Haigh, who had an intellectual disability, had been assessed at the age of 18 as having the mental age of a 12 to 13-year-old.
Robert and Anne Geeves outside their farm at Kingsvale, near Young, in 2009. Credit: Lee Besford
She started living with the Geeves at their rural property Huntley in 2000, when the couple were in their 40s, before moving to a one-bedroom flat in Young in October 2001. After that time, she lived between the two properties, Kerr said.
Kerr said there would be evidence the Geeves “plant[ed] a seed that Amber was suicidal” before she disappeared without a trace.
The Geeves reported Haigh missing on June 19, 2002, at Young Police Station, Kerr said. They claimed they had last seen her several weeks ago at Campbelltown railway station.
“There has been absolutely no trace of Amber Haigh since 5 June 2002,” Kerr said.
‘No motive’
Public Defender Michael King, acting for Anne Geeves, said his client had “no motive to kill Amber, or even wish her dead” and his client maintained she had last seen the 19-year-old when the couple dropped her at Campbelltown station on June 5, 2002, to visit her ailing father.
She did not kill Haigh and nor did she stand by as her husband killed her, King said, and to her knowledge “Robert Geeves did not kill her”. Locals had been “all too quick to point the finger” at the couple and “everything they did was viewed through a haze of mistrust and suspicion”, he alleged.
Public Defender Paul Coady, for Robert Geeves, said his client has “denied being in any way involved in her disappearance or murder”.
“Many witnesses harboured grievances or suspicions particularly against Mr Geeves.”
Of the alleged motive articulated by the Crown, Coady said that there was “insufficient reliable evidence to support such a motive”.
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