Speaker 1: Appoche production.
Speaker 2: Thought'll be right. That's the sound of our doorbell at
Speaker 2: our studios in Brisbane, Australia. It's where we got to
Speaker 2: sit down and meet Ryan Whitwell Dwyer for the first time.
Speaker 2: It's a Saturday morning and Ryan has flown back to
Speaker 2: Brisbane to spend the weekend with me recording his story.
Speaker 2: It wasn't the first time we'd met. We'd had a
Speaker 2: few calls and I'd also travel with Sydney to meet up.
Speaker 2: When you're sitting down with someone about to tell you
Speaker 2: the sort of story Ryan's got, there's a level of
Speaker 2: trust and comfort that you need to build first telling
Speaker 2: you who you are.
Speaker 3: So I'm right, and I live in Sydney and director
Speaker 3: of events for a luxury hotel in Sydney, which is
Speaker 3: very cool, a lot of fun. I'm thirty two, thirty
Speaker 3: two in August, I should say should age myself. Mum
Speaker 3: lives on the Gold Coast. Dad also lives on the
Speaker 3: Gast no longer together. I'm single and loving it. And
Speaker 3: obviously we know where my sister is.
Speaker 2: If the title of the podcast hasn't already given it away,
Speaker 2: Ryan's sister, Britney Dwyer, is a murderer. She's currently in jail,
Speaker 2: and so was the person that helped her with the killing.
Speaker 2: Britney rang the doorbell of her grandfather's house in Adelaide
Speaker 2: back in May of twenty sixteen, and he led her in.
Speaker 2: She stayed for breakfast, looked at family photos, and then
Speaker 2: on her way out to the front door, she took
Speaker 2: a knife that she had had hidden in her sleeve
Speaker 2: and stabbed her own grandfather to death.
Speaker 4: It was my dad, my daughter killed you today. The
Speaker 4: Whitwell family, including the killer's mother Tanya, banded together to
Speaker 4: see Britney Dwyer jailed for life.
Speaker 2: Very very difficult and really smeshed yourself.
Speaker 4: The murder was brutal, callous, cold blooded and dispassionately planned.
Speaker 4: Could she just be pure, cold, hard evil?
Speaker 3: Hi? My name is Ryan and my sister murdered my grandfather.
Speaker 3: What are the signs that I missed? Family life was good?
Speaker 3: You know growing up, my dad worked incredibly hard. My
Speaker 3: mum was a stayed home mum looked after us. You know,
Speaker 3: Breakfast was ready at seven am every single day, you know,
Speaker 3: it was it was a normal family unit. You know.
Speaker 3: My parents were pretty strict, tried to always keep us
Speaker 3: on the straight and narrow when you right from wrong.
Speaker 3: And it was really sort of instilled in us that
Speaker 3: we need to be something in this world in order
Speaker 3: to you know, give back to the community as well
Speaker 3: as to be successful. And I think because we didn't
Speaker 3: have a lot of money growing up, I think it
Speaker 3: was really important that was instilled in us from a
Speaker 3: very early age.
Speaker 2: Who are we talking about when we say us, my
Speaker 2: sister and I that was the family unit. Mum and dad.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Mum and dad and Brittany and I. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Where'd you grow up?
Speaker 3: We grew up in bin Lee in which is sort
Speaker 3: of in between the Gold Coast and Brisbane. Not the
Speaker 3: best part of Queensland, that's for sure. Growing up we
Speaker 3: were actually renting a house in Mountwarren Park, little three
Speaker 3: bedroom place, one bathroom, was very small, big backyard though.
Speaker 3: We went to public school, so I went to Mount
Speaker 3: Warren Park State School and then moved through to a
Speaker 3: Window Primary. My sister was the same, She went to
Speaker 3: Windrew Primary the whole way through. There's about a five
Speaker 3: years difference between her and I. So when I was
Speaker 3: sort of leaving primary school, she was still very early
Speaker 3: days in primary school and when I was leaving high school.
Speaker 3: She had only just entered into high school.
Speaker 2: We like big brother for her big brother.
Speaker 3: Yeah, okay, I wouldn't say we were overly close when
Speaker 3: we were younger. I think again that five year age gap.
