Couple acquitted of murdering teen to steal baby

On a cold winter’s day in June 2002, a mentally disabled teenage girl disappeared without a trace from the New South Wales Riverina.

Since then, the mystery surrounding Amber Haigh has gripped Australia’s vast farming region, amid a shocking allegation that the 19-year-old girl was allegedly murdered by the father of her five-month-old baby and his wife so they could take her child.

Twenty years later, Robert and Anne Geeves – both 64 – were charged with her murder, but on Monday they were acquitted after a high-profile trial.

Judge Julia Lonergan ruled that prosecutors had failed to prove their alleged motive, saying: “Cases are not decided on hearsay, speculation or conjecture.”

The Geeveses are the last people to see Amber alive. They have long said they dropped her off at a train station 300km (186 miles) from their Kingsvale home – where the three lived at the time – so she could visit her dying father on June 5.

Despite an extensive police investigation, a coroner’s inquest, and a million-dollar reward for information, her body has never been found.

Prosecutors based their theory on witness statements and hundreds of documents: the Geeveses had “manipulated” Amber into having Robert’s child, then “cut her out of the equation” when she refused to give up custody.

The court heard the couple had an adult son – who had previously been in a relationship with Amber – but were still “desperate” to have another child in the early 2000s after suffering multiple miscarriages and a stillbirth.

However, the defense argued that the accusation that they killed Amber to steal her baby was baseless and that the investigation into the couple – who have already been in prison for two years awaiting trial – was flawed from the start.

They told the court that a “haze of suspicion” had clouded the local community’s view of the Geeveses because of Robert’s past – which included acquittals for the murder of an ex-partner who was found on his property with a gunshot wound to the face, and charges of sexually abusing two schoolgirls.

That past, the Geeveses’ lawyers said, created a “presumption of guilt” that persisted for decades and ultimately “blinded” police as they searched for Amber.

Over nine weeks, dozens of witnesses gave testimonies about the last months of the teenager’s life, describing a “kind-hearted” but “vulnerable” young woman who struggled to distinguish between “love and exploitation.”

Two of them recalled how Amber had shared stories of abuse with them, including instances in which Robert Geeves allegedly gave her alcohol, tied her up and had sex with her.

And the couple’s son, Robbie, told the court his mother had called his ex-girlfriend a “surrogate mother” and that both parents had come to his house in the middle of the night asking him to accept Amber’s child as his “little brother”.

The prosecution also produced an agreement that Amber had Robert sign, in which she promised not to take her child. She also produced a will that she had drawn up, in which it was stated that her aunt would have custody of the baby in the event of her death.

“There was little evidence, in the sea of ​​evidence in this case, that Amber ever received the love she needed or deserved,” Judge Lonergan said, adding that it was clear “beyond a reasonable doubt” that she was dead.

But the judge ultimately found a critical “problem” with the prosecution’s case: there was “no satisfactory evidence” that Anne and Robert still wanted more children when Amber became pregnant.

She criticised the statements of witnesses for the prosecution and said the investigation had focused on “debunking Geeveses’ version of events” rather than investigating the cause of Amber’s disappearance.

Judge Lonergan looked at the couple in the dock and ordered their immediate release.

A member of the public gallery stormed out of the courtroom to shout. Amber’s family members were also visibly shaken, with some later breaking down in tears outside the courtroom.

The prosecution and the defense agreed on few things during the trial, except that Amber had had an exceptionally difficult life and that she had died far too early.

“Amber went back and forth between places and people looking for love and comfort. She never found it.

“She was still looking for it when she disappeared,” Judge Lonergan concluded.

The court heard that Amber had come to Kingsvale, a remote suburb near the regional town of Young, in the 1990s to live with her great-uncle Stella Nealon, fleeing a “dysfunctional” childhood in Sydney, marked by epilepsy, learning disabilities and an abusive, alcoholic father.

Mrs Nealon lived next door to the Geeveses, who were both in their forties at the time. They were introduced to Amber by their 19-year-old son Robbie.

The court heard that Amber’s life with her great-uncle was unstable and at times physically violent. Much of the tension stemmed from Amber’s relationship with one of her cousins, which had resulted in an abortion at the age of 14.

In police statements presented to the court, the Geeveses said they had offered Amber asylum and that she had entered into a sexual relationship with Robert shortly thereafter.

The Geeveses said that while their relationship with the teenager may have seemed “strange” or confrontational to outsiders, the three of them “got along very well”, with Anne telling police that Amber saw her as a mother figure.

When it emerged in 2001 that Amber was pregnant with Robert’s child, it caused a rift in the local community and ultimately broke the relationship between Robbie and his parents. This estrangement is still visible in court on Monday.

By all accounts, Amber doted on her son, but social workers and friends testified that she also struggled to cope with the relentless demands of motherhood.

The Geeveses have maintained that they did their best to help Amber deal with the challenges, and that they did so without self-interest.

And in her ruling, Judge Lonergan found “nothing sinister” in their “provision of assistance” to Amber and her child – whose privacy remains subject to strict legal protections.

She went on to say that the Geeveses’ “consistent” story – that they last saw Amber walking to the station after kissing her son goodbye – was not “intrinsically improbable”.

She listed the details of the case, noting that while it was clear that Amber had been “attacked, abused and felt unsafe” since childhood, the prosecution had failed to establish how she met her end.

She admitted it was an outcome that left unresolved some of the “factual issues” in the case – which have plagued so many people close to the case for decades.