by David Murray
Sorry
Gerard Baden-Clay’s inexplicable car accident two days after he reported Allison missing has always intrigued people. How could it have happened on that straight road at busy Indooroopilly Shopping Centre in broad daylight? The episode was even more surreal than people realised and possibly the closest Gerard ever came to cracking.
A 17-year-old, who I’ll call Mike, was eating McDonald’s and waiting for a bus when Gerard’s car drove straight into the concrete pylon in front of him. The car had been going about 50 kilometres an hour and didn’t brake. Smoke billowed from the vehicle and the airbags had deployed.
Gerard emerged from the wreck, using his arms to drag his body across the ground as if his legs no longer worked. He rolled onto his side. He was moaning as the teenager pulled his own shirt off and put it under his neck for support. Liquid from the car was pooling on the ground. A growing crowd was concerned it might be petrol so they tried to move Gerard to safety.
Mike asked Gerard what his name was, but got an unexpected response: ‘I need my lawyer.’ At this point Gerard was still pretty much unknown; Allison had been ‘missing’ for two days. Gerard kept repeating that same strange phrase, ‘I need my lawyer’, over and over. He was so insistent about it that another bystander retrieved Gerard’s phone from the wreckage and found the number for solicitor Darren Mahony.
Someone asked him: ‘Why do you need a lawyer so bad?’
Gerard said he was meeting the lawyer at the police station, which wouldn’t have made much sense to anyone there.
Mike noticed Gerard’s wedding ring and, trying to be helpful, asked if there was a number for his wife. Gerard started crying.
A nurse arrived, then paramedics and firefighters. Gerard’s crying intensified. ‘Darren,’ he moaned.
Paramedics Rindell Manneke-Jones and Louise Winter found Gerard lying facedown, bawling his eyes out. Gerard told them he must have looked down at his phone and hit the pylon. Even for paramedics, who are accustomed to odd conversations, the following exchange must have been bizarre.
Winter:
Do you have any pain anywhere?
Gerard:
All over my body. I need to speak to my lawyer – where’s Darren?
Winter:
I need to assess you first.
Gerard:
Tell Darren I’m sorry. Can you ring my lawyer?
Winter:
Do you want me to call your wife or lawyer? What’s going on? Is your wife here with you? Your lawyer doesn’t need to be involved.
Gerard cried some more. Darren Mahony, the much in-demand lawyer, suddenly appeared out of nowhere. Things got even stranger.
Winter:
Can you tell me what’s going on? Are you his lawyer?
Mahony:
He’s been under a lot of stress lately.
Winter:
Is there anything I need to know?
Mahony:
I’m not allowed to say anything.
But Gerard had something he wanted to say to his lawyer. ‘Sorry mate, I’m sorry,’ he said.
‘I’ll talk to your parents and sort it out,’ Mahony told him.
It was Manneke-Jones’s turn to ask Mahony if there was anything else the paramedics needed to know about their patient.
Mahony wasn’t budging. ‘I’m not at liberty to discuss anything further without the consent of my client,’ he said.
Two police officers, Chris Carey and Glen Hopkins, were on their way to some tasks related to Allison’s disappearance when they came across the accident. Gerard was still lying facedown on the ground. They could hardly believe it when they recognised him.
Mahony approached the officers and told them Gerard wouldn’t be answering any questions.
Next to show up at this increasingly strange scene was Brendan Flynn, the highest ranked officer at Taringa Fire Station that day. He arrived to find Gerard apologising profusely. Flynn told police Gerard said the same word at least 20 times: ‘Sorry.’
When the paramedics said they were going to cut his shirt off, Gerard protested. They ignored him and cut the fabric right down the middle with scissors, exposing Gerard’s bare chest and the frenzy of scratch marks inflicted well before the crash. Gerard continued to sob and say he was sorry.
One of the paramedics was holding his head and asked the right question: ‘Are you sorry about the accident or something else?’
‘There’s something else,’ Gerard replied.
