8. Forgivness ?

Apoche production.

The moment Brittany was convicted, Australia's media went into overdrive.

The court her dwire was motivated by money.

Why did she really do it?

Whire will be eligible for parole two thousand and thirty seven.

Burns was jailed for.

Thirty Everyone wanted the story. A story like this happens in America or on TV shows, But it doesn't happen in Australia, and it doesn't happen with a girl from Brisbane who kills her granddad in Adelaide. I remember seeing this story for the first time on the TV show Sunday Night with Melissa Doyle.

How did this girl, Brittany turn into a monster? What are the signs that I missed?

She murdered her own grandfather then went back to doing the dishes.

It was my.

Daughter killed him.

An Australian horror story. Her family speak exclusively to.

Sunday Night that anger that's inside.

Never did I think that she was dark?

There's lies. We were there together with his killer. Now will her partner and crime finally come clean?

You could have stopped it.

Do you want to say sorry?

Why did you really do it?

Could she just be pure?

Cold, hard evil.

She'ssichopath.

Yeah. You talked about the media in our interview and you said, you know, there was a storm of media attention once, not necessarily when your grandfather first died, but once they worked out that your sister was the one that did it. What was the decision to do the Sunday Night program?

We were sort of bombarded with a lot of media and we had certainly a lot of people coming to us about wanting to do a story, and everybody's opinion was very much of this is what we would like to do, you know, are you going to be a part of it?

Essentially?

And the only I guess producer from any show that actually said to us what would you like to get out of it and how would you like the story to be framed?

With such empathy.

Was the team at Sunday Night, particularly the producer Naima, and we met up for dinner on the Gold Coast, and the way that she sort of spoke to us on the phone, it was to me at the beginning, she genuinely, genuinely sorry, actually just spoke to me as a person and rather than like a salacious story and said, you know, is there anything that we can help throughout this process too, is the information you would like to find out? You know, we do have those resources. So

By a long after was it that you got to talk to them?

I think it was shortly we filmed, and I think it aired pretty quickly, just before sentencing, because I know they had to release an update by the time the show aired. That sentencing is like in a week or something. From memory, So it.

Was and your mom mel Doyle and your Mum's still close.

Now, yeah, absolutely, I mean it just goes to show what a beautiful person mel is but consistently reaches out to my mom and I sends emails at saying, you know, Merry Christmas, I hope you're doing well. They still chat quite regularly, consistently, keeps checking in, which.

Is really nice.

And that story was obviously released I think in twenty sixteen, so much that you know, Mum's not one to want to do these sort of things, but you know, if Mel gives her a call, she'll do what Mel wants because of you know, the relationship that that formed.

We've been talking for a while about doing this podcast. You have some reluctance to start with. Let's talk about that. What's what was the reluctance to start with?

Ah, you know, I think a big part of it is, you know, reliving the story.

You know, I.

Do quite well at the fact of being able to sort of split myself into and sort of think.

About it has a story that I.

Would potentially want to watch on a TV show or on a podcast, but then at the same time knowing that it's my own story, if that makes sense.

And I think when you're.

Physically being interviewed and reliving it, it brings up a lot of emotion and it is very draining and upsetting as anyone could imagine. But I think I was nervous to do it as well, because you know, I want to do it justice in a way.

Melissa Doyle is the host of Sunday Night and has become really close to the family. She recently made the trip up to Queensland to visit Tanya. Years after this made the headlines in twenty twenty two, Melissa also wrote a book called fifteen Seconds of Brave.

I actually have a card that Melissa Doyle hand delivered to my mum with a copy of her book, which was called fifteen second of Brave.

How do you mean had delivered like she flew up Sydney.

Yeah, so she actually flew up from Sydney.

She was doing her book tour and actually hand when and saw Mum and hand delivered it to her as a big thank you for being a part of the being a part of the book. Melissa actually chose Mum to be the opening chapter of the book as well, so she picked I think it's seven specific stories and her whole journalism career that just never left her. But it wasn't so much about the story. It was more about the amazing attitude that somebody has after all that happens.

I initially considered writing a book about resilience for personal reasons. At the beginning of twenty twenty, my fiftieth birthday lurked ominously around the corner. Meanwhile, Sunday night, the public affairs program I hosted for Channel seven, had just been canceled, and I'd begun to worry my future with seven, the station that had been like a home to me for twenty five.

