What Did Keli Lane Do With Her Baby? - Analysis #2
Case Study: Working With Contamination - Comparative Analysis
Please NOTE: The blog is for educational purposes. All parties are innocent unless proven guilty in a court of law. No analysis can be a substitute for a thorough investigation, but instead must be taken as a tool for investigative purposes.
***I am not associated with any investigation into the case of Keli Lane. My opinions are my own and not necessarily those of any investigating entities.***
In the previous post, What Did Keli Lane Do With Her Baby, we began our analysis of the case of Keli Lane, now convicted of murdering her newborn daughter, Tegan in 1996. We examined her words she used during a clip from her first police interview to give us a starting point for a comparative analysis of her language across multiple excerpts from her addressing this matter.
On the issue of contamination, we noted how edited clips and prior discussions we aren’t privileged to create doubt over where a subject’s language might be originating from. Another form of contamination comes from time. This can be particularly true in cases that have lived under the scrutiny of public media such as this one. Over time, emotions are processed, memories change and in high profile cases, public opinion constantly weighs on one’s psyche.
Below is a transcript copied from a letter Keli Lane sent to journalist, Caro Meldrum-Hanna, requesting she investigate her case. The letter was written while Lane sat in prison, convicted of murder. The case was well publicized. This means the influence of time that already existed when Lane had her first police interview is now augmented that much more. Further, the transcript appears to be only part of the letter, suggesting that we are missing the latter portion. When we do an analysis, we look at what is said as well as what is not said. However, when we are dealing with edits, we cannot say for certain that what looks to be missing from a subject’s words doesn’t exist in the parts edited out. This is Lane’s free editing process, but time has its influence on it, and it appears we are not dealing with the full content.
The letter:
Dear Ms Meldrum-Hanna
My name is Keli Lane and I have been wrongly convicted of murdering my baby in 1996. I believe if the public knew the real facts, had all the information and saw the errors and questions that still remain in my case they may be able to help, perhaps come forward with where Andrew Norris, our child or his family are. Ultimately we are trying to locate Andrew, our daughter or a family member.
Below is the transcript with commentary:
Dear Ms Meldrum-Hanna
My name is Keli Lane and I have been wrongly convicted of murdering my baby in 1996.
To begin, we see that Lane doesn’t begin with the pronoun, ‘I.’ This puts us on alert for the possibility that the letter will contain deception. However, if we consider that an introduction isn’t unexpected to be in her priority, we can acknowledge that the personal pronoun comes right on the heels of the introduction and the influence of this indicator is softened. Once it enters with “…and I have been…” she becomes linguistically present.
We must, however, also note that Lane doesn’t say she, ‘was wrongly convicted…’. To use present perfect tense and say, “I have been wrongly convicted…” is not reporting on something that happened in the past, but instead proclaims her status as some who has experienced being “wrongly convicted” in the present moment of her writing. The reference to a ‘wrongful conviction’ is temporally vague.
This is also not a denial of ‘murder’ when one seems necessary. Although we won’t call it deceptive on its own, we must remain on alert for the possibility as we work through our analyses.
It’s nuanced but one should start with the consideration that she had an underlying motivation as she was writing that was likely driven by something she was currently ‘experiencing’ and less by something she ‘did experience’ in the past.
We are also to be on alert for the specific use of the term, “murdering.” Although its use is not unexpected, being that it’s a legal term, we should remain open to the possibility that she could be able to deny ‘murder’ even if she caused Tegan’s death by some other means.
I believe if the public knew the real facts, had all the information and saw the errors and questions that still remain in my case they may be able to help,…
Note that “I believe if” and “they may be able to” qualify and weaken Lane’s confidence in the public’s ability to help.
What are “real facts” according to Lane’s subjective dictionary? According to our principles, “real facts” are not the same as ‘the truth.’ Consider this as we then see Lane wanting the public to see “the errors and questions” from her case so to persuade them for their help. This suggests to us that Lane’s appeal is based on such things as ‘technicalities’ or maybe ‘holes in the investigation’ but why not base it on 'the truth?’
Consider that the term “real facts” is dependent upon the concept of ‘fake’ ones which should also bring us to ask what those could be. Were there any ‘lies’ told in her trial? According to her words what were presented were “facts” just not ones she would classify as “real?”
…perhaps come forward with where Andrew Norris, our child or his family are. Ultimately we are trying to locate Andrew, our daughter or a family member.
Note that Lane didn’t ask the INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALIST to try to find Andrew Norris or her daughter. She merely asked her to expose issues with the investigation and/or her trial so the public would. Yet, please recall that she expressed weakness in her confidence that the public would be “able to help.” Why not ask Meldrum-Hanna to use her investigative skills and resources to try to find Tegan? What better help could she ask for?
The term “come forward” should have us asking the question, does she think someone out there is hiding information on where these people are; keeping it a secret? If so, then what might make her feel that is the case? Is it possible she believes Andrew, Tegan or their family are actively hiding from police and/or the public?
Why would doing an investigation into the flaws of her case be what would cause people to want to “come forward?” Wouldn’t those people who know where to find Andrew Norris or more specifically, her daughter, already know that she’s “wrongly convicted” given they know these people exist and are alive and well?