Gerard was taken away to the ambulance without saying any more.
It was as close as anyone would get to an admission from Gerard, or to an apology for killing his wife.
The hospital
The ambulance left the crash site with Gerard on a stretcher in the back.
‘Have they found my wife yet?’ he asked as he was taken into the emergency department of the Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital.
A detective who had arrived answered: No, they had not found Allison.
Gerard was held at the hospital in case he’d tried to take his own life in the crash.
That night, mental health nurse Nat Karmichael paid him a visit for an assessment. Gerard was sharing a large four-bed room with other patients, so Karmichael arranged for him to move to a single room so they could talk privately.
But they were not alone. It was 1.05 am and Olivia was with him. Gerard asked if Olivia could stick by his side, on legal advice. Usually Karmichael assessed people without anyone else present, but said it would be okay.
Asked to rate his mood from one to ten, Gerard said he was a three or four. His wife was missing, he explained. Karmichael asked Gerard how he felt about that. Olivia interrupted, according to Karmichael’s account to police. Gerard was ‘numb’, she volunteered.
Gerard disagreed. He said he was more ‘concerned’, especially about his children.
Karmichael tried to go into Gerard’s relationship with Allison. Again, according to Karmichael’s account, Olivia interjected. ‘Gerard, do not answer those questions,’ she told her brother.
Gerard insisted he was not suicidal; other than that, on legal advice he would not talk about the crash.
Police have often wondered if things would have been different if Gerard didn’t have Olivia there that night. Some are convinced he was ready to confess all at the time of the car crash. But Gerard always seemed to have someone present, whether it was his sister, parents, friends or lawyer. Perhaps if he didn’t have such rock-steady allies to turn to for support, he would have revealed a lot more about what happened.
There was one final disagreement between the siblings. Gerard said he usually slept for eight hours a night, but had been sleeping poorly since Allison went missing. Olivia disagreed. She’d heard him snoring and thought he’d been sleeping just fine.
Family – a story
(As told to police by Jan and Frank. Names changed.)
In late 2008, Gerard sold a home at Kenmore to a couple I’ll call Jan and Frank. The home had belonged to Olivia and her husband, Ian. It backed onto the home of Gerard’s parents and for a long time everyone got along famously. The only time there was any odd feeling was when Gerard made a rather inappropriate remark after Jan made a joke. ‘If we both weren’t married I’d put you over my knee and spank your bottom and, let me tell you, you would enjoy it,’ he’d said.
Jan got to know Allison through the Brookfield school, where they’d see each other almost every day. It was obvious to Jan that Allison was a devoted mum, never missing a sports day or concert or award ceremony. Gerard had an active role too. Like a lot of people, Jan heard on the school grapevine that Gerard had an affair and she watched Allison soldier on. Jan liked that Elaine Baden-Clay would always speak so highly of Allison, gushing about what a great mother and wonderful person she was.
Then Allison went missing and Jan mucked in, coordinating a food roster with other parents at school to feed the 11 people now bunking down at Elaine and Nigel’s house. Jan would deliver food twi
ce a day, collect groceries and do their laundry.
Two or three times, Frank asked Elaine if Gerard wanted to go with him to the showground to see how the search was going. Elaine would go inside, then come back and say Gerard couldn’t go because he was looking after the kids. It seemed pretty strange to Frank, whose own kids were playing with the Baden-Clay children in the yard. He thought Gerard would want to be part of the search effort. The first time Jan saw Gerard after Allison’s disappearance, he broke down and sobbed with his head in his hands. There were no tears but Jan left thinking he had nothing to do with it.
Jan and Frank generously lent the Baden-Clays their car and cleared a path through a hedge on their boundary so the kids could come and play at will. Olivia started confiding in them. ‘I was lying on the bed with Gerard this morning and I asked him if he’d done it,’ she’d said. Olivia hadn’t revealed Gerard’s response.
