The jury in the Queensland Supreme Court returned its verdict this morning.
Gerard’s wife, Allison disappeared from the home she shared with her husband and three daughters on or about 19 April 2012.
Her body was found 10 days later, under the Kholo Creek bridge, about 14 kilometres from her home.
No cause of death could be determined.
The jury in the trial heard that Gerard’s marriage to Allison had been under strain. He had been having an affair with a colleague, Toni McHugh, and that he had promised to leave his wife.
The jury was also told that Gerard was under significant financial pressure.
Police who visited the couple’s home in the early hours of the morning on the day that Allison went missing noticed what appeared to be deep scratches on Gerard’s face.
He told the court that he had cut himself shaving while rushing to get the girls ready for school, in Allison’s absence.
Similar marks on his chest were where he had been scratching himself, after being bitten by a caterpillar or some other insect at a cross-country event at his children’s school, he said.
Gerard told the court that he believed that his wife must have left their house voluntarily in the early hours of the morning. She often went walking in the morning, and was found dressed in her walking clothes: three-quarter length pants, a bra, singlet, and sneakers.
The court was told that Allison had a significant history of depression. She was medicated with Zoloft, and her dose had been increased since she discovered her husband’s affair.
Allison’s blood was found in one of the couple’s two cars, but the blood sample could not be dated. There were no significant wounds on her body. Leaves from her garden were found in her hair. The defence argued that these may have washed down the creek.
The jury retired to consider its verdict at 11.10am last Thursday, after hearing from 72 witnesses.
Unusually for a murder trial, Mr Baden-Clay himself took the stand.
The jury in a murder trial must return a unanimous verdict.
The seven men and five women deliberated for four days before deciding that Gerard was guilty.
They emerged from the jury room several times during deliberations, to seek clarification on points of law from Justice John Byrne.
One on occasion, they sought another reader of the judge’s explanation of the ways in which they might use circumstantial evidence to arrive at a verdict.
The Crown’s case was entirely circumstantial.
The judge explained that it was not enough for the jury to conclude that guilt was a ‘rational inference’. It had to be the ‘only rational inference’ that could be drawn from the circumstances.
