep her in prison
under these nobody no parole laws? Is it in fact
serving the family of the missing child Teagan? No, because
it's the same family. So you're almost punishing that family
again by not releasing Tiagan, who believe Kelly is not
(47:14):
guilty of murder. And so I think these laws are
highly problematic. I think they're far too blunt. The language
is far too strong in that you can't blindly apply
these things in all scenarios. There will always be times
when you need wiggle room, but the law as it stands,
the legislation provides no wiggle room. There's nowhere to go
(47:34):
with it. So, unfortunately, when the hearing outcome was announced.
I knew that it was going to be a negative
because the proboard had nowhere to go.
Speaker 1 (47:44):
Do these laws change as we see how they work?
Is that how these processes go?
Speaker 2 (47:50):
Yeah, they do. I mean we've seen these kind of
changes as a result of the Chris Dawson case. And
my problem I suppose when we start changing laws in
reaction to one case, it can be quite politicized, and
so this seems kind of the right thing to do,
but often we don't acknowledge there will be other outcomes
that we're not predicting. It will get other people get
caught up in it, not seeing this legislation was never
(48:12):
changed to impact Kelly's case. So I think that it's
the first really high profile one that has got caught up,
and there's only a handful in New South Wales they
are ever going to fall under this, and so I
just think that it needs review. We need to look
at the wording of that. Sometimes it may be appropriate
that these nobody no parole laws are brought in in
(48:34):
other circumstances. I think that we need some maneuverability around
this because I just think that we know miscarriages of
justice occur, right Kathleen Folbick is now post a child
from miscarriages of justice. Many people believe for a very
long time she'd murdered her for children. I bet if
you did a poll, some people would still believe that
(48:56):
she killed those children, because there are some diehards out
there who will not accept the science no matter what
it says. And so we know there's no denying miscarriages happen.
If Kelly's a mischaracter of justice, I believe she is
because I don't think the evidence exist. And so for
her to get caught up in this after spending so
long incarcerated away from her daughter, you know, she's a mother.
(49:19):
She needs to get home to her daughter, and I
just think that these laws are preventing that, and I
think that's a real shame. I think the other point
about nobody no parole is parole is not meant to
be a punitive factor. Okay, So when Anthony Wheley set
down that full term of eighteen years a minimum term
of thirteen and a half years, he took all of
(49:40):
the mitigating factors and everything else into account when he sentenced.
Right now, you have to remember he always had his
doubts over whether she was guilty or not. But in
his sentencing guidelines, if somebody hasn't quote shown remorse because
they haven't disclosed where their victim's body is, that is
one of the circumstances which is called an aggravating factor. Okay,
(50:01):
so he's considered all of that in his sentencing. So
now you look forward and Kelly's done her minimum term,
and now the law says, well, if you now don't
jump through this other hoop, you still don't get parole.
Even though the fact that you hadn't disclosed the remains
was considered it sentencing. You've already been punished for that
in your length of sentence. We're now going to keep
(50:23):
you inside even longer to further punish you. Now, parole
is actually there so that when somebody is released on parole,
it's meant to help reintegrate them into the community, because
we all want people to come out of prison, which
is a very hard thing to do, to become a
pro social member of society, to fit back in, to
lead a positive life going forward, and parole is there
(50:46):
to help monitor people and assist them to do that. Right,
So it's not literally a get out of jail free card.
It's a period of transition, it is not a further punishment.
But now with no parole laws, it's like, well, we
already consider that it's sentencing, but we haven't got what
we want, so we're going to punish you more by
keeping you in prison longer. And that is not the
(51:08):
purpose of parole and I think it's an aberration of
that process.
Speaker 1 (51:12):
So what do you think her future honestly looks like?
Do you think she's just going to have to serve
another five.
Speaker 2 (51:18):
Years, another four and a half years. Yeah, because unless
she can disclose Tegan's whereabouts to the satisfaction of New
South Wales Police, then they write a letter to the
prole board saying she has satisfied this condition, she's done
everything she can to disclose the victim's location. Then the
prole board can't do anything. So they will keep having
(51:39):
their hearings, you know, they still go through process, but
the outcome, sadly, will be the same unless something legally
weird happens. And I've spoken to lots of colleagues at work.
I'm fortunate in the University of Newcastle work in a
school that's criminology and lawyers, so we've had many discussions
about this, and we know we looked at it coming
up to the parole hearing and they were saying, there's
(52:00):
no way around this. So whilst things stay the same
as they are, while that legislation is worded the way
it is, then my understanding from my law colleague is
that she will remain in prison until she has completed
her full sentence.
Speaker 1 (52:15):
You've written a lot about mothers who murder. We've spoken
about Kathleen Folbig, the fact that she got out we
haven't touched on. But Lindy Chamberlain was also a miscarriage
of justice.
Speaker 2 (52:26):
Absolutely, she was the first post.
Speaker 1 (52:27):
She was the first post child. Do you think it's
women that get caught up in this? Why is it
so different when dads kill? When mums kill? There seems
to be a much more visceral reaction from society.
Speaker 2 (52:40):
Absolutely. The whole reason I started writing the book was
I came across Catholbigg's case and some of the expert
commentary that had come out of the UK that was
still influential in that case, and the whole trigger for
the book was that. But then I went back and
I found the case of Lindy Chamberlain and Honestly, I
could not believe we were still having these conversations about
you know, these cold hearted women. They were all painted
(53:02):
in the same way. You know, they were emotionless, they
were cold. And I remember thinking when I looked at
some videos of both Lindy and kath and Kelly actually
going into court that if I had been accused of
something serious, I would have acted exactly the same, Like
there wouldn't be any tears on the outside. It would
be like stone. That's how I would handle my emotions right,
(53:24):
And think it's easy to judge what's going on on
the outside, but that has no reflection of what's happening
on the inside at all. Like people would often think that,
you know, I'm very calm doing something and it could
be all like going crazy on the inside, but you
would never know on the outside. And I think that
when a woman looks cold and together, it can be
really easy to judge her because we're the nurturers, right,
(53:46):
we all love children, not me. I don't have any
very happy to letveryone else do that. And so, but
there's certain expectations on you as a female to behave
in a certain way, and when you break that tradition,
that social expectation, and it's often women that respond really
viscerally to this. There's almost no punishment that is too serious,
you know, hang or and quarter these women. But when
(54:09):
men do it is almost like, well, men can be violent,
we expect that. What do women do to protect themselves
from male violence? Because you know, males just can't help themselves, right, yeah, right.
But when a woman does it, it's like, oh, well, she's
obviously evil, you know, and they just they paint this
picture almost like this witch. And I just think that
we're still doing it. I mean when some women ask me, oh,
do you have children? I say no, and they go oh,
(54:31):
I go no, no, no, no, it's actually fine. It's a choice.
And then they go, h like what is wrong with you?
That's the other face I get when you say you
don't want them, because it's like this this automatic where
you should love children. Men don't do that. I think
mostly it's women projecting this onto other women that if
you're not a nurturer, there's something wrong with you. And
(54:51):
I think we have to break down that narrative because
I think all three of these women were prosecuted under
that fallacy Lindy, kath and Kelly and probably many others.
