25 YEARS ON: 'KELI LANE IS INNOCENT'

EXPERTS BELIEVE KELI MAY HAVE BEEN WRONGLY JAILED FOR MURDERING HER DAUGHTER, TEGAN

-  Sarah Marinos

Keli Lane has spent 11 years in prison for a crime she insists she didn’t commit. In 2010, the former school sports teacher was found guilty in the NSW Supreme Court of murdering her daughter – a crime she committed two days after Tegan was born in September 1996.

On September 12 this year, Tegan would have celebrated her 25th birthday. Keli and her supporters believe that Tegan is somewhere either in Australia or overseas and may even have no idea Keli is in jail for her murder.

Appeals against Keli’s conviction have failed. Now, a criminal law professor and the students who are part of the Bridge of Hope Innocence Initiative at RMIT University in Melbourne, who investigate miscarriages of justice, want a review.

“There are no key witnesses to Keli killing Tegan, there is no murder weapon, there are no remains. There is no evidence that Tegan was harmed,” the project’s director, Associate Professor Michele Ruyters, tells New Idea. “There is nothing to suggest Tegan isn’t somewhere out there today.”