The Murder of Allison Baden-Clay

by David Murray

  There was also the matter of their expensive new office. Although all the partners agreed to the move, they’d leased a bigger space than Broom thought was wise. The rent, at $16,000 a month, was more than double what they had been paying at Kenmore. It was all very well Gerard thinking big but it was not sustainable.

  Broom had suddenly woken up to reality, and he could have kicked himself. In the belief that all was rosy, he’d just bought an expensive sports car. His wife, Michelle, had recently given birth to their second baby, and they’d just returned from an expensive holiday. He also had a significant tax bill due in February 2011. His wife had asked him weeks earlier if relocating was a good idea, and he’d been sure there were enough sales in the bag to keep them going, even if things were quiet after the move.

  While the business had seemingly been going well, privately Gerard had been treading water. To pay his credit card bill he’d borrowed money from his parents and had shuffled funds from his margin loan.

  After Gerard revealed the dire state of the finances, the three sales partners agreed to talk again in a couple of days. One way or the other, his partners decided, things were going to have to change.

  Flood

  If Gerard Baden-Clay didn’t have enough on his mind – with an impatient lover, anxious wife, three children, debts up to his eyeballs and business partners in revolt – Mother Nature was about to turn on him too.

  Two intense thunderstorms crossed the south-east coast of Queensland on the morning of 10 January 2011 – the day the Century 21 Westside’s grand new office was due to open. By 11 am they had formed a single monster storm cell. It swept south-west, crossing Wivenhoe and Somerset dams, which were designed to supply Brisbane and Ipswich with water and protect the state capital from flood. Intensifying as it went, the storm cell continued on to the Toowoomba range.

  The previous month had been the wettest December in south-east Queensland since records began in 1900. Now the system was dumping vast quantities of rain on an already sodden catchment. Reports came into the weather bureau of up to 80 millimetres falling in some areas in around 30 minutes. The ground simply could not take any more, but rain was still falling heavily – and running off just as fast.

  There was no warning before the flash flood hit Toowoomba, Gerard Baden-Clay’s old home town, about 1.30 pm. It came in a brown, frothing torrent, breaking creek banks, sweeping through the streets, tossing cars around on the crest of its murky waves. The city was suddenly in chaos.

  Into this drove Donna Rice in the family’s white Mercedes. She was on her way to see her eldest son, Chris, and with her were his brothers Blake, 10, and Jordan, 13. When they reached the intersection of James and Kitchener streets, water was already coursing over the road. But they were in the city’s CBD and it didn’t look too deep to Donna, who was being urged forward by an exuberant Jordan. As they drove across the intersection, water was not yet over the tyres, but the car’s engine stalled, leaving them stranded. After phoning 000 on her mobile, shortly before 2 pm, Donna spoke with a police officer who, like many, had no idea what was unfolding on the ground and how quickly the water was rising around the family sedan.

  Donna and her two sons had climbed onto the roof of their car as the water continued to rise around them. Horrified onlookers attempted a rescue, one man wading out with a rope tied around his waist. He grabbed Blake after Jordan – who could not swim and was terrified of water – urged him to save his younger brother first. Before Jordan and Donna could be rescued, they were both washed away by a torrent tearing down the main street of their home town. The pair managed momentarily to grasp a pole before Jordan lost his grip and Donna, a loving mother to the end, let go to pursue her son. Their bodies were found more than a kilometre away.

  Throughout the morning, amateur weather buff Neil Pennell had been glued to his computer screen watching the cell on the Australian Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) radar. He was growing alarmed by what he saw and concerned that no flash flood warnings had been issued for townships that lay in valleys down the range from Toowoomba. There was going to be a hell of a lot of run-off coming their way. He posted a message on the Weatherzone online forum: ‘Do you think BOM is on the case with that cell …? Those rain rates between Esk, Crows Nest and Toowoomba are truly frightening. I fear that there could be a dangerous flash flood very soon, particularly in Grantham. Am I overreacting?’

