The Unresolved Case of Tegan Lane

Tegan Lane’s entire existence was kept a secret.   No one knew she had even been born until 3 years later when a social worker accidentally stumbled across her birth records.   
Her mother Keli had kept her entire 9 month pregnancy and birth with Tegan hidden from her boyfriend,  friends, team mates and even her parents, who she had been living with at the time.   

The last confirmed sighting of Tegan was on the 14th of September 1996 when she was just 2 days old.  Hospital staff released her into the care of her mother and she’s never been seen since.

Sources:
EXPOSED: The Case Of Keli Lane : ABC iview
Additional sources for the episode can be found here

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Teagan Lane's entire existence was kept a secret.

Speaker 1: 0:04

No one knew she had even been born until three years later when a social worker accidentally stumbled across her birth records. Her mother, kelly, had kept her entire nine month pregnancy and birth with Teagan hidden from her boyfriend, teammates, friends and even her parents, who she'd been living with at the time. The last confirmed sighting of Teagan was on the 14th of September 1996, when she was just two days old. Hospital staff released her into the care of her mother and she's never been seen since. This episode contains content related to infant homicide and is not suitable for children. Today I'm covering the missing person's case of Teagan Lane, last seen with her mother leaving Auburn Hospital in Sydney, new South Wales. According to Kelly, the day they were both released from hospital, she walked with Teagan in her arms to the lobby where she handed the baby over to Teagan's biological father. With him was his mother and his then de facto girlfriend, who had all agreed, according to Kelly, that they were going to take sole responsibility and care for Teagan. The police, however, did not believe this version of events and brought a case for murder against Kelly Lane. Despite searching for Teagan, looking for her remains and attempting to locate her father. Nothing has come to light. Not Teagan, living under a different name. Not Teagan's remains and not Teagan's father. So, 27 years on, where on earth could she be?

Speaker 1: 2:09

I'm Carla Morgan and this is Bolo, a podcast covering cold and active missing persons cases with the aim of helping families bring their loved ones home. Kelly Lane lived in Manly on the northern beaches in Sydney. We've talked about the northern beaches a few times in this podcast so far. It's known as the Inchila Peninsula and it does hold some dark secrets. So Kelly Lane played competitive water polo throughout her teens and later went on to become a sports teacher at a local private girls' school. Her father was a senior police detective at the Manly police station and her mother, who was a former hospital worker, was also the manager of Kelly's water polo team. They were protective parents, well respected and heavily involved in the case and heavily involved in the community. They were also strict and had very high expectations of Kelly. She was living with her parents when she became pregnant. She didn't tell a soul, even though there were whispers that she was pregnant from her water polo teammates. Kelly would wear a towel to the side of the pool and slip in unnoticed. Also, she thought In 1995, at nine months pregnant, kelly played in the New South Wales grand final for water polo. And can I just say, after being nine months pregnant three times over I could not imagine doing much, let alone jumping into a pool and playing the physically strenuous and rough 30-minute game of water polo. So after the game the team went to the pub to celebrate and at around 10pm they all noticed Kelly had left Unbeknownst to them. She'd gone into labour and admitted herself to hospital.

Speaker 1: 4:17

Kelly was 19, and in secret, with no support, she gave birth to her first child. She told hospital staff she'd received prenatal care in Perth and she gave a false address saying she'd only been in Sydney for three weeks. With the help of an agency she put this child up for adoption. You might have been thinking this child was Teagan. It was not. Teagan was Kelly's second child, who was born in 1996 when Kelly was 21. This was another secret pregnancy. She told no friends or family and, as you know already from the beginning of the episode, teagan was released into Kelly's care and, according to Kelly, was given to her biological father to raise. Teagan wouldn't be the last secret child, as when Kelly was 24, in 1999, she gave birth again, and this child was also given up for adoption like the first.