Speaker 3: We were always in two different parts of our life,
Speaker 3: but you know, still very much looked out for each other,
Speaker 3: still hung out a lot, you know, did all the
Speaker 3: siblingly things. Obviously, the little sister is always annoying, so
Speaker 3: push her away when you can. But certainly when we
Speaker 3: when I got into high school, and I think, you know,
Speaker 3: I was starting to learn to drive, and I think
Speaker 3: that opened our world up a little bit more. I
Speaker 3: was the cool older brother with the car. So yeah,
Speaker 3: but she went to a private school. The best times
Speaker 3: that I can remember was, you know, from from my
Speaker 3: childhood as well. You know, I remember we had a
Speaker 3: My parents had a great close knit group of friends too,
Speaker 3: and I would often say that, you know, my mum's
Speaker 3: best friend is like my second mother. It was very
Speaker 3: just like a normal living experience. The only I guess
Speaker 3: bad thing was that my grandfather lived in South Australia
Speaker 3: and so that was quite a quite a distance flight
Speaker 3: to wen't cheap back then. Yeah, and a little irregular.
Speaker 3: And yes, so we didn't really get to travel all
Speaker 3: that much.
Speaker 2: Ryan and Britney's grandfather was called Robert Whitwell. He seemed
Speaker 2: like a nice old man from the photos that I've seen,
Speaker 2: gray hair, slight build, and a big smile. Reminds me
Speaker 2: a little bit of my own pop. I can tell you,
Speaker 2: if you're leading to conclusions about why Britney stabbed her
Speaker 2: grandfather to death, maybe he was holding a secret of
Speaker 2: some sort. That's an assumption that's completely incorrect.
Speaker 4: It's insidious that a man who's been murdered should have
Speaker 4: his reputation besmirched in that manner. He said, mister Whitwell
Speaker 4: wasn't here to defend himself, and that the claims were
Speaker 4: simply an invention.
Speaker 2: The reason for Britney stabbing her granddad were much simpler.
Speaker 2: Robert had always lived in Adelaide. It was Ryan's mum,
Speaker 2: who is Robert's daughter, who wanted to taste of the
Speaker 2: big smoke, so she left her home of Adelaide and
Speaker 2: moved up to the Gold Coast. But Ryan and Britney's
Speaker 2: granddad always stayed close to the grandkids.
Speaker 3: I do remember one particular holiday though, that my mom
Speaker 3: and my dad actually hired a car and we drove
Speaker 3: to South Australia from Queensland, which is a long drive.
Speaker 2: It's like a twenty three twenty four hour drive Australia and.
Speaker 3: If you're doing it Australia, and I think they did,
Speaker 3: I think they just swapped drivers. Were there within like
Speaker 3: a day, a full twenty four hour period. But as
Speaker 3: I got older, I loved flying down there. I would
Speaker 3: actually save up money and fly down in school holidays myself,
Speaker 3: and it's been all school holidays there.
Speaker 2: And so when your granddad passed, his fourth wife was living.
Speaker 3: With him or not, no, not at the time. She
Speaker 3: unfortunately suffered from dementia, so she lived in a home nearby.
Speaker 3: She was falling over and whatnot, and she was he
Speaker 3: couldn't pick her up anymore when she would fall over,
Speaker 3: and it just got a bit difficult. So he moved
Speaker 3: her into the closest home to his home that he could,
Speaker 3: and every day, like clockwork, he went and visited terr
Speaker 3: at three o'clock.
Speaker 2: What was the relationship like with your grandparents in the
Speaker 2: whole family? And I guess what I'm looking for here
Speaker 2: is the relationship between you, Brittany and your grandparents and
Speaker 2: in particularly your granddad, what was that relationship?
Speaker 3: Like, honestly great. My grandfather was that type of person
Speaker 3: that you could always call. You know, you might get
Speaker 3: a lecture about something, but you know, he would always
Speaker 3: be there to support you. He would do anything for
Speaker 3: his grandkids. He was a very proud family man. He
Speaker 3: loved the idea of lineage and that you knew where
Speaker 3: your family came from and you know, would drive down
Speaker 3: Adelaide for example, or you know, we're flown he'd pick
Speaker 3: me up from the airport and before we go home,
Speaker 3: we'd go down every street that any family member lived
Speaker 3: on and you'd get the full history lesson. I can
Speaker 3: go back probably four or five generations past before him.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 3: So yeah, he was a really proud man. There's actually
Speaker 3: one particular one I remember. I mean, my sister probably
Speaker 3: wouldn't remember, but she was on the a baby at
Speaker 3: the time. But we were all at the house in
Speaker 3: matt Warren Park and they had flown up and they
Speaker 3: were doing like this big holiday and they were staying
Speaker 3: with us for a while. And I think they were
Speaker 3: up because my mother had just given birth to Brittany,
Speaker 3: and I just remember very clearly that she was like
Speaker 3: in her bassinet and we were just all one big
Speaker 3: family unit. And I think it was the first time
Speaker 3: that I come to grips that, like, I have a sister,
Speaker 3: And I think that was a really nice moment. And
Speaker 3: I actually think it's on camera somewhere too. Funny.
