‘I’d be better off if he was dead’: Margaret Otto appeals murder conviction and denies incitement

“Even if Ms Otto says ‘I wish my husband were dead’ … she’s still not guilty of murder.” Husband killer Margaret Anne Otto has returned to court to fight her murder conviction.

• Margaret Anne Otto to appeal murder conviction on the ground verdict was ‘unsafe and unsatisfactory’
• Margaret Anne Otto, and friend Bradley Scott Purkiss trial: Prosecutor tells how warm coconut milk played role in murder

“BROKEN woman” Margaret Otto may have wished her husband Dwayne “Doc” Davies was dead – but she never incited the man who killed him to pull the trigger.

That’s the argument of lawyer Greg Melick SC, who is fighting to free Otto from her 15-year jail term after she was convicted last year of murdering Risdon Vale tattoo artist Dwayne “Doc” Davies.

Mr Davies, 47, died instantly when Bradley Scott Purkiss shot him in the head before stashing the body beneath logs and soil at Levendale in May 2017.

In October last year, a Supreme Court of Tasmania jury found Purkiss and Otto had reached an agreement to murder the “domineering, needy, demanding” debt-ridden victim.

But Otto is now appealing her conviction, arguing the jury verdict was unsafe and unsatisfactory, and that the trial judge erred by failing to find she had no case to answer.

On Monday in the Court of Criminal Appeal, Mr Melick argued that during 11 hours of a police interview, Otto “steadfastly maintained” she played no part in planning her husband’s murder.

He said during that interview, Otto became a “broken woman” in the foetal position who made a number of confessions showing she was an accessory after the fact.

However, he said there was no “hard evidence” – and that Otto had not confessed – to any murder plans or agreements.

Glen Davies, father of murder victim Dwayne Davies, outside the Supreme Court of Tasmania on Monday. Picture: NIKKI DAVIS-JONES

Mr Melick said the Crown speculated that Otto wanted her husband dead, with the final straw coming after Mr Davies complained about a warm serving of coconut milk.

But he said the way Mr Davies treated his wife, and the way she complained to others about him, did “not amount to instigation” on her part.

“It has to be a direct incitement,” he said.

“Even if Ms Otto says ‘I wish my husband were dead’ … she’s still not guilty of murder. She has to intend it in order to be guilty of the crime of murder.”

“There’s no doubt it was a difficult marriage – he was domineering, needy, demanding,” he said.

“On the face of it, she certainly had motive to want her husband out of her life. He was bankrupting the family, he wasn’t working, he was spending money on dope. But the evidence also was that when she made comments like ‘I’d be better off if he was dead’, it wasn’t in a manner that caused any alarm to the people she said it.

But Director of Public Prosecutions Daryl Coates said the jury was entitled to convict Otto and find she had intended for the murder to be carried out.

He said she had strong motivations, including allegations of financial, emotional and sexual abuse at the hands of her husband – and also believed she was “trapped” in the relationship.

“She’s telling people on the very day – or day before – that she wants him dead. And lo and behold, he ends up dead,” he said.

The appeal hearing is expected to last two to three days.

Deceased man Dwayne Robert Davies. Photo: Ink Addiction

Margaret Anne Otto.

Follow @ambervwilson