That particular comment was made on the morning of 30 April 2012. Hours later, Allison’s body was found.
Frank heard the news first. He knew Olivia and Ian had gone for a walk, so he jumped in his car to alert them to the tragic discovery. Ian was disturbed, but not Olivia. Frank remembered Olivia said: ‘Good, I’m glad. They would never have been able to clear Gerard’s name if they never found a body.’ Jan recalled Olivia saying: ‘I so hope it’s her.’
The next day, Gerard came running up Jan and Frank’s driveway, as if someone was chasing him. Frank opened the door and Gerard threw his arms around him in a hug; he was making a crying sound but was strangely dry-eyed.
Sitting at a table inside, Gerard appeared to be sobbing, but then he looked up at the window and his sobs abruptly stopped. The blind was open about six inches and he asked Frank to close it. When it was down he started sobbing again. To Frank, Gerard’s behaviour did not seem genuine – Gerard looked like he was pretending to be upset and playing the part of bereaved husband.
Elaine’s comments about Allison changed dramatically after the body was discovered. ‘Allison was never a good cook and Gerard was a single parent,’ Elaine told Jan about a week later. ‘You see, Gerard wasn’t only a single parent but he was also a carer.’ Jan was shocked and upset. It was ridiculous, not to mention inappropriate, so soon after Allison’s death.
Their contact eased after that, but Gerard phoned one day. He wanted Frank to know about a story that was going in the next day’s paper. It was going to be about his affair.
A text arrived from Nigel’s phone at 8 pm: ‘Just wanted to give you a heads-up that there may be an article in tomorrow’s Sunday Mail about G’s affair which ended last year. He told the police about it on day one which was also when WE learned about it. It is also common knowledge in the Brookfield community so be prepared for some salacious commentary – sadly. Love Nigelaine.’
Jan went straight over and found Elaine crying. ‘Allison drove him to it. He’s my boy, he’s my boy,’ she said.
‘To what?’ Jan asked.
‘To the affair,’ Elaine said.
The dumping ground
Gerard’s evidence was he didn’t know the creek where Allison’s body was found; nor did he know exactly where the nearby Scout camp was, despite his famous ancestry.
They’re dubious claims. As a western suburbs real estate agent, it was his job to know the area, and he’d sold and managed properties in the vicinity. His secret trysts in his car with Toni McHugh hadn’t been far away either. And family heritage meant everything to the Baden-Clays. It’s hard to imagine the town’s major Scout camps and their locations hadn’t been topics of conversation.
But there’s also an amazing untold story about Gerard and Kholo Creek, where Allison’s body was discovered.
Sergeant Murray Watson was the second witness called at Gerard’s trial. He was the one who described Gerard as ‘one of the nicest guys in the world’. Watson gave evidence he had met Gerard several times at a property at Chalcot Road, Anstead, to evict problematic tenants. It was just around the corner from Kholo Creek Bridge, and the fact Gerard had met him there demonstrated Gerard knew the area better than he was admitting.
What Watson wasn’t asked about at the trial was his own personal search for Allison. I found out recently that after Allison vanished, Watson had in fact correctly guessed where Gerard would dump her body, or at least very close to it.
This is what happened. Watson was aware Gerard was implicated in Allison’s disappearance. He started speculating on where Gerard might have put her body. Watson had been a cop in the Indooroopilly police division for more than 20 years and knew the western suburbs like the back of his hand. He told search coordinators where the local mining shafts were. But because of his dealings with Gerard at the Chalcot Road property, he had a particular feeling that’s where Allison’s body could be. It was outside the search zone, so Watson took it upon himself to go look around the area.
During one shift four days after Allison went missing, Watson went searching through Anstead bushland. The search took him into Wirrabara Road, the last street before you come to Kholo Creek Bridge when you’re driving away from Brisbane. At one point that day, Watson was just 400 metres from where Allison’s undiscovered body lay. When Allison’s body was eventually found, Watson went straight to the CIB and told detectives he’d been searching there.
