Moment wife killer Baden-Clay’s web of lies unravelled

Something didn’t smell right when Gerard Baden-Clay called police to report his wife, Allison, missing. Here’s how a cold-blooded murderer came undone.

There was something that didn’t smell right about Gerard Baden-Clay’s story from the start.

The first responding officers picked up on it when they arrived at the Brookfield family home, in Queensland, following Baden-Clay’s call to report his wife, Allison, missing.

The journalists who covered the story felt it, too.

Courier Mail Crime Editor Kate Kyriacou was one of many who stood on the darkened banks of Brisbane’s Kholo Creek in April, 2012, and watched with sombre respect, as the mother-of-three’s dead body was lifted out.

The murder of Allison Baden-Clay shocked the nation.

“We were there at night when they finally brought her body up and I think we’d been there for hours. And as it got dark out there, the TV crews had their lights on, and they were doing their live crosses and the police had their forensic lights on, and then they brought the body up and they took it away,” Kyriacou said.

With the action over, tired police and crews made their way home. Kyriacou went to find her car, just as all the lights suddenly switched off.

“I remember I had to stop in my tracks because it was so incredibly pitch black. I couldn’t see my hand in front of my face, and I just couldn’t work out where the car was because it was so dark and I had to yell out to get someone to turn their headlights on so I knew where to walk.”

The fleeting moment would later take on significance when Gerard Baden-Clay was charged with his wife’s murder and interfering with a corpse. Pleading his innocence, Baden-Clay’s case went to trial.

Gerard Baden-Clay before his arrest. Picture: Nathan Richter

“It became very relevant when Gerard came up with this version of events at his trial, where he suggested that [Allison] had serious problems with her mental health and that she had walked away from home and down to this creek in the dark, taken antidepressant medication and taken her own life. I just can’t picture that situation,” Kyriacou said.

“You could not have walked through that area in the dark. Not without some sort of torch or something to light your way to actually get down to where she was. It was so dark. And of course, there was no torch, or anything like that, found with her body.”

Police photographs of marks on Gerard Baden-Clay's skin used as evidence in court.

Baden-Clay's chest had deep scratches.

However, Baden-Clay’s defence didn’t stick, and in 2014 he was found guilty of murder and sentenced to life. His charges were downgraded to manslaughter on appeal in 2015 but the following year the High Court reinstated his murder conviction.

However for Kyriacou, the true ‘green shoot’ to come from such a deeply tragic domestic violence murder is the triumph of Allison’s three daughters, Hannah, 20, Sarah, 17, and Ella, 14.

The young women are honouring their mother’s memory, fronting the Allison Baden-Clay Foundation’s Strive to Be Kind campaign.

“Every time you sort of bump into them at events, it’s so wonderful to see them doing so well and happy and accomplished. One of the girls is a really successful ballerina like Allison was, so that’s really nice to see as well,” Kyriacou said.

“It’s heart warming but also shows that with the right family support around you can still have a beautiful life despite having gone through such tragedy.”   

For more exclusive interviews that go behind-the-scenes of Australian crime visit True Crime with Amelia Saw

Originally published as Moment wife killer Baden-Clay’s web of lies unravelled