Police accused Robert and Anne Geeves of murdering teenager Amber Haigh to take her baby and then disposing of her body by feeding it to pigs, the New South Wales supreme court has heard.
The seventh week of the Geeves murder trial heard extraordinary evidence about the arrest of Robert and Anne Geeves in May of 2022, two decades after Haigh disappeared without a trace.
Haigh, who had an intellectual disability, was 19 when she vanished from the NSW Riverina in June 2002, leaving behind her five-month-old son.
The father of Haigh’s child, 64-year-old Robert Geeves, and his wife, Anne Geeves, also 64, are on trial for her alleged murder. Both have pleaded not guilty.
Police arrested the Geeveses on 4 May 2022.
About 10.30am, in the cells at Young police station, Anne Geeves declined to be interviewed by police. But the court heard she had a conversation with Det Sen Const Amanda Cary, which Cary recorded in her police notebook.
In court on Thursday, crown prosecutor Paul Kerr questioned Cary on that 2022 conversation, where the detective had put the allegation to Anne Geeves that she had “on or about 5 June 2002” murdered Haigh.
Anne Geeves denied the allegation.
In court, Kerr asked Cary: “Did you put the allegation that she had disposed of Amber Haigh’s body?”
“Yes,” Cary replied.
“Did she deny that?”
“Yes.”
“Did you say to her ‘I believe you to be equally involved in her murder’?”
“Yes.”
“When you say equally, with who?”
Cary responded: “With Robert Geeves.”
“Did you put to her the allegation that it was police belief that Amber Haigh was murdered because the Geeves wanted custody of [her] baby?” Kerr continued.
“Yes,” Cary replied.
“Did she deny that?” Kerr asked.
“Yes.”
The court also heard evidence that, on the evening of 2 July 2002, Robert Geeves called eight neighbouring rural properties in the space of 90 minutes seeking permission to access people’s land – enquiring after farm equipment or if he could collect fire wood.
Recalling the alleged conversation in the Young police station cell, the court heard evidence that Cary said to Anne Geeves: “I believe you did go on that land driving the Suzuki and I believe you did dispose of Amber’s body. I believe you helped Robert each time and I believe you to be equally involved.”
Anne Geeves replied: “No.”
Cary said: “I don’t believe you actually killed Amber, but I believe you were present, and you knew it was going to happen and you helped dispose of her body to pigs. What can you tell me about that?”
Anne Geeves replied: “No. Pigs? No.”
The court also heard evidence of police investigations into a chainsaw bought by the Geeveses – paid for by cheque, the butt of which was found by investigators – on 13 June 2002.
On Thursday, the court heard evidence about Robert and Anne Geeves’s arrest on 4 May 2022, at their property on the outskirts of Harden.
Driving the Geeveses to Young police station, Cary said she asked Anne Geeves if she wanted to know “what is new” in the 20-year-old case.
Cary told Anne Geeves a new witness, who had not previously spoken to police, had come forward to say that he had seen Anne and Robert Geeves, along with Haigh and her baby, on the afternoon of 5 June 2002 at his property in Boorowa. The Geeveses had said they were travelling with Haigh and her child to Sydney.
But the witness told police he saw Anne, Robert and the baby at a nearby petrol station an hour later, but that Haigh was not present.
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Anne Geeves responded to Cary that she didn’t know anybody in Boorowa.
James Arber, from Boorowa, gave evidence earlier in this trial that he’d seen the Geeveses and Haigh that afternoon. But under cross-examination he conceded he may have estimated the date he saw her after watching a news item on her disappearance.
The date 5 June 2002 is a critical day in the police investigation. On that day, the Geeveses told police they drove Haigh from their home to Campbelltown railway station, on Sydney’s southern outskirts, from where she intended to catch a train to visit her dying father in hospital.
Haigh never arrived at the nearby Mt Druitt hospital to see her father. She has never been seen since.
The last time Haigh was independently sighted was three days earlier, on 2 June, when she was seen with Robert Geeves at her bedsit flat in Young.
On Thursday afternoon, the court began hearing hours of listening intercepts from the Geeveses’ home, installed by police after Haigh disappeared.
The recordings are of low quality and sometimes unintelligible. In them, Robert and Anne Geeves discus the allegations against them, and their anger at the continued police investigation as well as people they believe are conspiring against them.
The intercepts also record the couple talking playfully to Haigh’s five-month-old son, who was in their custody at the time.
Haigh’s unresolved disappearance has been an enduring mystery in the Riverina. The court has heard she “adored” her son and “never let out of her sight”.
Haigh’s body has never been found, but a coroner has ruled she died from “homicide or misadventure”.
The prosecution has alleged in court that Haigh was used by Robert and Anne Geeves as a “surrogate mother” because they wanted another baby.
Amber Haigh ‘removed from the equation’, court told
The prosecution alleged that once Haigh’s baby was born, they sought to have her “removed from the equation” by killing her.
The court has previously heard the Geeveses had had one child together – a son the same age as Haigh, who had previously dated her – but the couple wanted more children, having subsequently endured three miscarriages and a stillbirth.
“The crown case theory is that it was always the intention of the Geeveses to assume the custody and care of [the child] from Amber, but they knew that to do that, Amber had to be removed from the equation … so – the crown asserts – they killed her.”
Lawyers for Robert and Anne Geeves have argued the case against the couple is deeply flawed.
Michael King, acting for Anne Geeves, said his client did not kill Haigh, and had “no motive to kill Amber, or even wish her dead”.
King said others in the community – who disapproved of the Geeves’ relationship with Haigh – were “all too quick to point the finger” at the couple when she disappeared.
“Everything they did was viewed through a haze of mistrust and suspicion,” he told the court.
Paul Coady, defence counsel for Robert Geeves, told the court his client had “denied being in any way involved in her disappearance or murder”. He said “community distaste” at Robert Geeves’s relationship with “a much younger woman with intellectual disabilities” fuelled “gossip and innuendo”.
“Many witnesses harboured grievances or suspicions, particularly against Mr Geeves.”
The judge-alone trial, before justice Julia Lonergan, continues in Wagga Wagga.