Why prosecutors didn’t mention any of this at the trial, I have no idea. The jury should have been told. A police officer, who knew Gerard well and regarded him as a mate, had suspected all along that Gerard may have dumped Allison’s body in the very area where she was found.
Insurance
Gerard certainly had a financial incentive to kill. Allison’s three life insurance policies were worth $1 million, and cash-strapped Gerard was the sole beneficiary in her will.
Evidence gathered by detectives, but never used at the trial, showed Gerard was actively involved in Allison’s insurance affairs immediately before her death. On 12 April 2012, just a week before Allison went missing, Gerard was logged as phoning one of her insurers. The insurer’s call centre recorded that the operator wouldn’t give Gerard any information because he wasn’t the policyholder. Prosecutors have never explained why they didn’t tell the jury about this. It was significant information that showed Gerard had Allison’s life insurance on his mind just days before her death.
Gerard also personally made a number of inquiries about Allison’s life insurance after her death that the jury wasn’t told about. Chloe Hulbert, a call centre operator with Suncorp in Sydney, remembered taking a call from Gerard on 9 May 2012: just over a week after Allison’s body was discovered. Hulbert told police: ‘The caller was clearly upset (crying) and indicated that he was worried the policy would lapse.’ She apologised to Gerard for the delay and said it was a sensitive case so he’d have to speak to someone more senior.
Gerard also spoke on the phone to a Suncorp executive manager, Mark Bower. Gerard was anxious to find out if he had to keep paying the premium to make sure he got the payout. Bower assured Gerard he no longer had to pay. Gerard, not taking his word for it, asked Bower to put that advice in writing.
From this we can get a picture of Gerard being desperate to secure Allison’s juicy life insurance payout. One million dollars. It would have solved all his money problems. And with Allison dead there was no costly divorce to deal with. Allison’s insurance ultimately included: almost $350,000 from Suncorp’s insurance arm Asteron; almost $435,000 from TAL; and $236,000 from IOOF, including a small amount of superannuation.
The Crown decided not to suggest the insurance money was a motivation for Gerard to murder Allison. It seems a strange call. Even if the murder wasn’t premeditated, the insurance could have been front and centre on Gerard’s mind at the moment he chose to kill.
The insurers did pay up, but the money went into a trust while Gerard’s criminal proceedings played out. In February 2017, after an application by Allison’s father, the Supreme Court formally declared Gerard had no right to any of her e
state. As of March 2017, a court still had to order the insurance be paid into Allison’s estate. If that occurs, the insurance will be divided equally between the couple’s three daughters. Gerard rightly won’t get a cent.
Sources
I’m sure some people would like a line-by-line reference for where the material in this book originated. The nature of this story is that some people would only speak, and provide documents, on the condition of anonymity.
I spoke to literally hundreds of people for this book, and tried to speak to many more without success. One person I particularly wanted to talk to finally and kindly relented, noting he couldn’t help but be impressed by my persistence. He even offered me a job in real estate. Imagine.
It’s all about Gerard
Probably the number-one question I get asked is: Why the public fascination with Allison’s case? It’s a fair enough question, except sometimes it carries an overtone that Allison doesn’t ‘deserve’ so much attention. Some almost seem to resent the fuss.
There are many reasons for the interest. A former beauty queen vanishes from a posh suburb and her husband, a descendant of the world-famous Scouts founder, is suspected to be involved. The description sounds like it was lifted from the back of a fictional page-turner.
Then there was Allison herself. A struggling mum of three girls; many could identify and sympathise. But those who run the line that people were only interested in Allison Baden-Clay because she was an attractive, middle-class white woman miss the point.
I’ve come to believe the real reason this case stirs so much passion is actually the profile of the perpetrator, not the victim. Quite simply, it’s all about Gerard. The pillar of the community who wouldn’t search for his wife. The holier-than-thou real estate agent who was living a double life. The narcissistic killer who wouldn’t admit a thing.