July 7, 2024 • 25 mins
As police swoop, they get the family together and tell them that Brittney has been arrested for murder.
The family’s first thought was that there was no way she could do this.
She's been framed!
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Approach production. I'm quite pleased with the outcome, and I
think others have member. I haven't spoken him yet, but
I believe the other members of the family would be
certain opinion. Well, you couldn't get a better brother than he.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Was.
Speaker 3 (00:25):
Truly a really a gentleman.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
I don't think he ever had an.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
Argument with anybody. Every in his life.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
He has always helped anybody wherever he could, always drige
you lifely.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
We support one another, We're there for one another as
a family, and we just have to know now and
be glad that it's all over. That's Robert Whitwell's brother
outside the court after Britney was sentenced to life imprisonment
for his murder. How the court case unfolded and the
things the family learned about Britney's double life was shocking.
(01:00):
The arrest of Britney happened without the family knowing. Ryan
was at home, his mum was staying with family back
in South Australia, and his dad was at the family home.
Detectives from Queensland and South Australia are deployed to everyone's
house all at once. They get everyone on a conference
call and then tell them Brittany murdered Robert.
Speaker 4 (01:24):
She was picked up this morning, and she's already in
custody and she will most likely be in the watchhouse tonight.
And then Extra died. It to Adelaide the next day,
and as I was telling me this, I'm like, Okay,
I thought we were here to talk about my grandfather,
(01:45):
and now you're saying that my sister's been arrested and
for murder. And I just immediately remembered going into a
bit of a state of shock, and I just went,
she's been framed. I literally said, she's been framed. My
(02:10):
mom is dead, silent, my dad is going, what the fuck?
And then they said it's if she's been arrested for
murder your grandfather's death.
Speaker 3 (02:21):
And I just remember my.
Speaker 4 (02:23):
Mom completely bursting into hysterics like I could. I can
literally still hear her scream, and it just I just
I remember just.
Speaker 3 (02:40):
Everything felt like I was underwater.
Speaker 4 (02:43):
You had this just echo, we like your brain has
just shut down like ten speeds, and I just it was.
Speaker 3 (02:52):
Like an outer body experience.
Speaker 4 (02:53):
And I just remember bursting into tears, still thinking she's
been framed, and I immediately go to you've got the
wrong person. It's the other family member, and they ignore that,
and then the police that are with us are comforting us.
Speaker 3 (03:17):
What did your dad say?
Speaker 4 (03:18):
He went into a state of numbness. I immediately when
that happened, I said to Adam, we need to go
to my dad's now, which is like fifty minutes away
from my house, and he's yeah, okay, And so he
drove fast over there. Already at that point, his brother,
my uncle, was there. The police had called him because
(03:41):
my dad was by himself, and my dad just sat
on the lounge in like a canatonic state, like. I
was asking him questions and he couldn't really answer. The
only thing he kept saying was Shelby and Brittany were
(04:03):
just here for dinner, like two nights go.
Speaker 1 (04:09):
Like most good police work, the net closes in quickly.
They only make an arrest when they've got enough evidence
to get a conviction. So while police were telling the
family it might be something or someone else, they were
looking into everyone. No doubt, everyone is a person of
interest until they become a suspect. That, of course, is
(04:29):
not known to Ryan and his family, and they have
no idea that police are looking to Brittany as the
murder of Robert. What was the evidence that police landed
on to get Brittany?
Speaker 3 (04:44):
The anonymous call was the first part.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
What was that anonymous call to crime stoppers?
Speaker 3 (04:51):
To crime stoppers, I want a report coming that.
Speaker 4 (04:56):
But my flatmate, it was the housemate that made the
call that ended up coming out that she had overheard
her talking about this. They were able to use the
fact that they used the holding Captiva, it was seen
on highway cameras. They used of my phone pings and
(05:18):
the text message send points, so whenever they sent a
text message it was.
Speaker 3 (05:25):
Like the location.
Speaker 4 (05:26):
They were able to then look at her phone bill
and see exactly the location of where the phone calls
were made from.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
How do you find out that information? Does that happen
in court or is that in the brief of evidence
as the trial takes place. Because at the start, I
guess you're thinking she's been framed.
Speaker 3 (05:46):
Yeah, she didn't do this.
Speaker 1 (05:47):
My sister would not kill my granddad. Yeah, she loved
my granddad.
Speaker 3 (05:51):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (05:53):
So on that night, obviously we know nothing. They leave,
I go to my dad's. The police are still there.
They're not really saying much, just make sure that he's okay,
and then the next day, I remember.
