The Murder of Allison Baden-Clay

by David Murray

  Dr George realised on the spot that Allison was suffering from depression and panic attacks, which were basically a sudden spike in anxiety. He recommended Zoloft, a brand name for the antidepressant sertraline. Gerard, who had taken Allison to the appointment, had reservations about medication. He’d later admit he didn’t believe in depression and thought it was all in Allison’s head.

  Allison went with Dr George’s advice and began taking Zoloft at the usual starting dose of one 50mg tablet a day. Sertraline, from a class of drugs known as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, controls mood by increasing the amount of serotonin available in the brain. Multinational drug company Pfizer developed Zoloft in 1990 and by 2005 it would be the most popular antidepressant in the United States, with more than 30 million prescriptions written annually.

  A weight lifted for Allison. Now she had a name for what was troubling her, and the means to bring it under control. Within four weeks of starting on the medication, Allison’s condition improved in leaps and bounds. By the time she gave birth to her second daughter in December 2003, Dr George noted Allison was symptom-free. The medication had done exactly what it was designed to do. It had been so simple. She had battled through for so long when all she needed was the right help.

  At times she had been in no position to seek help herself. With her recovery there was some resentment. Why hadn’t Gerard seen that she needed help? If she had been physically ill or injured he would have sprung into action.

  Sold

  2004

  Jane Jones – not her real name – was a bright, blonde mother of around Gerard’s age who became one of his first clients. She was divorcing, which meant she also had to sell the family home at Pullenvale, west of Kenmore. Her phone call to Raine & Horne was put through to the business’s freshly minted agent, Gerard.

  She’d phoned around other agencies, but when Gerard arrived punctually at her home, where she was waiting with her two young sons, he quickly disarmed her with talk of his own young family. Every day, he explained, he would leave work early to be home for quality time with his children. He also spoke of his other family, the Scout movement.

  Jane’s estranged husband had been a Scout, a fact she mentioned, which may have been why Gerard talked so much about his great-grandfather, Baden-Powell. She was more impressed by the way he spoke about his family life and kids. He struck her as honest and genuine. There was no hesitation choosing him ahead of the rival agents competing for her business.

  Gerard listed the home in May 2004 and it went to auction two months later. Raine & Horne co-owner Ray Leech would remember this as an auction when he had to have a quiet word with Gerard about how he addressed his parents in public. As Leech arrived for the big day, he had overheard Gerard call his father Daddy. Leech admired the close relationship between Gerard and his parents, but he also had to consider what was best for the business. ‘Can you call them Elaine and Nigel?’ he suggested to Gerard.

  The auction went ahead without a hitch, with the home selling for $600,000 – a $220,000 jump on what Jane paid only two years earlier. Gerard was on his way in the real estate game.

  The Baden-Clays made it their practice to celebrate sales. When the trio sold a home, buyers were showered with bouquets of flowers or bottles of wine to encourage repeat business. Jane went on to strike up a friendship with Gerard. She would call him for advice on property investment and renovations and he would drop by for coffee and a chat.

  Often Gerard would ask Jane to come and work for him. She was studying for a commerce degree and Gerard wanted her to do the books. She always refused. A single mother, she was aware of her vulnerabilities when it came to charming men like Gerard. But if he was interested in her romantically, he never made a move. Always, he talked about his wife and kids.

  Aware of Gerard’s growing commitments outside the office, which included his role as president of the Kenmore and District Chamber of Commerce, she quizzed him about how he managed to juggle everything.

  ‘The way I do it is I work in the evenings,’ he confided.

  Leech occasionally entrusted Gerard with the running of weekly sales meetings and training new staff. A few times, he also offered his recruit advice about his young family: ‘Just make sure you look after them because you’ll lose them,’ he warned the hardworking Gerard.