Speaker 1 (55:05):
Thanks to Zanthy for helping us tell Kelly's story. Xanthe
recently did an episod about this case on her podcast
Motive and Method. If you'd like to hear that, you
can find it linked in our show notes. True Crime
Conversations is a Muma mea podcast hosted and produced by
me Jemma Bass and Sandy McIntyre, with audio design by
(55:26):
Scott Stronik. Our executive producer is Geomoulin. If you enjoyed
this episode, let us know you can leave a review
on your favorite podcast app and it helps us make
it into the charts so that other true crime fans
can find our work. Thanks so much for listening. I'll
be back next week with another true Crime Conversation. Next
(55:57):
week on the podcast, I'll be joined by former crime
prosecutor Margaret Kneen, sc who will share her insights on
leading the prosecution of the notorious two thousand scaff gang rapes,
as well as her experiences handling numerous high profile cases
throughout her career, first as a prosecutor and now as
a criminal defense barrister. In the meantime, if you're looking
(56:18):
for more to listen to. At the end of last year,
I had a compelling conversation with journalist Richard Baker about
one of Australia's longest running colts, the Geelong Revival Center,
and the chilling accounts from ex members. You'll find a
link to that episode in our show notes. If you
missed it, Thanks so much for listening. I'll be back
in your ears next week.
You're listening to a MoMA Mea podcast. Mama Mea acknowledges
the traditional owners of land and waders. This podcast was
recorded on Hi. I'm Jemma Bath, host of True Crime Conversations,
and this is the final episode of our Hot Pod
summer series. Last year, we talked to criminologist Zanthe Mallett
about the case of Kelly Lane, who was convicted of
(00:33):
murdering her newborn daughter in nineteen ninety six. Kelly was
sentenced to thirteen years and five months in prison in
twenty eleven, but in March last year, her parole was
denied because of the nobody no parole laws introduced in
twenty twenty two. Since Kelly's daughter, Teagan, has never been found,
the parole board ruled that she should stay in prison
(00:56):
simply based on those laws. Kelly has always maintained her
innocence and her case is drawn comparisons to the wrongful
conviction of Lindy Chamberlain. So is she guilty or has
she been wrongfully convicted? And would she be released? Have
a listen to the episode and let us know what
you think about this ongoing case. It's September nineteen ninety
(01:23):
six and Kelly Lane is at a wedding in Manly,
on Sydney's Northern Beaches with her boyfriend's duncan. She's wearing
a white suit and she's smiling. She looks relaxed, happy
and in the moment, celebrating her friend's special day. Just
a few hours earlier, she'd been discharged from hospital after
(01:44):
having her second baby, a little girl called Teagan. But
no one knew, not her boyfriend, not her parents, not
her friends. They didn't even know she was pregnant. They
didn't know she'd had a baby the year before too,
who she gave up for adoption, But this time there's
(02:05):
no official adoption. According to Kelly, gave Teagan to her
father to raise before heading to the wedding, a man
named Andrew Norris or Morris. She's not quite sure who
she had a brief affair with, But Andrew has never
been found, neither has baby Teagan. It wasn't until Kelly
(02:29):
had a third child, another secret pregnancy, and another baby
she gave up for adoption that a docks worker started
digging he could account for her first child? But where
was Teagan?
Speaker 2 (02:42):
Did you kill child?
Speaker 1 (02:43):
No? I didn't, not I did not do anything like
that someone else. No, No, A jury decided otherwise, But
did they get it wrong. Kelly Lane's story has been
compared to the wrongful conviction of Lindy Chamberlain. It's been
pulled apart and analyzed for years. So is she a
(03:07):
baby killer or is she a woman misunderstood? I'm Jimmy
Bath and this is True Crime Conversations a Muma mea
podcast exploring the world's most notorious crimes by speaking to
(03:28):
the people who know the most about them. Kelly Lane
maintains her innocence. In twenty eighteen, she reached out to
Australian journalist Karen Meldrum Hannah, begging her to dig into
her case and her story for the ABC to reveal
what she says is the truth.
Speaker 2 (03:46):
I could sit here Caro and do my time. I'm
halfway through, but no way.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
I'm happy for you to go to the end.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
End. I want you to go to the end. Okay,
forward to it.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
An investigation into Teagan's disappearance began in early two thousand
and one, more than four years after Kelly gave birth
to her. In two thousand and five, an inquest was
held Coroner concluded that Tegan was most likely dead, referring
the case to the Unsolved Homicide Squad. In November two
(04:19):
thousand and nine, Kelly Lane was charged with murder, with
her trial getting underway the following year. She was found guilty,
sentenced to eighteen years behind bars with a minimum parole
period of thirteen years. That date, May twenty twenty four
is fast approaching, but the new South Wales State Parole
Authority has already knocked back her bid for release because
(04:42):
of the no body, no Parole laws that we introduced
only a couple of years ago. Kelly has served time
in some of the state's toughest prisons. She's forty eight now.
She has a teenage daughter waiting for her on the outside,
her fourth baby. Today's guest criminologist, doctor Zanthey Mallett, has
(05:02):
been in contact with Kelly personally for many years. She
knows this case and this story back to front and
she has a lot to say about it. Zanthi joins us. Now, Zathi,
tell us a little bit about your expertise and what
(05:25):
you do for a living.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
I am an associate professor of criminology. So what that
in essence means is I spend a lot of my
day working with students, teaching them the basics of criminology.
I also spend my day doing research, and one of
my areas of expertise is looking at mothers accused of
murdering their children, which is actually how I originally came
across the case of Kelly Lane and cath Folbig and
(05:48):
many other high profile cases in Australia. And I do
a lot of media work as well, engaging with the
media different interest topics, things that come up, big cases,
helping to explain those to the public. So I have
a few different hats that I wear depending on what
day it is.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
And you've waited on the Kelly Lane story quite a
bit in recent years. Is it a case that you
still think think a bit often?
Speaker 2 (06:12):
It certainly is. So I came across the case of
Kelly Lane back in twenty thirteen when I first started
writing about mothers who Murder in Australia. So I started
writing a book which came out in twenty fourteen of
that title Mother's Who Murder and Infamous Miscarriages of Justice.
And so in my book in twenty fourteen, I actually
(06:32):
raised issues of doubt that I had with Kelly's case,
and since that time, Kelly got in touch with me,
and I've been a number of times to see her
since she's been incarcerated, and I've basically followed the case,
pray closely, and raised my concerns over the years. And
sometimes that was an extremely unpopular thing to do, given
she's well known as kind of a baby killer's same
(06:54):
as cath Folbig, and so I have been using my
I guess, public profile and background in forensics and criminology
to just lay some groundwork into how we look at
these cases and why I have concerns about the reliability
of the convictions, specific in Kelly's case.
Speaker 1 (07:13):
Let's tell Kelly's story before we get to the conviction
and everything that's happened since. Kelly's story starts by the
beach in Manley, the Insular Peninsula as it's infamously called.