Speaker 2: One of those family moments is in a few of
Speaker 2: the photos that Ryan sent me of some happier times.
Speaker 2: It's a picture of the family sitting in the house
Speaker 2: in Adelaide on an old fabric couch. There's a knitted
Speaker 2: quilt on the table and Ryan sitting on his and
Speaker 2: his knee with his granddad close by. His pop is
Speaker 2: wearing thick rim glasses and holding a video camera which
Speaker 2: looks like it's brand new, and Ryan looks like he's
Speaker 2: about four years old. It's a year or so later
Speaker 2: that his sister, Brittany is born. Let's talk about Brittany
Speaker 2: for a minute. What was she like at school.
Speaker 3: Through primary school? I would say pretty pretty normal, tomboyish,
Speaker 3: love sport, you know, very energetic, very mouthy, very mouthy.
Speaker 3: She she wasn't afraid to let you know what she thought.
Speaker 5: You used to fight a lot before your dad got
Speaker 5: home from work. You know, between three and five pms.
Speaker 5: You both used to just fight and argue and bicker
Speaker 5: and pick on each other, and that you're striving up
Speaker 5: there every day.
Speaker 6: Because we were about five years apart, we were in
Speaker 6: such different stages about life all the time. You know,
Speaker 6: I was always that older brother, but not like I
Speaker 6: look at other friends that have, you know, one or
Speaker 6: two years apart, and they all seem to be a
Speaker 6: little bit closer. But I was. You know, I was
Speaker 6: already in high school and she was in primary school,
Speaker 6: and I think, you know, different music tastes and just
Speaker 6: even different maturity. So we did get on each other's
Speaker 6: nerves a lot in the earlier stage, I do, I
Speaker 6: do remember that. And then as we grew older, we
Speaker 6: became quite close. You know.
Speaker 5: She loved hanging out with you.
Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, which was nice, Like we're able to drive
Speaker 6: around the city and go get dinner and you know,
Speaker 6: go to shows and stuff because you know, as an
Speaker 6: adult you've sort of got the means to do that.
Speaker 5: You were so different. She was pretty sporty, you know,
Speaker 5: riding a scooter, riding a bike, where you didn't like
Speaker 5: any of that, you know, you didn't want to play
Speaker 5: footy or cricket or anything like that, and she was
Speaker 5: the sporty one. So the interests were very different, weren't they.
Speaker 2: That other voice you hear is Ryan and Britney's mum, Tanya.
Speaker 2: It's all still a bit raw for Tanya, so with
Speaker 2: her permission, we were able to record a chat with
Speaker 2: her and Ryan for use in the podcast. In future episodes,
Speaker 2: we'll have a deeper chat with Tanya, but for now,
Speaker 2: it's important to get the background of what the family
Speaker 2: was like when it was all a little bit more normal.
Speaker 2: It was different. When Brittany was in primary school, Ryan
Speaker 2: told me that she had a strong friend group.
Speaker 3: She had a lot of friends and particularly really good
Speaker 3: with people of need as well. Okay, so I remember
Speaker 3: she used to hang around with this guy. His name
Speaker 3: was Sam and he was disabled and they became great friends,
Speaker 3: so very very nurturing, and I think was really good
Speaker 3: with you know, bullying situations where you know, they might
Speaker 3: pick on him and you know, she stood up for him.
Speaker 3: And yeah, she had quite a large group. But then
Speaker 3: as she sort of moved into like that year seven
Speaker 3: time frame, she started to shift a little bit, she
Speaker 3: would start bullying a little bit, and she seemed really down,
Speaker 3: and then we sort of figured out that she was
Speaker 3: self harmy.
