Speaker 1: Approache production.
Speaker 2: I now come to sentence the two of you, miss Edwire,
Speaker 2: you might stand up, miss Dwire. You are to be
Speaker 2: imprisoned for life, but with a single non parole period
Speaker 2: with respect to both offenses of twenty one years backdated
Speaker 2: to commence from when you were taken into custody on
Speaker 2: the twenty sixth of August twenty sixteen. I emphasize that
Speaker 2: your release at the expiration of the non parole period
Speaker 2: will not, by any means be automatic. Your release and
Speaker 2: the conditions of any release will depend on how you
Speaker 2: behave and your progress towards rehabilitation during the period you
Speaker 2: are in custody. That is all Mistwire. You may leave.
Speaker 3: Ryan Whitwell Dowai's sister, Britney, stabbed their granddad to death
Speaker 3: for one hundred thousand dollars that was hidden and he shed.
Speaker 3: She never felt the money and left with her accomplice
Speaker 3: and just one thousand dollars and some other valuables. She's
Speaker 3: serving life imprisonment. She's been in jail since November twenty seventeen.
Speaker 3: Since then, her brother Ryan has made contact with her
Speaker 3: a few times. I think you've answered this, but do
Speaker 3: you think your sister was sorry or is sorry?
Speaker 4: I think from the last time I spoke to her
Speaker 4: via the letters, No, she wasn't sorry.
Speaker 1: I don't think she was remorseful.
Speaker 4: Those words might have physically been there, but I the
Speaker 4: contacts of the whole letters, No, I didn't feel that.
Speaker 4: Whether or not she feels that now, I mean she's
Speaker 4: written to my mom many times in forms of Christmas cards,
Speaker 4: Birthday cards, full letters, and it took my mother a
Speaker 4: long time to even be able to read them, let
Speaker 4: alone reply to them.
Speaker 3: When was the first time you sent a letter to
Speaker 3: your sister? All spoke to her after she was incarcerated.
Speaker 4: The first time I spoke to her was she had
Speaker 4: just gone to Adelaide Women's prison and she was heavily
Speaker 4: medicated for depression and bipolar sort of disorder. The counselor
Speaker 4: inside the jail, like the therapist, I guess, thought it
Speaker 4: would be a good idea to make contact for her benefit,
Speaker 4: and so I did, and we set up a call,
Speaker 4: and she was allowed to go into the therapist's office
Speaker 4: and make this.
Speaker 5: Call a next monitor and recording.
Speaker 4: It was a very generic call, and I think this
Speaker 4: would have been in twenty sixteen, It would have been
Speaker 4: pretty close after she went in and it was just, yeah,
Speaker 4: what is she doing? I found out that she works
Speaker 4: in there.
Speaker 1: She what does she do? She like is like a janitor.
Speaker 1: She cleans up. And then she moved from there into
Speaker 1: the kitchen.
Speaker 4: And so she was kitchen because they get paid obviously
Speaker 4: to do little jobs. But then if on good behavior,
Speaker 4: she was allowed to participate in like CrossFit tournaments and
Speaker 4: they actually let you out of the jail to go
Speaker 4: and do this, and then like they're allowed to study
Speaker 4: and stuff like that from there as well. So that
Speaker 4: was the program that they had already set up for her.
Speaker 4: But when I was talking to her on the phone,
Speaker 4: it was all about those sorts of things.
Speaker 3: Not mentioning your granddad or you know.
Speaker 4: I did ask questions and the therapist would step in
Speaker 4: and be like, she doesn't want to talk about that.
Speaker 4: Like you could tell there was a break, there was
Speaker 4: a pause, and obviously there's a facial expression that I
Speaker 4: can't see something like that, and it would get pushed.
Speaker 1: Past post that call. Did you then send a letter
Speaker 1: or yeah, she tried to call me again. Obviously you
Speaker 1: can't call them, they call you.
Speaker 4: And so it was pretty tricky at work, and whatnot
Speaker 4: I'd miss it, but so yeah, I decided to send
Speaker 4: a letter, and it was more. The letter was about
Speaker 4: like the first one, was certainly a lot of questions
Speaker 4: that I had for her around why did you make
Speaker 4: up that he raped you or molested you? You know
Speaker 4: what happened? Like how long has this been going on?