  Two divorces had made Leech as aware as anybody of the perils of the industry. Real estate was a hugely demanding game for anyone who wanted to be successful. When an agent was ‘in the zone’, wives or husbands at home never saw them. The phone would ring 24/7. The industry could own you. Plenty of salesmen ended up having affairs. Gerard seemed to be trying to strike a balance between work and home life. Leech thought he might one day even buy the business.

  However, some of the possible pitfalls involved in hiring three family members started to surface. Elaine was clashing with other staff, who found her manner haughty.

  By contrast, Leech got along well with the Baden-Clays. He noticed there was never a cross word between Nigel and Elaine, who seemed at peace with one another. But he did have his own run-ins with Elaine at times. Gerard’s strong-willed mother once made the mistake of giving Leech unsolicited business advice.

  ‘Elaine, don’t ever tell me how to run my own business. If you think you know how to run a real estate company, go and open your own,’ he fired back.

  Gerard, Nigel and Elaine were already considering their future.

  All’s fair in love and real estate

  2004

  Raine & Horne Kenmore co-owner Ray Leech was sipping a coffee when Gerard and his parents asked to talk. Cutting to the chase, Gerard informed his boss he was opening his own real estate business with his parents. They would all be leaving. They had been at Raine & Horne for less than a year.

  It wasn’t out of the ordinary for an agent to switch franchises or start out on their own, but the Baden-Clays had more news.

  ‘Where’s your location?’ Leech asked. He wasn’t expecting the reply that followed.

  ‘Right next to you,’ said Gerard.

  Not only had Gerard and his parents secretly leased the empty office next door, they had entered into a franchise agreement with the rival Century 21 group. Gerard and his parents were to open at Shop 2/2105 Moggill Road, wedged between their old Raine & Horne office and the Coffee Club. Within a couple of weeks they would be competitors sharing a thin wall. Gerard and his parents would be trying to poach clients from under the noses of their old bosses. To allow them to open up on their own, Gerard had secured a real estate agent’s licence. Nigel later did as well.

  Acquaintances unfamiliar with the industry would sometimes ask Leech if he had taken a swing at his former staff member when he heard the news. Leech always laughed off that suggestion. ‘I’ve been in this industry too long. You’ve just got to put your head down and make more sales,’ he’d reply.

  Even so, Leech had an expression for what the Baden-Clays had done: ‘raping your brain’. Someone would come in, take your ideas and your systems and open up down the road. He was used to it.

  Jason Arnott didn’t dwell on the Baden-Clays’ behaviour either. He simply couldn’t feel threatened by them. They lacked the experience to be a real and immediate threat.

  After the move, the Raine & Horne owners and the Baden-Clays would smile and wave and exchange courteous greetings when they saw each other. There was no animosity. But other agents drew their own conclusions about Gerard’s motives for working at Raine & Horne with his parents: ‘It all suddenly made sense. He was training his parents to be partners in the business,’ says one former colleague. ‘You learn from somebody then you become their opposition right next door. In real estate, people do things like that all the time. I just felt it was not very ethical to the principals, who were always very, very good to them.’

  At the start, Century 21 Westside was just Gerard, Nigel, Elaine and an administration assistant. The small group looked even smaller in the large office space, whic
h was bigger and more expensive than the thriving real estate premises they had left next door. But Gerard fancied his own business abilities, and his parents backed him to the hilt. They had to start from scratch, from the fit-out to their client base.

  Early on, Gerard showed a flair for ruthless competition when he tried to poach the building’s signage rights. Boldly, he approached the landlord and demanded the all-important rights, so he could increase awareness of his new business. Raine & Horne had the full rights to splash their brand across the top of the building locked into their contract.

  Leech swiftly put a stop to the manoeuvring. ‘Forget that. It’s included in our lease that we have the rights; that ain’t going to change,’ he told the landlord.

  There were further signs of Gerard’s cheek later, when Leech and Arnott were planning to sell.

  ‘Can I have a look at your figures for the last three years? I might be interested in buying your business,’ Gerard asked.

