By Michaela Whitbourn
A NSW couple murdered a 19-year-old in order to assume custody of a five-month-old child, a court has been told.
Robert and Anne Geeves, both 64, are standing trial in the NSW Supreme Court for the murder of Amber Haigh at Kingsvale, an isolated rural pocket about 15 kilometres south of Young in NSW, between June 1 and June 6, 2002. “Not guilty,” both said on Friday.
Anne and Robert Geeves are standing trial for the murder of Amber Haigh (centre).Credit: NSW Police/Supplied
Justice Julia Lonergan is presiding over the judge-only trial in Wagga Wagga.
Circumstantial case
Crown prosecutor Paul Kerr said in his opening address to the court on Friday that the case against the Geeveses was “largely if not completely circumstantial in nature”. Haigh’s body has never been found.
“The Crown case theory is that it was always the intention of the Geeveses to assume the custody and care of [the five-month-old],” Kerr said.
“So, the Crown asserts, they killed her,” Kerr said.
Kerr said the last independently verified sighting of Haigh was at her flat on June 2. Robert Geeves was with her.
Haigh, who had an intellectual disability, had been assessed at the age of 18 as having the mental age of a 12 to 13-year-old.
Robert and Anne Geeves outside their farm at Kingsvale, near Young, in 2009. Credit: Lee Besford
She started living with the Geeveses at their rural property in 2000, when the couple were in their 40s, before moving to a one-bedroom flat in Young in October 2001. After that time, she lived between the two properties, Kerr said.
Kerr said there would be evidence the Geeveses “plant[ed] a seed that Amber was suicidal” before she disappeared.
The Geeveses reported Haigh missing on June 19, 2002, at Young Police Station, Kerr said. They claimed they had last seen her several weeks ago at Campbelltown railway station.
“There has been absolutely no trace of Amber Haigh since 5 June 2002,” Kerr said.
‘Happy, bubbly’
Haigh’s mother, Rosalind Wright, gave evidence on Friday that she only learned that her daughter had been living with the Geeveses after she went missing.
Asked about her personality, Wright said she was “happy, bubbly … she was kind-hearted”.
“If you were asked, would you describe Amber as a leader or a follower?” Kerr asked.
“Follower,” she said.
‘No motive’
Public Defender Michael King, acting for Anne Geeves, said his client had “no motive to kill Amber, or even wish her dead” and she maintained she had last seen the 19-year-old when the couple dropped her at Campbelltown station on June 5, 2002, to visit her ailing father.
She did not kill Haigh and nor did she stand by as her husband killed her, King said, and to her knowledge “Robert Geeves did not kill her”. Locals had been “all too quick to point the finger” at the couple and “everything they did was viewed through a haze of mistrust and suspicion”, he alleged.
Public Defender Paul Coady, for Robert Geeves, said his client has “denied being in any way involved in her disappearance or murder”.
“Many witnesses harboured grievances or suspicions particularly against Mr Geeves.”
Of the alleged motive articulated by the Crown, Coady said that there was “insufficient reliable evidence to support such a motive”.
The trial continues.
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