Justice for Mathew: Walcha welcomes widow’s 40 year sentence

A woman hell bent on abusing men, lying her way into their hearts and taking their money turns to murder in a quiet country town.

It could easily be the plot of a horror movie, but for the 3000-odd residents of Walcha in Northern NSW, it was a real life nightmare that claimed one of their own and put the small community in the media spotlight for all the wrong reasons.

Only now do many of the town’s locals feel safe, knowing Natasha Beth Darcy, the woman dubbed the Widow of Walcha, will remain behind bars until at least 2047.

The 46-year-old mother of three was handed a 40-year prison sentence in the NSW Supreme Court this week after a jury found her guilty of the 2017 murder of her former farmer lover Mathew Dunbar.

Mr Dunbar, 42, was a well-respected, lonely soul, desperate to find love and settle down with a family on his $3.4M Merino sheep farm “Pandora”.

He was also the perfect target for the money-hungry Darcy.

DARK PAST

Hailing from Culburra Beach on the NSW south coast, Darcy moved to Walcha in about 2007 with her then husband Colin Crossman.

Two years later, the pair became the talk of the town after the home they shared went up in flames.

“The chap from the garage was on the SES and he went to put the fire out and he said ‘I served Natasha Crossman with that tin of fuel this morning’ … she tried to say someone else did it,” a former friend of Mr Dunbar told NCA Newswire.

“We told Mat ‘she’s no good, she’s tried to murder Colin’.

“He said ‘oh no that’s not right, they caught the fella who set the house alight’. I said ‘if they had of, he’d be in jail and she’d be out’.”

For starting the fire, after hitting Mr Crossman on the head while he slept, Darcy was charged with attempted murder.

On the third day of a District Court trial, she pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of intentionally destroying property by fire and was cleared of attempted murder. She spent 17 months in custody.

As Darcy was sentenced for Mr Dunbar’s murder, Justice Julia Longeran said Darcy had confessed to starting the 2009 fire in order to obtain an insurance payout.

“I cannot find the offender is a person of good character given her criminal history which included sentences for … larceny, multiple accounts of dishonestly obtain property by deception involving the unauthorised use of the credit card of another man with whom the offender had been in a domestic relationship,” Justice Longeran said.

“I cannot find that she is unlikely to reoffend.

“Her offending is multi-factorial, opportunistic and driven by money, and it is unclear how those factors would dissolve as precipitants for reoffending.”

FATAL ATTRACTION

Not long after Darcy got out of jail on parole, she pursued Mr Dunbar online in late 2014.

Broke, saddled with debt and having no assets to her name, Darcy used Mr Dunbar as an ATM and relied on him to provide for her financially.

Less than a year after their relationship began, Justice Longeran said Darcy “successfully harangued” Mr Dunbar to change his will and leave his millions to her.

In October 2016, Darcy and her family moved in with Mr Dunbar, and less than six months later, she started researching ways to end his life.

While using a computer in Mr Dunbar’s office and on her phone, the court heard Darcy spent several months conducting hundreds of searches for information.

She used terms like “inject air into spine”, “stabbed in the brain”, “sedative suicide”, “overdose pain killers”, “lethal dose of clonidine”, “epidural”, “cyanide”, “seroquel overdose” and “if police have your mobile can they see websites”.

Around mid-2017 as she attempted to lay a false trail of evidence to explain the eventual death of Mr Dunbar she planning for, Darcy started telling people he was depressed and had six months to live because of a brain tumour.

The pair’s relationship turned more toxic as Darcy continued to gaslight and emotionally manipulate Mr Dunbar, including by saying the rafters in the shed “not being high enough to hang himself from”, Justice Longeran said.

After Darcy started arguing with him about money he gave to an ex-girlfriend, Mr Dunbar attempted to end his own life.

While in a mental health unit at Tamworth Hospital for two days, Darcy gave a false medical history to doctors and claimed Mr Dunbar had a background of depression.

Within a week of his release from hospital, Darcy had decided what drug she would used to knock Mr Dunbar out before killing him.

PRACTICE RUN

Using Mr Dunbar’s phone, Darcy searched for details about Acepromazine, an antipsychotic drug used to sedate animals.

Soon after, she contacted the Walcha Vet Clinic saying Mr Dunbar needed a sedative for his rams. Her request was declined and she contacted another vet but was still unable to get her hands on the sedative.

Determined to capitalise on Mr Dunbar’s failed suicide attempt, Darcy visited a pharmacy to fill scripts for Seroquel, an antipsychotic Mr Dunbar was prescribed, and Clonidine, a drug used to treat attention deficit hyperactive disorder in children.

The same day, Mr Dunbar’s phone was used to send a message to Darcy.

It read “I’m sorry beautiful lady for everything I’ve put you through you deserve better than this”.

Sensing something suspicious or more sinister was about to happen, the former friend of Mr Dunbar who spoke to NCA Newswire said a report was made to police.

“The uncle and us were worried about him: the uncle rang the police here two weeks before he died and said how concerned we were for his health and wellbeing,” the friend said.

When local police knocked on Mr Dunbar’s door for a welfare check on June 21, 2017, he was pale, unsteady on his feet and slurring his words. A pharmacologist who gave evidence in court said all symptoms appeared to be consistent with a Clonidine or Seroquel overdose.

Justice Longeran said Darcy drugged him.

In what could have been an attempt to cover her tracks, Darcy contacted her ex-husband, Mr Crossman, and said she believed Mr Dunbar took “his whole month of antidepressants”. She never reported her concern to anyone else.