Speaker 3 (06:12):
It's all over TV that.
Speaker 4 (06:17):
Robert Whitwell was murdered, but they weren't talking about who
it was. Yeah, and then I get a call actually
from the advertiser in Adelaide, going, we've been sent information
that your sister has allegedly murdered your grandfather. Do you
(06:41):
want to comment? And I think I told them to
fuck off. And at that point I had news reporters
turn up at the front door. They wanted comments. We
jumped in the car, actually drove to my ex partner's
family's house. They were calling his parents to try and
(07:02):
get in contact with me. And then at that point
it hits the news that it's Brittany and that's when
I started to find out some of the stuff.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
So you're not finding this out from the police, you're
finding this out from the media.
Speaker 3 (07:16):
Or from the media. So I had friends that knew
before I did, and.
Speaker 1 (07:21):
The media goes into a frenzy. We know this right
the moment something like this happens, this is a big story. Yeah,
it's not a story that really happens in Australia very often. No,
certainly not a granddaughter murdering the grandfather for money. Yeah,
so you're hounded, and your mum's hounded, and anyone with
(07:42):
your surname, which is an easy surname to find.
Speaker 3 (07:46):
Yeah, it's pretty recognizable.
Speaker 1 (07:47):
It just goes on the hunt. Yeah, looks at your Facebook,
her Facebook.
Speaker 3 (07:52):
Ye, takes whatever they want whatever photos.
Speaker 1 (07:55):
Has a feel invasive. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (07:58):
I actually until that scenario had happened, I didn't understand
the gravity of what social media can do in many ways,
feeling so violated that you don't even own your photos anymore.
When they go up online, they use whatever whenever old
statuses which we all have those cringey twenty ten updates
(08:20):
that they deep dive in and use.
Speaker 1 (08:24):
But friends of yours that they then go and contact.
We know, I know all this because that's how we
found you. Yeah, we did the same years later. We
didn't know each other. We just reached out.
Speaker 4 (08:34):
Yeah, exactly, so the same. Yeah, they go through friends.
They asked friends where I might be called workplaces, turn
up at workplaces.
Speaker 2 (08:43):
Yes, it's I don't know.
Speaker 4 (08:47):
It just.
Speaker 2 (08:50):
I don't think your brain even wants to believe what
you're hearing. It does take time to process it all,
and yes, it just does take time to you go
through grief, you go through, you disbelief. I needed to
(09:15):
find proof of what they were accusing my daughter of
because I didn't think she was capable of anything. And
I'm saying, well, where's the proof. I need proof, not
just that you've seen a car here there, and that
I need proof.
Speaker 1 (09:36):
What was the moment for you that it turned from
my sister's been framed to my sister's a murderer.
Speaker 3 (09:44):
Actually, it was.
Speaker 4 (09:47):
This message that I got from my best friend at
the time, Rachelle. She sent me this article and went
is this true? And I remember looking at it and
just going, it's real. It happened, and I was on
the Gold Coast at this time, and I just remember
(10:10):
looking at it, going, she's done it. And the article
specifically was the first one that was released where my
sister had confirmed everything and the words came out of
her mouth that she did it.
Speaker 3 (10:27):
And that's when it really hit.
Speaker 2 (10:29):
I ended up having a phone bill that came in
and I had my phone bill and I had Britney's
phone bill, all on the same plan, and it was
all itemized, and it wasn't until I went in to
that last phone bill and I could see she was
in Adelaide and Sydney and Townsville and mckae And that
(10:56):
was my proof. I could see now what the police
was saying, that they had tracked to her car on
different cameras and things like that in different but that
was my proof when I actually saw the phone, the
itemized phone bill.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
What do you do then, how do you feel at
that moment where you found the proof yourself. The police
have said it was your daughter, It's obviously that's a
hard thing to believe. But when you see it for yourself,
what's that feeling like?
Speaker 2 (11:26):
I think that just it starts to thinking like, wow,
what what the police are saying is true? And because
you're in denial at first, and then it's wow, yeah,
and you know the prostitution and all this that we
(11:47):
didn't know, and the police knew what, you know, what
her movements were just before that happened, and it just
becomes real. It just becomes big. It's like a slap
in the face. This is reality. This is what happened,
(12:07):
and they are telling me the truth. And I wanted
to talk to Brittany when she was when she had
already been arrested, and she wouldn't she wouldn't speak to me,
so I've never spoken to her since this happened, which
(12:29):
is really sad.
