Keli Lane Biography, Family, Age, Case, Sentencing, 60 Minutes and Documentary

Keli Lane Biography

Keli Lane , is a former Australian water polo player, born 21 March 1975. She was convicted of the 1996 murder of her newborn baby Tegan, and three counts of lying under oath. Currently she is serving an 18-year prison sentence and will be eligible for parole on 12 May 2023, after serving a period of 13 years and five months in custody. Her lawyers on 18 April 2011, lodged an appeal against her conviction at the same time as a Sydney taxi driver alleged he saw Lane dispose of the child. Her final application for appeal in August 2014 was rejected by the High Court .

Keli Lane Family

Lane was born in Manly, Australia to Sandra, a water polo team manager, and Robert Lane, a well known surfer, rugby player and retired police officer. She went to Mackellar Girls High School in Manly and later enrolled in an arts degree at the University of Newcastle and then went on to study at the Australian College of Physical Education while working part-time at Ravenswood School for Girls as a physical education teacher. She was in a relationship with rugby league player, Duncan Gillies between 1994 and 1998. Lane, an elite water polo player at national and international level, was a member of the silver-medal winning Australian Junior Women’s team at the 1995 World Championships in Quebec, Canada. It was Lane’s ambition to represent Australia in water polo at the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games.

Keli Lane Case

On 12 September 1996, Lane, aged 21, gave birth to Tegan Lee Lane at Auburn Hospital. Two days after giving birth to the child, Lane and Gillies attended a friend’s wedding and there was no sign of the baby. In 1999, Lane gave birth to another child , after being refused an abortion in Queensland. she later decided to put the child up for adoption. Lane told a social worker that this was her first child and that Gillies was the father, however Gillies denied the claims. The social worker, placed the baby in temporary foster care, due to her concern for the health of the child.

The Department of Community Services , prior to finding a permanent home for this child, made further investigations that led to finding that the child born in 1999 was in fact not her first child and that she had given birth in 1996 to Tegan Lane at Auburn Hospital. After further investigations were done it was discovered that Lane had given birth on two prior occasions, on both occasions during her four-year relationship with Gillies. Gillies however claimed he was completely unaware of the pregnancies. In October 1999, when she was confronted with these allegations , she denied the existence of the two earlier children. She later claimed that the middle child,Tegan, lives with a family in Perth. Worried about the situation, the DOCS social worker alerted the local police who began investigations in late 1999.

In February 2001, after some initial tardiness, Lane who by now had given birth to a fourth child, was interviewed by police. Lane, during the police interview, claimed that she had given the child to the her father, a man called Andrew Morris, with whom she claimed to have had a brief affair. Later in May 2003 she was interviewed by police again and this time she claimed the man’s name was Andrew Norris and that she handed over the baby in Auburn Hospital carpark.

Lane claimed that she was forced to hide her pregnancies because of her fear of the reaction of her parents and friends. Lane said several times she felt alone when she became pregnant and “I had no other choice.” In 2005, manly police referred the matter to the New South Wales Coroner .

The public hearings of the disappearance of Tegan Lee Lane case began in June 2005 and ran until February 2006. The inquest was presided over by John Abernethy QC, and heard that police had undertaken an extensive search for the child, including attempting to match DNA samples. After the hearing the Coroner declared that he was almost convinced that Tegan Lane is in fact deceased and that he was disturbed that baby Tegan had met with foul play, although he also stated that there still existed a possibility that she was alive somewhere. The Coroner recommended that the case evidence and transcript of the coronial inquiry be forwarded to the New South Wales Homicide Squad for assessment and if necessary further investigation.


Keli Lane Photo

The police investigators,decided not to charge Lane, assessing that they had no conclusive evidence nor any physical evidence pointing to baby Tegan’s death,however, they referred the matter to the NSW Director of Public Prosecutions , Nicholas Cowdery. On 17 November 2009,in what the National Times described as “an unusual step”,the DPP charged Lane with the murder of Tegan Lee Lane. She however pleaded not guilty, and the matter went to trial by jury.

The matter presided over by Justice Anthony Whealy; with Mark Tedeschi, QC as the Crown Prosecutor and Keith Chapple, SC defending Lane under instruction from Legal Aid, was heard in the Supreme Court from 9 August 2010. The Prosecutor alleged that Lane fell pregnant five times over seven years in the 1990s, terminating the first two pregnancies, placing two babies up for adoption, and allegedly murdering her baby, Tegan, on 14 September 1996. It was further stated that Lane concealed her pregnancies from her family and friends in order to protect her personal image and reputation.

The evidence presented at the trial was similar to that presented at the inquest four years earlier. The only major differences were the police searches that occurred during the investigations and the discovery that Lane had left Auburn Hospital not at 2 pm on the day Tegan disappeared, but several hours earlier. He went on to present evidence that showed that, as a motive for murder, Lane was prepared to abandon her children at birth to increase her chances of representing Australia in water polo at the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games. He also stated that she believed children would interfere with her educational plans, her social life, and the regard in which she was held by parents and friends. He also alleged that her friends’ wedding on 14 September may have been a crucial factor, as Lane sought a permanent solution to a potential problem to hide evidence of the pregnancy and birth from family and friends.