  Leech assumed it was a thinly veiled attempt to steal more secrets, but shared his figures with Gerard anyway. Sure enough, Gerard had a look at the inner workings of the opposition and took it no further: ‘I’ve had a think about it, I’ll just stay with Century 21,’ he told Leech.

  Happily for Leech and Arnott, they got the premium they were aiming for when they sold out. Proving there was no bad blood, Leech later auctioned some homes for Gerard. And Arnott later picked Gerard to sell his sister’s home at Brookfield. But they were under no illusions about Gerard: the mummy and daddy’s boy could be tough when it suited.

  The gold standard

  July 2005

  Phillip Broom slipped on a dark olive suit, a pair of brown leather shoes and matching belt, and checked himself in the mirror of his parents’ Brisbane home. The suit was one of his favourites: single breasted, well made and contemporary. He was ready for his job interview with Gerard Baden-Clay. Broom was visiting from Sydney, where for the past nine months he had been state manager with Musiclink, which sold musical equipment. Before that he had spent five years based in bustling Tokyo, living out of a suitcase as he spruiked high-end instruments and audio equipment for another firm, Vestax.

  He’d grown up in Brisbane, playing drums in covers band Dog Boxer and originals outfit Kosher at local bars and nightclubs. His claim to fame in his youth was having one of his songs played on the TV show Smash Hits, wedged between the No. 2 and No. 1 songs in Australia that week. It was only padding out the countdown, but for a brief moment his friends believed he had a No. 1 hit.

  Broom had studied business at the Queensland University of Technology, where he met his wife, Michelle. The couple wanted to start a family and was planning a return to Brisbane. Broom wanted to stick with his strengths in sales, but flip from records to real estate, where agents were making a killing. Gerard’s Century 21 Westside office in Kenmore was at the top of a shortlist. The western suburbs were Broom’s old stomping ground, so he knew the area’s upmarket, family lifestyle was a valuable commodity. But first he had to meet Gerard.

  A short, immaculately groomed woman greeted Broom at the reception desk of Century 21 Westside on Moggill Road, Kenmore. Elaine Baden-Clay had Margaret Thatcher’s bouffant hair and appeared to share the former British PM’s penchant for pearls and power dressing, too. Elaine led Broom inside, where Gerard Baden-Clay was waiting with his father, Nigel. Gerard, the agency’s owner and principal, was wearing his Century 21 jacket, company tie and matching trousers.

  Though it is actually mustard, within the company, the eye-catching jacket is referred to as being gold, and agents are encouraged to wear it whenever they can. Since leaving Raine & Horne, Gerard had enthusiastically embraced every aspect of his new franchise and wore the jacket everywhere: to the office, to clients’ homes, at auctions, for functions, for awards, to his kids’ school for sports days, to lunch and on any number of other occasions. Rival agents speculated he even wore the gold jacket to bed, and not just to sleep in.

  Nigel, standing next to Gerard, was yet to be introduced to Broom but was the first to speak. Taking one look at the prospective new employee, Gerard’s dad seemed to conclude that Broom wouldn’t fit in:

  ‘Brown shoes. Probably going to be too cool for us,’ he said, turning to his son.

  It wasn’t exactly the welcome Broom was expecting but he put the remark down to an awkward attempt to break the ice and quickly moved on.

  The conversation flowed freely. Staring out from a frame on the wall was a figure Broom, a former Scout, recognised instantly. Lord Robert Baden-Powell was pictured in uniform with his arms crossed. An inspirational spiel accompanied the image. Gerard introduced Broom to his great-grandfather.

  Gerard’s surname puzzled Broom, who couldn’t figure out how the name Baden-Clay derived from Baden-Powell. It was one of the first things he mentioned to his wife, Michelle, when he returned home. Years later he raised the origins of the surname when he spoke to police.

  The sparse display windows of Gerard’s business premises nagged at Broom too. There didn’t seem to be nearly enough homes on offer. And the office was clearly too big for the small workforce, who were spread out through an expansive space. One area was effectively being used as a junk room. Wasted space was expensive – not a good sign.