Speaker 4 (12:32):
I think the moment she confessed and agreed to confess
was that they had already arrested Shelby. I actually think
Shelby was the first one that they had. Shelby pretty
much agreed to cooperate and gave them access to.
Speaker 3 (12:51):
Everything essentially text message.
Speaker 4 (12:53):
Text messages, phone calls, photos.
Speaker 1 (12:57):
The bag. Yeah, the contents of what was in the
bag because.
Speaker 3 (13:02):
Their Facebook messenger posts, which.
Speaker 1 (13:03):
Makes the police very easy, Yeah, to get into it.
It's important to say that Shelby wasn't convicted of anything
to do with your granddad's murder. She was convicted of trespass.
Speaker 3 (13:16):
And accessory is aggravated dress pass.
Speaker 1 (13:19):
That's right. She was not attached in any way to
the murder of your granddad.
Speaker 3 (13:22):
Correct.
Speaker 1 (13:26):
Two questions. Firstly, has your mum when your sister confesses
to killing your granddad.
Speaker 3 (13:36):
Not good?
Speaker 4 (13:37):
I think out of all of us, mum took at
the hardest, which her father and her daughter killed him.
Just that sentence alone shouldn't even be strung together.
Speaker 3 (13:47):
It's just not normal.
Speaker 4 (13:53):
She essentially turned into a vegetable is the best way
I could describe it.
Speaker 3 (14:00):
It was like her brain was.
Speaker 4 (14:02):
A bucket of water and the more you added in,
the rest just spilled out. And she just couldn't She
couldn't take on any of the information. And I think
the saving grace a bit was that she was in Wallaroo,
which is a remote sort of sea town in South Australia,
so no one knew where she was in terms of
(14:24):
the media and all of that, so she was able
to really deal with it there.
Speaker 2 (14:30):
I blame myself in the way of, you know, why
didn't I pick up on things, and why didn't I
know what she was doing? And why did I work
full time? Well, why didn't I stay at home like
I did raising Ryan. I was stay at home mum.
Why wasn't I there for her? I think that's the
(14:51):
whole thing that she got away with so much because
I worked full time and I commuted every day, so
my commute to work was between two and three hours
a day on top of you know where and seven
eight hours a day, so there were long days and
she was at home, you know, and going to school
(15:13):
and things like that. But she had a lot of
spare time where we weren't actually keeping an eye on
her every every hour.
Speaker 1 (15:21):
But you now know that it wasn't your fault. You
couldn't have changed what happened. What happened happened, and what
Britney did isn't a result of anything that you did.
Speaker 2 (15:35):
I don't know. I have in my mind one day
we will speak again and she will fill in the
blanks for me the things that we don't know. And
that's what I have in my mind. But I still do,
not so much to blame myself, but I just think,
why wasn't I there, and why didn't I know? And
(15:57):
why could she talk to me? But that's hard.
Speaker 4 (16:03):
My mum had a very big job as the executive
assistant for the Transport Minister and essentially had to go
on permanently because the stress and anxiety of just basic
things she couldn't get through.
Speaker 2 (16:20):
You know, I did resign from my government job because
I just didn't want to go back to that corporate
world and been on the train every day and that
just and people, just the people that I used to
work with. You know, it's like, wow, it's on the news,
(16:42):
and wow, I work with her, But they just don't
have empathy and it's just on the news and wow,
and then you know in five minutes time, they're thinking,
aren't you over this yet? And you know the reality is,
(17:04):
with the police involved and all that process, it goes
on for a long time. So yeah, I had two
months off work in the beginning, and then I tried
to go back to work, but there was just still
too much going on and the police still ringing me
and updating me and telling me new facts that I
(17:28):
didn't know, and you know, it's such a shock every
time you learn something new, and yeah, it takes a
while for it to actually just thinkingto your head. So
that I could not go back to work, so I
ended up resigning.
Speaker 3 (17:53):
I'll give you an example.
Speaker 4 (17:54):
Will be at the house and there will just be
a bird chirping, and it is so elevated in her
head that noise it will set her off. And this
is what I mean by just in a catatotic state.
She then moved into being suicidal, thinking about wanting to
(18:18):
end it. And the one thing that she has said
to me is that the only reason why I didn't
was because of me, that I don't want to leave
my son behind and that that's not fair.
Speaker 3 (18:37):
But That's how she was for a long time. And
your dad.
Speaker 4 (18:49):
I think my dad did the blow key thing and
just chose to believe it didn't happen and not talk
about it, just hide, essentially to the point that there
was one time where he got on a plane and
went to Germany did some business over there for a while,
(19:10):
just to I think, get away from it all.