Clashes over points of evidence occurred between the Crown and the presiding Judge at various stages during the trial. At the heart of the Crown’s appeal was that Lane’s lies – those concerning Andrew Morris, Andrew Norris, and the story that she gave Tegan to a “Perth couple” – were indicative of Lane’s guilt. Justice Whealy had instructed the jury that Lane’s lies did not equate to guilt, whereas the Crown claimed otherwise. The Crown won its case in the Appeal Court and, in summing up, Crown Prosecutor Tedeschi suggested to the jury that the three lies were evidence of consciousness of guilt.

Her defence team rested on the lack of evidence about how or where Tegan might have been killed. The team claimed that even if Lane had killed Tegan, the Crown could not prove she had done so deliberately or with the intention to kill. Chapple called on Justice Whealy to direct the jury to find Lane not guilty of murder in the absence of evidence. After hearing from the Crown Prosecution about similar cases involving circumstantial evidence and considering the matter for a day, Justice Whealy rejected the defence application. He announced that Lane would not be giving evidence; and that there would be no defence witnesses at all.

The trial lasted four months and, on 13 December 2010, after deliberating for a week, the jury found Lane guilty of lying under oath in relation to documents dealing with her adopting out two other babies. The jury was however not able to come to a unanimous verdict on the murder charge. Under advicement of Justice Whealy, the jury was given the option of returning a majority of 11 to one verdict. The jury later found Lane guilty of murder of Tegan Lee Lane. She was refused bail.

Keli Lane Sentencing

The sentence procedures began on 11 March 2011, again in the Supreme Court before Justice Whealy, with the Crown calling for the Court to pay particular regard to general deterrence. The psychiatrist Michael Diamond, who appeared before the hearing on behalf of the Crown, found no evidence of a psychiatric disorder and he also said that Lane’s decisions appeared to be based on “problem solving”. Lane was on 15 April 2011 sentenced to 18 years’ jail with a non-parole period of 13 years and five months. She is eligible for parole on 12 May 2023.

Keli Lane Appeal

Lawyers acting on behalf of Lane filed an appeal against her conviction on 18 April 2011. Claims were aired in the media that same day, that a taxi driver saw Lane dump the baby in bushland, en route to Manly. According to lawyer, Chris Murphy, the taxi driver collected Lane from Auburn Hospital and stopped , at her request on River Road. Murphy stated that the driver believes that Lane left the baby in bushland and returned to the taxi, where they continued on to Manly. He went on to explain that the driver returned to the site where the baby was allegedly left and found a woman there. According to Murphy, the driver claims that the strange woman stated she would attend to the needs of the baby and the driver then left the scene. Police are currently investigating the claims made by the driver.

Keli Lane 60 Minutes

Keli Lane Documentary

Exposed: Keli Lane tapes from prison revealed

Updated On: 25th September 2018
Source: news.com.au

AN explosive documentary has revealed exactly what was said between convicted baby killer Keli Lane and the journalist she asked to clear her name.

FOR anybody who followed the remarkable, heartbreaking story of little Tegan Lane, last night was must-watch television.

An explosive documentary, Exposed: The case of Keli Lane, aired on the ABC detailing the contents of exclusive prison interviews with the mother of Tegan, presumed baby killer Keli Lane.

Lane, 43, is serving an 18-year sentence for the murder of her two-day-old daughter in 1996. She was convicted despite Tegan’s body never being found.

In the documentary, investigative journalists Caro Meldrum-Hanna and Elise Worthington chat with the convicted killer in a series of recorded interviews.

In one recording, Lane discusses why she lied about three secret unwanted pregnancies between 1996 and 1999.

“The lies were around the shame or the embarrassment or the humiliation of the life I was leading not different to any other young person that makes silly choices or is covering up a part of their life,” Lane says.

She explains how she concealed the three pregnancies, telling the pair it wasn’t particularly hard.

“Do you know what,” Lane says. “I don’t even remember really putting that much effort into it.

“Of course, avoiding people was probably my biggest attempts. I was very good at isolating myself, so wherever everyone was going, I might only go for a little while, or I was going between training, work, home … I was really good at dodging everyone.”

In another conversation, Lane tells Meldrum-Hanna about the last moment she had with her daughter. Lane claims she gave Tegan to her father — a man she called Andrew Norris but later said was named Andrew Morris.

“She’s so beautiful and just, she’s asleep and she was tucked in this … capsule. I was very upset, I was crying, and Andrew was with … his mother,” she says.

“They’d obviously been sitting in the chairs waiting and they stood up as we approached. And just as they feeling of, ‘Is this the right thing to do?’

“I looked at them and, not to judge, but I didn’t know them.”

Police have not been able to track down Andrew Norris and prosecutors at her trial successfully argued that instead of handing her baby over, she instead left hospital with her, murdered her and disposed of her body.

No topics were out of bounds, according to Meldrum-Hanna, who last week told news.com.au the three-part series had driven people “mad”.

She said it is “more believable” that Lane killed her baby than gave it away, but the question has lingered.

“In the end, it became more believable that Keli Lane killed her baby,” Meldrum-Hanna said.

Lane contacted Meldrum-Hanna from Silverwater Women’s Correctional Centre. In her first phone call with the award-winning journalist, Lane begged for her help to clear her name.

“The biggest hope for me is that someone comes forward with my daughter,” she told Meldrum-Hanna.

“She’d be an adult now. So she obviously has had a whole life perhaps not knowing she is my child.”

Lane, who played high-level water polo during one of her pregnancies, appealed her original conviction at the High Court.

Her lawyers tried to argue for a lesser conviction of manslaughter but were unsuccessful.

Her earliest release date is 2024.

Viewers of Tuesday night’s documentary shared mixed opinions about Lane’s guilt.

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