The magazine I was working on earlier this year has a monthly books page, which means all the new releases get sent in - by the boxload. Every now and then the books editor (ie the guy I sat next to) would sell off the ones he didn't want for a pittance. Usually $1.
In the last book sale we had I scored some fantastic reads - some I've not even opened up yet. One which caught my eye was a book by the Channel Nine journalist Allison Langdon. She was one of the court reporters who sat through the entire Tegan Lane case. I grabbed this book for my dad, and he enjoyed it and gave it back to me to read.
And it was so fascinating I have just read it in a day.
The book itself isn't a masterpiece - it is repetitive in spots and some of the grammar is a bit questionable - but it's a riveting yarn. For anyone who doesn't know: Tegan Lane was a baby born to a Sydney woman called Keli Lane. Tegan 'disappeared' two days after being born. The mother swears she handed her to the natural father, but no trace of the man or Tegan have ever been found. It's (of course) far more complicated than that - no-one knew Keli was pregnant. She disguised three pregnancies (other two babies adopted out legally).
Three pregnancies went unnoticed by anyone.
How very bizarre.
No-one - not her parents, her close friends - could testify that they had asked Keli what happened to Tegan.
Why ever not?
The tangled web of stories she told police is ridiculously convoluted and unbelievable.
How was she able to stand in front of the Coroner and not shed even one piece of light on what had become of her daughter?
This case has simmered down since the Coroner found that Tegan was probably deceased and ordered a homicide investigation.
Just incredible - to think that in this information age someone can have a baby slip through the net in such a way.
I wonder whatever became of that poor little girl?
1 comment:
I remember seeing that story in the news and being astonished by it. It would be nice to think the baby survived.
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