Speaker 4: For all of those sorts of questions. I got a
Speaker 4: reply and it was very She picked and choosed what
Speaker 4: she wanted to answer back to and then maybe a
Speaker 4: year later I'd send another one. But she would always
Speaker 4: send me like a birthday car and a Christmas card.
Speaker 4: And it was that last letter that I got back
Speaker 4: from her that I'd decided I didn't want to send
Speaker 4: another one. When was there twenty eighteen and I've never
Speaker 4: heard from her since.
Speaker 6: To Mom, I am so sorry that it has been
Speaker 6: so long since I wrote you. The last letter Ryan
Speaker 6: mentioned that you needed time and that you hadn't read
Speaker 6: any of the last letters that I had sent. I'm
Speaker 6: so sorry that I couldn't be the daughter you and
Speaker 6: Dad deserved to have. I did not mean to live
Speaker 6: this life or to continue lying to both of you
Speaker 6: about having a job, a house, and committing a crime.
Speaker 6: To live. Once I moved out of home, my life
Speaker 6: started to spiral downwards and I was ashamed to come
Speaker 6: to you for help. I became highly dependent on alcohol
Speaker 6: and ice. Honestly, I did not think that you would understand.
Speaker 6: For years, you made me feel like I had to
Speaker 6: live up to Ryan and I just couldn't. I was
Speaker 6: never enough. I knew that if I had come clean
Speaker 6: that our relationship would have become more distant, And all
Speaker 6: I ever wanted was to feel loved by you and
Speaker 6: have a healthier mother daughter relationship.
Speaker 3: How did that make you feel like? Because it felt
Speaker 3: like she was admonishing herself with.
Speaker 4: Any Yeah, I certainly feel that as well reading that,
Speaker 4: and it's I don't understand particularly that component because when
Speaker 4: I was growing up, didn't have any money, and so
Speaker 4: everything that my parents gave us was to better our
Speaker 4: lives and particularly try to help us succeed in life.
Speaker 4: I didn't have much. I'll give you an example. I
Speaker 4: went to public school, which was great. I had if
Speaker 4: I wanted to have new clothes or go out with
Speaker 4: my friends on the weekend, whilst their parents would be
Speaker 4: like twenty dollars his thirty dollars. Off you go my
Speaker 4: parents didn't have the ability to do that, so I
Speaker 4: had to come up with that money.
Speaker 1: Flash forward to.
Speaker 4: When Britney was going through school and growing up, and
Speaker 4: again there is that five years different. The means for
Speaker 4: my parents had completely changed. She had the ability to
Speaker 4: go to private school, She got a pretty hefty allowance
Speaker 4: per week for not doing a great deal. They bought
Speaker 4: her first car. But my parents gave her so much
Speaker 4: and it actually probably did the opposite with her and
Speaker 4: made her not want to strive. She didn't want to
Speaker 4: try and get a job, bill start to build on
Speaker 4: a career. She had no interest in any of that
Speaker 4: because why would you You get to live at home
Speaker 4: and it's a free ride where that was not the
Speaker 4: same for myself. So to say you can't live up
Speaker 4: to Ryan, that wasn't their doing. If anything, that was
Speaker 4: my doing.
Speaker 6: I want you to blame yourself. I know that you
Speaker 6: did the best you could and you always made sure
Speaker 6: that we never went without. I have been broken and
Speaker 6: dealing with my demons for years and years, and I
Speaker 6: eventually became very good at keeping them a secret from everybody.
Speaker 6: Once I became addicted to the drug ice, I could
Speaker 6: no longer control the flashbacks and pain this led to
Speaker 6: my imprisonment. I regret each and every action that I
Speaker 6: ever did. I live with the remorse and the regret
Speaker 6: every day, and I just want you to know that
Speaker 6: I am completely and utterly sorry for all of it.
Speaker 6: You and the rest of the family did not deserve
Speaker 6: to feel pain for an action that I regret deeply,
Speaker 6: and I am so sorry for inflicting that sort of
Speaker 6: nightmare onto you all. And I understand that's sorry simply
Speaker 6: does not go back and change the past that I
Speaker 6: have created. But I miss having you in my life, Mum,
Speaker 6: and I need you to know that what I did
Speaker 6: torments me every day, and if.
