Libby-Jane Charleston - Fatal Females: 13 Cases that Gripped a Nation Paperback

To my boys, Luke, Joshua and Dash. Ill love you until the Statue of Liberty sits down.

To the memory of victims of crime, especially Zahra Baker, a child who survived cancer only to be killed so senselessly by the stepmother she was so frightened of. May she rest in peace.

Women being different from men in their mentality, thought processes, intuition, emotional reactions and in their whole approach to life and death, when they murder, do the deed in a way that a man often would not contemplate. Their crime does not bear the mark of Cain, it is stamped with that characteristic subtlety and horror that has distinguished the rare evil women of all times.

Judge Gerald Sparrow, author and barrister

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Id like to thank the fabulous team at Hardie Grant, especially Rose Michael for believing in Fatal Females from the very beginning, and the wonderful editors Rihana Ries and Allison Hiew.

This book wouldnt have been possible without the support of my writing cheerleaders, Jacinta Tynan, Juanita Phillips, Caroline Webster, Lyn McPherson, Katerina Cosgrove, Melissa Wilton, Vanessa Gosling and Kayleigh Ford. Also to Paul for being such an amazing father to our boys, and to my parents Anne and Michael, and my sisters Cathryn and Anna for putting up with my endless chatter about the project (including some dreadfully gory details).

Thanks also to the insight of a criminal psychiatrist (who wishes to remain anonymous) who has given me a fascinating view of what makes some female criminals tick. Id also like to thank my first real boss, Ross Storey, who allowed me, as a young cadet radio journalist, to mix it with the big boys and cover criminal trials previously thought unsuitable for a pretty young girl (as I was way back in the dying days of the 1980s). Thank you!

CONTENTS

Ive always been fascinated with female criminals. Being such a goody-two-shoes for much of my life, I felt like the idea of a woman being ghastly was something worth investigating. My job as a news reporter put me in the perfect position to get my hands dirty; I was never going to join the ranks of these ladies, but at least I could write about it.

It started when I was cutting my teeth as a young radio news reporter in Western Australia in 1989. The words on everybodys tongue at the time were the Birnies Catherine and David Birnie, who went on a rampage, kidnapping, raping and killing four young women. Their horrific crimes were only halted when one woman managed to escape and took off into the streets, naked and running for her life. I was eager to cover the story because I loved doing the court round, which was always an adrenaline rush.

My over-protective news director did not want to subject me, an unsullied young woman, to the sordid details of that case. Yet the story was so horrific it was impossible to escape it. Everybody in Perth was talking about the Birnies. My then boyfriend lived around the corner from one of their victims, and every time we passed the house he couldnt help pointing out, Thats where one of the dead girls lived.

Then I befriended a woman who was sleeping with a man linked to Catherine Birnies legal team. Eager for gossip, I tempted my friend with a drink, only to discover her lips were almost sealed. Almost. She let one bit of information about Catherine Birnie slip: Apparently she is even crazier than he is.

Women are supposed to be law-abiding, loving, nurturing Madonnas not crazy gun-toting or knifewielding killers, not hijackers, not bogus vampires and definitely not people who would be up for an earlymorning strangulation episode in their lovers wifes garage. Women should be willing to die for their children, not to kill them. Yet its no secret that the number of female criminals is increasing, and theres no shortage of women throughout history whove been anything but law-abiding. Many experts blame drugs and alcohol abuse, as well as the rise of a culture in which some young women are behaving as badly as men. (In the UK, its referred to as the ladette culture.) The New South Wales Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research claims that from 2011 there has been a 15 per cent rise in crime involving women a statistic that has increased twenty-one times faster than the rate of male crime. Yet, in spite of the rise in crime at the hands of the fairer sex, a woman usually has to do something incredibly bad to get a significant sentence.

If a woman is found guilty of being an evil child killer, its easier for society to brush it off with, Well, she must be crazy even if the female criminal is found to be perfectly sane. A man is more likely to be seen as bad, while a woman committing the same crime is usually written off as being mad. (Abattoir worker and murderer Katherine Knight might have had borderline personality disorder, but psychiatrists who testified in court claimed that she was not insane.)

If theres one thing criminologists will agree on, its the fact that men are more likely to commit murder and to be a victim of murder than women. Usually when women kill, they take the life of a partner or a child. Yet the motivation for a woman to murder a partner is generally different from that of a man. Women are rarely motivated by jealousy or depression (the dominant themes for men); most women who kill a partner are responding to violence. Of course, there will always be exceptions of the headlinemaking kind; who could possibly forget the one that read, Killer was devils wife with power to control minds?

We are all capable of doing something stupid. Whos to say some of the women in this book werent just having a bad day or a bad month and snapped? Next time we go to brand a female criminal crazy, maybe we should ask ourselves a question: how many of us, crazy or not, are just one bad day away from a catastrophe?

Everybody has a theory about Keli Lane: she sold baby Tegan to a childless couple; she suffocated Tegan and threw her in the ocean; she gave birth in secret and, keen to attend her friends wedding on a cool September day shortly after the birth, hid the infant under a gum tree in the bush. Some people would rather believe anything than think that a mother could kill her daughter.

In all, Keli had eight different versions of what happened to her second child. But it was the story that she settled on a story that led to the largest police man-hunt in Australian history that would prove to be her downfall.

The Keli Lane case has fascinated many Australians. And no wonder: the fact that Keli changed her story numerous times, and kept multiple pregnancies and adoptions secret from family, friends and even boyfriends, makes her story stranger than fiction.

Born in 1975, Keli was your typical Australian golden child, growing up in the bayside burbs of Sydneys north and enjoying a life revolving around pristine Manly Beach. Kelis father, Robert, was a well-known local a rugby player, surfer and highly respected senior police officer while Kelis mother, Sandra, was said to be a loving, attentive mum.

Keli, an attractive girl with an infectious smile, tanned skin and a solid build, was a natural athlete who excelled at water polo. She was constantly training and dreamed of one day making the Australian team. She attended Mackellar high school, where she was known as a cheerful tomboy who loved to socialise, then went on to study a Bachelor of Arts and join the Australian University water polo team at the University of Newcastle.