Gayle Woodford murder: Family overcome by harrowing sentencing submissions for killer Dudley Davey
THE husband of a nurse raped and murdered in SA’s Far North has confronted his wife’s killer in court, after hearing harrowing details of the crime.
- Warning signs of Dudley Davey’s evil ignored
- Gayle Woodford’s exemplary life taken by a serial predator
THE husband of murdered nurse Gayle Woodford has confronted her killer after being overcome by harrowing sentencing submissions in the Supreme Court.
Murderer and rapist Dudley David Davey was on Monday labelled “a real and ongoing danger to the community” who was “largely remorseless” for his litany of attacks on women over almost 20 years.
The court heard Davey staged an eerily similar attack in 1998 on a nurse in the APY Lands in an equivalent position to Ms Woodford.
As Davey’s lawyer outlined the killer’s version of events the night he abducted, raped and murdered Ms Woodford at Fregon on the remote APY Lands in March 2016, her distraught husband Keith muttered “I can’t sit in here and listen to this crap”.
After enduring the tortuous details of Ms Woodford’s final, desperate attempts to escape, Mr Woodford, their daughter and other family members left the court in distress.
Mr Woodford, who has maintained a stoic silence throughout the court process, glared and pointed menacingly at Davey, hissing “wiya story” — which The Advertiser understands is Pitjantjatjara language for “I don’t believe your story” — before storming out of the court.
The outburst came as Davey’s lawyer Nick Vadasz claimed his client’s original intention was to simply steal the ambulance to drive to Adelaide after the Fregon community had shunned him.
However, Justice Ann Vanstone said she was “having trouble accepting this account”.
“If he just wanted the keys, he could have just taken the keys and the ambulance,” Justice Vanstone said.
The court heard Davey was on a three-day methamphetamine bender and walking around Fregon in a daze when he resolved to go to the Woodford’s heavily secured home intending to steal the local health service’s ambulance.
Davey raped and murdered Ms Woodford after luring her with the ruse his grandmother needed Panadol.
Davey — who had previously attacked at least five women including two other nurses — drove Ms Woodford to scrubland on the outskirts of Fregon and raped her before she fled into the darkness.
But Davey hid in the darkness next to the ambulance and overpowered Ms Woodford when she returned to the vehicle.
He drove a further short distance before the terrified 56-year-old jumped from the ambulance and ran for her life before being caught and viciously attacked.
Davey, 36, then stomped twice on her neck to kill her before burying her body in a shallow grave.
Davey was arrested at Coober Pedy — still driving the ambulance — and later claimed he “did not mean to hurt her” and “I didn’t want to do it in that way”.
Mr Vadasz said Davey had bought methamphetamines in Alice Springs about three days before the murder, and had finished the stash of drugs about three hours before the fatal attack.
He said Davey was “one of many angry young boys” who had grown into a man prone to “explosive anger directed against women”.
Prosecutor Ian Press SC said Davey had a disturbing history of sexually motivated offending against women while under the influence of drugs or alcohol.
“Mr Davey has known for a long time that when he consumes these substances he engages in violence against women,” Mr Press said.
Mr Press told the court Davey had attacked at least five other women since his teenage years, and had “a disregard for the wellbeing of women from a very young age”.
Mr Press said Davey’s history of crimes against women included an similar incident in 1998, in which he attacked a nurse working in an equivalent position to Ms Woodford in the APY Lands.
Despite spending up to 14 of the past 18 years behind bars, the court heard Davey had never been given the opportunity to participate in a sexual offenders treatment program.
After serving 30 months for the attempted sexual assault of a woman in Adelaide, Davey was released from Port Augusta prison with a bus ticket back to the APY Lands just over a month before the murder.
Mr Press said there was little or nothing that could be said to mitigate Davey’s contemptible crime.
“The obvious motive for (Davey) to have murdered Ms Woodford was to cover the fact that he had just raped her,” Mr Press said.
Victims’ Rights Commissioner Michael O’Connell read a community impact statement from the Fregon and APY Lands communities, remembering Ms Woodford as “one of the nicest people to ever come and live in Fregon”.
In a prerecorded video, Mr O’Connell said the community had vowed that “Dudley Davey will never be welcome back at the Lands” and that his horrific crime had left a sense of shame and a “dark cloud of grief” over their home.
Davey receives a mandatory head sentence of life in prison, and Justice Ann Vanstone will set his non-parole period on Thursday morning.