Speaker 1 (19:12):
Because Brittany was closest to your dad than your mom.
Speaker 3 (19:15):
Yeah, yeah, they were very close.
Speaker 1 (19:18):
Are you able to speak to Brittany after she's charged.
Speaker 3 (19:23):
We're allowed to, but she didn't want to.
Speaker 4 (19:28):
She did speak to my dad, and I think that
was a few weeks after it all happened, but.
Speaker 3 (19:37):
She did not want to speak to me, and she
did not want to speak to my mom.
Speaker 4 (19:40):
Would she said, I think at that point when she
was in jail, she's pretty heavily medicated. When she was
speaking to Dad, she just asked him how he was.
My sister was like, my dad said, like, why did
you do it? She wouldn't really answer. He actually drove,
(20:03):
I think again, to deal with everything. He took time
off work and went fishing and drove from Brisbane to
Adelaide to do fishing and go see her in jail.
My dad said she just wasn't all there when he
went and saw her.
Speaker 1 (20:21):
How does this sort of thing affect the family unit.
Speaker 4 (20:27):
It's quite destructive from any family member. When any person
whenever it's a situation like what we have here, where
it's my mom's daughter and my mom's dad, but then
it's my dad's daughter and not his parents, you immediately
(20:48):
get this sense of divide. And my dad was very
much my daughter's in jail, and he still wants to
look out for her. But then my mom is my
daughter killed my dad, and I'm done. There's just no
(21:09):
coming back from that. And so I think they were
very much in two minds about how to deal with
the situation, and it just never it just it only
grew and got worse, and so they filed for divorce.
Speaker 1 (21:26):
So, during this horrible thing that happened, your parents are
still together. Yeah, successful business, mum's got a great job.
What they think is a nice family unit. This thing
that your sister did is murder that your sister committed,
pulled your family.
Speaker 3 (21:46):
Apart, completely sent it all different ways. It's a sense
of blame.
Speaker 4 (21:57):
Absolutely, this wouldn't have happened if she hadn't done this,
maybe you could speculate that my parents would have grown
apart later down the track ten twenty years. But the
pain of going through something like that and my dad
(22:20):
still wanting to talk to her and my mom not
you just it's too heavy that that's a side. It's
not like your Oh that's my football team, and I
prefer this football team. This is something that is just
fundamentally soul destroying.
Speaker 1 (22:40):
Was there a sense of anyone blaming themselves for Britney's behavior?
Speaker 4 (22:44):
Yeah, definitely, I think did you. There was a lot
that I said that what could I have done to
stop this? And I think back about I knew deep
down in my gut that Brittany was going down a
really bad path, and that's why I asked her to
move in with me. And I still feel that I
(23:06):
should have been harder and forced her to do therapy
or get a proper job and not resort to this
sort of life that has led her to this path.
And yeah, there was a lot of blame on myself
from that perspective, and then my mom as well. My
mom was saying what did she do as a mother?
What did she miss as a mother? Like how could
(23:30):
this have been prevented? Did she work too much? Should
she have been home more? Those sorts of those sort
of things. So yeah, I think we all had a
sense of blame.
Speaker 2 (23:41):
Other than Royan, I pretty much lost my whole family all,
you know, within a year anyway, and that just pulled
the rugs from underneath me, and I just wild for
a while. But now I'm happy where I am now.
Roan and I are very quiet, and I just have
(24:03):
a tiny little fit. Have nicknamed.
Speaker 1 (24:09):
In the next episode of My Sister the Murderer, your
sister's in court in that first do you make eye
contact with it?
Speaker 4 (24:16):
I tried very hard, just I was sort of looking
for some sort of sense of remorse. I guess accountability.
We were sat down. We were at the back row actually,
and to directly to my right and down I can
(24:40):
see the dock, and I saw them lead Brittany out.
Speaker 3 (24:45):
It is not possible to adequately summarize the enormity of
the distress and profound anguish that these members of the
Whitwell and Dwyer families.
Speaker 4 (24:55):
And some victim impact statements were read, and to hear them,
I guess the fact of what she actually had said
in those text messages up doing it and going through
with it. You know, I remember hearing her mom just
sort of have a bit of a shrill, I guess
is the way I would describe it, Like not a scream,
(25:20):
not really weeping, but just like hearing it.
Speaker 3 (25:23):
It was like she just got stabbed herself.
Speaker 1 (25:25):
It was.
Speaker 3 (25:26):
Yeah, it's quite awful.
