Face of Nation : Bradley Scott Purkiss, 47, and Margaret Anne Otto, 43, were on Monday found guilty by a Hobart Supreme Court jury of murdering Dwayne ‘Doc’ Davies. Mr Davies, 47, was lured by his good friend Purkiss to a property at rural Elderslie on May 26, 2017 under the guise of looking at Harley-Davidson motorbikes.
The point-blank murder of a Tasmanian tattoo artist planned by his wife and carried out by her lover was the culmination of a “chilling betrayal”. There he was shot in the back and head at close range. Purkiss then buried Mr Davies’ body in a shallow bush grave at nearby Levendale.
“The crime was a cold, calculated execution,” crown prosecutor Madeleine Wilson told the court. “(It was) a crystallisation of a plan to kill Mr Davies … a chilling betrayal of a friend and a husband.”
Otto wasn’t there when her husband was killed but helped plan his murder, the jury found after a lengthy five-week trial and about five hours’ deliberation. Mr Davies’ father Glen Davies, who lost two sons in the space of six months, said Otto was part of the family.
Mr Davies and Otto shared a 20-year relationship. Otto and Purkiss had an affair a year before the murder. “It’s impossible to conceive, Dwayne loved Margaret so much,” Mr Davies’ sister Kelly Goss wrote in a statement read out to the court. “Now I don’t know what’s real and what’s not.”
Otto’s lawyer, Greg Melick, told the court she was scared to leave Mr Davies, who was abusive and forced her to have sex with other men and that his drug habit was sending their family bankrupt.
Mr Melick said Otto thought her husband would receive a warning and she never contemplated murder. Purkiss and Otto are expected to be sentenced on Wednesday. “He was no saint or no angel but he was my son and I loved him very much,” Glen Davies said.