What was her early.
Speaker 2 (07:27):
Life like, Kelly's early life was very privileged. She was
part of this very elite group. It was a perfect
lifestyle in essence. You know, she was hanging out at
the beach all day. She was very much into water sports.
She was hanging out with all the popular kids and
her family were very embedded in the community. Her father
was a police officer, her mother was a nurse, and
(07:48):
they spent a lot of time engaged with like kids,
sports and supporting the family. So they were a very
close knit family and also very embedded in the community.
From the outside, this appears to be a pretty idyllic lifestyle,
and certainly Kelly excelled at sports. She was a very
good water polo player, and so this is something that
was part of her lifestyle from a very very early
(08:10):
age and she certainly went on to compete at a
high level in terms of her sporting ability, and that's
something that her family were very supportive of.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
Did she have a close relationship with her parents growing.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
Up, Well, that's a really interesting question because when we
get to the background of what happened with Teagan Lane,
who's the child that ultimately vanished and led to Kelly's
conviction for murder. If you look at the family history,
it's quite an unusual one in that Kelly had a
number of pregnancies before Tigan. She had a couple of abortions,
(08:44):
and then she had one child that was adopted out
before Tegan, and then Tiegan, who she claims she gave
to the biological father. I'm sure we'll get to that,
and then there was another child after that she adopted out.
And so when all of this came out in court,
what was interesting was that the family claimed to know
nothing about all of these pregnancies, and so I always
(09:05):
thought that was quite an interesting family dynamic. And with
respect to the family and Kelly, I don't kind of
want to dig in to that too much because that's
private to them, but I always thought that it was
interesting that if they'd been a close knit family, it
just surprised me that nobody was aware of these multiple pregnancies.
And that's not a conversation that was had in that house,
you know, because this was obviously a young woman that
was going through pretty traumatic events repeatedly, and that's something
(09:29):
that you would expect from most families to have noticed
and potentially offer some support with. So how close they
were is difficult to actually ascertain. Certainly from the outside,
they appeared to be a very supportive, loving family who were,
in essence, pillars of the community.
Speaker 1 (09:47):
Let's delve into that timeline you've laid out a bit more. So,
Kelly felt pregnant for the first time in nineteen ninety two,
she was only seventeen years old, and she had an abortion.
She then fell pregnant again two years later, and again
she terminated that pregnancy a bit further on in the pregnancy,
about halfway. Did she tell anyone about those experiences if
(10:09):
she wasn't talking to her family, was she talking to anyone?
Speaker 2 (10:12):
Well, again, that's quite interesting. She was obviously playing water
polo at this time. She had you would think, quite
close friends on those water polo teams. Yet again, this
doesn't seem to have been a topic of conversation. There
was some gossips certainly around it. Other girls seemed to
have recognized that she was pregnant because obviously she's in
a swimsuit all the time, But even her coach doesn't
(10:33):
seem to have raised this with her. So I'm not
sure what support or whom she was talking to at
that time about this, but certainly, and I hope she
did have support through these abortions, because I know that
they were certainly traumatic for her. This is not something
she took lightly at all, But it's difficult to actually
see evidence of that in terms of the people that
(10:54):
she was nearest to and spending the most time with
when she was in those late teenage years going into
her twenties.
Speaker 1 (11:02):
Her third pregnancy in nineteen ninety five, she's still so young,
she's only nineteen. She gives birth to that child, so
she goes full term, she gives birth to a healthy baby,
and again no one seems to say anything know that
she's pregnant. This is all fresh in my mind because
I gave birth last year and everyone could tell I
(11:26):
was pregnant. How on earth did no one know or
say anything.
Speaker 2 (11:31):
Look, I cannot answer that question. I do not know.
I don't know how your family wouldn't know. I don't
know how you can go full term and people around
you not know about that, not mention that, not saying
anything about that. I mean, her mum was attending training
sessions at the pool. How do you not notice your
daughter is full term pregnant. Her boyfriend at the time,
(11:53):
long term boyfriend, didn't know that she was pregnant and
had given birth. I can't get my head around that.
I mean, you hear it occasionally, don't know that a
woman didn't know she was pregnant and suddenly gives birth
and it's all a big surprise. But for this to
happen multiple times. It seems a very strange scenario when
everybody claims no knowledge of these babies, and yet somebody
(12:18):
surely must have noticed some changes in Kelly that would
have signified that she was pregnant. It's totally out there
to think that nobody knew anything.
Speaker 1 (12:28):
What were the circumstances around her giving birth to that
first baby? Did she do that alone? And what happened
to the child?
Speaker 2 (12:35):
So she gave birth to the first child in hospital
and it was in essence immediately given up for adoption.
So this was a decision that was made before Obviously
she went in she'd already decided although she went full term.
My understanding is that it was too late to actually
have bought in that case. She found that she was
pregnant too late. Therefore took it to full term and
(12:56):
so the next bext option for her. At that time,
she didn't feel she was able to give that child
the life she would want to, so she elected to
give that child up for adoption, and.
Speaker 1 (13:06):
She was in the birth suite by herself, no support.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
Yeah. Correct, this is a young woman going through all
of this alone. I mean, my heart goes out to
her I know that people have judged Kelly over the
years for having multiple abortions and multiple adoptions, but you know,
this is so hard, so hard emotionally for anybody to
go through. I can't imagine having to go through it
multiple times on your own.
Speaker 1 (13:32):
Her fourth pregnancy is baby Teagan, which is the reason
we're all here. Correct, born in September nineteen ninety six.
What do we know about that? Pregnancy and birth? Once
again completely secret.
Speaker 2 (13:45):
Completely secret. Nobody knew again the boyfriend didn't know now.
Teagan is, according to Kelly, the result of an affair
with an older man called Andrew Norris or Morris, and
Kelly's unsure of the surname, so we'll just call him
Andrew for simplicity's sake. He was a married man and
they began an affair. She visited in as apartment in Sydney, etc.
(14:07):
She fell pregnant again. It was mindstanding that it was
too late bought, so she went full term. And Andrew
had a partner called mel This was Kelly's understanding from
what he'd said, and it was decided between the biological
parents that Kelly wasn't in a position to raise the child,
so she would give Teagan to Andrew and his partner Mel.
She was on board with this and that they would
(14:29):
then raise the child as their own. And so Kelly
went into hospital again on her own gave birth to
Tigan after two days in hospital in Sydney. This is
Kelly's version events. She met Andrew and Mel in the
reception downstairs in the hospital where she handed over Tegan,
and then she got a taxi home where she got
(14:50):
changed and went out to a wedding later. And again
nobody in her family or her boyfriend knew anything about
the fact that she'd just given birth. She just went
out and carried on as normal. And so that is
according to Kelly, the last time she saw Teagan was
when she handed her over to her biological father in
(15:10):
the hospital as a two day old.
Speaker 1 (15:13):
And I think it's details like what you just said,
the fact that she left hospital and a few hours
later went to a wedding that people struggle with. What
do you say to that, because everyone has their own
kind of way of living. Most of us after giving
birth can't imagine going to a wedding and wearing white.
