Gerard Baden-Clay did some things well and made mistakes in staging of the crime scene after murdering his wife Allison, QUT criminologist Dr Claire Ferguson said.
“Crime scene staging is when the offender manipulates the scene or evidence to try to make it look as though there is an innocent explanation; it’s more than destroying evidence or wearing gloves,” said Dr Ferguson, guest speaker at the inaugural QUT Crime Book Club on Tuesday, October 4.
The book under discussion at the QUT Bookshop and Cafe, Gardens Point campus is David Murray’s The Murder of Allison Baden-Clay. Dr Ferguson is a member of the Crime and Justice Research Group in QUT’s School of Justice.
“Gerard Baden-Clay went wrong in some ways when staging his crime but also avoided some common mistakes other offenders make,” said Dr Ferguson, an expert in crime scene staging and a member of QUT School of Justice’s Crime and Justice Research Group.
“He didn’t know she’d be a fighter and that she’d scratch him. He tried to obscure his injuries with the blunt razor story and then crashed his car on the way to have his injuries photographed – that was pretty transparent.
“He dumped her body under the bridge which could have allowed for a defence of her jumping from the bridge. At the same time, putting her body in a remote place made it likely it wouldn’t be found for a long time.
“The state of decomposition was such that no definite cause of death could be determined.
Dr Ferguson said it was smart of Baden-Clay to send the text messages in the morning to support his story that she was missing, as it could have helped him avoid suspicion.
“If he killed Allison at night, she probably wasn’t in her fitness clothes – so he may have had to put those on her for his story to work.
“It’s hard to dress a body, especially in tight-fitting clothes. Usually it looks as though there is something wrong, that clothes haven’t been put on voluntarily.
“This can be a red flag to investigators, but the state of her clothing was likely pretty poor by the time the body was discovered 10 days later.
“He was also clever not to speak to the media very much.”
Dr Ferguson said some features of the murder were unanswered.
“It would be difficult for one man to take the body in the car and put it under the bridge; there was a sighting of two cars around by the bridge. Gerard was said to be a controlling about his daughters’ care – which begs the question whether he would have left them alone while he disposed of Allison’s body.”
The free QUT Crime Book Club starts at 5pm for 5.30pm at the QUT Bookshop and Café under P Block on the Gardens Point campus. Everyone is welcome. Register here.
Media contact: Niki Widdowson, QUT Media, 07 3138 2999 or n.widdowson@qut.edu.au.
