Joshua and Deborah Mason sentenced over conspiracy to hide Kumanjayi Napurrurla Dixon’s body

A mother and son have been sentenced for their ‘callous’ attempt to cover-up a brutal hit and run which left a grandmother’s severed leg on the highway.

Deborah Karen Mason, 50, and her son Joshua Gary Mason, 23, allegedly tried to cover up a fatal hit and run by burying 50-year-old grandmother Kumanjayi Napurrurla Dixon in an unmarked grave on Monday May 30. Deborah appeared in Supreme Court on Wednesday December 13. Picture: Pema Tamang Pakhrin

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised that this article contains the names and images of Indigenous people who have passed, used with the permission of their families.

Colourful flowers bloom at the spot where a beloved Aboriginal grandmother’s body was dumped in a shallow grave in a fumbled attempt to cover up a ghastly hit and run.

The Territory roadside memorial has become a permanent reminder to Kumanjayi Napurrurla Dixon’s family about how little their loved one’s life was worth to a mother-and-son duo.

Ms Dixon’s family listened through tears as Supreme Court Justice Jenny Blokland sentenced Joshua and Deborah Mason to prison on Wednesday.

The court heard 23-year-old Joshua was on the way to buy cannabis from a friend when he heard the thud of Ms Dixon’s body hitting his car along the dark stretch of the Stuart Highway on May 30 2022.

Kumanjayi Napurrurla Dixon, 50, was fatally struck in an hit and run on the Stuart Highway, Coolalinga on May 30, 2022. Her severed leg was later spotted by motorists.

The 50-year-old Anmatyerre grandmother was thrown 6.5m in a crash investigators would later call “unavoidable”.

But Justice Blokland said the 23-year-old’s next decision “set in train a pattern of deception, which has culminated in the commission of serious offences”.

Rather than call triple-0, the frantic 23-year-old yelled over phone for his mother to come help.

Together they dragged Ms Dixon’s body into the back of a ute, dumped her 20m into bushland and scattered plants over her lifeless body.

After mopping up the blood with his T-shirt, Joshua and Deborah would tell family and friends that he hit a “dog”.

Kumanjayi Napurrurla Dixon with her family. The 50-year-old Anmatyerre grandmother was fatally struck by 23-year-old Joshua Mason in a hit and run crash on May 30, 2022.

Their gruesome plot may have succeeded if not for a discovery on the side of the highway the next day — the 50-year-old’s severed leg.

Rather than come forward in the days after the crash, Joshua moved Ms Dixon’s body a second time.

“Her life is over, my life is over, my mum’s life is over, all because an idiot wants to walk on the road,” Joshua would later tell police.

But Justice Blokland told Joshua that it was their conspiracy to cover up the crash that condemned them.

“It is hard to comprehend how to ordinary people could be so insensitive and callous, but they were,” she said.

“If the defendants thought they were moving the body of someone who no one would notice was missing. They badly miscalculated.”

Deborah Karen Mason, 50, and her son Joshua Gary Mason, 23, allegedly tried to cover up a fatal hit and run by burying 50-year-old grandmother Kumanjayi Napurrurla Dixon in an unmarked grave on Monday May 30. Deborah appeared in Supreme Court on Wednesday December 13. Picture: Pema Tamang Pakhrin

On Wednesday, the mother and son duo were forced to confront the tears and heartbreak of Ms Dixon’s family as their victim impact statements were read aloud.

Aunty Cecilia Chavez told them everyday she and her children drove past the memorial which was a constant reminder of the disrespect the Masons showed to her niece’s lifeless body.

Ms Chavez asked Joshua to “put himself in their shoes and imagine someone disrespecting his own sister’s lifeless body, not once but twice”.

Carol Dixon, sister-cousin of Kumanjayi Dixon who was killed in a brutal hit and run on the Stuart Highway near Darwin. Picture: Fia Walsh

Carol Dixon, another family member says her heart has been ripped out of her chest, and asked why they gave Ms Dixon “no care of thought to her at all”.

Justice Blokland said Joshua had shown more remorse for his actions, with the 23-year-old reporting flashbacks and symptoms of post traumatic stress disorder.

“He has intrusive memories and images of seeing the victims lifeless body,” she said.

Janita Dixon, the daughter of alleged hit and run victim Kumanjayi Napurrurla Dixon, at her mother's roadside memorial.

“He told the doctors that he often thinks about the deceased and her family and finds himself apologising and asking for forgiveness in his prayers.

“He has acknowledged that he will have to live with someone losing their life, and ruining his mum’s life.”

Each has pleaded guilty to attempting to pervert the course of justice and interfering with a corpse while Joshua also pleaded guilty to hit-and-run driving causing death.

Joshua was sentenced to a total of six years, with a non-parole period of three and a half years, while Deborah received two years imprisonment suspended after 12 months and nearly six months on bail.