(15:33):
But you know, you can't judge another's experience.
Speaker 2 (15:37):
Right exactly and Kelly also one of the children she
gave birth to and then played water polo almost immediately after.
So you know, Kelly is quite a stoic, strong woman.
This is something she obviously wanted to keep to herself
for her own reasons. And again I respect that. You know,
nobody has to disclose these type of events if they
(15:57):
don't want to. It's their private life. And so it's
easy to judge and think, well, how is that possible
that you could go home, get changed, go to a wedding,
act like everything is normal, having just given birth and
handed over your child to her father. But as you say,
everyone is different, and this was obviously it was important
to Kelly to keep this information private, even from those
(16:19):
closest to her, and so she, in essence did everything
she could to keep Teagan the secret.
Speaker 1 (16:26):
She gets pregnant again, and I feel like I need
to ask this question. Has she spoken to you about
putting things in place to stop herself from getting pregnant
because she keeps having these traumatic experiences of having to
give the baby away or having abortions. Has she talked
to you about that?
Speaker 2 (16:46):
So Kelly was actually on birth control, Clearly it wasn't working,
and she was part of a culture in those northern
beaches at the time that was very heavily focused on drinking,
for example. And I do wonder whether there were elements
of perhaps drinking that maybe led to that birth control
not being as reliable as it could have been. So
perhaps sometimes pill's forgotten. You know, we're talking about young
(17:09):
people probably drinking too much, so she may have been
sick at times, you know, I'm just thinking about Look
at that lifestyle. These people, they're out every Friday Saturday night.
It's part of their culture to drink and to socialize.
And so she was attempting to prevent the pregnancies, but
clearly it wasn't working.
Speaker 1 (17:29):
She has a third baby, a fifth pregnancy, and she
gives birth in nineteen ninety nine, again the same secrecy,
like her first, like her second. What happens to that child?
Speaker 2 (17:42):
So this is where it gets interesting. So this child
also sheururns up a hospital without any support, and again
she gives up this child for adoption through social services.
Now why I say this is interesting because generally people
follow a pattern of behavior and it's the easiest form
of behavior for them, what they find works best. So
(18:04):
this case never worked for me, because you have two
abortions when Kelly caught the pregnancies early enough. Then you
have a third pregnancy where she didn't catch it early enough,
so she made a decision in the babies and her
best interest to adopt, and then the Crown would have
you believe that there was a fourth child that she
allegedly decided instead of leaving at the hospital, instead of
(18:27):
adopting out via social services, she decided instead to kill.
And then the fifth child again goes to find the pregnancy,
but she gives up to adoption. So that's what never
worked for me. Why would somebody who knows there's a
process by which they can legally and ethically provide for
(18:47):
their child, why would they, in the middle of that
decide to kill their child and then revert to plan
A again afterwards and again adopt with the fifth child. This,
criminologically speaking, doesn't work. This doesn't follow any behavior pattern.
I recognize there's no insinuation that at the time of
Teagan's birth, Kelly was suffering from any post traumatic stress
(19:10):
or post natal psychosis for example, that would lead her
to really subverting her behavior that she knew would work.
The plan that she knew would work and go to
such extreme lengths. Why would you do that? You could
just leave the baby in the hospital and walk out.
So behaviorally, it made no sense to me that she
(19:31):
made that decision with Teagan.
Speaker 1 (19:33):
Especially considering the first adoption went according to plan exactly.
Speaker 2 (19:37):
There were no problems with that. People would have you
believe that Kelly was kind of this very cold, hard
person and she didn't struggle through that emotionally, but she
absolutely did. When you speak to her about the loss
that she felt adopting out her children, you know, that
was very raw for Kelly. So this was a very
hard thing for her to do. And so for me
to accept that somebody who suffered through giving up their
(20:00):
child for adoption twice but in the middle has the
capacity to kill a child. I just can't understand that process.
I don't see evidence for that process. So that is
where I kind of came to this. I was like,
there's a problem here. This does not make any kind
of sense.
Speaker 1 (20:23):
You're listening to true crime conversations with me Jemma Bath.
I'm speaking with forensic criminologist doctor Znthey Mallett about the
disappearance of Teagan Lane and the conviction of her mother, Kelly.
Up next, we look at how police got involved in
this story and the supposed evidence that saw her convicted.
(20:47):
How did the police become involved in this because the
third baby is adopted out and then that's when the
police start getting involved.
Speaker 2 (20:55):
What happened, Well, first of all, social services got involved.
So when the adoption of the fifth child occurred, an
individual who's working for social services started looking at Kelly's
history of adoptions and noticed that the hospital records demonstrated
that there was a middle child. So we have adoption one,
then we have Tigan and an option two, and then
(21:16):
they started to look at okay, so we know where
baby one is and obviously we're processing baby three. The
question is where is baby two? Where is Tigan? And
that is where all of this started. And because social
services couldn't locate baby Teagan, eventually this was reported to
police and police started to look at Tegan initially as
(21:37):
a missing person and obviously eventually prosecuted Kelly for murdering
Tigan because they failed to actually locate Teagan.
Speaker 1 (21:47):
It did take quite a while because she gave birth
in nineteen ninety nine and she's brought in for questioning
two thousand and one, So there's a bit of time
in there. Obviously a lot of the time, the justice
system takes a bit of time here, so I'm sure
there was lots going on there. But when she's brought
in for questioning in two thousand and one, she's pregnant
again around seven months and this child she actually keep
(22:10):
pep And I want to bring this up because the
circumstances around this pregnancy, this child that she ends up
becoming a mother to. For her, this was like a
new start, wasn't that she was about to tell her
family that this was her first child.
Speaker 2 (22:26):
Yes, and actually saying there was a lot of things
going on in the background. I'm not even sure there was,
to be honest, because if you look at Kelly's demographic
in terms of there's been a report to police, we
don't know where this child is, so they would have
looked at Kelly and her family. You know, she was
still a sportswoman at this point, but she was also
moving into teaching in schools, and she had a job.
(22:48):
Her life was going well, and she was from a
fairly affluent neighborhood. And this is not the kind of
person who the police will have looked at and thought, hmm,
there's a problem here, you know, has something sinister happened
to this child? Because Kelly just does not fit the
picture of somebody who would intentionally harm or dispose of
a child. So I'm not sure the police were particularly
(23:09):
active in those early days because I don't think they
really thought that Tigan had ever really been at risk,
because she's got this very supportive family who are well
known in the community, and she just doesn't fit the
picture of a woman who would intentionally harm her child.
Speaker 1 (23:26):
How distressed was Kelly during that early questioning time, because
obviously she's being accused of something horrendous, but she was
also terrified about all of the other things kind of
coming out to her world, wasn't.
