According To A Criminologist, Keli Lane Shouldn’t Be In Prison.

Published Jan 10, 2025, 6:30 PM

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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Guest: Xanthe Mallett

You can listen to her podcast Motive And Method here.

Host: Gemma Bath

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Mamamia acknowledges the Traditional Owners of the Land we have recorded this podcast on, the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation. We pay our respects to their Elders past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures.

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 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 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 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 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 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 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?

Did you kill child?

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 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 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.

I could sit here Caro and do my time. I'm halfway through, but no way.

I'm happy for you to go to the end.

End. I want you to go to the end. Okay, forward to it.

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 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 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 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 you do for a living.

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 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.

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?

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 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 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.

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.

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 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 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.

Did she have a close relationship with her parents growing.

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, 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 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 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.

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 she wasn't talking to her family, was she talking to anyone?

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 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 she was nearest to and spending the most time with when she was in those late teenage years going into her twenties.

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 was pregnant. How on earth did no one know or say anything.

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, 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 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.

What were the circumstances around her giving birth to that first baby? Did she do that alone? And what happened to the child?

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 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.

She was in the birth suite by herself, no support.

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.

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.

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. 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 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 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 the hospital as a two day old.

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. But you know, you can't judge another's experience.

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 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 closest to her, and so she, in essence did everything she could to keep Teagan the secret.

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?

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 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.

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?

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 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 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 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 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 made that decision with Teagan.

Especially considering the first adoption went according to plan exactly.

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 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.

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. 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.

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 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 a missing person and obviously eventually prosecuted Kelly for murdering Tigan because they failed to actually locate Teagan.

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 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.

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. 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 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.

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.

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 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 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 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 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.

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.

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, 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 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 about the lies and consider whether they've ever told lies to keep their secrets hidden.

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.

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, 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 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?

But said his wife knew, and if somebody is going to prison, wouldn't they come forward?

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? 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, 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 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 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.

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?

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 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. 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 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.

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.

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 suck it back out of the world.

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?

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 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 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 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. 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 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 like it.

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.

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, 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 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.

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 up as a liar and all those kinds of language tools. It does kind of sink into people's brains.

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, 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. 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 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.

Right, You're right. She looked cold because we didn't hear from her.

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 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.

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?

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 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 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.

At what point did you meet her, because we've ascertained that you have a relationship with her. How did that come about?

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.

Do you think the woman you've met is capable of killing?

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 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 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.

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.

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 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. 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. 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?

So how's she doing in prison?

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 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, 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 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 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.

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.

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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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.

Do these laws change as we see how they work? Is that how these processes go?

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 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 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 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. 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 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, 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 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 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 purpose of parole and I think it's an aberration of that process.

So what do you think her future honestly looks like? Do you think she's just going to have to serve another five.

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 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 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.

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.

Absolutely, she was the first post.

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.

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 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, 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, 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 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, 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 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.

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 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 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 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.