She Overheard that Her Grandfather Kept Life Savings Inside Home. So She Stabbed Him and Left Him for Dead

The killing of Robert Whitwell shocked his family and made headlines around Australia after his granddaughter was convicted

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Sean Neumann is a reporter at PEOPLE. He has been working at PEOPLE since 2019. His work has previously appeared in Rolling Stone, The New York Times, ESPN, and more.

Published on January 19, 2025 12:00PM EST

It was a mother’s worst nightmare.

When Brittney Jade Dwyer was arrested and later convicted of murdering her own grandfather Robert Whitwell in a plot to steal his life savings, the callous crime shocked the entire country of Australia. Since then, her mother Tanya Dwyer has continued to look for answers.

In her first interview about the murder, originally aired in 2017 and republished last week by 7News, the Australian mother says she never suspected her daughter Brittney was capable of such a cold-blooded act.

“What are the signs that I missed? What did I miss? What didn’t I see? What didn’t I pick up on?” Tanya says in the interview, which aired alongside exclusive interviews with Brittney’s brother Ryan Whitwell-Dwyer and best friend — and co-conspirator — Bernadette Burns.

Authorities said that Burns, then 21, knew about her 19-year-old best friend’s plot to kill her grandfather. 

Whitwell, who was 81 when he was killed, had recently confided in Tanya that he had roughly $100,000 in savings locked away in his shed because he didn’t trust leaving the cash with a bank. Brittney was in the room when her grandfather told her mother about the cash, Tanya told 7News back in 2017. But what happened next never crossed her mind, she tearfully explained.

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Both Brittney and Bernadette pleaded guilty to their roles in Whitwell’s murder, according to the Australian Broadcasting Company. The outlet reported that Bernadette waited in the car and put on makeup while Brittney went into the home and slashed her grandfather’s throat, placing a bandage on his fatal wound before turning around and doing the dishes as he died in the kitchen next to her. 

For three weeks after her grandfather’s murder, Brittney’s brother told 7News she appeared “distraught.” Her mother even told the outlet that her daughter “hysterically burst into tears” when she was first told about her grandfather’s death. Tanya recalled that Brittney appeared disheveled when she arrived back at her mother’s house so they could travel together to Whitwell’s home — to the crime scene — after learning about his death.

“I didn’t put two and two together,” the mother told 7News. “I was in a state of shock, I think.”

After 21 days, police called Tanya to break the news that her daughter had been arrested for murdering her own grandfather.

“This can’t possibly be true,” Brittney’s brother recalled thinking, he told 7News.

During the trial, Brittney’s defense attorney told the courtroom that she was inspired in part by the FX television series American Horror Story. And later, Brittney claimed she had been sexually assaulted by her grandfather as a child, which led to her antipathy for him – a claim the rest of the Dwyer-Whitwell family vehemently disputed. 

“I was furious,” Tanya told 7News about the accusation. “And that’s the reason why I would still slap her in the face, that anger that’s inside.”

Brittney was sentenced to life in prison with a mandatory 21 years before the possibility of parole, according to ABC, while Bernadette was also given a life sentence but with the possibility of parole after 13 years served.

“I’ve lost two people,” Tanya told 7News in the interview republished last week, choking up as tears ran down her face. “I’ve lost my dad and I’ve lost my daughter, and I don’t know if I’ll ever understand the whole story.”