The Murder of Allison Baden-Clay

by David Murray

  ’Til death do us part

  1996 to 2000

  With the lights of the Eiffel Tower twinkling above them, Gerard Baden-Clay got down on bended knee to propose to Allison Dickie. Knowing Allison was a fan of all things Parisian, Gerard could barely think of a more perfect setting to ask for her hand in marriage. Except, of course, for the real Eiffel Tower.

  At this Eiffel Tower there were no gardens to gaze out across. No Seine to stroll beside while they planned their life together. Instead, the couple was looking out at Park Road, a busy cafe strip in inner-city Brisbane – home to a Vegas-style replica Eiffel Tower perched over an Italian restaurant. It is a strange cultural clash, one that leaves many diners scratching their heads as they admire the glittering tower while perusing a menu of pasta and pizza. At one end of the road is Coronation Drive, one of the city’s busiest arterial roads, at the other a rattling rail bridge ferries commuters west from the city.

  The tower was built to celebrate Brisbane’s World Expo in 1988, almost 100 years after the original was built as the entrance arch and centrepiece of Paris’s 1889 World’s Fair. The replica was placed in front of an apartment and dining precinct known as Savoir Faire, although ironically towers over Italian eatery La Dolce Vita. Gerard was not the first, nor will he be the last, to use it to woo a mate.

  Gerard would say he chose the location because they were due to go to Paris later that year, and he couldn’t bear for Allison to be dawdling on every street corner waiting for him to present a ring. In reality, Allison wasn’t waiting for a ring at all. Instead of falling into his arms with a joyful ‘Yes!’, she asked for a week to think about it. For Gerard, always concerned about losing face, it must have been an awkward moment, but he said a week would be fine.

  Some may say that anyone who has to ponder a marriage proposal for more than a few seconds should probably say no, but after a week, Allison said yes. The couple drove down to see Allison’s parents, Geoff and Priscilla, who had moved from Redbank to Paradise Point on the Gold Coast in their retirement. Gerard dropped Allison at a shop on the ruse of getting some bread, then went on his own to ask Geoff for his daughter’s hand in marriage. Gerard had asked his father, Nigel, for advice on whether he should talk to the Dickies before or after his proposal. Nigel had thought it best to ask Allison first, in case she said no. If he was nervous, the Dickies soon calmed him with warm congratulations. The couple went out and bought a sizeable diamond ring – Gerard hadn’t risked splurging on one up until then.

  Gerard liked to consult with his parents, particularly his father, before making decisions. So, after asking Nigel how to propose, Gerard asked his dad when he should get married. Nigel looked at a calendar for his own wedding anniversary and saw it was on a Saturday that year, 1997. Wouldn’t it be lovely, Nigel suggested, to marry Allison on the same date he married Elaine? Gerard and Allison agreed it would be a nice touch. They could do worse than emulate Nigel and Elaine’s long marriage.

  With the wedding date set, Allison’s friends organised a kitchen tea party. Over champagne and finger food, the guests made a fuss of the bride-to-be, recounting stories from her childhood and travels and using the occasion to shower her with praise. Her friends admired Allison, and told her to be proud of what she had achieved. Following her success in the Miss Brisbane awards she had been named Ipswich Young Business Woman of the Year. Her rise up the corporate ladder was continuing, with a promotion to Flight Centre’s global human resources manager in 1995, at the age of 27.

  Allison wasn’t the type to brag of her achievements. Whenever her friends ever saw her, she’d ask what they were up to, rather than talk about herself. Her interest in others was genuine. It’s what they loved about her, along with her quirky sense of humour and a contagious laugh. Always the last to get the punchline, then the one to laugh hardest. At the kitchen tea party, everyone let her know how much they appreciated her.

  As Allison was flooded with attention on the eve of her wedding, Elaine Baden-Clay decided it was time to change the focus. ‘So, enough about Allison. Let’s talk about Gerard,’ she said to the group.

  Not long before the wedding day, Gerard and Allison met a professional photographer on the steps of Customs House in the city. Allison looked stunning that day. Her hair and makeup were faultless and she was smiling broadly. Gerard looked dashing in a dark suit. Allison told one of her cousins, Jodie Dann, it was funny the picture turned out so well, because she had argued with Gerard all that day.

