Natasha Beth Darcy found guilty of murder
NSW woman Natasha Beth Darcy has been found guilty of murdering her sheep farmer partner Mathew Dunbar.
After sedating and gassing Dunbar, Darcy allegedly screamed at paramedics to perform CPR on him after declaring him dead.
Darcy told authorities and first responders that he had killed himself, but after more than two days of deliberations, a NSW Supreme Court Jury found the 46-year-old woman guilty of murder.
Dunbar was found dead on his bed in his property in the Northern Tablelands town of Walcha on August 2nd, 2017.
The pair met on a dating site, but the Crown alleges that it didn't take long for Darcy to push Dunbar to change his will so that she would inherit his $3.5 million property.
Prosecutor Brett Hatfield said that it didn't take long for Darcy to research ways to kill Dunbar, with numerous Google searches on topics including "how to commit murder", redback spiders and suicide.
“He may have desperately wanted love and a family, but what did he get?” he said.
“A cold and calculating person who was determined to kill him and inherit his wealth.”
It was also revealed that Darcy's estranged husband, paramedic Colin Crossman, had a close call with death as she hit him on the head with a hammer in 2009 and days later, sedated him and burnt down their house as he slept.
Referring to a $700,000 life insurance policy on his life, Hatfield said it showed Darcy had a “tendency to sedate and inflict serious harm on her domestic partners for financial gain”.
However, Justice Julia Lonergan directed the jurors to put the idea of assisted suicide out of their minds as there was an absence of any evidence about such a scenario.
Lonergan said that Hatfield "exploited" Dunbar's depression to kill him in a way that made it look like a suicide.
Darcy was accused of sedating her partner using a Nutribullet to blend a cocktail of sedatives, before moving a gas tank in his room and gassing him in his bed.
She told police of finding him unresponsive in his bed, saying “This is the hardest bit of all. I can’t get the image out of my head.”
“It is killing me,” Darcy said.
She will face a sentencing hearing on October 1.
Photo credits: 7NEWS