Speaker 2: Was she bullying others or others bullying her bullying her?
Speaker 3: At the beginning, we didn't really know a great deal
Speaker 3: at the time yet started to really get picked on,
Speaker 3: and back then schools were pretty blacks with it all,
Speaker 3: so we weren't really getting fed any information, but we
Speaker 3: since found out it was you know, it was quite bad.
Speaker 2: What sort of things would they What have you found
Speaker 2: out about that bullying at the time, Well.
Speaker 3: At the time, because she was a real tomboy, I
Speaker 3: think she was getting sort of picked on about potentially being,
Speaker 3: you know, a lesbian. I think year five, year six.
Speaker 3: As your body starts to change, she became a bit bigger.
Speaker 3: People would obviously pick on her about her weight, and
Speaker 3: just because she she was sort of obsessed with looking
Speaker 3: a bit rough and tumble as well at the time,
Speaker 3: so you know, she chopped a full hair, to my
Speaker 3: mum's dismay, and so I think people started really picking
Speaker 3: on her. She looked a bit boyish.
Speaker 5: It probably started with Sam. You know that the fact
Speaker 5: that she was sticking up to the bullies for him,
Speaker 5: and then she sort of found oh, all that works,
Speaker 5: so you know, you can't pick on me because I'd
Speaker 5: just use that same defense. And then she did turn
Speaker 5: into the bully later on in the high school year.
Speaker 6: When did the worry start to kick in for you?
Speaker 5: I don't know if I really did worry about her
Speaker 5: so much. She she was so secretive. She wouldn't tell
Speaker 5: me anything, even though we were pretty close. You know,
Speaker 5: when we lived out at Jim Boomber, I used to
Speaker 5: take a week off work every holiday, so I was
Speaker 5: home with her in the holidays. We could go out
Speaker 5: and do things together with down at Adelaide, So we
Speaker 5: were pretty close. But she just wouldn't tell me anything.
Speaker 5: And I didn't really think anything was wrong. She only
Speaker 5: had a couple of close friends in high school that
Speaker 5: she would talk to me about.
Speaker 6: To call teenage moodiness, right, yeah, I thought exactly.
Speaker 5: And I thought the way I was with my dad
Speaker 5: when I was growing up, I didn't tell him anything,
Speaker 5: and you know, I didn't ask him anything, just assume
Speaker 5: that she would be the same. And you know, I
Speaker 5: really didn't push the fact. I thought she would talk
Speaker 5: to me if she ever had to, But even with her,
Speaker 5: you know, being gay or bye or whatever she was,
Speaker 5: she would never actually say it. And I would say
Speaker 5: to her, well, we know Ryan's gay. Ryan come out
Speaker 5: and told me that he's gay, excepted that why can't
Speaker 5: you tell me if you were? Because I don't know
Speaker 5: could she tell? And she still wouldn't very secretly.
Speaker 3: She always was like in high school, definitely, I think
Speaker 3: the bullying sort of switched. She sort of became the bully.
Speaker 3: And with that, you know, there was self harming and whatnot.
Speaker 3: But yeah, then the email stage certainly kicked in.
Speaker 2: How did you find out about the self harm or
Speaker 2: your parents find out?
Speaker 3: Actually I found out first again when she was in
Speaker 3: high school. I was already out of high school. So
Speaker 3: she would stay over my house a lot. I lived
Speaker 3: in Karendale in Brisbane, so not that far away, and
Speaker 3: she would should come over and should stay the weekend,
Speaker 3: would go and do things, and I just remember I
Speaker 3: was in the lounde room and she was wearing these
Speaker 3: denim shorts and her shorts sort of slipped up further
Speaker 3: above the knee, and I just remember catching what looked
Speaker 3: like to me like a spiderweb, that makes sense. It
Speaker 3: was just this entanglement of one hundreds of slices all
Speaker 3: over her left leg, and I just immediately went, what
Speaker 3: is that? And she just yanked her pants like down
Speaker 3: to cover it and just would not talk about it.
