Jurors advised on kill verdict

A SUPREME Court jury in Hobart has been told it has three options for a verdict in the case of a woman accused of instigating her husband’s murder.

Chief Justice Alan Blow yesterday told the jury Margaret Anne Otto could be found guilty of murder, not guilty of murder but guilty of the lesser crime of being an accessory after the fact to murder, or not guilty of either crime.

Ms Otto, 47, of Risdon Vale, and Bradley Scott Purkiss, 43, of Elderslie, have pleaded not guilty to murdering Ms Otto’s husband and Mr Purkiss’s friend, Dwayne “Doc” Davies, on Friday, May 26, 2017.

Chief Justice Blow yesterday finished summing up the prosecution and defence cases and the jury started considering its verdict.

The jury deliberated for four hours yesterday.

It will return to the Supreme Court in Hobart on Monday morning to continue deliberating.

The Crown has alleged Ms Otto and Mr Purkiss planned Mr Davies’ murder, and that Mr Purkiss shot and killed Mr Davies at Elderslie on that Friday night.

It is also alleged Mr Purkiss buried Mr Davies’ body in a shallow bush grave at Levendale the following evening.

Chief Justice Blow said Mr Purkiss’s case was that he, Mr Purkiss, did not kill Mr Davies and that someone had framed him for the killing.

“The Crown says that when you analyse all the evidence the chances of someone else killing Mr Davies … are so remote the only sensible conclusion is that Mr Purkiss was the killer,” he said.

Chief Justice Blow said that the case in relation to Ms Otto was “a case about instigating”.

“She’s only guilty if she said or did something with the intention of getting Mr Purkiss to kill her husband,” he said.

Chief Justice Blow said it was Ms Otto’s case “that she wasn’t involved in planning any killing” and did not know Mr Davies had been killed until afterwards.

The trial began on September 3.