  Allison had put the bickering down to the stress of organising a big wedding. They swiftly patched up their differences. She loved that he took charge and had big plans to match her own. He thought she was beautiful, and a world beater.

  Allison asked her sister, Vanessa, friends Kerry-Anne Walker and Linda Ebeling and Gerard’s sister, Olivia, to be her bridesmaids. Olivia was marked for great things in the military. At the Australian Defence Force Academy, she had been Cadet Captain with 222 cadets in her year under her command. She graduated in 1995 after three years of study, the first woman Cadet Captain to do so. Excelling at the academy, she had scooped both the RSL’s Sword of Honour for outstanding leadership and the prestigious Commander in Chief Medal. The latter was the highest award a cadet could be bestowed, taking into account all facets of military and academic achievement, and Olivia was presented the medal by Governor-General Bill Hayden. She had gone straight into the Royal Military College Duntroon and graduated a year later as a lieutenant, shortly before Gerard and Allison’s wedding.

  All five shared a room together in a city hotel the night before the ceremony. A Harley-Davidson roared through the high-rises to collect Allison from the hotel and take her to a restaurant for dinner with friends. Her Harley riding ‘chauffeur’, sporting a goatee and impressive mullet, helped her into a black leather jacket, black helmet and sunglasses before the ride. Later, back at the hotel, the women all huddled together in the same bed in their flannelette pyjamas for a photo, and Allison gave her bridesmaids earrings to wear the next day.

  Gerard had asked his younger brother, Adam, and a school friend, Rob Cheesman, to be groomsmen. Adam had followed his sister into the military and was that year to graduate from Royal Military College Duntroon.

  The wedding took place at St Mary’s Anglican Church on Brisbane’s Kangaroo Point cliffs on 23 August 1997. It was 28 years to the day since Gerard’s parents married. The bride made a grand arrival: a chauffeur in a suit, tie and cap opened the back door of a classic car and she stepped out. Allison looked angelic in a white, off-the-shoulder gown with long trail, embroidered bodice and sweetheart neckline. Long white gloves, a flowing white veil, tiara and drop pearl earrings fit the part of a princess, which was how Gerard treated her. Her tiara was a Baden-Clay heirloom, sent from the UK for the occasion. The groom was in a traditional dark suit, with a white rose tucked into his lapel, his hair neatly trimmed and face clean-shaven.

  About 100 guests witnessed Gerard and Allison take their vows, to be together in sickness and in health, ’til death did them part. The wedding party took a ferry across the Brisbane River for the reception, which was held in historic Customs House in the city. Allison threw her bouquet over her shoulder and the bride and groom cut a four-tier white cake. It was a wedding with all the trimmings, except – to the shock of attendees accustomed to enjoying a drink – alcohol. Gerard and Allison, who were both social drinkers, had inexplicably made it a dry occasion. Flight Centre thrived on regular, merry get-togethers, usually late into the night, and some of their work colleagues were horrified to discover there would be no booze provided.

  In the lead-up to the wedding, Allison told close friends Gerard had decided there would be no alcohol. There was never a clear explanation about why, but her friends assumed it was to save money. There were more than a few muttered words about Gerard being too cheap to stump up for drinks. Thirsty guests got their wallets out and bought their own drinks at the bar.

  Geoff Dickie, standing to make his spe
ech as father of the bride, told of his love for his daughter, but also had a heartfelt message for Gerard. ‘She’s my princess, you look after her,’ he told his new son-in-law.

  Kerry-Anne Walker hadn’t approved of Allison’s new love interest when they started dating. She didn’t think Gerard was good enough for her friend – didn’t really think anyone could be good enough for Allison. Gerard, trying to win her over, took her out to coffee one day and remarked: ‘You don’t really like me much.’ Kerry-Anne had to agree. Everything always seemed to be about him. His career. His travel plans. His family.

  As maid of honour, she stood to say a few words. ‘I never liked Gerard … ’ she began. Naturally, she didn’t continue in that vein. If Allison loved him, Kerry-Anne would love him too. ‘But you better take care of her, otherwise you’ll have me to answer to,’ she said.

