Mate’s murder a ‘frame’

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 4, 2019 themercury.com.au SUBSCRIPTIONS 1300 696 397 A FALSE “trail of breadcrumbs” led detectives away from the true killer responsible for murdering a drug-dealing tattoo artist, a court was told.

Defence barrister Alan Hensley says there is a “real risk of injustice” if a jury convicts Bradley Scott Purkiss, 43, of killing debt-laden Risdon Vale man, Dwayne “Doc” Davies.

In his closing address to a Supreme Court of Tasmania jury yesterday, Mr Hensley said “some other bloke” did the deed instead, before framing the dead man’s “best mate”.

The jury is expected to begin deliberating on Friday, meaning a verdict could soon be returned on whether Mr Purkiss and Mr Davies’s wife Margaret Anne Otto, 47, agreed on a “permanent solution” to rid themselves of the man who was a financial burden to them both.

“Who may have been involved in this death? The short answer is we don’t know,” Mr Hensley put to the jury, after reminding them the case was “entirely circumstantial”.

“Bradley Purkiss is a pretty convenient fall-guy. He’s inyour-face, he talks a lot, he was Mr Davies’s best mate.

“It makes sense to leave a trail of breadcrumbs.”

Mr Hensley said some of the evidentiary “breadcrumbs” left for police included staging a crime scene, complete with a blood smear, at an Elderslie cannabis grow house.

Leaving a pile of green waste on top of Mr Davies’s bush grave at Levendale, where Mr Purkiss went on an impromptu possum-shooting trip, was another crumb police couldn’t miss, Mr Hensley said.

He also pointed to Mr Davies’s belt, which was found separately to his body.

“We do know Mr Davies was a drug dealer … and people knew it,” the lawyer said.

“He had at least one person who thought poorly of him.”

Mr Hensley said Mr Davies may have died after trying to sell a pound of cannabis in a transaction that had “all gone wrong somehow”, or because he had stopped paying an outlaw motorbike gang protection money.

Mr Purkiss had no “adequate motive” for killing Mr Davies, Mr Hensley said.

“Mr Purkiss may have had some frustrations with his friend Mr Davies, but he was still his best and only friend,” he told the jury. There might have been friction in their friendship but there was an affection between the two of them.

He pointed to the fact “not a speck” of Mr Davies’s DNA was found on Mr Purkiss, despite allegations he shot the 47-year-old in the head, transported the body in his ute and buried him under soil and logs.

Earlier this week, barrister Greg Melick SC said Purkiss was a “master manipulator” who took matters into his hands when Ms Otto complained about her life with Mr Davies, who had racked up significant tax, credit card and personal loan debts.

In his summary yesterday, Chief Justice Alan Blow said the jury would need to work through an “enormous” amount of material.