UPDATE
THE woman charged with murdering her partner on his property at Walcha will remain in custody until earlier next year.
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Natasha Darcy-Crossman is accused of killing 42-year-old Mathew Dunbar on August 2, but stayed in the Tamworth Police Station cells and did not appear in Tamworth Local Court on Monday morning.
“No application for bail on this matter this morning,” Legal Aid solicitor Garry Johnston told the court.
“Ms Darcy does not wish to be before the court.”
Ms Darcy does not wish to be before the court.
- Legal Aid solicitor Garry Johnston
Mr Johnston asked for a “medication review” of Darcy-Crossman by Justice Health, while in custody.
Magistrate Roger Prowse formally refused bail and ordered the 42-year-old accused to remain in custody until the case returns to court on January 24.
He ordered the remand “warrant will be endorsed medication review … whatever that means”.
Detectives have been ordered to compile a brief of evidence and serve it on Legal Aid by mid-January, before the case returns to court.
It’s expected Darcy-Crossman will be flown to a Sydney jail later on Monday.
Police confirmed on Monday that investigations by Strike Force Ballin – the police operation investigating Mr Dunbar’s death – are continuing.
EARLIER
A WOMAN charged with killing her partner at Walcha three months ago has been refused bail and will front court again on Monday.
Natasha Beth Darcy-Crossman appeared in the dock of Tamworth Local Court on Sunday morning, charged with the murder of her late-partner, Mathew Dunbar.
Darcy-Crossman is alleged to have murdered the 42-year-old popular Walcha local in the early hours of August 2 at his ‘Pandora’ property, off the Thunderbolts Way.
The 42-year-old, who appeared on charge sheets as Natasha Beth Darcy, made an application for bail on Sunday morning in the out-of-sessions hearing, through Legal Aid duty solicitor, Garry Johnston. But the application was refused by the court. She was not required to enter a plea to the charge.
Darcy-Crossman was remanded in custody and will reappear in the same court on Monday.
Darcy-Crossman was arrested in Walcha at 9.30am on Saturday, and The Leader was there as she was escorted in the back of a marked Walcha police four-wheel-drive and led into the back of Tamworth Police Station.
There she was questioned by Oxley detectives before she was charged about 9.30pm on Saturday.
Earlier that day, and shortly after Ms Darcy-Crossman's arrest, detectives executed a crime scene warrant at the Pandora property with investigators seen scouring the house, and searching part of the roof, in particular the chimney of the farming property.
Officers were also seen carrying a drum and a bag of evidence into a police vehicle. It's the second time the property has been raided as part of the police investigation.
Police and paramedics rushed to the property about 2am on August 2, following an emergency call for a 42-year-old man found unresponsive. Despite frantic efforts to revive Mr Dunbar, he died at the scene.
The house was declared a crime scene almost immediately by police, and cordoned off, with the death labelled ‘suspicious’.
The Leader revealed shortly after that police were investigating Mr Dunbar's death as a possible murder, with the homicide squad called in from Sydney to assist local Tamworth detectives.
The death of the popular local rocked the Walcha community, where he had lived for most of his life. He was remembered by neighbours as a “very kind, generous, gentle and helpful person”, who would do anything for anyone.