Speaker 2 (23:41):
She absolutely, And so initially she was being questioned looking
for a missing child, remember, So it wasn't until much
later in the process that they believed Teagan was actually
to see So initially, you know, she was talking to
place almost as that witness handing over the child. She
was trying to be as helpful as possible, but obviously
very concerned that all of these secrets she tried very
(24:02):
hard to keep from her friends and her family were
going to come out as part of this process. You know,
her family, as I've said, are the hypher profile in
the local community, the stand up citizens, you know, police
officer and a nurse and very engaged locally. Everyone knows them,
and she is absolutely terrified that people are going to
find out about all of these secret pregnancies, including her
(24:26):
family remembers. So yeah, she was very, very worried. And
I've heard covert phone calls from slightly later in the
investigation when she knows that they are looking at her
in terms of Tiagan having been killed, and she's talking
to her mother for the first time and at this
point her father doesn't know, and you could tell she
(24:47):
was absolutely terrified about what would happen when all of
this information came out, and it was it was a
really hard call to listen to, actually, because you could
really hear the distress that she was going through. What
was she scared would happen, reputational damage to the family,
Everyone was going to find out that she'd been keeping
all of these dark secrets. And I think the family
(25:09):
were genuinely worried that too. You know, they're standing in
the community, could have been at risk here, especially if
she's being investigated for murder. Remember, and her father's a
police officer. This was going to be extremely challenging for
the entire family.
Speaker 1 (25:24):
Obviously there's big lies like pregnancies and children being born.
But I think one of the other things a lot
of people struggle with other little lives, the lots of
little white lies that she tells amongst everything. She kind
of makes up where her family is from and her
parents are in Perth right now and all that kind
of stuff.
Speaker 2 (25:43):
Yes, so when it came out at trial, she'd made
up yeah, as you say, lots of little white lies
as to why she didn't have any support people present
with her, who was going to be picking her up
leaving the hospital, why there was no one there. There
were lots of white lies, and a lot was made
of that during the case by the Crown, indicating that basically,
(26:03):
if somebody can be demonstrated to be a liar, and
there's no doubt that Kelly led, she would openly admit
that herself there for the world to see. But a
line was drawn between telling lies and being able to
murder a child, and again that's not the same thing.
I challenge any of the listeners to put their hands
on the hearts and say they've never told a lie
(26:24):
to keep something secret that they didn't want people to know.
We all have people lie all the time for many reasons.
And when you're trying to keep a secret as big
as Kelly's secrets in terms of the births of the children,
then I think some of her lies you can understand
why she was telling those to cover her tracks, and
so yes, I would just challenge anyone to judge her
(26:44):
about the lies and consider whether they've ever told lies
to keep their secrets hidden.
Speaker 1 (26:51):
What about the lie or the accidental misnaming of Andrew,
Can you tell us about that, because you alluded to
it a bit before, But what were the two scenarios
where she said Norris and then later she said Morris.
Speaker 2 (27:06):
Well, yeah, she wasn't entirely sure what her surname was.
And I've spoken to her about this. She's got really
clear memories of what he looked like. She dated him
for some time. She could describe the apartment where he lived,
what it looked like, and that apartment is certainly there.
The issue with the names is an interesting one because
you've got to remember that I've looked for other reasons,
(27:27):
things that might explain this. You've got to remember that
this is a married man for a start, and in
that scenario, she's younger than him. Is it possible that
he never even told her his real name? This is
an illicit affair he's trying to keep to himself. So
I always wondered whether his first name probably was Andrew,
because obviously you're going to respond to your name. That's
(27:48):
a harder lie. If you start saying, oh, call me Mark,
my name's Andrew. You're not going to respond to your
name when people call you. So you might keep your
first name, But would you in fact lie about your
second name if you are trying to keep an affair secret?
Speaker 1 (28:01):
But said his wife knew, and if somebody is going
to prison, wouldn't they come forward?
Speaker 2 (28:09):
Well, all these great questions. I'm not sure at what
point mel as Kelly says Andrew told her the name
was of the partner. I don't know what point she
was informed of the pregnancy. So that's obviously something that
we can't confirm. This is all kind of hypothetical out there.
So would you come forward? You would think so, wouldn't you?
(28:31):
Were they fearful that they were involved in something illegal,
with some sort of illegal adoption. I mean, people have
asked me that it's like, well, he would have had
to adopt it. Well, not if he's the biological father.
I don't think people would have thought anything of the
fact that if this situation had been reversed that the
biological father says to the mother, you take full custody,
(28:52):
and everyone starts going, well, you'd had to have adopted her. No,
you wouldn't, you're the biological mother. But because it's the father,
people seem to struggle more with him wanting to take
on that child. And I think that's just a cultural
thing actually, Okay, But so we don't know when mel
actually found out and would you come forward? I mean,
but are you going to have to give that child
at that point? And did they leave the country? Are
(29:14):
there all sorts of other reasons why they may have
heard nothing about this. I mean, you would think that
you'd have to have literally been living under rock to
be in Australia and not know about the Kelly Lane case.
But I talk to people all the time and I
mention these really high profile cases and people go, I'm sorry, who,
and I'm like, where have you been? Like, where were
you during this court case when it was on the
(29:36):
news every single day and it's in back in the
media and back in the media since two thousand and
ten when Kelly was found guilty of murder, and yet
people don't know, they haven't seen it. So did they
not come forward because they didn't want to get involved?
Did they not come forward because they don't even know
what happened? I don't know.
Speaker 1 (29:57):
This is one of those cases that just has so
many questions. Did the crown have an idea? Did they
paint a picture about how Kelly would have or could
have murdered her daughter?
Speaker 2 (30:11):
Well, again, that is a very contested point because Mark Dedeski,
who was the DPP crown prosecutor on this case, very
senior barrister, very accomplished, loved cases that are unwinnable. So
he was also responsible for Catholbigg's conviction. And I will
just leave that sitting there as a very heavy weight YEP.
Basically in front of the jury, Tedesky suggested that Kelly
(30:34):
could have killed Teagan and disposed of her the building
site of the New Olympics, because this is coming up
the two thousand Olympics, and so that was put out
there as a possibility. He was then made to retract
that because there was zero evidence that that was the case,
and so the jury were told to ignore that hypothesis.
And then obviously the jury are told to ignore that.
(30:57):
But the problem is, we know from looking at the
way juries work, if a jury is actually told to
discounter remark that's been made, it actually imprints it on
their brain. It makes it more important in their memory.
Then it was originally so what he had done by
dropping that little bomb in there was give them a
mechanism by which it could have been possible. The fact
(31:20):
that there was no evidence for it didn't really matter
in terms of his case. He'd given that to them,
and so that was something that I believe was heavily influential,
even though the jury were told to discount.
Speaker 1 (31:31):
That's so interesting. I hadn't even thought of that. It's
a criminal procedure that's used in trials. But the jury
a human. You can't just discount something and like take
it out of your brain and put it in the bin.
Speaker 2 (31:44):
Now and imagine somebody goes to you, oh, so you
just heard that. Now, that's so important that I want
you to ignore it. Yeah, that's basically what it said.
It's like that you shouldn't have heard that alarm, alarm,
red flag right now. How do you then just wipe
that from your mind? You can't, so it just kind
of sits there, festering away as a possibility. You can't
(32:07):
suck it back out of the world.