Speaker 3: She's like, oh, I fell over. I said, that is
Speaker 3: not falling over, and she just would not go into
Speaker 3: it at all, to the point that you know, I
Speaker 3: probably pressed a little bit too hard, but you know,
Speaker 3: she burst into tears and I said, I need to
Speaker 3: know what's going on. And at that point our relationship
Speaker 3: was really quite close. Again that five year gap. I
Speaker 3: think really when I had left high school, created more
Speaker 3: like of an adult bond, you know, I had the
Speaker 3: means to turk her out for you know, dinners and
Speaker 3: would go around the city and all of that sort
Speaker 3: of stuff. So I think we became I became less
Speaker 3: cool brother and more adulty. And I think as soon
Speaker 3: as I talked to her about that, leg just closed up,
Speaker 3: would not talk about it. And then I obviously told
Speaker 3: my parents about it.
Speaker 2: Have they react.
Speaker 3: Mum was shocked. I think she knew that potentially there
Speaker 3: was self harming in the past. There was a situation
Speaker 3: actually where and I slipped walked as a child so
Speaker 3: I sort of put it down to that. But one
Speaker 3: day I was sort of I was in our shower
Speaker 3: and my sister and I shared a bathroom, and I
Speaker 3: noticed that there was my razor shoved down the drain
Speaker 3: of the shower, and I sort of pulled it out,
Speaker 3: and I thought, that's really odd. What is that doing
Speaker 3: down there. I sort of put it down to I
Speaker 3: was doing really weird things in my sleep, So maybe
Speaker 3: that's just something that I did. And I look back
Speaker 3: at that now, and my mum and I have spoken
Speaker 3: about this that I think that was there very much
Speaker 3: for a purpose, and yeah, I think it was happening
Speaker 3: long before we knew.
Speaker 2: In the court sentencing of Brittany and her co accused
Speaker 2: back in twenty seventeen, the judge also made remarks of
Speaker 2: Britney's past. Britney was convicted of murder at the age
Speaker 2: of twenty. She committed that murder the murder of her
Speaker 2: granddad at nineteen. We've used an AI voice to read
Speaker 2: part of the summary of the judge's comment.
Speaker 1: Having suffered from a conduct disorder since your childhood, involving
Speaker 1: behavioral disturbance, aggression and violence beginning in primary school and
Speaker 1: continuing throughout your teenage years.
Speaker 2: When Ryan was a kid, their parents didn't have much money,
Speaker 2: but as the family business started taking off, things got
Speaker 2: a little more flush. Britney was moved from a public
Speaker 2: school to a private school, and it's about this time
Speaker 2: that things start going downhill.
Speaker 3: Withdrawing very moody. How did that show up agression? It was,
Speaker 3: It's sort of hard to pinpoint exactly, but just very
Speaker 3: withdrawn from the family and friends. Didn't really seem to
Speaker 3: have many friends at that time, you know, we, like
Speaker 3: I said earlier, we knew a lot of her friends.
Speaker 3: We knew their names. You know, they'd go to parties,
Speaker 3: your birthday party is that sort of thing, and then
Speaker 3: it all just sort of stopped and we'd maybe hear
Speaker 3: one person's name or barely get a conversation out of her.
Speaker 3: She's very close to my dad though, but just kept
Speaker 3: to herself. Clothes changed, really got into Lady Gaga funny enough,
Speaker 3: I think she really loved the whole your Different message,
Speaker 3: that whole little Monster's thing that Lady Gaga calls them,
Speaker 3: and really started to get quite obsessed with that.
Speaker 5: This is the manifesto little Monster.
Speaker 1: When they're young, little monsters learn.
Speaker 6: That they are scary, ugly, stupid, uned by cupid.
Speaker 2: Oh boyd.
Speaker 5: But every monster needs to.
Speaker 6: Find that secret de Brownside, the transform doctor Jack gone
Speaker 6: into second.
Speaker 2: You said she was she was close to your dad.
Speaker 2: How did that show up and what did that look like?
Speaker 3: They would do a lot together, fishing, you know, rough howls,
Speaker 3: make jokes, watch some sort of shows, you know, just
Speaker 3: generally hang out.
Speaker 2: Did she have a partner of boyfriend girlfriend. You talked
Speaker 2: earlier that she was being bullied for possibly liking the
Speaker 2: same sex her sexuality at that point? Was that a question?
Speaker 3: No, Actually, it really wasn't. Going through primary school and
Speaker 3: high school, you know, she really took an interest into guys.
Speaker 3: She would talk about how guys were attractive, and you know,
Speaker 3: river boys from home and away and that sort of thing.