  He wasn’t. It was estimated as much as 200 millimetres of rain had fallen in one hour in some areas. Down the range, sedate creeks and brooks were turning into raging rivers as run-off washed downhill gathering speed, power and debris. Thick gum trees snapped like twigs and were carried away in a roaring mass of water. Boulders, earth, fences, sheds and the remnants of houses were caught up in the indiscriminate floodwaters.

  At Murphy’s Creek in the Upper Lockyer Valley, one resident would recall seeing a huge wave cascading down the valley around 1.47 pm. The creek rose about 12 metres in 12 minutes. Houses were torn from their stumps and residents swept to their deaths. Local Selwyn Schefe and his daughter, Katie, aged six, were trying to make it to higher ground when the flash flood engulfed their car. Katie’s body was found 5 kilometres away. Selwyn’s was carried 101 kilometres.

  As the water rushed onwards, the BOM gauges began to record alarming rises in creek heights. At 2.20 pm, the creek at Helidon was at 4 metres, just 30 minutes later it was reading 12.66 metres. The figures seemed so fanciful they were dismissed as faulty readings, dooming residents of lower lying townships. Water raced down creeks and tributaries converging to feed a growing tidal wave.

  Around 3.20 pm it hit Grantham hard. Resident Marty Warburton told police: ‘Everything just went black, as if the sun had just disappeared. I realised that a massive wave of water was hitting the town and it was like someone had just turned out the lights … As I was standing there, I saw two human bodies floating past.’

  The floods brought destruction and suffering. Families were torn apart, many washed away with their homes. Stacey Keep was six months pregnant and clinging to her 23-month-old daughter, Jessica, when the pair were dragged out of their Grantham home. When Stacey’s leg became trapped under water, the torrent tore Jessica from her arms. ‘I’ll never forget that feeling of having your own child swept away from your arms and there’s nothing you can do. A piece of my heart is missing and I’ll never get it back,’ she said in a 60 Minutes interview. There were extraordinary stories of others who survived on the roofs of houses carried away by the flood. In all, 21 people died in the Toowoomba and Lockyer Valley flash floods that day.

  Less than an hour away in Brisbane, people watched news reports, horrified. They were shortly to learn the state’s capital was facing a crisis of its own. Rainfall and run-off from the same weather system was still pouring into the two dams above the city, pushing them, literally, almost to breaking point.

  The imposing Wivenhoe Dam was built in 1984. About 80 kilometres upriver from Brisbane, it performs a dual role of providing the city with both water storage and protection from floods, by holding back water which would otherwise stream down into the Brisbane River. Many believed Wivenhoe had ‘floodproofed’ Brisbane in the wake of the devastating 1974 floods, when more than 8500 homes in Brisbane and Ipswich were inundated. However, flooding had been far from the public consciousness for many years leading up to the exceptional summer of 2010–11. For years the city had been in drought and living under strict water restrictions – it was illegal for residents to use sprinklers to water their gardens or hoses to wash their cars; egg timers were sent out to households to encourage shorter showers, and governments began planning for what seemed like an inevitable water crisis. Water levels in Wivenhoe fell to a woeful 16 per cent of its 1.15 million megalitre capacity. Some speculated it would never fill again and people began to think of Wivenhoe primarily as a water storage facility rather than a flood mitigation one.

  In mid-2010, weather forecasters began to warn that the end of the year would see the emer
gence of a strong La Niña weather pattern, associated with huge rainfall in Australia. In fact, the indicators for an exceptionally wet summer had not been this strong since 1973–74. The BOM experts were spot-on with their predictions. It turned out to be a monsoon season the likes of which Queensland had not seen for a generation. Through December, the dams filled, and the exceptional storm that moved across the state on Monday 10 January pushed the system to the very brink.

  On that Monday morning, Wivenhoe was at 148 per cent capacity. The dam has a total capacity of 2.6 million megalitres, which comprises 1.15 million ML for water storage and a ‘flood compartment’ designed to hold 1.45 million ML. At a capacity of 148 per cent, the storage is full and the flood compartment is about half full.