Speaker 1 (25:29):
The victim impact statement. Your mum read one and you
also read one. Do you have that with you? Would
you read it first?
Approach production. I'm quite pleased with the outcome, and I
think others have member. I haven't spoken him yet, but
I believe the other members of the family would be
certain opinion. Well, you couldn't get a better brother than he.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Was.
Speaker 3 (00:25):
Truly a really a gentleman.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
I don't think he ever had an.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
Argument with anybody. Every in his life.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
He has always helped anybody wherever he could, always drige
you lifely.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
We support one another, We're there for one another as
a family, and we just have to know now and
be glad that it's all over. That's Robert Whitwell's brother
outside the court after Britney was sentenced to life imprisonment
for his murder. How the court case unfolded and the
things the family learned about Britney's double life was shocking.
(01:00):
The arrest of Britney happened without the family knowing. Ryan
was at home, his mum was staying with family back
in South Australia, and his dad was at the family home.
Detectives from Queensland and South Australia are deployed to everyone's
house all at once. They get everyone on a conference
call and then tell them Brittany murdered Robert.
Speaker 4 (01:24):
She was picked up this morning, and she's already in
custody and she will most likely be in the watchhouse tonight.
And then Extra died. It to Adelaide the next day,
and as I was telling me this, I'm like, Okay,
I thought we were here to talk about my grandfather,
(01:45):
and now you're saying that my sister's been arrested and
for murder. And I just immediately remembered going into a
bit of a state of shock, and I just went,
she's been framed. I literally said, she's been framed. My
(02:10):
mom is dead, silent, my dad is going, what the fuck?
And then they said it's if she's been arrested for
murder your grandfather's death.
Speaker 3 (02:21):
And I just remember my.
Speaker 4 (02:23):
Mom completely bursting into hysterics like I could. I can
literally still hear her scream, and it just I just
I remember just.
Speaker 3 (02:40):
Everything felt like I was underwater.
Speaker 4 (02:43):
You had this just echo, we like your brain has
just shut down like ten speeds, and I just it was.
Speaker 3 (02:52):
Like an outer body experience.
Speaker 4 (02:53):
And I just remember bursting into tears, still thinking she's
been framed, and I immediately go to you've got the
wrong person. It's the other family member, and they ignore that,
and then the police that are with us are comforting us.
Speaker 3 (03:17):
What did your dad say?
Speaker 4 (03:18):
He went into a state of numbness. I immediately when
that happened, I said to Adam, we need to go
to my dad's now, which is like fifty minutes away
from my house, and he's yeah, okay, And so he
drove fast over there. Already at that point, his brother,
my uncle, was there. The police had called him because
(03:41):
my dad was by himself, and my dad just sat
on the lounge in like a canatonic state, like. I
was asking him questions and he couldn't really answer. The
only thing he kept saying was Shelby and Brittany were
(04:03):
just here for dinner, like two nights go.
Speaker 1 (04:09):
Like most good police work, the net closes in quickly.
They only make an arrest when they've got enough evidence
to get a conviction. So while police were telling the
family it might be something or someone else, they were
looking into everyone. No doubt, everyone is a person of
interest until they become a suspect. That, of course, is
(04:29):
not known to Ryan and his family, and they have
no idea that police are looking to Brittany as the
murder of Robert. What was the evidence that police landed
on to get Brittany?
Speaker 3 (04:44):
The anonymous call was the first part.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
What was that anonymous call to crime stoppers?
Speaker 3 (04:51):
To crime stoppers, I want a report coming that.
Speaker 4 (04:56):
But my flatmate, it was the housemate that made the
call that ended up coming out that she had overheard
her talking about this. They were able to use the
fact that they used the holding Captiva, it was seen
on highway cameras. They used of my phone pings and
(05:18):
the text message send points, so whenever they sent a
text message it was.
Speaker 3 (05:25):
Like the location.
Speaker 4 (05:26):
They were able to then look at her phone bill
and see exactly the location of where the phone calls
were made from.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
How do you find out that information? Does that happen
in court or is that in the brief of evidence
as the trial takes place. Because at the start, I
guess you're thinking she's been framed.
Speaker 3 (05:46):
Yeah, she didn't do this.
Speaker 1 (05:47):
My sister would not kill my granddad. Yeah, she loved
my granddad.
Speaker 3 (05:51):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (05:53):
So on that night, obviously we know nothing. They leave,
I go to my dad's. The police are still there.
They're not really saying much, just make sure that he's okay,
and then the next day, I remember.
Speaker 3 (06:12):
It's all over TV that.