Speaker 1: I could go back, I would go back.
Speaker 6: But I can't and I can't change anything.
Speaker 4: That I've done.
Speaker 6: You are still my mother, and I honestly need you
Speaker 6: now more than ever. Every occasion, every Birthday, and every
Speaker 6: Christmas that goes by without hearing from you honestly is
Speaker 6: killing me inside. I know that I have not been
Speaker 6: the daughter you deserve to have, but I am honestly
Speaker 6: so broken without my Mum. I cannot start moving on
Speaker 6: with my life in here without you. I truly do
Speaker 6: not expect your forgiveness, and I do not believe that
Speaker 6: I deserve such leniency, but I do need my mum
Speaker 6: being in my life. I love you, Mum, Brittany.
Speaker 3: How did you feel reading that for the first time?
Speaker 4: Ugh, it actually makes me want to cry. To be fair,
Speaker 4: it's I it's I didn't realize. I haven't read that
Speaker 4: letter for a long time, and actually that was the
Speaker 4: first time I physically read it in years, since twenty nineteen.
Speaker 1: And to be fair, I think I blocked.
Speaker 4: A lot of that out because in my communication with her,
Speaker 4: I didn't ever really feel like she was properly remorseful.
Speaker 4: And then I read that the original time, and it
Speaker 4: made me feel like she was sorry because it was
Speaker 4: convenient for her to be sorry and she needed something
Speaker 4: out of that, which is mum to communicate to her.
Speaker 4: But reading that again now does make me quite emotional,
Speaker 4: very hard to read.
Speaker 3: That letter was sent to you and you your mom.
Speaker 3: Did your mum read it?
Speaker 1: She did?
Speaker 6: Yeah?
Speaker 3: How did she react?
Speaker 1: She got very upset, very emotional. She didn't like the letter.
Speaker 4: I think she felt again there was blame to be
Speaker 4: passed and that she never compared her to myself. I
Speaker 4: think the only thing that ever really happened, is like,
Speaker 4: why aren't you trying to get your life on track?
Speaker 4: That would have been a comment that Mum or dad
Speaker 4: would have made.
Speaker 1: For sure. But they gave her everything anything.
Speaker 4: She wanted to make sure that she had a good
Speaker 4: life because growing up it was not the same for me.
Speaker 4: And so to have that, I guess slapped in your face,
Speaker 4: I think it really I think it pissed my mother
Speaker 4: off about those particular comments. I think it was finally
Speaker 4: nice for Mum to hear that she was showing some
Speaker 4: sort of remorse. But she's never specifically pinpointed that she's
Speaker 4: sorry about what she physically did, just sorry about all
Speaker 4: of it and more around the drug taking and that
Speaker 4: sort of thing, which I think also upset mum.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Not once in that letter does she mention that
Speaker 3: she murdered your granddad. No, that she stabbed him with
Speaker 3: a knife four times and watched him bleed out on
Speaker 3: the floor.
Speaker 1: Yeah, she doesn't in any of the letters.
Speaker 5: It's the perfew letters and cards Mother's Day card and
Speaker 5: birthday cards. And then it was probably a year after
Speaker 5: I read those letters that I decided to write her
Speaker 5: a letter. So I did write her a letter. No,
Speaker 5: I didn't ask questions because Ryan had already done that
Speaker 5: in previous ones, and we did get some answers back then.
Speaker 5: It was more that I said, we need to lay
Speaker 5: all our cards out and be honest with each other
Speaker 5: and not hold back on anything. I wanted the truth,
Speaker 5: and I sort of said, I really don't know what
Speaker 5: kind of mother that I could ever be to her. Again,
Speaker 5: I just I don't know. I don't know what kind
Speaker 5: of mother I could be now, especially knowing that I
Speaker 5: probably could never forgive what she's done. But I don't
Speaker 5: have all the answers, so it's hard to speculate on that.
