When Australians were first introduced to Gerard Baden-Clay in 2012, he appeared to be a loving and concerned husband, desperate to know what had happened to his wife, Allison Baden-Clay, who had disappeared from their Brisbane home in April 2012.
But the mask slipped two months later when he was arrested for brutally murdering Allison to claim a $975,000 life insurance payout to cover his business debts – and to hide an on-off affair from her.
“On the day Allison was reported as missing, I remember being told there was much more to this case,” news reporter Alison Sandy tells Woman’s Day.
At the time, she was the police and courts editor at The Courier Mail and recalls being suspicious of Baden-Clay from the very start.
“Everyone knew that he did it,” she says.
“It was one of those stories that you cover and they end up being branded on your brain. You never forget them.”
While Baden-Clay is currently serving a life sentence at Wolston Correctional Centre in Brisbane after being convicted in July 2014, there is now speculation he could walk free as early as next year if he’s granted parole.
HIGHLY DECEPTIVE
But experts warn that Baden-Clay poses a serious threat of reoffending. According to forensic criminologist Dr Claire Ferguson, he is an example of a “killer narcissist”.
“They’re highly deceptive – they’re expert liars,” she explains in the new 7News podcast Kiss & Kill, which is re-examining the case.
“They often have histories of lying for personal gain and being manipulative for their own ends in a lot of different spheres of their life or in lots of different contexts.”
Baden-Clay has kept a relatively low-profile behind bars, but chillingly, he still wears his wedding ring.
In October 2019, Baden-Clay was banned from working as a carer in prison as a punishment for touching an officer inappropriately on the buttocks.
As a result, he was moved to the prison’s protection unit until the following January.
Then, in March 2020, an anonymous corrections officer who works at Wolston Correctional Centre revealed that while Baden-Clay was a model prisoner, he sometimes “forgets his place”.
“He gets too big for his boots at times and forgets where and who he is… a murderer,” the officer claimed.
INSTANTLY SUSPICIOUS
When Baden-Clay reported Allison missing, police who responded noticed several things that made them instantly suspicious.
They noted he had distinct scratch marks on his cheek, which he said was from a shaving incident but was later attributed to Allison scratching him.
Baden-Clay’s behaviour seemed unusual, with the officers wondering why he was offering them tea in china cups just hours after his wife disappeared.
“He didn’t look like a typical grieving widow,” says retired detective superintendent Mark Ainsworth, who helped bring about justice for Allison and her three daughters Hannah, Sarah and Ella.
“His crocodile tears… his stories didn’t add up, the scratches on his face, his behaviour.”
Dr Ferguson has an ominous word of warning about Baden-Clay being freed.
“I would be very, very cautious in thinking that he could be rehabilitated into a non-manipulative and genuine member of society,” she says.
Stream Kiss & Kill on LiSTNR