Speaker 4 (06:17):
Robert Whitwell was murdered, but they weren't talking about who
it was. Yeah, and then I get a call actually
from the advertiser in Adelaide, going, we've been sent information
that your sister has allegedly murdered your grandfather. Do you
(06:41):
want to comment? And I think I told them to
fuck off. And at that point I had news reporters
turn up at the front door. They wanted comments. We
jumped in the car, actually drove to my ex partner's
family's house. They were calling his parents to try and
(07:02):
get in contact with me. And then at that point
it hits the news that it's Brittany and that's when
I started to find out some of the stuff.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
So you're not finding this out from the police, you're
finding this out from the media.
Speaker 3 (07:16):
Or from the media. So I had friends that knew
before I did, and.
Speaker 1 (07:21):
The media goes into a frenzy. We know this right
the moment something like this happens, this is a big story. Yeah,
it's not a story that really happens in Australia very often. No,
certainly not a granddaughter murdering the grandfather for money. Yeah,
so you're hounded, and your mum's hounded, and anyone with
(07:42):
your surname, which is an easy surname to find.
Speaker 3 (07:46):
Yeah, it's pretty recognizable.
Speaker 1 (07:47):
It just goes on the hunt. Yeah, looks at your Facebook,
her Facebook.
Speaker 3 (07:52):
Ye, takes whatever they want whatever photos.
Speaker 1 (07:55):
Has a feel invasive. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (07:58):
I actually until that scenario had happened, I didn't understand
the gravity of what social media can do in many ways,
feeling so violated that you don't even own your photos anymore.
When they go up online, they use whatever whenever old
statuses which we all have those cringey twenty ten updates
(08:20):
that they deep dive in and use.
Speaker 1 (08:24):
But friends of yours that they then go and contact.
We know, I know all this because that's how we
found you. Yeah, we did the same years later. We
didn't know each other. We just reached out.
Speaker 4 (08:34):
Yeah, exactly, so the same. Yeah, they go through friends.
They asked friends where I might be called workplaces, turn
up at workplaces.
Speaker 2 (08:43):
Yes, it's I don't know.
Speaker 4 (08:47):
It just.
Speaker 2 (08:50):
I don't think your brain even wants to believe what
you're hearing. It does take time to process it all,
and yes, it just does take time to you go
through grief, you go through, you disbelief. I needed to
(09:15):
find proof of what they were accusing my daughter of
because I didn't think she was capable of anything. And
I'm saying, well, where's the proof. I need proof, not
just that you've seen a car here there, and that
I need proof.
Speaker 1 (09:36):
What was the moment for you that it turned from
my sister's been framed to my sister's a murderer.
Speaker 3 (09:44):
Actually, it was.
Speaker 4 (09:47):
This message that I got from my best friend at
the time, Rachelle. She sent me this article and went
is this true? And I remember looking at it and
just going, it's real. It happened, and I was on
the Gold Coast at this time, and I just remember
(10:10):
looking at it, going, she's done it. And the article
specifically was the first one that was released where my
sister had confirmed everything and the words came out of
her mouth that she did it.
Speaker 3 (10:27):
And that's when it really hit.
Speaker 2 (10:29):
I ended up having a phone bill that came in
and I had my phone bill and I had Britney's
phone bill, all on the same plan, and it was
all itemized, and it wasn't until I went in to
that last phone bill and I could see she was
in Adelaide and Sydney and Townsville and mckae And that
(10:56):
was my proof. I could see now what the police
was saying, that they had tracked to her car on
different cameras and things like that in different but that
was my proof when I actually saw the phone, the
itemized phone bill.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
What do you do then, how do you feel at
that moment where you found the proof yourself. The police
have said it was your daughter, It's obviously that's a
hard thing to believe. But when you see it for yourself,
what's that feeling like?
Speaker 2 (11:26):
I think that just it starts to thinking like, wow,
what what the police are saying is true? And because
you're in denial at first, and then it's wow, yeah,
and you know the prostitution and all this that we
(11:47):
didn't know, and the police knew what, you know, what
her movements were just before that happened, and it just
becomes real. It just becomes big. It's like a slap
in the face. This is reality. This is what happened,
(12:07):
and they are telling me the truth. And I wanted
to talk to Brittany when she was when she had
already been arrested, and she wouldn't she wouldn't speak to me,
so I've never spoken to her since this happened, which
(12:29):
is really sad.
Speaker 4 (12:32):
I think the moment she confessed and agreed to confess
was that they had already arrested Shelby. I actually think
Shelby was the first one that they had. Shelby pretty
much agreed to cooperate and gave them access to.
