Me, a letterbox, and murder

Prologue

6 pm, Monday, 13 January 2025. I step out of the kitchen after cleaning up from dinner - spaghetti bolonaise and organic penne - and walk into the front room. As I look out the window I see two ambulances parked outside, and a white four wheel drive next to them. 

"WTF!" I think to myself. 

It has been hot for the last couple of days - 30-32°C - and the house is all closed up, so I do not hear any sirens or commotion from the back room. They could have been there for half a hour for all I know.

I quickly pick up my t-shirt and walk out the front door. Looking down I see a young boy, about 12, laying on the edge of the footpath, near the letterbox. He is wearing a bike helmet and has a large, dark green whistle in his mouth given him by one of the ambulance officers, or ambos as we call them. His left leg is wrapped on three sides up to his thigh in a white cardboard casket, with bandages on the top. Next to him are two female ambos, and a male ambo standing behind. 

The boy is lying half on the path and half on the grassy area between him and the road - a major country road with trucks regularly flying by. Next to him lying on the grass is an e-scooter with its front handle section collapsed. To the far left is an old man, slumped, with a serious look on his face. Standing next to my letterbox is an elderly woman. I am 68; they are probably around the same age. 

I put my shirt on and look down at the boy. I smile. He smiles back and says to the ambos, "Look, he's putting his shirt on!" 

They have two thick green plastic boards in hand and are about to maneuver the young boy on to them and then on to a trolley so they can eventually wheel him into the back of one of the ambulances. As they attempt to place the green boards underneath him, the boy screams. 

"Blow into the whistle," says one of the ambos. 

"I'll give him some more morphine," says another. 

They successfully place the green boards under the boy, lift him on to the yellow trolley, and then wheel him over to the rear of the ambulance. 

Whilst this is all happening I walk over to the elderly woman and ask, "Are you his grandmother?" 

"No, his stepmother, and that's his father," she answers, pointing to the stooped, man standing silently by the boy and ambos.

"What happened?" I ask.

"He came off his scooter."

"Were you with him at the time?"

"No. There were some people behind him who saw it happened, and the man next door helped."

The e-scooter was a large one, commonly used by adults, and able to achieve relatively high speeds. They are not as stable as e-bikes. The immediate thought that entered the mind of the writer was that the kid was too young for it. 

I asked one of the ambos, "How bad is it?"

"It looks like he hit the verge, and put his leg out as he came off. We won't know the full extent of the injury until we get him to the hospital," she answered.

With that, I stood back and watched, silently, as the boy was placed in the ambulance. One of the ambos asked the man if he wanted to ride inside with his son. He said yes. 

Within a couple of minutes it was all over. The woman got into the four wheel drive and drove off. The ambos and boy disappeared into the ambulances. I walked inside, came out a minutes or so later to take a photo of the two ambulances, then went back inside to basically forget about the incident and get on with the rest of the evening.

Fast forward to 11am, Thursday, 16 January, and I am walking back down Albury Street after having done some shopping at IGA. The previous afternoon, between about 2 and 3 pm, a mini tornado had ripped through town, bringing down trees and power lines. It began out west, around Wagga Wagga and Cowra, and continued its rampage all the way east to the coast at Wollongong and Sydney.

As I approach an intersection I see an electrician friend working on a house. Next to the house a massive tree has been blow over by the winds the previous day, and his is working on restoring power to the place. I walk up and chat.

"Massive tree, eh?"

He turns, and asks me, "What happened with the Greeves the other day, the couple who got charged with murder?"

"What? What murder?" I respond, completely oblivious to what he has just said.

"You know, the couple who got charged with murdering that young girl?"

Just then another woman rocks up and starts asking him some questions about electric equipment. I walk away back down the street towards home. Not being a fan of murder, I am unaware of the reference he made.

Fast forward again to Friday, 17 January. I am sitting down with my daughter and partner looking at some photographs I had taken of the massive storms we had had that week, including lightning and fallen trees. As the conversation wandered, and they started talking about other things, I thought to link the two images seen above with the following words.

"Hey, here are two photos I took this week, and they are linked by MURDER!"

This immediately got their attention.

"What do you mean," they both asked.

"Apparently the couple at the scooter accident had been accused of murder. But I don't know anything about that," I replied

"I do!" responded my partner. "I followed the case on the ABC."

With that, I was given a broad outline of the sad case of the apparent murder, or mysterious disappearance, of 19 year old Amber Haigh, and the involvement of Robert and Ann Geeves of Harden - the very same couple who stood outside my house the previous Monday.

What is the Geeves murder case? The following is a summary account.

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Amber Haigh and the Geeves

 

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References

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Last updated: 18 January 2025

Michael Organ, Australia