Convicted child killer Keli Lane has emphatically denied she murdered her newborn baby Tegan as she breaks her silence for the first time in almost a decade.
The Sydney mother and former water polo champion, 50, was grilled about her prospects of getting parole while out on day release on Thursday.
‘Did you kill your daughter?’ a Channel Seven reporter asked Lane as she walked beside a busy highway wearing what appeared to be a hi-vis work uniform.
‘No, I did not,’ she replied.
‘Why won’t you tell authorities where her body’s buried? Then you can walk free on parole,’ the reporter asked.
Lane replied: ‘That’s right isn’t it. If I could help, I would.’
‘Why don’t you help them?’ the reporter pressed.
‘Because I’m innocent,’ Lane replied.
Keli Lane, 50, was asked about her prospects of gaining parole nearly 15 years after her conviction on Thursday. She was approved for a strict day release program in May 2024
Lane is seen enjoying a dip at Fairlight Pool in Sydney’s Northern Beaches in April this year. It was the first time she had been spotted in public since her conviction
Lane is seen arriving at the NSW Supreme Court in August, 2010
The confrontation comes after Lane was approved for a strict occasional release program in May 2024 after serving more than 13 years in prison.
Lane was found guilty of the 1996 murder of her daughter, Tegan, and was sentenced to a maximum of 18 years in jail with a non-parole period of 13 years and five months.
She has been residing in a halfway house in western Sydney and has reportedly held various jobs on work release since mid-2023, including roles at a steel manufacturing company and a dairy product factory.
At the time of sentencing Lane was made eligible for parole in 2024 but her application was denied under New South Wales’ ‘no body, no parole’ laws, introduced in 2022 while she was incarcerated.
Lane’s full prison sentence won’t finish until December 2028, but a Corrective Services NSW spokesperson previously told Daily Mail Australia they have an ‘obligation’ to start the release process.
‘Corrective Services NSW (CSNSW) has a statutory obligation to prepare offenders for release from prison and reintegration into the community, through short periods of external leave,’ the spokesperson said.
‘Offenders are risk-assessed before being granted external leave and approval is determined on a case-by-case basis. CSNSW cannot comment on the circumstances of individual offenders due to privacy legislation.’
External leave including work release, education leave, day and weekend leave can be approved for offenders before or following the expiry of their non-parole period.
Lane wore a pair of bright pink crocs and hid her face with sunglasses as she left the beach
Lane was seen sporting a tropical print bikini paired with a black electronic ankle monitor
It was September 12, 1996, when Lane went to Auburn Hospital in outer western Sydney and delivered baby Tegan in secret.
Two days later, having not yet been discharged, Lane snuck out of the ward with Tegan around 12pm and arrived back at her parents’ home on the Northern Beaches alone by 3pm.
That night, dressed in white, she attended a friend’s wedding with her then-partner, former rugby player, Duncan Gillies.
Her parents, partner and friends have all since claimed they had no idea she was pregnant, let alone that she’d just given birth that day.
It wasn’t until a social worker noted inaccuracies in her file as to Tegan’s whereabouts and filed a missing person’s report that Lane was arrested.
Lane has always maintained her innocence and claims she handed the newborn to the biological father, a man called Andrew Morris or Norris.
During the trial Lane’s bizarre love life came under scrutiny after it was revealed that between the ages of 17 and 24 she’d accidentally fallen pregnant five times.
Many of the pregnancies were the result of affairs and kept a secret from the biological fathers.
The first two times, Lane terminated her pregnancies. The next three times she carried her babies to term without telling a soul.
Two of the babies, born either side of Tegan, were adopted out.