Speaker 3 (12:51):
Everything essentially text message.
Speaker 4 (12:53):
Text messages, phone calls, photos.
Speaker 1 (12:57):
The bag. Yeah, the contents of what was in the
bag because.
Speaker 3 (13:02):
Their Facebook messenger posts, which.
Speaker 1 (13:03):
Makes the police very easy, Yeah, to get into it.
It's important to say that Shelby wasn't convicted of anything
to do with your granddad's murder. She was convicted of trespass.
Speaker 3 (13:16):
And accessory is aggravated dress pass.
Speaker 1 (13:19):
That's right. She was not attached in any way to
the murder of your granddad.
Speaker 3 (13:22):
Correct.
Speaker 1 (13:26):
Two questions. Firstly, has your mum when your sister confesses
to killing your granddad.
Speaker 3 (13:36):
Not good?
Speaker 4 (13:37):
I think out of all of us, mum took at
the hardest, which her father and her daughter killed him.
Just that sentence alone shouldn't even be strung together.
Speaker 3 (13:47):
It's just not normal.
Speaker 4 (13:53):
She essentially turned into a vegetable is the best way
I could describe it.
Speaker 3 (14:00):
It was like her brain was.
Speaker 4 (14:02):
A bucket of water and the more you added in,
the rest just spilled out. And she just couldn't She
couldn't take on any of the information. And I think
the saving grace a bit was that she was in Wallaroo,
which is a remote sort of sea town in South Australia,
so no one knew where she was in terms of
(14:24):
the media and all of that, so she was able
to really deal with it there.
Speaker 2 (14:30):
I blame myself in the way of, you know, why
didn't I pick up on things, and why didn't I
know what she was doing? And why did I work
full time? Well, why didn't I stay at home like
I did raising Ryan. I was stay at home mum.
Why wasn't I there for her? I think that's the
(14:51):
whole thing that she got away with so much because
I worked full time and I commuted every day, so
my commute to work was between two and three hours
a day on top of you know where and seven
eight hours a day, so there were long days and
she was at home, you know, and going to school
(15:13):
and things like that. But she had a lot of
spare time where we weren't actually keeping an eye on
her every every hour.
Speaker 1 (15:21):
But you now know that it wasn't your fault. You
couldn't have changed what happened. What happened happened, and what
Britney did isn't a result of anything that you did.
Speaker 2 (15:35):
I don't know. I have in my mind one day
we will speak again and she will fill in the
blanks for me the things that we don't know. And
that's what I have in my mind. But I still do,
not so much to blame myself, but I just think,
why wasn't I there, and why didn't I know? And
(15:57):
why could she talk to me? But that's hard.
Speaker 4 (16:03):
My mum had a very big job as the executive
assistant for the Transport Minister and essentially had to go
on permanently because the stress and anxiety of just basic
things she couldn't get through.
Speaker 2 (16:20):
You know, I did resign from my government job because
I just didn't want to go back to that corporate
world and been on the train every day and that
just and people, just the people that I used to
work with. You know, it's like, wow, it's on the news,
(16:42):
and wow, I work with her, But they just don't
have empathy and it's just on the news and wow,
and then you know in five minutes time, they're thinking,
aren't you over this yet? And you know the reality is,
(17:04):
with the police involved and all that process, it goes
on for a long time. So yeah, I had two
months off work in the beginning, and then I tried
to go back to work, but there was just still
too much going on and the police still ringing me
and updating me and telling me new facts that I
(17:28):
didn't know, and you know, it's such a shock every
time you learn something new, and yeah, it takes a
while for it to actually just thinkingto your head. So
that I could not go back to work, so I
ended up resigning.
Speaker 3 (17:53):
I'll give you an example.
Speaker 4 (17:54):
Will be at the house and there will just be
a bird chirping, and it is so elevated in her
head that noise it will set her off. And this
is what I mean by just in a catatotic state.
She then moved into being suicidal, thinking about wanting to
(18:18):
end it. And the one thing that she has said
to me is that the only reason why I didn't
was because of me, that I don't want to leave
my son behind and that that's not fair.
Speaker 3 (18:37):
But That's how she was for a long time. And
your dad.
Speaker 4 (18:49):
I think my dad did the blow key thing and
just chose to believe it didn't happen and not talk
about it, just hide, essentially to the point that there
was one time where he got on a plane and
went to Germany did some business over there for a while,
(19:10):
just to I think, get away from it all.
Speaker 1 (19:12):
Because Brittany was closest to your dad than your mom.
