Death by Curried Egg Sandwich!

December 2003, Julie Michele Dunn and Graham Wilks lived together in Davoren Park in Adelaide’s northern suburbs as a de facto couple.
Dunn, 40, one day decided she no longer wanted to be with Wilks. She made him his favourite snack, a curried egg sandwich and laced it with the sedative temazepam.
Temazepam is a very strong sedative used to treat insomnia patients and is in the same group of drugs as Xanax and Valium, known as sedative-hypnotics.


Wilks soon fell asleep after ingesting an unknown amount of the strong sedative, cleverly hidden in the strong-tasting curry egg sandwich. Helpless to know what was coming, and unable to defend himself.

Dunn, bashed her partner over the head at least three times with a heavy blunt object. The trauma of which would slowly kill Wilks as he slept. Later, Dunn would call an ambulance and a police investigation would begin. Dunn, the only suspect was arrested, and taken into custody.

During questioning, Dunn tried to blame the murder of Wilks firstly on her son, then on another man who had recently been released from prison. It would later be alleged by the prosecution that Dunn had killed Wilks so she could be with the newly released (unidentified in court proceedings) man who was a former lover of Dunn.

Dunn also tried to tell police she had acted in self-defence, an argument quickly rejected by Justice Anderson. Dunn’s first outcome from the trial, a 20-year sentence, was overturned on appeal as the Judge had not properly instructed the jury. Her second trial, under Justice Margaret Nyland, reduced the original sentence from 20 years to 18 years.


Dunn is set to be released from prison in April 2022.

Researched and written by Allen Tiller. © 2017

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