  Speeches were a Baden-Clay specialty, and when Gerard stood to address his guests he had a lot to say. In tears, he thanked his parents, calling them ‘Mummy and Daddy’. What with all the other people from his distinguished family to thank and acknowledge, the speech went on and on. Sober guests would swear Gerard’s speech alone went for an hour-and-a-half. As the night drew to a close, the newlyweds left in a little red car, which was decorated with multi-coloured streamers and yards of white cloth. Gerard was behind the wheel and a big white sign was stuck to the passenger’s side door, which read, ‘Under new management’.

  Gerard and Allison’s new life together started with an extravagant overseas honeymoon that morphed into a working holiday. Kerry-Anne and both sets of parents were at Brisbane airport to wave them off a week after they married. Like their wedding, the honeymoon had all the bells and whistles.

  After a brief stopover in Kuala Lumpur they spent ten days at a romantic resort in the Maldives. It was a dream start to their life together, and their travels were only beginning.

  The island stay was followed by a 16-day tour of Turkey, a couple of weeks in Jordan, a dash through Israel, a couple of weeks in Egypt, and then another two weeks in Spain, Portugal and Morocco. For a few weeks they travelled through north-west Europe, taking in the Netherlands, Germany and Switzerland.

  Gerard was particularly pleased to take Allison to the International Scout Centre at Kandersteg, in the Swiss Alps. As a living link to the original Chief Scout, Gerard was a welcome addition around the chalets, lodges and campsites.

  Moving on to the UK, and having decided to set up base there, Gerard and Allison stayed with his grandparents, Betty and Gervas, in Somerset before they found work in London.

  Gerard gained a job at Blockbuster International as a financial systems consultant in January 1998 and became the main breadwinner. Allison, who had soared up the ranks at Flight Centre, found herself in a low-paid position at Dale Carnegie Training.

  While in London, the couple sent off applications for voluntary summer jobs at the Kandersteg Scout Centre. Accepted, they had only been working for a couple of weeks when they had to briefly return to Brisbane. Gerard’s groomsman, Robert Cheesman, was getting married on 4 July. There was another important event to attend a week later: Gerard’s sister, Olivia, was marrying his friend Ian Walton. Olivia and Walton had met at Gerard and Allison’s wedding.

  Before heading back to Kandersteg, Gerard and Allison consulted a doctor about medication for an upcoming travel adventure. It would have long-lasting ramifications.

  Honeymoon’s over

  1998

  By now seasoned travellers, and always well organised, Gerard and Allison took advantage of being in Brisbane in July to drop in to a travellers’ medical centre. The couple had a three-month trip across South America planned for the end of the year.

  Little yellow medical passports contained records of Allison and Gerard’s injections and vaccinations from their travels, but one of the things they’d never had to worry about previously was malaria. They were offered a choice of preventative medication. One had to be taken daily, and the other, Lariam, was a weekly dose. The doctor they saw warned the pair that Lariam was unsuitable for people with a history of mental illness. Gerard and Allison, looking at each other, said that wasn’t an issue and chose Lariam for the convenience.

  Lariam is the brand name for a drug containing mefloquine – a synthetic alternative to quinine. US Defense Department biomedical research unit, the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, developed mefloquine in the 1970s for use on troops. With an eye on the burgeoning third-world travel market, a deal was struck to allow Swiss pharmaceutical giant Roche the rights to develop the drug. In 1989 it was approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and was marketed to civilian travellers under the name Lariam. Considered at the time to be safer than equivalent drugs, it became the most popular anti-malarial on the US market.

  Before long, however, worrying reports of reactions, including amnesia and vivid hallucinations, began to surface. Initially, some were put down to recreational drug use or travel stress. But the number of reports began to be compelling – sufferers told of vivid, often terrifying nightmares; they could hear voices murmuring and mumbling; they were plagued by a sense of impending doom and morbid visual hallucinations. In the early 1990s, UN peacekeeping troops and UK-based flight crews were banned from taking the drug over concerns about its psychological effects. But it wasn’t until the early 2000s – years after Allison’s experience in 1998 – that the effect on the travelling public started really being taken seriously.