One.

Tanya. The first time I encountered Tanya Wickwell in twenty seventeen, just over a year had passed since her quiet, happy life in the Brisbane suburbs ended and a traumatic new existence appeared in front of her. It is no exaggeration to say she was the most broken person I'd met in all my years covering the news. Emotionally, Tanya was on her knees, it showed in her tired eyes, and she told me with a fragile half smile that she

The book is actually named fifteen Seconds of Brave because there was a little boy who underwent a lot of different treatments and he just said, you know, to get through this, I just have to be brave for fifteen seconds. And I think it's actually it's a beautiful book. I've read it a few times. The inside the card, it says, dearest Tanya, thank you so much for agreeing to be a part of my book and sharing so much of

Mel.

My pain is all on the inside, she points out, there are no scars, It's just hurting and no one can see it. So Tanya decided to mark each milestone of her journey. Her first tattoo was the word Dad next to a blue rose on the inside.

Of her right reason.

There was many times that.

Whilst I was filming with Mel, someone looking back at me was equally as emotional and crying like me. And it just goes to show you, know those stories, you know, she's not just doing it for a story like that is obviously a part of the job, but she genuinely

As part of that Sunday night program, there was another guest on that show. Yeah, obviously it wasn't filmed at the same time. You know, you didn't see each other, No, but you would have watched the show. You probably watched it live.

I'm thinking I did.

Yes, that guest on the show was Shelby, who.

Was on remand at the time, I believe.

Talk to me about how you felt about her on Telly.

They had asked us, when I say they, the producers of the show had asked us if we would mind if she was involved, And at the time, I thought it would be great get her on board because.

I knew I knew how it would pan out. I knew that.

It would make her look quite guilty and that she isn't that remorseful from what I could experience. So that's from what I did experience with her. So I sort of figured it'll go one of two ways. I'll either make her look really good and she redeems herself in the eyes of the public, or you'll go the way that I think it will go and it will do exactly what I think it is and she won't look so great at all. And that's the way it did go. And so when I actually saw it live on TP

Her mother was pressing her to say.

Sorry and that's what they want to hear, and you know, just do it and sort of move on. And you know that you can see the body language throughout that segment as well, and yeah, it just it made us all very angry. Like I said, we also knew that that's probably how it was going to turn out. She had the ability to set the record straight for her, and you know, there was one particular scene that Mel asked her, is you know, why didn't you say anything?

And I think that was the part that just I was so angry. I'm just like, that is such a.

Blazing disregard for the whole scenario that we face, and just she was the first person to actually get some sort of this, some sort of information from Brittany that we could have stopped it in its tracks there and then, but instead it escalated way past Shelby's.

Ryan's right to have an opinion on how Shelby seemed on TV the night that it aired in Australia, This story, the story of Brittany murdering her granddad, is hard to escape for the family, even on holidays overseas, the story re is its ugly head.

Yeah.

So I went to America for my thirtieth birthday. It was a five week trip around the country to celebrate.

I was actually in.

Las Vegas at the time, and I was watching one of their True Crime channels that they just have on consistently twenty four hours a day, and a story popped up which seemed quite familiar to me, and it actually was a story that they had filmed in their own account about the murder of my grandfather.

Nothing brightens a grandparents' day more than seeing their grandchildren.

Hi, grandfather, you do.

In August twenty sixteen, Brittany Dwyer surprises her grandpa, eighty one year old Robert Whitwell.

She's welcomed in with open arms.

I love it, she too, Grandpa, I haven't seen you in ages.

Her grandfather was so glad to see her, it had been so long. The tyranny of distance keeps them apart. Robert lives in South Australia, while nineteen year old Brittany is from the north in Queensland.

Brittany and her grandfather had a close relationship even though they were twelve hundred miles apart.

They spoke, they interacted.

The actors weren't anybody notable, but it was clearly filmed with American people in mind to place at roles and then a lot of the interview use and the characters were Australian and I've chose to block out a lot of things. So again, yeah, deep diving into that is you know, it's difficult.

And how hard has that been reliving? You know, we've spent a lot of time together talking and asking questions that are you know, they're hard because they're going back into the depths of Hey, what do you remember about this time? How did you feel? Yeah, how has that been for your own mental health over the last times were recorded?