Speaker 1: 5:25

Her parents had no idea that she had given birth to three children in complete secrecy over a five-year period. It seems so unfathomable that no adult that was close to her suspected anything through three pregnancies, especially being a water polo player who was training multiple times a week in swimming togs. Also, water polo is a very rough sport. You get kicked, scratched, pulled out and your togs almost ripped off. It's a real contact sport and it can be dangerous, especially so when pregnant. As I mentioned already, her teammates suspected that Kelly was pregnant and could see that she was hiding it by covering herself in a towel when out of the water and by wearing baggy clothes, but for whatever reason, her behaviour didn't raise any suspicion amongst any of the adults around her. Some people were talking about it, yes, but no one said anything or did anything, which is kind of indicative of the time as well.

Speaker 1: 6:33

On the day Teagan was last seen, she was given a clean bill of health and discharged with her mother at around 2pm, but reports do vary on the time, and it could have been as early as 12pm. Kelly's whereabouts were then unknown up until the time she arrived at her parents' house to get dressed and ready for a friend's wedding. She then attended the wedding, which started around 4pm. She was wearing a full white pantsuit, which seems an incredulous choice for a woman who has just given birth, and she can be seen in footage smiling and enjoying herself. No one would suspect she had just had a baby and given the child up, nor would they believe she had done the unthinkable to that baby. Whatever Kelly Lane is, she is a master at hiding in plain sight.

Speaker 1: 7:30

In 1999, when Kelly had her third child in hospital, she told staff it was her first and once again put the child up for adoption through an agency, as she had done with her first. However, when the adoption agency couldn't reach her to finalise the paperwork as she had given them false contact information, the baby was put into the care of Docs while they attempted to locate her. So Docs was the NSW State Government Department of Community Services that provided child welfare services from 1881 until it was abolished in 2009. The Docs social worker who was put in charge of locating Kelly, his name was John Barovnik. He was the person who discovered for the very first time other than hospital staff that Teagan even existed. He uncovered this purely by accident, and when he went in search of more information about the child he could find no records of her, no medical records, nothing to indicate that Teagan was alive and well. He also found out that Kelly had had another child her first, who was adopted previously. So this got him thinking. Well, she's had three children. Her first and third were adopted out here on Earth is a second. He managed to eventually contact Kelly by phone and ask her point blank if she had given birth to a child called Teagan. At Orban Hospital Kelly denied having any previous children, saying her third child was her first. Then, a week later, she told the social worker that she had in fact had Teagan and that Teagan was living in Perth with her dad. He couldn't locate Teagan or the father, so he alerted the Manly Police Department and reported Teagan as a potential missing person. By this time Teagan would have been three years old.

Speaker 1: 9:54

The initial investigation into Teagan's disappearance was slow. The case was taken on by senior constable Matthew Kehoe, even though he knew Kelly's father from when he had been a sergeant at Manly Police Department. Kelly's father had retired in 1995, so he was no longer on the force, but still this was clearly a conflict of interest to be investigating the previous sergeant's daughter. In 2000, kelly fell pregnant again, but this time she told her boyfriend and her family that she was pregnant. So for the very first time she announced the pregnancy. She went to regular obstetrician appointments and she prepared for this baby and birth like none other.

Speaker 1: 11:20

Despite a sluggish start in 2001, a missing person's investigation for Teagan was underway. During a police interview, Kelly admitted that she had given Teagan to her biological father and that his name was Andrew Morris. No one in her life knew this Andrew Morris, nor could anyone recall Kelly talking about someone by that name. Kelly maintained that had a brief affair and she had told no one about it except for one friend. And she came forward much later and it was revealed in the ABC documentary Exposed that Kelly had told her when she was out one night about a guy named Andrew that she'd been seeing. It all appears a bit vague, but perhaps that was by design. Despite this, police still couldn't locate an Andrew Morris and, with Kelly claiming she didn't know where Teagan was, they were at a complete dead end.

Speaker 1: 12:24

In May 2003, a new detective, detective Gort, came on the scene and in his first interview with Kelly she revealed she had made a mistake and the man's name was not Andrew Morris, it was Andrew Norris with an N. It's in this recorded interview that I'm sure most of you have seen. It's on YouTube if you want to look at it. She's asked if she's being untruthful and in response to the question she sits in complete silence for a full 60 seconds. Goren says no. She adamantly denies killing Teagan and says she would never harm her. Now a minute might not sound like a long time, but sitting in a police interview room it's an uncomfortably lengthy pause. Detective Gore reiterated that he still didn't believe her story and said that they would continue their investigations.

