'She deserves 20 years': Brittney Dwyer's mother wants her sentenced to life for murder of grandfather
The mother of a young woman who stabbed her own grandfather to death wants her daughter to receive the maximum penalty for the horrific crime that shattered their family.
Brittney Jade Dwyer was 19 years old when she murdered Robert Whitwell in his home in Craigmore, Adelaide, last August.
Tonya Dwyer hasn’t spoken to her daughter in more than a year and still struggles to comprehend her heinous crime.
“I think she deserves 20 years in jail. She did the crime. She admitted to it. She pleaded guilty,” Tonya told Melissa Doyle in an exclusive Sunday Night interview.
“I have lost two people, I have lost my dad and I have lost my daughter, and I don’t know if I will ever understand the whole story.”
Dwyer’s motivation for murder was money, after hearing of a small fortune that her 81-year-old grandfather had in his possession.
Like many seniors, Robert didn’t trust the banks and kept his life savings - more than $100,000 in cash - hidden in his garden shed.
Dwyer convinced her friend, 22-year-old Bernadette Burns, to drive 2000 kilometres from her home in Brisbane to Adelaide to do “whatever was necessary” to steal Robert’s savings.
While Burns waited in the car, Dwyer knocked on the door of her grandfather’s house, acting like it was a normal visit.
Robert Whitwell spent the last moments of his life showing his granddaughter photo albums of her childhood. Then, when he walked her to the door, she stabbed him repeatedly in the neck and chest.
And, as her ‘Poppa’ sat down on a chair and bled to death, Dwyer inexplicably washed the dishes.
She never found Robert’s $100,000, but stole $1000 from his wallet and two digital cameras before driving back to Brisbane.
Tonya is both a daughter overcome with grief, and a mother overwhelmed by questions.
“What are the signs that I missed? What did I miss? What didn’t I see? What didn’t I pick up on?” she asked.
“It was a person that I trusted, that I brought into the world, that I raised to be a good person.
“It’s like a nightmare that I never wake up from. Every day I think, ‘when is this nightmare going to finish?’ And it doesn’t. It’s my life.”
The aftershocks of the murder have been devastating. Tonya separated from her husband, and Robert’s beloved wife, Joyce, died in a nursing home shortly after his murder.
Dwyer is currently awaiting sentencing in Adelaide Women’s Prison, less than half-an-hour from Robert’s home.
Both Dwyer and Burns will be sentenced on November 7.
