Her third pregnancy and the first child she would give birth to was a baby girl born in 1995. She didn’t want to do that again,” Caro said.īut in the following year, in 1995, she fell pregnant once again. “She says that after the termination that she had, she couldn’t do that again. The pregnancy terminations, and in particular, the second abortion which occurred 20 weeks into the pregnancy, took a significant toll on Keli. And what she did reflected back on her family, so in her mind, falling pregnant at a young age, particularly out of wedlock too, that was a really bad thing in her life.” "What she did reflected back on her family." Image: Supplied/ABC. You were a winner, Keli Lane was a winner, and that was her role in the family. “There was was no room, it seemed, for mistake. “There was that fear of disappointing her parents and shattering that image, “She was a prolific liar when she was younger, she told so many lies and wove a web of deception to cover her tracks to prevent anyone in her life finding out about these pregnancies,” Caro said. She hid both pregnancies and the subsequent abortions from her parents and friends. The first episode of EXPOSED: The Case of Keli Lane will air on Tuesday evening on the ABC.įalling pregnant twice at both 17 and 18 years old, Keli terminated her first two pregnancies in 19. “It was essentially saying I have been wrongly convicted of murdering my baby, I need to prove my innocence,” she continued.įrom there, working alongside investigative journalist Elise Worthington, Caro delved into one of Australia’s most notorious crimes. I tore it open and there was this perfectly written letter – there wasn’t a mistake in it,” Caro told Mamamia. “I was sitting in my office and the daily mail delivery arrived… there was this blue biro, I’ll never forget, this blue biro hand written envelope. Now, 22 years on from the disappearance of newborn Tegan, Keli is determined to prove her innocence.įollowing multiple unsuccessful legal appeals against her 18-year jail sentence, the 43-year-old has reached out to award-winning Australian journalist Caro Meldrum-Hanna, to investigate her story. The child, who was Keli’s fourth pregnancy in just five years, has never been found. “This could all prove you guilty,” she told Lane.Nearly eight years ago, in December 2010, Keli Lane was convicted of murdering her two-day-old daughter, Tegan Lee Lane. Meldrum-Hanna was hooked – she agreed to investigate the case on condition that Lane understood this may not go in her favour. What she found was someone who was “lucid, who was logical and who was calm”. She admits she was expecting Lane to be “possibly aggressive, defensive, delusional and in denial”. Meldrum-Hanna’s first phone call with Lane was some months later. “She believed the man that took Tegan was out there and she was desperate for him to come forward to prove her innocence.” “The way the trial was run was madness, in her opinion.”īut the thing that Lane stressed to Meldrum- Hanna was she was “absolutely adamant” her child was still alive. “There was so much she wanted to tell me,” Meldrum-Hanna says. It turned out that Lane had been watching Meldrum’s reports for Four Corners and she now wanted the journalist to investigate her case. She couldn’t quite believe it when she realised the letter was from Lane. In late 2016, Meldrum-Hanna was working at Four Corners when, out of the blue, she received a handwritten letter. “Tegan has never been found dead or alive. “There was so much grey, and darkness and secrets with this case,” Meldrum-Hanna says. Ultimately, what Meldrum-Hanna wanted was to find the truth in the tangled web of lies. In her trial, prosecutors argued Lane killed Tegan so she could pursue her dream of competing at the Sydney Olympics. She terminated her first two pregnancies and put two babies up for adoption. In fact, she became pregnant five times over seven years. But apparently no-one knew that Lane, just 21 at the time Tegan was born, was even pregnant.
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