THE victim of a notorious “black widow’’ killer fears she will go after him if released from jail, despite prison officials lauding her as a “role model” for fellow prisoners.
Twenty five years after Patricia Margaret Byers shot John Victor Asquith in the head as he slept, the convicted killer may walk free in a matter of months.
Mr Asquith foiled Byers’ plans to kill him when, much to her surprise, he sat up after he was shot at close range aboard a boat on Moreton Bay in 1993.
The NSW man would later go on to testify against her in court and Byers was found guilty of attempted murder.
This raised police suspicions about the disappearance of Byers’ previous partner, Carel Gottgens, and in 1999 she was found guilty of his murder, though his body has never been found.
“I feel she’d go for revenge,” the 78-year-old Mr Asquith told The Sunday Telegraph who said Byers threatened to “get him and his boys (sons)” during one of her trials.
“I don’t know whether she’d track me down — I have no idea. I’m not in the phone book but you just don’t know. It’s only because of me surviving that they found out about Carel.”
Mr Gottgens disappeared in 1990 but was only reported missing in 1993 when his adult children read about Byers’ attempt on Mr Asquith’s life in the newspaper.
Their former stepmother had told them their father had left her and runaway to Thailand to be with another woman.
A financial motive, supported by a trail of forged documents which saw Byers’ greatly benefit from the deaths of Mr Gottgens and Mr Asquith, linked the crimes.
This will be at least Byers’ fourth application for parole but this time she has prepared strong supporting material supporting her release. The case is being reviewed now.
In 2009, Byers was moved from Brisbane Women’s Correctional Centre to a South Australian prison to be closer to her son Alan Byers. She has since had her parole denied due to South Australia’s ‘no body no parole’ laws.
Mr Byers, a staunch supporter of his mother and speaking publicly for the first time, confirmed her 2016 confession to police that she murdered Mr Gottgens and his body could be found in the Logan River, was merely a ploy to access parole.
The admission did not surprise Mr Asquith, who warns his ex-partner Byers is able to artfully manipulate almost any situation to her own advantage.
“I’m in favour of anything that’s a chance of keeping her in there,” he said.
“I even wrote a letter to the parole board. They asked me if I wanted to put any input into it (her release) and I did write a letter. It wasn’t much but I was just basically telling them how callous the woman is and how she can win over friends and influence people — when you don’t think you’re being taken by her — but that’s the sort of person that she was.
“Butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth,” he added.
ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7r7HWrGWcp51jrrZ7zZqroqeelrlwr9GipJ5npp6wtbXMrGSfnZGnwG6t0maZpZmToHq4tcOormajmaG5pr6MqZitqpmYtqJ5wbKcq6tdmLy2uMNmrpqkm2Kzs7HEaKWer6NiwLW70bJmcnBmm4Z5f5KcZ5puYWuwd7CYaWxrnWJqhnqAkZpsbm8%3D