Speaker 3: So no, it never really came into question until when
Speaker 3: she left high school. And then you know, we knew
Speaker 3: about Shelby, and then that was sort of advancing. But
Speaker 3: it was never really spoken about, not because we didn't
Speaker 3: want to talk about it, because she never really wanted
Speaker 3: to bring it up.
Speaker 2: When did she leave school?
Speaker 3: She finished at twelve?
Speaker 2: Okay, did you ever talk to her about her dreams
Speaker 2: and aspirations of what she wanted to do.
Speaker 3: Definitely, I think my sister was not very ambitious. My sister,
Speaker 3: you know, I always sort of was very driven. I
Speaker 3: just sort of knew what I wanted to do. And
Speaker 3: I think that was a very big part of my
Speaker 3: parents as well. You know, it was all about, you know,
Speaker 3: you've got to make something of yourself in this world.
Speaker 3: And I think that really comes down to us having
Speaker 3: a better life than what they had. I guess I
Speaker 3: was very driven. I knew exactly what I wanted and
Speaker 3: sort of how to get it. Where she didn't. She
Speaker 3: didn't really have any drive. She didn't really know what
Speaker 3: she wanted to do. Actually, at one stage she wanted
Speaker 3: to become a cop and sort of go down that path,
Speaker 3: but that didn't sort of suffice. And so when I
Speaker 3: started noticing her being a little bit different after high school,
Speaker 3: and you know, she was hanging out with Shelby a lot,
Speaker 3: she actually had a fight with my parents and just
Speaker 3: moved out and moved in with Shelby's parents. And I
Speaker 3: just thought that was really strange. And because of the
Speaker 3: lack of drive, she still didn't really have a job.
Speaker 3: I told her she needs to move in with me.
Speaker 3: And then I really started to press about what are
Speaker 3: you doing now?
Speaker 2: Like did she move in with you?
Speaker 3: She did?
Speaker 2: She did?
Speaker 3: She did?
Speaker 2: How long did you two live together?
Speaker 3: For? Not a great deal. It did not work. She
Speaker 3: lived there, I'd probably say just under a month. She
Speaker 3: could not get the grasp of paying rent. You know,
Speaker 3: I was only charging her fifty dollars a week. It
Speaker 3: was minimal. We didn't really need the money. But it
Speaker 3: was about teaching her I guess how the world works,
Speaker 3: and you know, responsibility, and that included all her food
Speaker 3: or everything. You know. She would not show up for days,
Speaker 3: which whatever, that's just what she wanted to do. But
Speaker 3: then go, oh, well, I'm not going to pay for
Speaker 3: like three days I wasn't here. That's not really how
Speaker 3: it works. And that was essentially the downfall. And I
Speaker 3: would press her a lot, like are you going to
Speaker 3: go to tafe? Now? Are you going to go in st?
Speaker 2: Did she have a job or anything?
Speaker 3: No, she was telling us that she worked for I
Speaker 3: think it was Domino's. But I never saw a uniform.
Speaker 3: I never. I never, you know, sort of should go
Speaker 3: to work at weird times to what I would think
Speaker 3: a pizza shop would be open for It's.
Speaker 2: Hard to believe that your sister is a murder. It's
Speaker 2: the things Ryan learned about her becoming that murderer that's shocking.
Speaker 2: The event started when Brittany was at school. It's not
Speaker 2: something that Ryan or his mum would ever think would happen,
Speaker 2: but there were signs as Brittany was growing up. One
Speaker 2: of those signs was her love the macab TV show
Speaker 2: called American Horror Story.
Speaker 3: And again touching back onto the Lady Gaga thing. She
Speaker 3: was in a season on American Horror Story and I
Speaker 3: think that's where that started.
Speaker 2: OA.
Speaker 3: Oh she's on this show. I'm going to watch it.
Speaker 4: I tell you, if you weren't dead already, you disgust me.
Speaker 3: You're still upset about the Dago you screwed up to me.
Speaker 1: You robbed me of the thing I love the most,
Speaker 1: And now I never want to see her pathetic, miserable
Speaker 1: face ever again.
Speaker 3: Yes, the fascination started to really come.
Speaker 2: Was there a particular song that she was listening to
Speaker 2: from Gaga?
Speaker 3: They're Born This Way? Okay, and Judas loved that one
Speaker 3: as well. That was something that we did together as well.
