A NIGHTMARISH chain of calamitous events is perhaps the only common thread that joins Tasmania’s meagre list of convicted female killers.

Homicide carried out at the hands of women in Tasmania is exceedingly rare, with just a handful of female perpetrators ever ending up at what is now the Mary Hutchinson Women’s Prison.

But while these women are rare, they do exist, and the awful stories of each one’s fall from grace are surprisingly unalike.

Some of these women were tortured to the point that they snapped or went too far in self-defence, while others were motivated by money, love or a burst of furious rage.

MANSLAUGHTER

Ursula Maria Schmidt

Domestic violence victim who killed abusive partner

Moonah woman Ursula Maria Schmidt was used to forgiveness.

In the 18 months leading to her partner’s death, Schmidt forgave him again and again, even though her body had been bruised, scratched and grazed by repeated acts of domestic violence.

Schmidt later told a court that she’d wanted to grow old with Robert John Jones and loved him, but had been “torn between her head and her heart”.

Things came to a head on the night of July 10, 2005, when the pair started arguing.

Schmidt, then 44, was concerned for her safety and that of her two young sons.

She impulsively picked up a large knife and struck Mr Jones with it, later claiming she only planned to “give him a poke”.

But instead the blade penetrated 16.5cm, piercing both lungs and Mr Jones’ aorta.

He died within minutes. She was charged with murder.

But Schmidt later pleaded guilty to manslaughter after the charge was downgraded, and was jailed for three years, with a non-parole period of 12 months.

Mrs F

Killed sadistic husband with the same hammer he used to sexually assault her

Mrs F was 51 years old when she finally killed her awful husband on New Year’s Day, 1983.

Her life of tragedy started in the Ukraine when as a child, she witnessed the atrocities during the German invasion of her homeland.

She later said she was raped by two German soldiers when she was just 11 years old.

In 1951, after she’d emigrated to Australia, Mrs F married a German migrant in Tasmania.

They lived at Legana and started a family, but tragically, Mrs F’s new life in Tasmania was little better than the war-torn world she’d left behind.

Supreme Court of Tasmania judge Francis Neasey later explained Mrs F’s husband had “a sadistic and cruel temperament”, repeatedly subjecting his family to acts of cruelty and terrible sexual violence against his long-suffering wife.

In fact, the cruelty was so bad that Mrs F developed dissociative amnesia.

Finally, on the day in question, Mr F started sexually assaulting Mrs F with a claw hammer, but slipped and fell.

Mrs F grabbed the claw hammer and struck him twice or more to the head, smashing his skull before going to “great pains” to clean up the blood in the bathroom.

She then lugged her husband’s body into the boot of their car and dumped his remains in the countryside.

Mrs F, was charged with murder when her husband’s decomposing body was found in a ditch days later.

But she later pleaded guilty to manslaughter and was jailed for three years.

Ms C

Traumatised woman who drunkenly caused innocent man’s road death

The case of Ms C – and her victim Dion Ronald Hardy – is one of tragedy after tragedy.

On the night of October 14 in 2016, Mr Hardy was riding his motorbike along the Brooker Highway through Glenorchy, heading towards his family home at Bridgewater.

Ms C was driving in the other direction.

But even though the highway was separated by a physical barrier so motorists could not “drift”, Ms C had been driving on the wrong side of the road for about 2.5km.

She was speeding and four times over the legal blood alcohol limit when she drove, head-on, into the 48-year-old.

The husband, father and grandfather was thrown about 10 metres from his bike, breaking his neck and dying instantly.

Ms C, then 36, pleaded guilty to manslaughter.

In sentencing, Justice Michael Brett said just three weeks prior, Ms C had been abducted, raped, seriously assaulted and “subjected to a series of brutal and demeaning crimes” while being held captive over a number of hours.

The episode triggered a serious case of post traumatic stress disorder and an “immediate escalation” in her alcohol consumption.

Ms C remains in jail. She was imprisoned for six years, with a non-parole period of four years, from May 2018.

Jassy Lois Anglin

Let her mother die of hypothermia in a shipping container after spending her estate

Above and behind the township of New Norfolk is the small, semi-rural community of Mount Lloyd.

At 900m above sea level, temperatures on the mountain can drop below zero in winter.

In 2007, NSW septuagenarian Janet Lois Mackozdi – a refined woman with a number of investments and an interest in art and culture – moved to Tasmania and bought a unit near her family at New Norfolk.

But Mrs Mackozdi began displaying symptoms of dementia before fracturing her neck in a fall, moving in with her family during August 2009.

In July the following year, her daughter Jassy Anglin and Jassy’s husband Michael made a fatal decision to move the entire family to Mount Lloyd to renovate a dilapidated property.

By this stage, Mrs Mackozdi’s health had gotten much worse.

The 77-year-old could no longer walk, was suffering advanced dementia, and in the year she’d lived with her family, had dropped in weight from 53.25kg to just 39.7kg.

On their second night in their new home, the Anglins put Mrs Mackozdi to bed in a shipping container they’d set up as a bedroom.

But that night, the temperature at Mount Lloyd dropped to —1.0C.

Mrs Mackozdi was discovered dead the next morning after succumbing to hypothermia.

Four years later after a “fresh start” in Cairns, Jassy and Michael Anglin were extradited to Tasmania for manslaughter.