Speaker 5: But I think I laid it all out and it
Speaker 5: wasn't a lovey dovey kind of letter. It was, but
Speaker 5: you know, she knows me. I was always tough love
Speaker 5: and you know that's how I raised the kids, and
Speaker 5: I don't think she'd expect anything else from me. Really,
Speaker 5: it's just I want the truth. I want to hear
Speaker 5: it from her. And that was about eighteen months ago,
Speaker 5: and I haven't heard. I never got a response from
Speaker 5: my letter, so I really don't even know if she
Speaker 5: actually got it in jail or if she just has
Speaker 5: written me off and doesn't want anything to do with me,
Speaker 5: So that to.
Speaker 1: Me shows she's not sorry.
Speaker 4: She's been seeking this attention from my mother since she
Speaker 4: decided that she's ready to speak to her, and then
Speaker 4: finally when she gets a response, and it was a
Speaker 4: well balanced response, I.
Speaker 1: Must say for my mother no reply.
Speaker 4: Do you miss her? I missed the idea of her.
Speaker 4: I miss having a sibling. It's the little things, like
Speaker 4: you know, a year ago I started a new job
Speaker 4: and as colleagues do, they try to get to know
Speaker 4: you and they say, do you have any siblings?
Speaker 1: What do you say?
Speaker 4: Because if you say yes, then they ask more questions
Speaker 4: and then that obviously leads into a whole other thing.
Speaker 4: So we've received a Christmas card in twenty twenty from Brittany.
Speaker 4: It was addressed to my Mum and I and it says, too,
Speaker 4: dear Mum and Ryan, I hope you both are having
Speaker 4: a wonderful day spent together and filled with so much love.
Speaker 4: I'll be thinking of you both as usual, many happy
Speaker 4: memories and special wishes to come, all wrapped up in
Speaker 4: loving thoughts, especially for you. I love you so much, Mum,
Speaker 4: love you so much. Ryan, Love always Brittany, did.
Speaker 3: You send cards back to her at Christmas?
Speaker 5: No?
Speaker 1: I never sent a card.
Speaker 4: Mine were always letters. I found it was easier because
Speaker 4: I would go big periods of time. If we're not
Speaker 4: speaking with her, I guess not writing a letter. And
Speaker 4: I found that I would type out a letter and
Speaker 4: I was able to share photos of what was happening
Speaker 4: in my life by embedding them into the letter, so
Speaker 4: I would give her updates about what I was doing
Speaker 4: for work, or where I.
Speaker 1: Was living at the time, which city I happened to
Speaker 1: be in. Yeah, just that sort of thing.
Speaker 3: It seems like a really normal type letter, like a
Speaker 3: pen pal, where you're saying, hey, you haven't seen you
Speaker 3: for a while. Here's a few things he's me on
Speaker 3: the beach and stuff. I don't want to put words
Speaker 3: in your mouth, but does it feel like that's a
Speaker 3: bit of small talk?
Speaker 4: Absolutely, it feels like small talk, And I think that's
Speaker 4: a perfect way of describing it. When I was writing letters,
Speaker 4: and particularly towards the end, I didn't I want her
Speaker 4: to think that I cared about what she was doing,
Speaker 4: and hearing that come out of my mouth sounds quite brutal,
Speaker 4: and I get that, but I didn't. I was not
Speaker 4: in a place where I wanted to be like, oh, hi, like,
Speaker 4: how are you, what are you doing? What are you
Speaker 4: cooking in that kitchen in jail? Like I didn't want
Speaker 4: her to perceive that I cared, So when I was
Speaker 4: writing the letters, I didn't ever really ask about her.
Speaker 4: And it was more just as if I had just
Speaker 4: done like a LinkedIn post. It was just generic points
Speaker 4: that had happened in my life.
Speaker 3: So why did you send the letters?
Speaker 4: I guess I had like a sense of obligation that
Speaker 4: I felt like it was the right thing to do.
Speaker 1: I mean, for who for me to do it, for
Speaker 1: me to.
Speaker 4: In a way, I felt like I owed that to her.
Speaker 4: I had already been quite harsh. It's weird saying harsh considering.
Speaker 1: What she did, but I did.