Who is “we?” This presents two issues for Lane’s writing. First, “we” is improperly introduced, meaning if we don’t know who that is then Meldrum-Hanna shouldn’t either. Have these two communicated prior to this letter? Is the pronoun “we” Lane presupposing herself as a ‘team’ with Meldrum-Hanna? If not, then this pronoun means that someone else’s presence and/or involvement in this matter is weighing on Lane’s mind. Please consider this in context to the beginning of this letter and the suggestion that Lane’s underlying motive behind her writing is connected to something she was ‘currently experiencing’ and ask, could those who made up “we” have influenced and/or pushed her into this endeavor with Meldrum-Hanna? Secondly, it is not the personal pronoun, “I.” Although, contextually, Lane is in prison at this point, so if she were undergoing an attempt to find these people, she would likely need help, we should at least take the point that her language doesn’t make this endeavor as personal to her as one might like it to be. Where she doesn’t say something like, ‘I need to find Tegan’ but “we are trying to locate…” instead, we can get a relative sense of where her emotional connection is to this task.
Does anything overlap in our comparative analysis up to this point? It appears that it does. Here Lane shows her micro-priority when she names the people, she wants the public’s help in finding; not once, but twice. In both instances Andrew Norris takes top priority over her daughter as she places him in front of her in her list of names. Please recall from part one in this series that when speaking with police Lane’s language was to make her account of what happened to Tegan, an account that focused on the actions of Andrew Norris. Fundamentally, it appeared to be an account primarily about him and not about her or her daughter. Here we see this built upon when years later, as she was writing this letter, her priority was still to make Andrew Norris come before Tegan. Why? It suggests that she may have a stronger need/desire to locate Andrew than her own daughter. He’s #1 on her list of people to “locate” despite that finding Tegan would be the easiest and fastest way to put her murder conviction to bed.
We must also note changes in her language as she was “wrongly convicted of murdering (her) baby” but then states she needs help finding “our child” who then becomes “our daughter.” Contextually, we should give a pass to the first change as one is under the color of the ‘wrongful conviction’ and the other is in her introduction of Tegan’s ‘father.’ But why go from the formal and rigid language of “child” to the warmth of “daughter?” There is no apparent contextual justification for this, with a slight caveat. The caveat is that “child” comes in close context of Andrew’s full name, while “daughter” comes in close context with using only Andrew’s first name, meaning that in the case of both people, she was more formal in her first sentence than in the latter. This change in language puts us on alert that she may not be working from her experiential memory at this point.
More interesting in my opinion is her need to share possession of her child/daughter with Andrew. It augments the concept of Andrew’s importance even further as he has to continue to be linguistically present in her language even after he’s been named. Think of it as if she said, ‘Here is person #1 and here is person # 2 who I share with person # 1,’ or perhaps more accurately, ‘...here is person #1 and here is person # 1’s, and my daughter.’ His linguistic presence stays in her language.
But also importantly, we know that according to her account, she gave up Tegan to Andrew and hasn’t been a mother to Tegan for the nearly two decades of her life as of the time of this writing. So, although in most cases the personal possessive pronoun, “my” would be expected, here I believe her struggle to use it under this context can also be expected. But we know from her police interview she appears to be able to use Tegan’s name, so if she can’t take personal possession, why not reference her by name? Why does she (1) have to invoke a linguistic relationship with Tegan and (2) then do so by sharing possession of Tegan with Andrew?
This appears to be a significant Need to Share from Lane in my opinion. We should consider two possibilities:
1 – Lane has a Need to Persuade Meldrum-Hanna that she has a daughter with Andrew. Such as to say that in the fraction of a second it took for Lane’s brain to formulate her language while undamentally focusing on locating Andrew as her priority, she couldn’t talk about Tegan as Andrew’s child. Her brain then created a ‘fictitious child’ to substitute in her language. By ‘fictitious child’ I simply mean she is not speaking from her experiential perception of reality, as if when she said “our child” or “our daughter” her brain was not truly referencing Tegan. In that same fraction of a second, the possessive pronoun enters Lane’s language to persuade Meldrum-Hanna that she in fact does share a “child” or “daughter” with Andrew.
When reflecting on this question, we should return to the police interview and note, that at least up to this point in our comparative analysis, Lane hasn’t used words such as ‘Andrew Norris is the father of Tegan.’ Linguistically the best she did was to say she gave “custody” of Tegan to “the father of the child” and he took her into “his care.” The name “Andrew Norris” had to be introduced by the police, at least during the portion of the discussion we were privileged to.
2- Lane has a Need to be seen as Tegan’s mother, but her psyche knows she can’t claim Tegan alone. This would be as if she wanted to be seen as a ‘good mother’ who didn’t completely give up her daughter, so she wants to continue to claim her. But in order to do so, she has to steal some claim to Tegan from Andrew, the person who truly has possession of her.
Could there be something else driving her Need to Share? Looking ahead at upcoming clips (that still need analysis), it appears that during conversations with Meldrum-Hanna, Lane was in fact able to reference Tegan in her free editing process using the pronoun, “my.” When we look at this in concert with the change of language and linguistically making Andrew take priority, making us linguistically go through Andrew before we get to either “our child” or “our daughter” I believe the ‘fictitious ’ hypothesis is one to keep in mind.
One last point to discuss, which we already touched upon, is that Lane never uses Tegan’s name in this letter. Why? Again, if Tegan is alive and out there and Lane wishes Meldrum-Hanna to gain the public’s help in finding her, shouldn’t Meldrum-Hanna have her name? Shouldn’t she know who it is that they are to be looking for? It once again supports the concept that Lane is focused on Andrew Norris far more than she is focused on Tegan and it should cause us to ask questions as to why.
As we conclude this portion of our comparative analysis, I’d like to remember the following two observations to consider as we continue on:
1- Lane has made a pattern of putting her priority in discussing “Andrew Norris” over discussing Tegan or herself, giving us a strong suggestion that there may be something making him more influential to her account of what happened with Tegan than one may expect from what she has reported.
2- Lane has not linguistically named the man she is calling “Andrew Norris” as Tegan’s father, opening the possibility that he is not.