  But of all the people in the industry he’d met so far, Gerard seemed to have the most proactive and professional approach. The Baden-Clays must have been equally satisfied, brown shoes or not. As Broom caught a flight back to Sydney, Gerard sent him an email offering him a job. Broom had no hesitation in accepting.

  Gerard’s new business was finding its feet and Allison felt she had her battle with depression and anxiety under control. But the couple were at loggerheads over a new issue – whether to extend their family. Allison yearned for another baby. Gerard resolutely did not want any more children. He felt overrun by the presence of two small children, and their finances were stretched.

  There had also been huge shifts in his relationship with Allison. On deeper reflection, Gerard might have seen more reason to admire Allison for the way she handled her depression: it didn’t bring out her weakness; quite the contrary. Her anxiety meant it was sometimes hard for her to go out, to socialise, yet somehow she pushed through. She was a fighter. Gerard didn’t see it that way. He had just wanted her to get over it. His eyes were elsewhere.

  He’d worked with Michelle Hammond at Raine & Horne when he was new to the real estate industry. Hammond, a blonde of about Gerard’s age, worked in admin in the firm. It would later come out in court that not long after Gerard moved on from the business to open his own Century 21 franchise, the pair launched into an affair.

  Gerard’s new salesman, Phill Broom, had an odd encounter with Gerard involving Hammond. One day, Gerard commented from nowhere that Hammond had breast implants. Broom asked how he could know, and Gerard said Hammond had been talking to the girls in the office about it and had showed him. He kept his relationship with Hammond relatively discreet, discovering he had a knack for keeping secrets. The affair lasted at least a month. It was relatively easy for Gerard. He was doing long hours in the office and Allison was used to him working nights.

  Allison was still insistent about having another baby. Eventually he gave in and they started trying to conceive. Allison found out in February 2006 that she was pregnant again.

  After the initial elation, she suffered a bout of anxiety that she recognised from her earlier pregnancies. This time she was ahead of the game. She went straight to her psychiatrist, Dr Tom George, about resuming her medication. Now she understood the problem and how to treat it, she wanted to nip it in the bud.

  Dr George put her back on Zoloft and she was rapidly back in control. Allison and Gerard’s third daughter was born in September 2006.

  Here’s my card

  Saturday 21 April 2012

  8.30 am

  Gerard Baden-Clay pulled open the glass door at Kenmore Clinics medical centre, the first patient to arrive for the day. T
he receptionist was expecting him after an earlier phone call and went in to flag his arrival with the doctor rostered on for the morning shift, Candice Beaven, in her consulting room. Beaven listened as the receptionist briefly outlined the unusual case. Gerard’s wife was missing. He might need grief counselling.

  The 32-year-old GP had been working at the busy private practice in Brisbane’s west for 17 months but hadn’t treated Gerard or his wife Allison. Taking a seat across from the doctor, Gerard motioned to the wounds on his face. He’d cut himself shaving the previous day, he explained, and wanted her to take a look. After the introduction from the receptionist, Beaven was expecting her patient to be upset. She was surprised by Gerard’s composure. He seemed anxious to have the nasty scratches on his face examined, but there was nothing to indicate his emotions were getting the better of him. It was remarkable given the strain he must have been under. That morning, police and volunteers were frantically searching for Allison in bushland around the well-heeled and tight-knit suburb of Brookfield.

  Immediately, Beaven had trouble accepting Gerard’s explanation for the injuries. There were three vertical scratches on his right cheek. It looked, frankly, like someone had raked their nails across his face. It did not look like any shaving cut she had seen – not that shaving injuries were a common complaint in surgeries. Far from it.

  At first Gerard told Beaven a single pass of his razor caused the three slashes. It seemed unlikely. The wounds were spaced apart. When she questioned Gerard, he changed his story. Perhaps he cut himself a few times, Gerard offered. As he had been in a rush, he couldn’t be sure.