Since then, the shocking accusation that the 19-year-old was slain by her five-month-old baby’s father and his wife so they could take her child has gripped the wide Australian rural region: Amber Haigh was killed.
Twenty years later, 64-year-old Robert and Anne Geeves were accused with her murder; but, on Monday, following a well-publicized trial, they were found not guilty.
Judge Julia Lonergan declared, “Cases are not decided on rumor, speculation, or suspicion,” after concluding that the prosecution had not shown their purported motivation.
The last persons who are known to have seen Amber alive are the Geeveses.
They have long maintained that on June 5, they dropped her off at a rail station 300 kilometers (186 miles) from Kingsvale, where the three of them had been residing at the time, so she could see her ailing father.
Her body has never been located despite protracted police searches, a coroner’s investigation, and a million-dollar prize for information.
In order to prove their theory—that the Geeveses “manipulated” Amber into having Robert’s baby and then “removed” her “from the equation” when she refused to give up custody—prosecutors used witness evidence and hundreds of papers.
The court heard that although the pair had an adult son who had dated Amber before, they still “desperately” wanted a child in the early 2000s after suffering many miscarriages and a stillbirth.