  Although Lariam is no longer marketed as a brand in the United States, generic anti-malarials containing mefloquine are still available. The US FDA warns side effects can include anxiety, paranoia, hallucinations, depression, restlessness, unusual behaviour and confusion. The side effects can persist even after the medication is stopped.

  Author David MacLean charted the effects of Lariam in his book The Answer to the Riddle Is Me: A Memoir of Amnesia. MacLean woke up on a train station platform in India with no idea who he was and ended up in a psychiatric hospital suffering bouts of severe hallucinations.

  Australian John O’Callaghan took Lariam after contracting malaria on a surfing trip to Indonesia. Before taking his own life in 2000, O’Callaghan wrote a suicide note outlining the effect of the drug: ‘Since [Lariam] first blew my brains apart … I’ve never been the same. Always dazed and confused, always physically sick. Sorry mum, dad,’ he wrote.

  After the two weddings in Brisbane, Allison and Gerard had returned to the Scout Centre at Kandersteg in the Swiss Alps to complete their three months of voluntary work. In September 1998, they flew via Washington to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. They had started taking the Lariam pills a couple of weeks earlier in order for the drug to take effect.

  They had chosen a challenging trip, a truck tour. Piled in the back of a truck, it was a long and bumpy ride going from the east to west coasts: through Bolivia, Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay and Ecuador. It ended in Ecuador’s capital, Quito. At times the group of 16 would rough it, camping on the way. At other times they would be in hotels. Often, they were visiting big, dangerous cities.

  Allison was well travelled, but she didn’t have her usual thirst for adventure. Her new husband thought he noticed her becoming nervous, anxious and withdrawn. It first came to a head in Potosi, Bolivia. They were in a hotel room and Allison could not get out of bed. They had plans for the day to go sightseeing at the silver mines, which had once made Potosi the largest and richest city in the Americas. Allison was curled up on the bed and didn’t want to go out. She said it wasn’t like a normal sick feeling and she didn’t need a doctor. Gerard headed out with the rest of the group, leaving her in the hotel room. The next day, Allison was back on her feet, like nothing had happened. But Gerard thought Allison’s mood continued fluctuating throughout the trip.

  Gerard became aware that her distress wasn’t confined to tough travel areas when the same low mood persisted in New York, on their way back to the UK.

  When they returned to Gerard’s grandparents’ hom
e in Somerset, Allison crashed. She later told of being catatonic, of ‘freaking out’ and suffering hallucinations. They went to the local Taunton hospital, where a doctor noticed Allison was on Lariam. The drug had to be taken for a couple of weeks before and after travel; Allison and Gerard were still taking their weekly dose. For the first time, Allison and Gerard realised that the pills they were taking to ward off malaria may have been playing havoc with Allison’s mind. The doctor said the drug should soon work itself out of her system.

  After Christmas 1998, they went back to Kandersteg, where they had new, nine-month contracts to work at the Scout Centre. Gerard was assistant director and, for a period, acting director. At times he would be supervising 50 staff. Allison was relegated to running the shop and doing administrative work.

  The job would later look good on Gerard’s CV, but both he and Allison were working at the centre in return for their accommodation and a nominal salary. They were paid enough to splash out on a monthly dinner in town and treat themselves to the occasional Toblerone.

  Still, Gerard loved Kandersteg and didn’t want to leave. He wanted to be director, which would put him on some real money. Allison saw no future for herself there. Reflecting on this period in her journal, she wrote that she’d wanted to stay in Australia when she married, ‘to be famous’. Her ambitions, her prospects, everything, revolved around being in a major city somewhere, not in this Swiss town of 1200, no matter how beautiful it was.

  Even though Allison would have preferred to be home, at the end of their contract, she and Gerard made plans to stay on. They went back to the United Kingdom in September 1999 to complete a training course so Gerard could apply for the director’s position at the Scout Centre.

  The role never eventuated for Gerard. A director hurt his back, leaving Gerard to fill the void for a while, but it was only temporary. The opportunity for Gerard to be promoted vanished. The couple returned to Australia at the end of 1999 to regroup and catch up with family.