Speaker 1: 13:30

At this point in the interview, kelly became visibly upset, but her concern didn't appear to be about Teagan or the fact that she was considered missing, nor did she possibly realise the implication that she was being suspected of harming Teagan or of murder. It was more apparent that she was fearful of her parents and the wider community finding out everything that she kept hidden for so long. Kelly had kept not only her pregnancies, births and adoptions secret, but also the fact that she was being questioned and investigated by police in her own child's missing persons case. No one knew anything. Once again, a master of deception. All smoke and mirrors, nothing to see here.

Speaker 1: 14:20

In January 2004, the third police interview took place and she still hadn't told anyone. She was still clearly worried about how people would view her, what her parents would think if and when they found out. She was also now concerned about whether her most recent child, who was in her care, would be taken away from her. So the consequences of this investigation were starting to hit home if they couldn't find Teagan. So, before the police could, she told her parents, telling them she'd had a baby and that the police thought she'd done something to it. Her words, her parents believed her version of events, as they still do today. They continued to stand by her and also emphatically state she would never harm a child. In fact, in all of the reporting on this story, there's not one person who came forward to say that Kelly had a mean streak or that she had potential to hurt anyone, let alone a baby. Everyone has said there's just no way.

Speaker 1: 15:32

After Teagan had been missing for seven and a half years, the case was referred to the coroner and in February of 2006, the coronial inquest was held, kelly was offered immunity from any charges if she told the police where the baby was. Immunity was on the table. If she divulged any criminal offence For example, she could have confessed to accidentally harming her illegal adoption. Selling Teagan anything but murder would get her off any and all charges. She didn't take the deal because, as she says in the exposed documentary, she would never admit to something she didn't do.

Speaker 1: 16:17

Initially, the court was closed to the public and there was a gag order so nothing could be reported in the media. But once Kelly refused to take the deal and exercised her right not to speak at the inquest, the judge lifted the no publication order and a media circus ensued. After hiding so many secrets for so many years now, everything was out there for everyone to see and I can remember this case being in the media. It was high profile. The things people were shocked about were how she was able to hide a pregnancy, or three pregnancies, from everyone and people questioning like well, why didn't she just use birth control if you didn't plan on having the babies, especially after the first one? This is how people were talking here about the case and about her choices. They were also talking about her reputation and there was certainly an element of slut shaming.

Speaker 1: 17:20

The police also used this momentum to appeal to the public to help find Teagan. If she was out there, if her dad, her grandmother and her stepmother were all out there still caring for Teagan, where were they? Why didn't they come forward? Why have they not come forward? The coroner, john Abernethy, ruled that he was satisfied Teagan was deceased, but that there was not enough evidence to charge a known person with her homicide. The coroner called Kelly's accounts a litany of lies based on what she had told police, social services and adoption agencies and said that her version of what happened to Teagan was possible but unlikely. He maintained that, as Kelly herself had provided no further details or answers to questions put to her at the inquest, that he was simply unable to do more than refer the case to the New South Wales Homicide Squad for review and further investigation. This is when Detective Sharon Rhodes said about reinvestigating the case.

Speaker 1: 18:33

There was a dig conducted underneath a house in Venus Street in Gladesville in Sydney's inner west. This happened in 2008, so 12 years after Teagan had been born. The house was previously owned by the boyfriend. Kelly had been dating at the time and she apparently told police in an interview that she had briefly visited on the day she was discharged from hospital. Well, perhaps police thought this because in the exposed documentary she said that Andrew Norris, or Morris, dropped her off at home after she met him at the hospital, which I personally find incredible. If she was trying to hide the fact that she'd had a baby, why would she then allow him to drop her off at home with a baby in the car and possibly be seen? I don't know. Nothing of note was found at the dig, despite bringing in cadaver dogs and doing a thorough grid search on that property. Teagan was not there, but neighbours did report that there had been extensive renovations done on the home from 2004. A call was put out to the public asking for anyone who had contact with Kelly while she was in hospital or anyone who had seen her in the car park on the 14th of September in 1996 to please come forward.