Using a false name and address, Darcy’s search for Acepromazine finally ended in success when she drove 44 minutes from Walcha to Armidale to obtain the sedative and a needle from Creeklands Vet Surgery.

To test out the drug, Darcy injected it into Mr Dunbar’s calf and knocked him out for a day in July 2017.

When he regained consciousness, Darcy said he “passed out whilst on walk”.

FAKE SUICIDE

In the final weeks of that month, Darcy ramped up her internet searches, typing in terms ranging from “lethal dose of potassium” and “suicide gas asphyxiation” to “helium gas tamworth” and “can police see past web history”.

After arranging the hire of a helium tank from Supagas in West Tamworth, Darcy drove Mr Dunbar to the business on August 1 and he entered the store, paid for and picked up the helium.

Exactly what Darcy told Mr Dunbar the helium was needed for remains a mystery.

Afterwards, the pair went to the Gusto Cafe for lunch and while Mr Dunbar ordered food, Darcy sat outside watching YouTube videos about how to commit suicide using helium gas.

When Mr Dunbar sat down with Darcy, she continued to plot his demise, searching for information about “how to use helium”.

On the night of August 1, after serving Mr Dunbar his final meal and sharing a bottle of red wine with him, Dunbar prepared his final fatal beverage.

Using a Magic Bullet blender, Darcy mixed clonidine, acepromazine, quetiapine and temazepam in with a drink and gave it to Mr Dunbar.

He went to bed and while heavily sedated, she moved the helium tank into the room.

After Darcy had a chat on Facebook with her friend and conducted more Google searches, including “is helium traceable autopsy”, she put a plastic bag over Mr Dunbar’s head, turned on the helium and murdered him in the early hours of August 2.

Darcy decided to try to make it look like suicide so after disposing of the sedative packaging, she sent Mr Crossman a message from Mr Dunbar’s phone saying “Tell police to come to house. I don’t want Tash or kids to find me”.

Having wiped the history off her phone, but not yet received a message back from Mr Crossman, Darcy decided to stage her next performance.

ONGOING PERFORMANCE

“I just walked into the bedroom and he’s got a plastic bag over his head with a, a cord … and just some gas or something,” Darcy told the triple-0 operator she called about 2am.

As Darcy feigned concern and distress, she started to chop and change her story and never stopped.

“He’s white … he’s still warm … he’s cold,” Darcy can be heard saying at various points during the calls, which were made public during her trial.

After telling the operator she knew “how to do CPR”, Darcy was asked how many compressions to how many breaths she was doing.

“I don’t know,” she confessed.

Mr Crossman was the first paramedic on the scene and despite Darcy’s fake sob story, Walcha locals and the police instantly suspected Mr Dunbar did not end his life.

“We knew two hours after he was murdered that she did it,” Mr Dunbar’s former friend said.

“We and his uncle were very concerned about him when she moved in with him. We tried to warn him, but he was so desperate for a family that he just wouldn’t listen.”

In interviews with police, Darcy denied poisoning Mr Dunbar or discussing changes to his will.

“I’m not really a wills person … death frightens me,” she said.

“Mat was the best thing that ever happened to me. I definitely did not poison him.”

After her arrest in November 2017, Darcy was asked why Mr Dunbar would have ingested Acepromazine.

“I can’t imagine it’d taste very nice,” she told police.

She said the one comfort she took since Mr Dunbar’s death was knowing “dying by helium gas would be peaceful”.

During Darcy’s trial, it emerged she had also claimed Mr Dunbar was gay and her defence team tried to argue he was struggling internally with his “unclear sexual orientation”.

“He’d always find great bargains and everything … it must be the gay in him,” Darcy told police investigating Mr Dunbar’s death.

In court Mr Dunbar’s close friend Lance Partridge said Mr Dunbar had one relationship with a man and it did not work out.

JUSTICE DELIVERED

Despite the trial ending with a jury reaching a verdict of guilty, Darcy continues to maintain she did not commit murder and instead assisted Mr Dunbar to end his life.

At her sentencing, the court heard Darcy had a troubled life, claiming to have been bullied by her two older sisters and a long-time sufferer of anxiety.

A psychiatrist diagnosed Darcy with a personal disorder, but he told the court it was a hard task to pinpoint in people who tell so many lies.

The court heard Darcy had three failed marriages and claimed to have attempted suicide in 1997 after being sexually abused and assaulted by two friends of one of her husbands.

Mr Dunbar’s friend, who wishes to remain anonymous, said hearing Justice Longeran impose a head jail sentence of 40 years and a non-parole period of 30 came as a great relief to the Walcha community.

“Mat’s death wasn’t in vain: she’s been punished and she’s kept out of the community for what she did. If she got out and got a lighter sentence, those who gave evidence and Mat’s friends would have always felt in danger.

“The community is now safe from her. I know of one friend of mine that had to give evidence and she was scared stiff Natasha would get out in a few years … my friend said ‘I’m scared to death she’ll end up killing me because I gave evidence’.

“The property was sold 18 months or so ago and the money was put into trust at the solicitors and that’s where it remains at this stage.

“Now that she’s been sentenced, the court will have to decide who gets the money because you can’t gain through crime.”

After allegedly attempting to bribe a woman to give evidence about Mr Dunbar while on bail, Darcy was charge with two counts of perverting the course of justice.

She has entered no pleas to those charges and the case returns Tamworth Local Court on April 13.

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