Margaret Anne Otto, and friend Bradley Scott Purkiss trial: Prosecutor tells how warm coconut milk played role in murder

The death of a tattoo artist may have been triggered by a warm cup of coconut milk, says prosecutor in a murder trial.

Police officers at Margaret Otto and Dwayne Davies’ Risdon Vale home in the days after Mr Davies disappeared. Picture: SAM ROSEWARNE

A WARM serving of coconut milk may have been the fatal tipping point for a tattoo artist later found buried in a shallow bush grave.

Dwayne “Doc” Davies, 47, died instantly when he was shot in the head before his body was wrapped in a tarpaulin and stashed beneath logs and soil at Levendale in May 2017.

His wife, Margaret Anne Otto, and friend Bradley Scott Purkiss, have pleaded not guilty to murdering the “cantankerous, difficult and needy”, debt-ridden Risdon Vale man.

But in her closing address to a jury on Wednesday, Crown prosecutor Madeline Wilson said the pair were liars and the evidence against them was “vast”.

Her comments came following a four-week Supreme Court of Tasmania murder trial that examined 48 witnesses and heard the dead man had racked up large tax, personal loan and credit card debts, leaving his wife feeling “trapped”.

Ms Wilson said on the morning of his death, Mr Davies complained to Otto that the coconut milk she’d prepared for him was warm.

Victim Dwayne Robert Davies. Picture: INK ADDICTION

Feeling alone and unable to escape, Otto “wasn’t coping” and felt like the situation was killing her, Ms Wilson added.

“Mr Davies was not the kind of person to go willingly. Unless he was dead, there would be no peace,” she said.

Otto, 47, appeared visibly distressed on Wednesday as details of the alleged murder were summarised, while the bearded Purkiss, 43, gazed dispassionately ahead.

Fed up with her husband, who had led the couple almost to the point of declaring bankruptcy, Otto instigated Purkiss, himself owed $17,500 by Mr Davies, to lure him to an Elderslie cannabis grow house for a “permanent solution”..

“She wanted him to make Mr Davies go away for good,” Ms Wilson said.

“She expressed a clear desire for him to be dead.”

After the murder, the “seasoned liar” tried to steer police away from the truth by making unproven claims Mr Davies’ had been suicidal and had been on a hard-drug bender, Ms Wilson said.

She also said Purkiss helped himself to Mr Davies’ belongings, including a humorous “hot body inspector badge” birthday gift, in a clear display of his “sense of being owed, his sense of entitlement, and his sense of arrogance”.

“They’ve each shown themselves to be liars who will lie to protect themselves,” she said of the accused killers.

But Otto’s lawyer Greg Melick SC said Purkiss was a “master manipulator” who took matters into his hands when Otto complained about her life with Davies.

He said Otto was not involved in the murder, and could only be found guilty of being an accessory after the fact.

Lawyer Alan Hensley said Purkiss was not the killer, and even though a forensic luminol test showed blood in his ute tray, “there are a number of substances that will make it light up like a Christmas tree”, including fertiliser.

Mr Hensley will conclude his closing address on Thursday before the jury enters into deliberations.