Speaker 1: 20:04

After two years of further investigating, the police still didn't have enough evidence to charge Kelly with any crime, so they went to the DPP, which is the Department of Public Prosecutions, for legal advice as to whether to continue investigating or drop it. The DPP said yes, proceed with the case. So in 2009, kelly Lane was charged with murder. In 2010, the trial began in the Supreme Court. Kelly did not take the stand at any time and did not testify, so the prosecution had no body, no murder weapon, no evidence of death, no witnesses and no confession. In addition to the murder charge was three counts of lying in relation to the previous births, and this meant the jury was able to hear about these births, these secret births. In any other trial, this information wouldn't be allowed to be admitted as there was no connection to the original charge of murder. In fact, the judge presiding over the case explicitly asked the defence if they wanted to strike the three charges of lying from the record, but they didn't, so it was allowed.

Speaker 1: 21:35

It also became evident that the police investigation was continuing on. Throughout the trial, the prosecution was still submitting documentation and evidence that the defence had to work through. Both the judge and the defence found this frustrating, and the judge raised his concerns saying look, if this continues, the trial would have to be aborted. They stopped and the trial continued. The prosecution alleged that Kelly murdered Teagan and dumped her body at Olympic Park. It was a theory without any supporting evidence, and it was later withdrawn and struck from the record Because of this. The judge offered the defence for the jury to be discharged and a new jury assembled, but they declined and the trial proceeded with the original jurors. It would seem the defence really thought they had an open and shut case. Kelly was innocent. They didn't know the how, the when, the where or the why, or even if Teagan was actually deceased, so there was no chance that Kelly could be found guilty. They didn't bring forward any witnesses not one, while the prosecution had over 75. Ultimately, kelly Lane was found guilty and convicted of murder and three counts of lying under the oath in December of 2010. She was sentenced to 18 years in Silverwater Women's Correctional Centre but has been moved to other correctional centres during that time, and she is currently due for release in May 2024. She appealed in the High Court in 2014 against her conviction, but lost, and it was in 2018 that she agreed to do an ABC tell all interview documentary in the hope that someone would come forward with Teagan.

Speaker 1: 23:39

The series, as I mentioned, is called Exposed the Case of Kelly Lane, and I'll leave a link to it in the show notes if you'd like to watch it. I believe it's the very first time she speaks publicly about her story and she still strenuously and continuously denies any involvement in the alleged crime. Some key points revealed in the documentary that I think are worth mentioning are the investigative journalist found a tenant from the apartment building where Kelly said Norris Andrew Norris had lived. This tenant had never been interviewed by police, had never been found by police and he positively ID Kelly Lane as being there. So he claims he saw her coming and going at around the time that she would have been seeing Andrew Norris. However, he doesn't remember seeing or knowing about a tenant called Andrew Morris or Andrew Norris. They also discovered that a man called Andrew Morris was interviewed by New South Wales police during the investigation. This Andrew Morris claims he had one sexual encounter with Kelly and that he didn't have Teagan with him. Kelly denies ever meeting this man.

Speaker 1: 24:58

He was nominated as a witness for the trial but after a negotiation between the defense and the prosecution he was never called to testify. Now he can't confidently say that it was her. He feels he was led or coached to come up with the memory by police and he says this in the documentary. So the negotiation or the deal was a witness swap out. The prosecution agreed not to put Andrew Morris on the stand if the defense didn't call Kelly's friend, who was prepared to testify that Kelly had told her she was seeing a guy called Andrew Norris or Morris At the time before she became pregnant with Teagan. If this witness for the defense had gone on the stand, it's possible her testimony may have provided enough reasonable doubt for the jury not to convict. Is Kelly currently serving a sentence for a crime she didn't commit and Teagan is alive and well, presumably living under a new identity? Or did Kelly do the unthinkable and murder her two day old child and dispose of her remains?