Speaker 3: Every time Leader go I came into it. You know,
Speaker 3: I would buy as tickets and we would we'd go.
Speaker 3: You know, she's a great performer. I'm happy to go
Speaker 3: and see her too. But it was that was a
Speaker 3: bit of a bonding thing. But yeah, it was was
Speaker 3: truly obsessed with that.
Speaker 2: What about drugs? Obviously we know what we know now
Speaker 2: post coort, Yeah, but at the time, trying to take
Speaker 2: your mind back, did you think drugs played a part?
Speaker 5: Like?
Speaker 3: No, way they were. And you know, I really, even
Speaker 3: even today, I struggle so much to wrap my head
Speaker 3: around all the drugs and what she was doing. And
Speaker 3: because she hit it so well, you know, I look
Speaker 3: at I look back at that time and even now,
Speaker 3: I'm going, I couldn't see a thing. I couldn't see
Speaker 3: a thing to do the drugs.
Speaker 2: Did she drink?
Speaker 3: Not really in front of me, not really, you know, like.
Speaker 2: So if you went out, she wouldn't like be loose.
Speaker 3: And nope, nope, never. And this is what's so shocking.
Speaker 3: You know, we had her eighteenth at my parents' house
Speaker 3: on their property and it was very tame. I guess
Speaker 3: an indication of where she was at in life as well,
Speaker 3: is like she had no friends that turned up to
Speaker 3: that eighteenth It's really sad. Yeah, really sad. It was
Speaker 3: just all family friends and at the time we didn't
Speaker 3: really realize, you know. And then even on that night,
Speaker 3: Mom sort of pressed, like where were your friends? So
Speaker 3: you know, I don't know, they might come later, you know,
Speaker 3: all that sort of stuff.
Speaker 2: Yeah, just downplaying it.
Speaker 3: Downplayed it a lot.
Speaker 5: Yeah, she'd only has one or two good friends or
Speaker 5: you know, friends that she would let mom and dad meet.
Speaker 5: Maybe that was the whole ring. And that was Shelby.
Speaker 5: Remember at her eighteenth birthday and two girls turned up
Speaker 5: at the end of the.
Speaker 6: Night, Like, really, at the end of the night, party
Speaker 6: is over. Yeah.
Speaker 5: Yeah, but I didn't even know who they were. I've
Speaker 5: never met them before.
Speaker 6: I remember you saying to her, you know, where's everyone crying?
Speaker 6: And do you remember what she would say? Oh?
Speaker 5: Yeah, she had different excuses like, oh, they're on their way,
Speaker 5: or they'll be here later, or they're just happened dinner first.
Speaker 5: And you know, we had the pig on the spit,
Speaker 5: we had all that alcohol and the sloshy machines and
Speaker 5: all that go. I'm thinking there was going to be
Speaker 5: a lot of people. Yeah, I think those two girls
Speaker 5: turned up at the end of the night. People were
Speaker 5: already leaving to go home, and it was just family
Speaker 5: and friends. You know that would come for us as
Speaker 5: a family, but we all dressed up, you know, it
Speaker 5: was come as your favorite musician, and she was dressed
Speaker 5: up as Lady Gaga.
Speaker 3: Of course.
Speaker 6: Of course.
Speaker 5: Yeah, none of her friends turned up. That was Yeah,
Speaker 5: that should have told us a lot.
Speaker 2: Then Brittany did have some friends. One of those friends
Speaker 2: is in jail now as well. She was an accessory
Speaker 2: to the murder of Robert Whitwell. We'll talk about Bernadette
Speaker 2: Burns later. She had one other friend who wasn't connected
Speaker 2: with the murder of Britney's granddad, but did travel to
Speaker 2: Adelaide with Brittany months before her granddad was killed. Her
Speaker 2: name is Shelby Holmes. Your sister was living out of
Speaker 2: home at eighteen. She was living with Shelby. How do
Speaker 2: you reckon they became friends.
Speaker 3: I think because they were both a bit of an
Speaker 3: outcast at school, it sort of naturally gravitated that way.
Speaker 3: Shelby seemed quite sweet as well, and I think that
Speaker 3: was a nice balance for my sister, and probably you
Speaker 3: know that attracted her to her as well.
Speaker 2: When you mean sweet, talk to me about what you
Speaker 2: mean by that.