Speaker 3 (19:15):
Yeah, yeah, they were very close.
Speaker 1 (19:18):
Are you able to speak to Brittany after she's charged.
Speaker 3 (19:23):
We're allowed to, but she didn't want to.
Speaker 4 (19:28):
She did speak to my dad, and I think that
was a few weeks after it all happened, but.
Speaker 3 (19:37):
She did not want to speak to me, and she
did not want to speak to my mom.
Speaker 4 (19:40):
Would she said, I think at that point when she
was in jail, she's pretty heavily medicated. When she was
speaking to Dad, she just asked him how he was.
My sister was like, my dad said, like, why did
you do it? She wouldn't really answer. He actually drove,
(20:03):
I think again, to deal with everything. He took time
off work and went fishing and drove from Brisbane to
Adelaide to do fishing and go see her in jail.
My dad said she just wasn't all there when he
went and saw her.
Speaker 1 (20:21):
How does this sort of thing affect the family unit.
Speaker 4 (20:27):
It's quite destructive from any family member. When any person
whenever it's a situation like what we have here, where
it's my mom's daughter and my mom's dad, but then
it's my dad's daughter and not his parents, you immediately
(20:48):
get this sense of divide. And my dad was very
much my daughter's in jail, and he still wants to
look out for her. But then my mom is my
daughter killed my dad, and I'm done. There's just no
(21:09):
coming back from that. And so I think they were
very much in two minds about how to deal with
the situation, and it just never it just it only
grew and got worse, and so they filed for divorce.
Speaker 1 (21:26):
So, during this horrible thing that happened, your parents are
still together. Yeah, successful business, mum's got a great job.
What they think is a nice family unit. This thing
that your sister did is murder that your sister committed,
pulled your family.
Speaker 3 (21:46):
Apart, completely sent it all different ways. It's a sense
of blame.
Speaker 4 (21:57):
Absolutely, this wouldn't have happened if she hadn't done this,
maybe you could speculate that my parents would have grown
apart later down the track ten twenty years. But the
pain of going through something like that and my dad
(22:20):
still wanting to talk to her and my mom not
you just it's too heavy that that's a side. It's
not like your Oh that's my football team, and I
prefer this football team. This is something that is just
fundamentally soul destroying.
Speaker 1 (22:40):
Was there a sense of anyone blaming themselves for Britney's behavior?
Speaker 4 (22:44):
Yeah, definitely, I think did you. There was a lot
that I said that what could I have done to
stop this? And I think back about I knew deep
down in my gut that Brittany was going down a
really bad path, and that's why I asked her to
move in with me. And I still feel that I
(23:06):
should have been harder and forced her to do therapy
or get a proper job and not resort to this
sort of life that has led her to this path.
And yeah, there was a lot of blame on myself
from that perspective, and then my mom as well. My
mom was saying what did she do as a mother?
What did she miss as a mother? Like how could
(23:30):
this have been prevented? Did she work too much? Should
she have been home more? Those sorts of those sort
of things. So yeah, I think we all had a
sense of blame.
Speaker 2 (23:41):
Other than Royan, I pretty much lost my whole family all,
you know, within a year anyway, and that just pulled
the rugs from underneath me, and I just wild for
a while. But now I'm happy where I am now.
Roan and I are very quiet, and I just have
(24:03):
a tiny little fit. Have nicknamed.
Speaker 1 (24:09):
In the next episode of My Sister the Murderer, your
sister's in court in that first do you make eye
contact with it?
Speaker 4 (24:16):
I tried very hard, just I was sort of looking
for some sort of sense of remorse. I guess accountability.
We were sat down. We were at the back row actually,
and to directly to my right and down I can
(24:40):
see the dock, and I saw them lead Brittany out.
Speaker 3 (24:45):
It is not possible to adequately summarize the enormity of
the distress and profound anguish that these members of the
Whitwell and Dwyer families.
Speaker 4 (24:55):
And some victim impact statements were read, and to hear them,
I guess the fact of what she actually had said
in those text messages up doing it and going through
with it. You know, I remember hearing her mom just
sort of have a bit of a shrill, I guess
is the way I would describe it, Like not a scream,
(25:20):
not really weeping, but just like hearing it.
Speaker 3 (25:23):
It was like she just got stabbed herself.
Speaker 1 (25:25):
It was.
Speaker 3 (25:26):
Yeah, it's quite awful.
Speaker 1 (25:29):
The victim impact statement. Your mum read one and you
also read one. Do you have that with you? Would
you read it first?
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com