Speaker 1: 26:13

The Bridge of Hope Innocence Initiative believes that Kelly Lange's case is a wrongful conviction. The evidence they have to support this is phone records weren't checked adequately at the time to confirm that Kelly was in contact with Andrew Norris in the early days, as she says that she was. These phone records have since been destroyed. Police didn't look hard enough for Andrew Norris and they didn't find the witness in the apartment block that Kelly said he lived in, who positively ID Kelly as being there. They didn't work with Kelly to provide a conflict drawing to show to the public to appeal for the father's whereabouts, and she was also unfairly slut shamed. This is from the petition of Mercy on their website, and I'll link their website in the show notes sources.

Speaker 1: 27:10

In 2019, the Bridge of Hope Innocence Initiative called for an urgent review into the Kelly Lange murder case, following evidence that has cast out over the adequacy of the police investigation and the fairness of her trial. We have petitioned the Attorney General of New South Wales to open a full inquiry into the investigation, prosecution and conviction of Kelly Lange. While we are supporting a position for a review into Lange's conviction, what is needed urgently is an investigation into the policing and prosecutorial practices that led to Lange's trial in the first place. The two emergent theories are that Teagan was murdered by Kelly just after she left the hospital, or that Teagan was given to the care of a man called Andrew Norris, who has never been located. Neither has his mother or girlfriend, who Kelly claims was with him when she handed Teagan over to him. It's worth mentioning that in Australia, we do have a history of accusing and convicting mothers of infanticide and later exonerating them. Lindy Chamberlain and Catherine Folbig are two Australian mothers who were convicted of murdering their children in what one could definitely say was a trial by media and a witch hunt, only to be exonerated years later when more evidence was uncovered or when the evidence used to convict was proven to be flawed. You can basically get an expert witness to literally say anything you need them to if it supports your case in trial, and this is what we saw with the aforementioned cases. Both of these women are now free and have been exonerated.

Speaker 1: 29:14

In my opinion, it would have been difficult to leave the hospital, murder Teagan and dispose of her remains and then get back to her parents place that day in time for the wedding Not impossible, but difficult. And why? If she had given her first child up for adoption, would she not do it for her second, as she did again for her third? I can totally understand covering everything up. At a young age, kelly was resourceful and came up with a plan for two of her children three, if we believe her story. That involved keeping her children safe and cared for when she could not. She had also had two abortions previously in her teens, so she knew what options were available to her if she did not wish to keep her children, and she utilised the services at the time. It's not a crime to have a secret pregnancy and give birth to a baby and give them up for adoption. It's perplexing that she would decide on a different plan with one of those children. I feel it more plausible that she gave the baby to someone and she's still either protecting that someone or she genuinely didn't know them or didn't want any contact and therefore can't trace them. Now, like a private adoption with no future contact agreed between the two parties, it's also possible that that person has decided, for whatever reason, not to come forward with Teagan, perhaps to protect the child, to protect themselves. If Kelly knew more than what she's letting on, she had ample opportunity to get immunity and not go to prison by telling the police what she knew. She did not or chose not to. So the only person who really knows the truth about what happened to Teagan is Kelly herself.

Speaker 1: 31:22

New South Wales has recently introduced a new law after the Lynette Dawson case. Lynne's law is no body, no parole, so convicted murderers will not be released until they reveal the location of their victim's body. Kelly is still serving her 18 year sentence and has reportedly been a model prisoner. I've read in one article that she's even considered Queen B, which here is like top dog. She's due for release in early 2024 and Lynne's law doesn't apply retrospectively, so she should be released at that time. There have been recent reports that she's currently living in a halfway house and has a full-time job for the prison in preparation for her release next year. She maintains her innocence and the investigation into Teagan's whereabouts continues. The fact remains that Teagan is still a missing person and will be until either she is found alive or her remains are located.

Speaker 1: 32:29

It ended up by chance that the day I wrote this episode was Teagan's birthday. She would be 27 years old now. Happy birthday, teagan. If you or anyone you know know anything at all, please contact Police Link on 131-444 or call Crime Stoppers on 1800-333-000. Thanks for listening to Bolo. If this episode has brought up feelings for you and you need support, please reach out to Lifeline on 131114 or Respect on 1800. Respect. You can connect with me on Insta or TikTok at Bolopod or email me at Bolopod at iCloudcom if you have a case you'd like me to cover. Until next week, stay safe and thanks again for listening.