The enduring mystery of the disappearance of Amber Haigh faces a key reckoning on Monday morning, with judgment in a trial for her murder.
Haigh, who had an intellectual disability, vanished without trace from the New South Wales Riverina in June 2002, leaving behind her five-month-old son.
In the years since, her disappearance has been the subject of two police strikeforces, a coronial inquiry, million-dollar government rewards and multiple media investigations. None have yielded resolutions.
Now, more than 20 years since Haigh was last seen, the father of her child, Robert Geeves, and his wife, Anne Geeves, both 64, have faced trial for her alleged murder.
They have pleaded not guilty and have consistently maintained they never harmed Haigh and have no knowledge about her disappearance.
Prosecutors alleged the Geeveses used Haigh as a “surrogate” to have another baby before they “removed her from the equation” by killing her.
Haigh gave birth to her son in January of 2002. She would disappear five months later.
The last independent sighting of the teenager was on 3 June 2002, when she was seen in the company of Robert Geeves in the town of Young.
The Geeveses have consistently maintained they last saw Haigh two days later on the evening of 5 June 2002, when they drove her from their home in Kingsvale to Campbelltown railway station, where she intended to catch a train to visit her dying father. They told police Haigh willingly left her young son in their care. Haigh never arrived at the nearby Mt Druitt hospital to see her father.
The Geeveses say she has never contacted them. They did not report her missing for a fortnight, registering her as a missing person with police on 19 June, by which time critical CCTV footage and other potential forensic evidence had been erased or lost.
The nine-week trial, held in the supreme court in Wagga Wagga, heard allegations the Geeveses wanted another baby after several miscarriages and a stillbirth following the birth of their son.
The crown alleged the Geeveses manipulated the naive Haigh into bearing Robert Geeves’s baby, and then, wanting to keep the baby for themselves, killed her.
“It was always the intention of the Geeveses to assume the custody and care of [the child] from Amber,” crown prosecutor Paul Kerr said. “But they knew that to do that, Amber had to be removed from the equation … so, the crown asserts, they killed her.”
The court heard evidence of previous charges of violence against Robert Geeves, including a charge of murder over the shooting death of a former girlfriend – of which he was ultimately acquitted. But police witnesses alleged Anne Geeves was the “mastermind” of Haigh’s murder.
However, defence counsel for the Geeveses argued the case against the couple – now more than two decades old – was deeply flawed, arguing that “community distaste” at Robert Geeves’ relationship with “a much younger woman with intellectual disabilities” had fuelled “gossip and innuendo”.
“Everything they did was viewed through a haze of mistrust and suspicion,” the court was told.
Michael King, acting for Anne Geeves, told the court nothing in the trial linked the Geeveses to the death of the teenager, arguing the prosecution case was inconsistent, confused, and unsupported by any evidence.
“The only rational verdict, your honour, is ‘not guilty’,” he said.
Neither Robert Geeves nor Anne Geeves chose to give evidence in their defence, as is their legal right. The defence called no witnesses.
The onus of proof rests with the crown to prove, beyond reasonable doubt, that Haigh was murdered by either or both of Robert and Anne Geeves.
Justice Julia Lonergan, who has heard this trial judge-alone – without a jury – at the application of the defendants, will deliver her judgment in Darlinghurst, in Sydney, at 11am Monday.
