A teenager who stabbed her grandfather in the neck before washing dishes while he slowly bled to death metres away will spend the next two decades in prison.
Brittney Jade Dwyer pleaded guilty to murdering Robert Whitwell, 81, in August 2016 and was on Tuesday sentenced to life in prison to serve at least 21 years.
The then-19-year-old turned on her doting grandfather after she discovered he’d hidden his $100,000 life savings in his Adelaide home.
Brittney Dwyer was 19 years old when she murdered her 81-year-old grandfather for money
Robert Whitwell was stabbed repeatedly in the head and chest by his granddaughter Brittney
Sentencing the pair in the Supreme Court, Justice Kevin Nicholson described Dwyer’s crime as evil and abhorrent and said she was motivated by greed and an unnatural interest in seeing people die.
‘This murder was brutal, callous, cold-blooded and dispassionately planned,’ he said.
Dwyer’s own mother Tonya lobbied for a lengthy sentence for the callous murder that still has her wondering how she didn’t see it coming.
‘I think she deserves 20 years in jail. She did the crime. She admitted to it. She pleaded guilty,’ Tonya Dwyer told Sunday Night earlier this week.
‘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.
Brittany (right) is currently in jail awaiting sentencing for killing her grandfather Robert (left)
Dwyer visited him at his home in Craigmore where he showed her photo albums from her childhood.
On her way out the door, she admitted to stabbing him in the neck four times repeatedly, and then washing the dishes as he bled to death on the kitchen floor.
Tonya described the situation as a ‘nightmare’ and berated herself constantly for ‘missing the signs’ that her beloved daughter could commit such an evil crime.
‘It was a person that I trusted, that I brought into the world, that I raised to be a good person,’ said Tonya, who has had a nightmare of a year that she says will never finish.
Since her father died and her daughter was arrested, Robert’s wife passed away in a nursing home and she has separated from her husband.
Dwyer did not speak to her mother for more than a year while she awaited sentencing in Adelaide Women’s Prison.
Bernadette Burns (left) drove Brittney (right) and herself to Adelaide to commit the murder
Also charged over the vicious murder was Dwyer’s roommate Bernadette Burns, who drove her to Adelaide and waited in the car while she was inside.
The 22-year-old sent Dwyer text messages telling her to ‘harden up’ and kill Mr Whitehall, while she applied her makeup.
Burns was jailed for at least 13 years and six months for her part in the killing after earlier also pleading guilty.
The pair never found Robert’s savings, but did steal $1,000 and two digital cameras before Burns drove the 2,000km back to Brisbane.
Tonya believed her daughter deserved the maximum sentence for the crime which she says tore their family apart, but Dwyer’s father merely asked the court to impose an appropriate prison sentence on his daughter.
Tonya Dwyer thinks her daughter Brittney deserves 20 years in jail for killing her grandfather
Bernadette (right) and Brittney (left) stole $1000 and two digital cameras from the house
Brittany’s roommate Bernadette Burns drove her to her grandpa’s Adelaide home (pictured)
Dwyer was described as ‘cruel and deceitful’ in South Australia’s Supreme Court, after she feigned innocence following her grandfather’s death.
However, Burns was not even in the house at the time of the killing and did not have any ‘murderous intent’, her lawyer said.
She pleaded guilty to the seldom-used charge of felony murder, referring to a killing that occurs during the commission of another offence, in this case, the theft at Mr Whitwell’s home.
Mr Whitwell’s brother Geoffrey said the killing was tragic and senseless.
He said it was a ‘callous and horrific act’ and he singled out Burns as a ‘cruel, evil and dangerous person with no regard for human life’.
Burns, who met Dwyer on Facebook faces deportation once released from jail because she was born in New Zealand and is not an Australian citizen.
Tonya believes her daughter deserves the maximum sentence for the crime she committed