In 2014, Justice Shan Tennant said the pair had made “an exceptionally bad decision” but hadn’t intended to kill Mrs Mackozdi, fully suspending their two-year prison sentences.

But in 2018, Coroner Olivia McTaggart found the Anglins had financially exploited Mrs Mackozdi, spending some three-quarters of the value of her estate, and described the tragic story as a case of elder abuse.

Kylie Jane Hack

Woman who killed another woman during drug transaction in group attack

Michelle Meades was a “sweet, kind, caring” woman who was fond of Barbara Taylor Bradford romance novels, burning French vanilla candles, country drives, and a little terrier dog called Kara she’d adopted from the RSPCA.

But the 51-year-old Kingston woman also struggled with her inner demons, with an ice addiction she was desperately trying to break.

In September 2016, her body was found hidden inside a unit at Clarendon Vale that had been set on fire, six days after she’d died at the hands of a brutal group bashing.

On the day in question, Ms Meades had arrived at the unit to buy drugs when an argument broke out.

Mornington woman Kylie Jane Hack, then 33, punched Ms Meades twice, overpowering her and striking her head on the floor.

Hack was initially charged with murder, but later pleaded guilty to manslaughter and jailed for 8 ½ years, with a non-parole period of 5 ½ years.

Other alleged co-offenders are yet to have their cases heard in court.

MURDER

Margaret Anne Otto

Planned her husband’s murder with the man who executed him

Margaret Otto didn’t fire the fatal shot that ended her husband’s life.

Regardless, a Supreme Court of Tasmania jury found the Risdon Vale woman was still responsible for the death of Dwayne “Doc” Davies by plotting his death.

Otto was said to be fed up with the “difficult” and “cantankerous” tattoo artist who had financially crippled them both.

The final straw came for Otto one morning in May 2017, when Mr Davies complained that a cup of coconut milk she’d prepared for him was warm.

Otto just “wasn’t coping”.

That night, Bradley Scott Purkiss shot Mr Davies twice from behind at close range, before wrapping his body in a tarpaulin and burying him in a shallow bush grave at Levendale.

Last year, Chief Justice Alan Blow jailed Purkiss for a maximum of 24 years and Otto for a maximum of 15, but only a few weeks ago, Otto returned to court to appeal her murder conviction.

Her lawyer said there was no evidence that Otto had confessed to planning the death, arguing that even though she may have complained about Mr Davies, those complaints didn’t amount to an instigation to kill him.

The Court of Criminal Appeal is yet to deliver its judgment.

Belinda Leone Colbran

Helped her boyfriend murder a man who’d outstayed his welcome

Underneath Belinda Leone Colbran’s bed was a box that contained a big, shiny knife that was emblazoned with a wolf.

It belonged to her boyfriend, Nathan Thomas Smith.

On November 4, 2016, Colbran and Smith travelled from Colbran’s home to Smith’s flat at Newnham, where their friend Aaron Monaco had been staying.

But he’d outstayed his welcome, and the couple – fired-up after a night of drinking – decided to confront him.

Before they left, Colbran retrieved the wolf blade from the box and handed it to her lover.

When they arrived, she held Mr Monaco while Smith stabbed him to death.

Smith pleaded guilty to murder and Colbran was found guilty by a jury of the same crime, despite arguing she hadn’t given her boyfriend the knife and sat on the couch throughout the attack.

They were each jailed for 24 years, with a non-parole period of 14 years for Smith and 13 for Colbran.

In August this year, Colbran appealed the length of her sentence was manifestly excessive.

She argued that Mr Monaco, as he lay bleeding to death, told police twice who’d murdered him: Nathan Smith.

But the Court of Criminal Appeal dismissed her case, finding there wasn’t a significant distinction between the pair’s moral culpability.

Susan Blythe Neill-Fraser

Murdered partner on their yacht and threw his body into the Derwent

She’s Tasmania’s most high-profile prisoner and shows no signs of abandoning her decade-long campaign to prove her innocence.

Sue Neill-Fraser has been in jail since August 2009 for murdering her partner of 18 years, Royal Hobart Hospital physicist Bob Chappell, in an Australia Day attack.

Following a highly-publicised trial, a jury found Neill-Fraser slaughtered Mr Chappell on their yacht, the Four Winds.

His body has never been found.

While sentencing, Chief Justice Alan Blow said Neill-Fraser possibly struck her partner over the head with a wrench before winching his body up on deck and throwing him overboard with an old-fashioned fire hydrant.

The judge said with their relationship at an end, Neill-Fraser had likely been motivated by financial gain and tried to destroy the evidence of what she’d done in an attempt to sink the Four Winds.

She was ultimately jailed for 23 years with a non-parole period of 13.

Neill-Fraser, now 66, previously lost an appeal against her conviction, but is staging a second challenge to be heard in the Tasmanian Court of Criminal Appeal in March 2021.

Where to get help

If you or someone you know is experiencing family violence and need urgent assistance phone police on Triple Zero (000).

To report a non-urgent incident of family violence, call the Tasmania Police Assistance Line on 131 444 or attend your local police station to make a report. People with hearing impairments can call TTY 106.

You may also call the Family Violence Counselling Support Service on 1800 608 122 (if you do not wish to report the matter to police in the first instance) for advice, support and counselling.

If you require further support and assistance, click this link and follow the information for Tasmania.