Speaker 1 (32:09):
Was there anything else that struck you about the investigation?
Then there's a coronial inquest and now the trial which
we're talking about, But was there anything else that struck
you about that process and perhaps the things that you
kind of have alarmed Bels about now?
Speaker 2 (32:26):
I think there were certainly avenues and investigation that were
not followed up. Again, I think it took a really
long time for the police to consider that Kelly could
have murdered teaken, so so much of that information that
could have been captured in those early days was lost,
and I think that was very detrimental later on, and
I think that certainly by time we got to trial,
we're definitely in that cultural place where a woman's been
(32:49):
accused of just about the worst thing that the community
can see. That a woman can be accused of harming
their own child, and when you look at that through
the lens of the multiple abortions, the multiple births and adoptions,
I think it was really easy by time they got
to the trial for everybody pretty much to have judged
(33:11):
on the basis of all of that, and then the
lies came out. And this to me was always problematic
because for the first year, as I said, the behavioral issues,
like the behavior pattern didn't work, and so there was
no psychological reason for her to have done this. And
so it can be easy for people to get caught
up in an emotional rollercoaster, and they do when children
(33:32):
are harmed. They are very motive cases, allegedly when children
have been harmed or even murdered. My backgrounds as a
forensic scientist, so I've always been taught to step back
from that and only look at the facts and the
evidence and what does that tell us. And the facts
and evidence here are that there's nobody. Clearly you know,
this is a no body case. It's a very infamous one.
(33:52):
There's no forensic evidence that any crime has ever been committed,
let alone murder. There's no witnesses to any crime. All
of Kelly's friends said when they've seen her were children.
She's great with kids. I mean, she went on to
be a teacher. Kids loved her right, and even after
the police were investigating her, she's still babysitting for her friends.
So none of her friends have any kind of concerns
(34:14):
of any kind of issues with children. And there's no motive.
And so when you look at all of that strip
back that emotion that comes with somebody who is allegedly
harmed a child. No witness, no evidence, nobody, no motive.
So what is there. There's a missing child that was
the basis on which he was found guilty. We don't
know what happened to Teagan. I've never seen a case
(34:34):
like it.
Speaker 1 (34:36):
I know I'm part of the media, But is the
media to blame? Does the media need to take something
away from this, because this isn't a story that was
a tiny little insert in the paper, This was water
or coverage.
Speaker 2 (34:48):
I'm not sure that media is strictly to blame, because
I think the community is also choosing to consume certain
types of media, right, So I think it's easy to
blame the media and say, oh, we're all taken up
by the way media presents a story. And certainly there's
an element of that, the media outlets have a choice
to make about what they're putting on the coverage they're
giving it. I mean, I'm making zero commentary about this case,
(35:11):
but look at what is happening with the defamation case
of Limen currently, you know, ongoing what a mess, right,
But the media, certain media outlets are choosing to present
that in different ways depending on their perspectives and competition
across the networks. Right. So, certainly the media has an agenda,
there's no denying that with a story, but there's also
(35:33):
we have a choice of what we listen to, what
we watch. We can be thoughtful human beings and not
just accept everything that is presented to us by the
media blindly. So we are still adults who can still
process information and make objective choices.
Speaker 1 (35:51):
I do want to give people the benefit of the doubt, though, because,
like you said, with the jury being forced to forget
about a certain point, when certain headlines say someone is
a psycho, mum or they use phrases that kind of
stick in your head. And with Kelly, it would have
about jumping on all those white lies and putting her
(36:13):
up as a liar and all those kinds of language tools.
It does kind of sink into people's brains.
Speaker 2 (36:20):
I think she was painted as cold more than crazy.
This was a cold, cold hearted woman who could have abortions,
she could give up for adoptions, and this was obviously
having no impact on her emotionally. Well, that isn't the
Kelly that I met. It isn't. But that's the point,
isn't it. There's stories that are on the television. They
don't really reflect the real person necessarily, and their viewers
and the listeners don't get to meet that person. And Kelly,
(36:44):
under advisement, didn't give evidence in her defense. And obviously
everyone has the right to remain silent and not speaking
their defense, and that was obviously what her defense counsel
thought was best for her. And that's quite common because
if you give a statement in court, you can then
be cross examined and that can open up a whole
can of worms. So many people don't speak in their defense.
(37:05):
Some people would think that that is suspicious, Well, why
wouldn't they defend themselves? But it's often the best course
of action for accused persons. They will take their counsel's advice. Obviously,
that's what the council is there for However, I think
if Kelly had spoken in court, she's very intelligent, she's
very articulate, she would have expressed I think, more emotion
(37:26):
then she did walking in and out of court. And
you remember the images of her crossing that press gallery
every day, just trying to hold it together.
Speaker 1 (37:34):
Right, You're right. She looked cold because we didn't hear
from her.
Speaker 2 (37:38):
It looked cold because we didn't hear her voice. And
I think had she spoken, I think that was a
big mistake by the defense, actually, that she didn't have
her voice. And I think now whenever Kelly is released,
she's still incarcerated at this time, then she will still
maintain her innocence, She will still fight to have her
(37:58):
name cleared, and she wants to have her voice, because
she gave up that opportunity during the trial under advisement,
and now I think she thinks that that was a mistake.
Speaker 1 (38:20):
By the time Kelly was convicted, she was found guilty
of murdering Tagan in twenty eleven, she was given eighteen
years with a non parole of thirteen years. Were you
surprised when that result came through?
Speaker 2 (38:33):
So, I think looking back at how Anthony Wheley who
was the judge in that case actually passed down that sentence.
I think he's always had concerns about the reliability. I
don't think he ever felt that the conclusion was reached
beyond reason, no doubt, but he's obviously bound by the
jury's decision, and I think he took into account all
of those mitigating factors at sentencing. So eighteen years is
(38:57):
basically the minimum he could give her eighteen years maximum
term with the thirteen and a half years minimum where
she would be eligible for parole. And so we are
talking about a murder charge. There are sentencing guidelines and
whilst judges do have discretion within that to look at
both exacerbating features for sentencing and mitigating so things that
(39:18):
would make the sentence at the lower end or the
higher end, depending on the particular circumstances of that crime.
I think he gave her the minimum terms that he could.
Speaker 1 (39:31):
At what point did you meet her, because we've ascertained
that you have a relationship with her. How did that
come about?
Speaker 2 (39:38):
So when one book came out, I'd raise concerns about
this case for all the reasons I've mentioned. You know, nobody,
no witness, no evidence, no motive, and Kelly contacted me
and asked if I would be willing to speak with her,
and I said yes, and so I visited her in
silver Water a number of times, and I did a
piece of sixty minutes a few years ago with Ali langdon.
Speaker 1 (39:58):
Do you think the woman you've met is capable of killing?
Speaker 2 (40:02):
You know, I've met a lot of different people in
a lot of circumstances as a forensic criminologist, and I'm
not a naive person. I'm pretty skeptical, and no, I
don't think she could not intentionally. I don't think she
would intentionally harm a baby, met her parents, and I
know her partner, so I would say my relationship is
(40:22):
very much professional. However, I am not an advocate for Kelly.