  Dam operators urgently needed to get levels down to free up space in the flood compartment. But they were concerned large-scale releases would flood some crossings and low-lying areas. By Tuesday, with immense volumes of run-off pouring in and not enough being released, Wivenhoe had reached an alarming 190 per cent of capacity. Dam operators were forced to begin releasing enormous volumes of water. The nature of the emergency had changed: they were trying to prevent a possible structural failure as a result of overtopping.

  At the same time as water was hurtling down from Wivenhoe into the Brisbane River, lesser flood waves – from the Lockyer Valley and Bremer River – were also flowing towards the capital. The ‘floodproof’ city was about to go under, catastrophically. The western suburbs, Gerard Baden-Clay’s home and the centre of his business would be among the hardest hit.

  Thursday 13 January 2011 was a picture-perfect day. The rain had stopped but floodwaters were still rising. So as the sun shone, brown, murky waters slowly engulfed Brisbane. In all, about 18,000 properties were inundated as the gentle river became a roaring beast. Boats were torn from their moorings – in some cases entire pontoons went careening down the river with boats sitting neatly atop before they were smashed to pieces against bridge pylons. The floating restaurant Drift broke free and collapsed against the William Jolly bridge in the heart of the city. The river was awash with debris – sinks, wheelie bins and furniture.

  On Wednesday night, the 181-tonne floating Riverwalk, linking New Farm to the CBD, broke loose. Authorities revealed they had been considering using explosives to destroy the 250-metre concrete walkway before the flood moved too fast. If this new floating missile hit the supports of Brisbane’s Gateway Bridge, it could do untold damage. Helicopters beamed live footage of a plucky tugboat captain determinedly nudging the mass of concrete safely under the bridge before pushing it aground at the river mouth.

  The city’s iconic sporting arena, Suncorp Stadium, became a giant swimming pool. As water treatment plants went under, Premier Anna Bligh warned Queenslanders raw sewage was being pumped into floodwaters. In some low-lying suburbs, stinking waters bubbled up through sewers and stormwater pipes then reached the streets.

  When the water receded, the stench and the damage were overwhelming. But the city rallied. Brisbane City Council called on residents to pitch in for an unprecedented clean-up. For three days, authorities set up coordination centres across the city where volunteers with brooms and buckets were bused around to help flood victims with the sad task of throwing out ruined family heirlooms, furniture and mementoes. A fleet of rubbish trucks patrolled non-stop, carting away tonnes of sodden furniture, clothes, electrical equipment and memories. There were more than 25,000 official volunteers and thousands more unofficial helpers who joined what became known as the Mud Army.

  For Gerard Baden-Clay’s embattled business, it was a nail in the coffin. The list of flood-affected suburbs read like a roll-call of his prospecting grounds – Bellbowrie, St Lucia, Fig Tree Pocket, Kenmore and Moggill were among them.

  The start of the year is usually a busy period for real estate agents, when people put Christmas and New Year celebrations behind them and get on with plans to buy or sell. No one was much was thinking about buying or selling on Brisbane’s sodden Westside that year.

  Right when Gerard was desperate for cash flow, the property market ground almost to a halt, courtesy of the biggest natural disaster of a generation. Recovery would be slow. Gerard could not take a trick.

  Aftermath

  January 2011

  Nigel and Elaine’s home in Durness Street, Kenmore, was inundated in the flood. The street rises in the middle and dips at both ends, so some homes were hit hard while others, narrowly, stayed bone dry. Unluckily for the Baden-Clay seniors, their home was a couple of houses the wrong side of the high-water mark. They’d sandbagged the property but the floodwaters gushed over the top. Neighbours who came to help would recall wading into the house with the muddy water at about knee height. Nigel and Elaine would have to move out for nine months while the house was repaired.

  Century 21 Westside staff went to the house to help with the clean-up. Gerard and Toni McHugh went off together to get everyone lunch. They were gone for hours, according to one worker there that day.

  With the market dead, the business partners had nothing else to do but continue to squabble. Frost was in a better financial position than Broom and agreed to buy his quarter share of the rental side of the business to help him out. Broom kept his separate one-third share in the sales side of the business with Frost and Gerard.