Well, it's it's physically exhausting, you know, you just want to you know, shortly after our first meeting, I went back to the hotel room and I had to just like get into bed and like wrap myself up, so to speak, because you just feel like you need to decompress and absorb everything you've sort of spoken about.

So, yeah, it's it's hard. I would definitely say it's hard.

You notice we've spoken to Ryan a lot in this podcast. It really is his account of the story. We did reach out to others to play a part, including Shelby, her lawyers, and other people, but we made the choice, given the name of the show, that this was Ryan's telling of his story. We did want to talk to Tanya, Ryan's mum to see how she felt, and there was a bit of nervousness from Ryan about what that might

It's even more exhausting for her so to speak physically and mentally draining that once it's done, she sort of just goes, Okay, it's done. Now, I don't want to do it anymore. So we have limited time to be able to do that. I know that it will be quite upsetting and hard for her to do, even just an informal chat like that. I mean, her and I talk about the situation a lot, but I sort of allow her to lead the conversation in that and talk about what she wants to talk about.

At that time.

I guess, now, you know, talking about everything. Do you do you still think about her? Now?

Like?

How often do you do you think about Oh?

Every day? Every single day? I think about it.

Yeah, I mean I'm the same. I can say that I think every single day. At some point in the day I think about it, and people ask me, you know, are you angry or are you are you do forgive her and am every day is different? Do you find that?

No, I'm still at the I remember I was really angry in the beginning and been sad, and you go through different emotions, but I'm still I still have hopes that we will talk one day and she will fill in the blanket for me. I mean, she's going to be forty when she gets out of jail, so you know, that's not really that old, so she's still got, you know, a few years to live after that, and I mean maybe Grandma won't be around then, or all her grandparents

I mean that's even depends on if she gets the role so that she can get life. So she has to apply for the role at that time to see if you get out. But I guess after you know, you are hopeful that you've talk. Do you think that would leave lead into forgiveness?

Not one business? Yeah, yeah, yeah, I don't know about the forgiveness. I don't know if I can ever forget, because this is just I didn't ever think that anyone could turn my world upside down. You know, I was strong, independent woman before, and I didn't think anyone could ever flit my world around like it did. But yeah she did. And yeah, there's a lot of a lot of hurt in the heavy hearts.

Yeah, and how do you feel about it all? Now?

I take each day as it comes. You know, you're always going to have bad days when it's an anniversary or Father's Day or Dad's poppy birthday and things like that. But I've learnt to keep myself busy and you know, I'll go out that day so the day goes faster and keep my mind occupied and things like that. You know, knowing that Brittany's birthday is coming up soon and things

I still find all the anniversary is pretty difficult that I try to. Yeah, I stay busy or I'll work from home and I try to. I guess, if like Pop his birthday and I guess, you know, the day he passed away, I'll try to like light a candle

And I do wonder what kind of person she is now because there's where she is. She toughened up and hardened up. And yeah, there's a lot of questions to be answered.

Yeah, definitely, Why did you want to do a podcast?

Now?

You know, it's one of those things that will always be with me. You know, there's no escaping it.

I think being able to.

Talk about the story from a perspective now that I've been able to sit.

With it for a little while.

You know, it's been a few years now, there has been conversations with her, and I see it in an indifferent light compared to what it was like when I first was going through it, so I wanted to I wanted to sort of refresh, if that makes sense, and do the podcast.

Brittany Dwyer was sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of her proper Robert. She'll serve a minimum of twenty years without parole. She'll be eligible for parole in twenty thirty six. She'll be thirty nine years old. Bernadette Burns was sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of Robert. She'll serve a minimum thirteen and a half years without parole and will be eligible for parole in twenty twenty nine.

Miss Burns, you also must receive punishment that is fitting and deserved. Your level of culpability is, of course, much less than that of Missdwire. You did not intend to have mister Whitwell killed or to suffer really serious bodily harm. However, you engaged with, encouraged, and assisted Misdwire in the robbery, contemplating that violence towards and physical harm to an eighty

Shelby Holmes was charged with aggravated serious criminal trespass and given a nine month suspended sentence. My Sister the Murderer was written in produced by me Jay Walkerdin from pod Shape. Extra editing and mixing was done by Jared Young at Chump Chump and Shad Wicker at pod Shape. Research was from Melissa Gibson. Logo design from Dan a Cyborg and I also want to say a personal thanks to Ryan and Tanya for trusting us with this really personal story.