I simply speak what I think to be the facts
of the case. I raise issues around what I think
are some of the problems. Whether I think Kelly is
quote innocent or not isn't the point. And I've never
publicly commented on that because I think my position is
(40:43):
one of an objective observer of facts. And so if
I start saying, well I think she did it or
I think she didn't do it, that isn't really relevant
to my point. My point is, is there evidence beyond
a reasonal doubt that Teagan Lane has been murdered by
Kelly Lane? And the answer is no.
Speaker 1 (41:01):
You've said you've visited her a few times. What do
you guys talk about? Are you talking about her appeals
and when she's going to get out, if she's going
to get out, all of that kind of stuff, all.
Speaker 2 (41:11):
Of that, trying to look at more options for potentially
finding Tigan, finding potentially more Andrew Norris Morris's who haven't
been previously identified. I visited Kelly with one of her
representatives from r MIT's Innocence Initiative DOTOR. Michelle Reuter's runs
that and she's worked with Kelly for many years now
(41:33):
trying to progress her case. She's still very heavily involved
with that. So yeah, we talk about all of that,
getting a better likeness of Andrew Norris, for example, what
are the options, where's the information how to progress the case?
So yes, we talk about all of that, and she's
always very consistent in her story. I don't get the
sense that I've necessarily heard the truth of all of it.
(41:55):
I think Kelly is still very secretive. However, she is
very sure of parts of the story of what happened,
and I believe she is telling her truth, even though
I don't believe it's necessarily the entire truth. But again,
you know, this is a woman's life who has been
raped over since twenty ten and she was found guilty.
(42:18):
So is she still keeping secrets? Yes, I think she is.
But is she entitled to keep secrets given her whole
family life and all of these things she desperately wanted
to keep hidden us splashed all over the media. Well, yeah,
I think she is. So if she's not telling me everything,
then what obligation does she have to do?
Speaker 1 (42:35):
So how's she doing in prison?
Speaker 2 (42:38):
So it's very difficult for her at the moment because
I'm sure we'll get to this. But her parole was
recently refused a couple of weeks ago, and so her
period of parole is up in May, and so she
would have served her thirteen and a half years. She's
been on day release, and so we were expectant that
she would be released after thirteen and a half a
(43:00):
minimum term, because she's basically been the model in mate.
You know, she's worked with others on diet and exercise, regime.
She's really done everything she can to improve the lives
of her fellow females she's been incarcerated with, and she
hasn't done that. I don't think for brownie points, she
could have just sat through her thirteen and a half
years and just not caused any trouble and you know,
(43:21):
therefore met her minimum parole period. But Kelly is somebody
who ultimately likes helping people and working with people. She's
a very people centric person. She's got great social skills,
communication skills, and so I think she's generally done things
whilst being inside that have helped her and that have
helped other people to get through that time. But now
(43:42):
her parole has ultimately been rejected, I think it's going
to be a very difficult time for her because it
was rejected on the grounds that she was eligible because
she's not disclosed the location of Tigan's remains or body,
and she's fallen under the new nobody no parole laws
that were brought in, and so I think that is
(44:03):
going to be particularly a huge psychological and emotional blow
for Kelly and her family and supporters because these laws
are new, and had they not been in place, you
know when she'd met the minimum parole period. I have
no doubt she would have been released in May.
Speaker 1 (44:20):
Let's touch on those laws because the reason most people
will have heard of them was because of the Chris
Dawson case. They came in at that time when he
was being sentenced, because Lynnett Dawson's body was never found.
What are your concerns with those laws? They are so fresh,
we're just seeing them being used now.
Speaker 2 (44:38):
Yeah, they are very fresh. And as you say, they
were brought in really in the way Chris Dawson because
changes were made to the legislation to suggest that. And
I can't remember the exact wording, but it basically says
that if an offender is to be eligible for parole,
they have to have basically satisfied the authorities that they've
done everything they can to assist them with the location
(44:59):
of the victim's body or remains. If they don't do that,
they are ineligible for parole. And so this is really
to incentivize people to obviously disclose the victim him's location.
And so with Chris Dawson, he's been found guilty of
murdering his wife, Lannette, forty odd years ago and so
it was brought in, to my mind, almost as a
(45:21):
knee ject reaction to cases, high profile cases of that nature.
And so the issue with this is if somebody cannot
disclose the location of remains. Kelly has always maintained her innocence.
Your note. If you cannot therefore disclose where the victims
remains or body is because there is no remains, you
(45:42):
know you generally don't have that information, you get caught
up in this. And there's no evidence that these laws
actually do incentivize people. Certainly not going to impact Chris Dawson.
He is an elderly man who's received a very significant
term for murder, so he's never going to be eligible
for parole. Unless something really unusual happens to appeal that
(46:02):
I'm not expecting. Then Chris Dawson is going to die
in prison. And so the reasons these laws were brought
in not going to impact the people that they were
brought actually in to effect, and so I think Kelly's
been caught up in that. And my bigger issue with
this is that these laws are brought in to help
the families, right, So in Chris Dawson's case, it's to
(46:25):
help Lynette's family. Lynette's family is still desperate to know
where she is. They want them at home, they want
to bury her or do whatever rights suits their family.
And families really suffer with that when they don't have
remains to give those rights too. And so the law
has been brought in to help those families. But in
Kelly's case, Teagan is Kelly's daughter, So obviously Kelly's family
(46:49):
remains very supportive of Kelly, supportive of her innocence. And
so who is it serving to keep her in prison
under these nobody no parole laws? Is it in fact
serving the family of the missing child Teagan? No, because
it's the same family. So you're almost punishing that family
again by not releasing Tiagan, who believe Kelly is not
(47:14):
guilty of murder. And so I think these laws are
highly problematic. I think they're far too blunt. The language
is far too strong in that you can't blindly apply
these things in all scenarios. There will always be times
when you need wiggle room, but the law as it stands,
the legislation provides no wiggle room. There's nowhere to go
(47:34):
with it. So, unfortunately, when the hearing outcome was announced.
I knew that it was going to be a negative
because the proboard had nowhere to go.
Speaker 1 (47:44):
Do these laws change as we see how they work?
Is that how these processes go?
Speaker 2 (47:50):
Yeah, they do. I mean we've seen these kind of
changes as a result of the Chris Dawson case. And
my problem I suppose when we start changing laws in
reaction to one case, it can be quite politicized, and
so this seems kind of the right thing to do,
but often we don't acknowledge there will be other outcomes
that we're not predicting. It will get other people get
caught up in it, not seeing this legislation was never
(48:12):
changed to impact Kelly's case. So I think that it's
the first really high profile one that has got caught up,
and there's only a handful in New South Wales they
are ever going to fall under this, and so I
just think that it needs review. We need to look
at the wording of that. Sometimes it may be appropriate
that these nobody no parole laws are brought in in
(48:34):
other circumstances. I think that we need some maneuverability around
this because I just think that we know miscarriages of
justice occur, right Kathleen Folbick is now post a child
from miscarriages of justice. Many people believe for a very
long time she'd murdered her for children. I bet if
you did a poll, some people would still believe that
(48:56):
she killed those children, because there are some diehards out
there who will not accept the science no matter what
it says. And so we know there's no denying miscarriages happen.
