The lonely millionaire longed for a family, but his "beloved" just wanted his money. Under his nose he planned and executed his murder, after making hundreds of gruesome Internet searches on how to commit it...
Rich, parentless and family-less: the perfect victim
Matthew Dunbar owned a remote farm of about 4.He was a remote farmer of 4,800 acres, worth $3.4 million, in Walcha, in the Australian state of New South Wales, where he raised sheep. The 42-year-old was known to all for his kindness and generosity. He was adopted and was no longer related to his adoptive mother and his adoptive father, with whom he worked on the farm, had died. He had no children and always longed for a family of his own. So he even looked on dating sites to find someone he could love and build a future with. On one such site in 2014, he met 46-year-old Natasha Darcy, and fell in love with her at first sight. She, divorced with three children from a previous marriage soon moved into Matthew's house and before long she started talking about marriage. She had found her perfect victim. In less than a year of their relationship, she convinced him to make her the sole beneficiary of his estate and he gave it all to her lavishly. She had become the perfect victim...
Warning bells
Darcy's past alone should have alarmed Matthew or someone in his circle of friends: in 2009, she had hammered her ex-husband, nurse Colin Crossman, while he slept. Three days later, again while he was sleeping, Darcy took a can of gasoline from the garage, put it on the bedroom floor and set it on fire. Colin was miraculously spared, as tests showed that he was nearly drugged from a large amount of sedatives Darcy had "served" him earlier in a plate of tacos. She was the beneficiary of a large life insurance policy on Colin - $700,000 and was charged with attempted murder. Darcy confessed that she did indeed set the fire to destroy the house not to kill her husband and also confessed to the hammer attack. She was not convicted of attempted murder. She spent 9 months in prison.
The plan in action
When Darcy was having an affair with Matthew she was out of prison on parole and it was at that time that she began to put her plan into action: She started by telling those around her that Matthew had mental health issues and was "fighting it." Matthew had injured his leg, the wound was infected and doctors had told him that there was a possibility that he might lose it. Darcy said this had caused him depression. In 2017 doctors told him that his leg would get better and he was out of danger, but Darcy was telling friends that his mental health was still very fragile. She even suggested that Matthew was confused about his sexuality and had talked about suicide. While he had struggled physically and mentally to recover, there was no evidence that Matthew was experiencing any of these thoughts or feelings - but those around him found it hard to ignore the words of Darcy, who was also the only one living with him.
The timeline of the murder
Then, at 2 a.m. on August 2, 2017, Darcy called emergency services, telling them that Matthew had killed himself. She said she had entered the bedroom where Matthew was sleeping and found him dead with a bottle of helium next to him. The police rushed to the estate. So did Darcy's ex, Colin, who had received a message from Matthew's phone and got there first. The message read: "Tell the police to come to the house, I don't want Natasha and the kids to find me." Matthew was dead and at first it looked like a suicide. He was also found to have sedatives in his system. Remains of a shake filled with drugs - including a veterinary tranquilizer for sheep - were found. Darcy said she slept in the living room because she was afraid of accidentally kicking Matthew's injured leg in her sleep. She also claimed that she had gotten up to turn on the heater and accidentally set the smoke alarm, which immediately turned it off. She told police that when the alarm didn't wake Matthew, she went to see if anything was wrong and found him dead.
Surfing the internet for the perfect murder
But had she really killed herself? The police have launched an investigation: Matthew had picked up the helium bottle from a gas station a day earlier, Darcy was in the car outside waiting for him, but it was she who had ordered and paid for it. The first question was what she bought it for. Continuing the investigation, the police checked Darcy's iPhone and laptop and what they found left them in no doubt that Matthew's death was murder and that she was the killer.
Darcy's iPhone and laptop showed the history of her searches, which had started months before Matthew's death, and what they discovered was chilling. Darcy had looked for hundreds of ways to kill someone - from poisoning with fungus to using deadly red spiders and snakes. She had searched for drugs, looked to see if the police could see the search history on the internet and even googled : "Is there a poison that can kill but can't be detected in autopsy?" Even more shocking, was that Darcy did her gruesome surfing while sitting next to Matthew, once at a rugby match and the day before his murder in a cafe. Police questioning revealed that Darcy had been spreading stories about Matthew's alleged mental health problems but police believed that she herself had "manufactured the story" to have a reason to make his death believable.
Detectives concluded that Darcy had made at least two assassination attempts against Matthew. One time, she had given him an overdose of antidepressants while another time she had injected him with an animal tranquilizer into his injured leg. When neither tactic worked, she covered her tracks by telling Matthew that he had simply passed out - totally manipulating him - and then escalated her efforts. A note was even found where she wrote to him "Don't forget you have to change your will."
The investigation concluded that Darcy had made a milkshake in the blender with a deadly cocktail of sedatives in it. When the unsuspecting Matthew drank it and lost consciousness, Darcy took the helium bottle to his room, opened it, and he died from inhaling the gas.
Darcy was charged with intentional homicide, denied the charges, and the press immediately nicknamed her "Walcha's Widow." Her trial lasted two months. It was testified at the hearing that while waiting for her trial, she had sent letters to a friend (along with a $20,000 offer) trying to convince him to lie that Matthew was suicidal. But he went to the police.
"Tough and ruthless"
A few days ago, Darcy was found guilty of voluntary manslaughter and sentenced to 40 years in prison, with the possibility of parole after 30 years. She listened impassively to her sentence via video from the prison where she was being held, as well as the words of the judge as he announced it: "The way she murdered him was childish, callous and full of malice. As time went on the emotional abuse and insidious physical assaults escalated into a more focused and unmistakable method to achieve the result he desired. The perpetrator was cruel, ruthless and heartless."
Source: protothema.gr
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