Speaker 4: I felt like I was being I was quite harsh,
Speaker 4: and I do imagine how lonely I think she would
Speaker 4: be in there. And some of the hard things to
Speaker 4: actually get was I'd have a lot of people that
Speaker 4: have been in jail with her that'd be let out
Speaker 4: released and they would message me and they would say,
Speaker 4: like how much she talked about me? And that was
Speaker 4: really difficult. Yeah, I think that really that broke my heart. Sorry,
Speaker 4: so I feel like it's why I was doing the letters.
Speaker 1: Excuse me, So yeah, I think obligation was that anything.
Speaker 4: A couple of years ago, I had my alert set
Speaker 4: on Google, so anytime that the topic was talked about,
Speaker 4: it pop up, which I actually had to turn off
Speaker 4: because I didn't think that was very healthy in the
Speaker 4: long run.
Speaker 1: But a story was done.
Speaker 4: I can't of remember who did it, but it was
Speaker 4: talking about some of the most vicious killers in Australia
Speaker 4: and what they'll be having for Christmas dinner and that
Speaker 4: they named Brittany and what she would be expecting in
Speaker 4: I think at that time she was at the Portagusta
Speaker 4: Maximum Security jail. And it's such a strange thing to
Speaker 4: talk about. But for a brother to hear, like in
Speaker 4: literal terms and illiteral words on what her Christmas is
Speaker 4: going to be like, Yeah, that hits very differently, And.
Speaker 3: Then I guess Christmas rolls around and it's an impossible
Speaker 3: image to get out of your head.
Speaker 2: Wrong.
Speaker 4: Yeah, definitely, I think we all did our best to
Speaker 4: enjoy Christmas. And I mean at the time, earlier days
Speaker 4: when I was still with my eggs his mum is
Speaker 4: a fantastic cook, incredible, and she would put on a
Speaker 4: massive Christmas Day spread, and so it was myself, my grandmother,
Speaker 4: and my mom and we would join their family every year,
Speaker 4: and it took the image out of your head just
Speaker 4: long enough by being distracted by everything else and feeling
Speaker 4: a part of a bigger family. And so that became
Speaker 4: a bit of a tradition for a few years.
Speaker 3: Awesome, thanks man. Join some tissues.
Speaker 4: Yeah, some parts you think differently about as time goes by,
Speaker 4: but I think overall it doesn't change very much. Overall, No,
Speaker 4: it doesn't. I don't think it changes anything for me.
Speaker 4: But based on the day, I might be a little
Speaker 4: less harsh and maybe a little bit more forgiving on
Speaker 4: some other days.
Speaker 3: Do you think about do you think about her in
Speaker 3: jail ever? Does that picture into your mind you've not
Speaker 3: been there, Yeah, so that's probably helpful in some ways.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I do. I think about that a lot.
Speaker 4: And I think there was one particular moment where filming
Speaker 4: Sunday night, we were taken to the.
Speaker 1: Outside of her jail and.
Speaker 4: That was hard to be very close and actually you
Speaker 4: could see people out in the out in the garden.
Speaker 4: If you will moving around and they're all in bay
Speaker 4: Is to be that close.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that was really difficult.
Speaker 4: So ever since experiencing that and actually getting a visual
Speaker 4: of what the place looks like in real life, Yeah,
Speaker 4: it's I think about it all the time.
Speaker 3: Do you think Brittany is evil or unwell?
Speaker 5: I think she was unwell. You know one of the
Speaker 5: last letters when she is up and left home. Gary
Speaker 5: and I were at work during the day and we
Speaker 5: came home and she just moved out of the house
Speaker 5: and she's left a note saying, I've got to leave
Speaker 5: Mom and dad. You pestering me about getting a job.
Speaker 5: It's just it's no good for my mental health. I've
Speaker 5: just got to move away. And so I do see
Speaker 5: she was suffering depression or something that wasn't diagnosed so much,
Speaker 5: so I think, yeah, probably unwell. I do you know
Speaker 5: when I think about.
Speaker 7: Her talking in those texts, you know, sliding throats and
Speaker 7: things like that, and the blood, I did.
Speaker 5: Think evil then back those kind of years, I did
Speaker 5: think that was evil, But nowadays I think it was
Speaker 5: a small unwell