A young woman who murdered her own Grandfather was reportedly motivated to commit the crime by American Horror Story, a South Australian court has heard.
Brittney Jade Dwyer, now aged 20, stabbed her Grandfather, 81-year-old Robert Whitwell, to death in August of 2016. The Queensland woman and her friend, 22-year-old Bernadette Burns, drove from their home state to Whitwell’s home in Adelaide’s north with the intention to do “whatever was necessary” in order to steal the life savings that Whitwell kept hidden in a backyard shed.
Both women subsequently pleaded guilty to murder.
In today’s pre-sentencing hearing for Dwyer, the South Australian Supreme Court heard that Dwyer was said to have been motivated to commit the horrific crime by the FX series American Horror Story (though representation declined to specify which season in particular).
Dwyer’s lawyer Craig Caldicott told the court of his client’s claims, stating “that aspect of it is very troubling.”
Previously, the court had heard how Burns waited in a car while Dwyer entered Whitwell’s house wearing rubber gloves and carrying a knife.
Judge Kevin Nicholson stated that the only mitigating factor in the case was Dwyer’s age, given the planned and callous nature of the crime.
She had a pretty good upbringing, a good education, a nice family. Somehow she leaves school and just goes crazy in terms of her lifestyle.
To have got to the age of 18 and gone from zero to pre-meditated murder in these circumstances only for the reasons she had, suggests a very worrying person.
Victim impact statements read by members of Dwyer’s family, including one from her own brother, urged the court to hand the 20-year-old the maximum sentence possible, citing that the “upset and anguish that you have both cast upon [the] Whitwell and Dwyer families is unforgivable.”
Lawyers for Burns have argued for a non-parole period significantly lower than the one handed to Dwyer, due to Burns’ non-direct involvement in the killing and her addiction to methamphetamine at the time.
Burns, a non-citizen, will be deported to New Zealand at the conclusion of the case.
The duo is scheduled to be sentenced on November 7th.