If Kelly's a mischaracter of justice, I believe she is
because I don't think the evidence exist. And so for
her to get caught up in this after spending so
long incarcerated away from her daughter, you know, she's a mother.
(49:19):
She needs to get home to her daughter, and I
just think that these laws are preventing that, and I
think that's a real shame. I think the other point
about nobody no parole is parole is not meant to
be a punitive factor. Okay, So when Anthony Wheley set
down that full term of eighteen years a minimum term
of thirteen and a half years, he took all of
(49:40):
the mitigating factors and everything else into account when he sentenced.
Right now, you have to remember he always had his
doubts over whether she was guilty or not. But in
his sentencing guidelines, if somebody hasn't quote shown remorse because
they haven't disclosed where their victim's body is, that is
one of the circumstances which is called an aggravating factor. Okay,
(50:01):
so he's considered all of that in his sentencing. So
now you look forward and Kelly's done her minimum term,
and now the law says, well, if you now don't
jump through this other hoop, you still don't get parole.
Even though the fact that you hadn't disclosed the remains
was considered it sentencing. You've already been punished for that
in your length of sentence. We're now going to keep
(50:23):
you inside even longer to further punish you. Now, parole
is actually there so that when somebody is released on parole,
it's meant to help reintegrate them into the community, because
we all want people to come out of prison, which
is a very hard thing to do, to become a
pro social member of society, to fit back in, to
lead a positive life going forward, and parole is there
(50:46):
to help monitor people and assist them to do that. Right,
So it's not literally a get out of jail free card.
It's a period of transition, it is not a further punishment.
But now with no parole laws, it's like, well, we
already consider that it's sentencing, but we haven't got what
we want, so we're going to punish you more by
keeping you in prison longer. And that is not the
(51:08):
purpose of parole and I think it's an aberration of
that process.
Speaker 1 (51:12):
So what do you think her future honestly looks like?
Do you think she's just going to have to serve
another five.
Speaker 2 (51:18):
Years, another four and a half years. Yeah, because unless
she can disclose Tegan's whereabouts to the satisfaction of New
South Wales Police, then they write a letter to the
prole board saying she has satisfied this condition, she's done
everything she can to disclose the victim's location. Then the
prole board can't do anything. So they will keep having
(51:39):
their hearings, you know, they still go through process, but
the outcome, sadly, will be the same unless something legally
weird happens. And I've spoken to lots of colleagues at work.
I'm fortunate in the University of Newcastle work in a
school that's criminology and lawyers, so we've had many discussions
about this, and we know we looked at it coming
up to the parole hearing and they were saying, there's
(52:00):
no way around this. So whilst things stay the same
as they are, while that legislation is worded the way
it is, then my understanding from my law colleague is
that she will remain in prison until she has completed
her full sentence.
Speaker 1 (52:15):
You've written a lot about mothers who murder. We've spoken
about Kathleen Folbig, the fact that she got out we
haven't touched on. But Lindy Chamberlain was also a miscarriage
of justice.
Speaker 2 (52:26):
Absolutely, she was the first post.
Speaker 1 (52:27):
She was the first post child. Do you think it's
women that get caught up in this? Why is it
so different when dads kill? When mums kill? There seems
to be a much more visceral reaction from society.
Speaker 2 (52:40):
Absolutely. The whole reason I started writing the book was
I came across Catholbigg's case and some of the expert
commentary that had come out of the UK that was
still influential in that case, and the whole trigger for
the book was that. But then I went back and
I found the case of Lindy Chamberlain and Honestly, I
could not believe we were still having these conversations about
you know, these cold hearted women. They were all painted
(53:02):
in the same way. You know, they were emotionless, they
were cold. And I remember thinking when I looked at
some videos of both Lindy and kath and Kelly actually
going into court that if I had been accused of
something serious, I would have acted exactly the same, Like
there wouldn't be any tears on the outside. It would
be like stone. That's how I would handle my emotions right,
(53:24):
And think it's easy to judge what's going on on
the outside, but that has no reflection of what's happening
on the inside at all. Like people would often think that,
you know, I'm very calm doing something and it could
be all like going crazy on the inside, but you
would never know on the outside. And I think that
when a woman looks cold and together, it can be
really easy to judge her because we're the nurturers, right,
(53:46):
we all love children, not me. I don't have any
very happy to letveryone else do that. And so, but
there's certain expectations on you as a female to behave
in a certain way, and when you break that tradition,
that social expectation, and it's often women that respond really
viscerally to this. There's almost no punishment that is too serious,
you know, hang or and quarter these women. But when
(54:09):
men do it is almost like, well, men can be violent,
we expect that. What do women do to protect themselves
from male violence? Because you know, males just can't help themselves, right, yeah, right.
But when a woman does it, it's like, oh, well, she's
obviously evil, you know, and they just they paint this
picture almost like this witch. And I just think that
we're still doing it. I mean when some women ask me, oh,
do you have children? I say no, and they go oh,
(54:31):
I go no, no, no, no, it's actually fine. It's a choice.
And then they go, h like what is wrong with you?
That's the other face I get when you say you
don't want them, because it's like this this automatic where
you should love children. Men don't do that. I think
mostly it's women projecting this onto other women that if
you're not a nurturer, there's something wrong with you. And
(54:51):
I think we have to break down that narrative because
I think all three of these women were prosecuted under
that fallacy Lindy, kath and Kelly and probably many others.
Speaker 1 (55:05):
Thanks to Zanthy for helping us tell Kelly's story. Xanthe
recently did an episod about this case on her podcast
Motive and Method. If you'd like to hear that, you
can find it linked in our show notes. True Crime
Conversations is a Muma mea podcast hosted and produced by
me Jemma Bass and Sandy McIntyre, with audio design by
(55:26):
Scott Stronik. Our executive producer is Geomoulin. If you enjoyed
this episode, let us know you can leave a review
on your favorite podcast app and it helps us make
it into the charts so that other true crime fans
can find our work. Thanks so much for listening. I'll
be back next week with another true Crime Conversation. Next
(55:57):
week on the podcast, I'll be joined by former crime
prosecutor Margaret Kneen, sc who will share her insights on
leading the prosecution of the notorious two thousand scaff gang rapes,
as well as her experiences handling numerous high profile cases
throughout her career, first as a prosecutor and now as
a criminal defense barrister. In the meantime, if you're looking
(56:18):
for more to listen to. At the end of last year,
I had a compelling conversation with journalist Richard Baker about
one of Australia's longest running colts, the Geelong Revival Center,
and the chilling accounts from ex members. You'll find a
link to that episode in our show notes. If you
missed it, Thanks so much for listening. I'll be back
in your ears next week.
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