Speaker 3: She had this sense of you know, I guess in
Speaker 3: my own words, sense of innocence, like naivity. I guess,
Speaker 3: just very airy fairy, just sort of liked and yeah, bubbly,
Speaker 3: I guess, and just she just was a sweet girl.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: She didn't really talk much, so when when she was
Speaker 3: over mine, she didn't. But she used to go and
Speaker 3: have dinner with my parents all the time, Shelby. So yeah,
Speaker 3: that's how I would probably describe her.
Speaker 2: Were they just friends or more than friends?
Speaker 3: We always thought it was more. Brittany had told me
Speaker 3: there was, you know, relationship sort of stuff there. It
Speaker 3: was all it was always sort of when it came out,
Speaker 3: it was all denied from Shelby's perspective.
Speaker 2: Was there anything that seemed i'll use the word weird
Speaker 2: but unusual about their friendship or their relationship.
Speaker 3: That they were just always together, that would be the
Speaker 3: only unusual thing from an earlier stage. But I guess
Speaker 3: when I used to pick them up from nightclubs and stuff,
Speaker 3: I found out that they would go to a lot
Speaker 3: of strip shows together. You know, it's sort of male
Speaker 3: strip shows no female love and rockets in particular in
Speaker 3: the Valley, but I think it since came out in
Speaker 3: letters that you know, I think they were in there
Speaker 3: for different reasons other than just to enjoy a show.
Speaker 2: It would seem that Brittany and Shelby were very close
Speaker 2: at the time Brittany moved out of her home, she
Speaker 2: lived with Ryan for a bit, but then she also
Speaker 2: moved in with Shelby and her parents. In Quarters revealed
Speaker 2: there were over nineteen thousand text messages sent between Shelby
Speaker 2: and your sister a two year period. Do you have
Speaker 2: any knowledge of any of those text messages and what
Speaker 2: they might have said.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, especially on the on the later part,
Speaker 3: you know, the communication between them was strange, really dark,
Speaker 3: you know, and the things that they would like to
Speaker 3: get up to and text about, and what sort of stuff,
Speaker 3: oh like talking about like cutting people's throats and blood
Speaker 3: and you know, going to rave parties, which you know
Speaker 3: doesn't sound so odd, but in the context of everything else,
Speaker 3: you know, cruising through like setting up to cruise through
Speaker 3: cemeteries and stuff, which I get, you know, seems spooky
Speaker 3: and that sort of thing that it became a constant thing.
Speaker 2: More macrb than spooky. Yeah, yeah, And this was part
Speaker 2: of their general conversation. Was it jokey or was it?
Speaker 3: I mean, from an outsider looking in and when you
Speaker 3: read those messages, doesn't seem very jokey to me. But
Speaker 3: I guess you can't pick up tone in texts.
Speaker 4: Your Poppa said hi to me, he's lovely.
Speaker 2: Don't get attached to him.
Speaker 1: He might have to die.
Speaker 3: I don't think it was joky. From my sister's perspective.
Speaker 3: I think it was probably a little bit more on
Speaker 3: the serious side. And I think Shelby knows that deep down.
Speaker 3: But I think it was certainly played off that it
Speaker 3: was all meant to be a joke.
Speaker 2: In the next episode of My Sister the Murderer.
Speaker 3: He was wealthy, do you know. It's funny because of
Speaker 3: the type of guy he is. You know, he got
Speaker 3: around in a Kia and then he might upgrade to
Speaker 3: like as a zuki billino, and you know, he certainly
Speaker 3: was not flashy. We didn't know at the time how
Speaker 3: wealthy actually was. It was one of those houses that,
Speaker 3: again modest, but very charming. You know, it had great
Speaker 3: street appeal. You drive up the lawn was always manicured.
Speaker 3: You had those big, you know trees that you can sculpt, and.
Speaker 2: Do you know what was in that bag?
Speaker 3: Yeah, like bolt cutters and tape and a knife, yeah.
Speaker 2: A hammer, tin snips and cable tires. Seems fairly clear
Speaker 2: what they were going to do. Do you know if
Speaker 2: they had their mobile phones with them when they where
Speaker 2: they did? Okay? Yeah, So on the thirtieth of April
Speaker 2: twenty sixteen, they leave Brisbane and they drove to Adelaide
Speaker 3: Just before Mother's Day,