  It wasn’t long before there was another confrontation between the sales partners. Gerard went into Frost’s office and called Broom in too. He couldn’t run the business with the two of them demanding to authorise every payment. He felt they didn’t trust him. ‘I don’t trust you,’ Frost said bluntly.

  A rattled Gerard told her he was going to buy her out. With the threat ringing in her ears, Frost left to visit a friend who ran another real estate agency. She wanted to know what the friend paid his staff and his costs at his highly successful business. Her meeting made her realise her own business was too top heavy, and Gerard was paying people to do what he should have been doing.

  Frost and Broom decided they had three options: Gerard could buy them out, they could buy Gerard out or they could agree to change and stay together. They arranged another meeting. Bassingthwaighte was called in as moderator. Broom and Frost arrived with a list of demands – some shared, some individual – that Gerard would have to meet if the partnership was to continue. Gerard was to step down as managing director and return to sales immediately; retrench a staff member who was helping Gerard with the accounts; take three weeks off and get his private life in order; give the new staff notice that they would be on commission and not a retainer; stick to new rules on payments; and, last but not least, stop living a double life and choose Allison or Toni.

  The meeting descended into a slanging match. Accusations flew. Gerard swore and cried. He was crumbling under the pressure. Broom recalled that when the subject of McHugh was raised, Gerard finally cracked.

  ‘I only continue to fuck her for the sake of the business,’ he blurted out.

  The meeting went late into the night. When they left, they had resolved to meet again the following night to decide what they were going to do. Frost felt Toni needed to know what Gerard had said. But after talking to Frost, Toni went straight to Gerard, who managed to smooth it over.

  When they met again, Gerard had regained his composure. Broom expected him to agree to their demands, return to sales and sort out his private life. But when Gerard faced them, he was defiant. He wasn’t going to agree to any of their demands. His personal life was none of their business.

  He didn’t care if he went to the wall – he would not bow to his partners’ demands. Gerard told them he had few assets to lose. He and his family were, after all, living in a cheap rental house. His counter offer was that he would buy Frost and Broom out of the sales side. Frost recalled that Gerard offered $25,000 to each of his partners. He said his friends would help him raise the money. His partners walked out in a daze. The meeting had not gone as they expected.

  In the days that followe
d, Gerard changed the offer. He said his friends couldn’t afford to pay them out. He said he’d take responsibility for the debt and buy them out for $1.

  Gerard offered them a bonus as an incentive to stay on as sales agents. Frost and Broom signed over their shares of the business to Gerard. They felt they had no other option.

  Frost didn’t tell Gerard immediately, but she had no plans to stay on as an agent as he had suggested. A major factor in this decision was her chronic discomfort with the long-running affair being conducted in the office. Within weeks of signing over her share of the sales business, she was gone, though she retained her stake in the rental business.

  Broom tried to battle on, staying at the business as a salesman. ‘There was a massive shift in power,’ he told police later. ‘There was obvious animosity from other staff towards Toni. I was often asked questions by the staff about the relationship between Toni and Gerard. The relationship at this time between Gerard and myself was not particularly good. The relationship outside the business had completely stopped. I used to avoid Gerard.’

  Meanwhile, Gerard’s credit card debt was on the rise again. In March 2011, his brother and sister-in-law, Adam and Nicole Baden-Clay, transferred $20,000 to his account. Gerard almost immediately put all the money on his credit card. As soon as he paid it off, it rose again. From there, it climbed again until it maxed out in early 2012.

  Gerard turned to his three closest friends too, asking them to bail him out. Robert Cheesman and Stuart Christ, who knew Gerard from their days together at Toowoomba Grammar, and Peter Cranna, another long-term friend, came up with about $90,000 each to keep his business afloat. There were no formal loan contracts, merely a gentleman’s agreement for the loans to be repaid with interest. Before lending Gerard the money, the men asked to see the business’s books, and dubbed themselves his ‘advisory group’. They discovered he had too many staff, and told him he had to downsize.