Mathew Dunbar remembered as kind and treasured by Walcha community after murderer Natasha Darcy sentenced to 40 years

Almost five years after the NSW township of Walcha was rocked by a horrific murder, neighbours and friends still can't shake the twisted nightmare.

Mathew Dunbar wanted nothing more than to meet his great love, have a family, run sheep just like his father and grandfather, and do good, honest work for his community.

Then he met Natasha Beth Darcy.

Mr Dunbar was about 40 years old when Darcy crept into his world, and meeting online in late 2014, the life he had dreamed of began to crystallise before his eyes.

"This was Mathew's chance to have a family, but all Natasha was after was his property," his best mate, Lance Partridge, said.

Months after Darcy moved to Mr Dunbar's sprawling sheep farm 'Pandora' in October 2016 and promised marriage, those closest to him woke to a call in the early hours of August 2, 2017.

"He's dead."

Mr Dunbar had been drugged and gassed in his own bed in an elaborate plot that earned Darcy - his killer who would become known as the "Widow of Walcha" - 40 years in prison.

Alarm bells started ringing for Mr Partridge when he said Darcy lied to him about what she knew of Mr Dunbar's will following his death.

READ MORE:

"I always see the good side of people and I could never have believed anything like this could happen," Mr Partridge said.

"I knew that she was guilty in the sense that Mathew would still be here if he hadn't got tangled up with her."

Darcy's sentence brought a mix of emotions. Some in the shire rejoiced, others felt numb.

"Nothing is going to bring Mathew back," Mr Partridge said.

"I think about him every day - the things he gave me and the time we spent together."

Darcy's convoluted murder plot captured national attention as the public learned of her prolific Google searches, two proven incidents of her drugging Mr Dunbar, and the suicide scene she eventually staged.

In 2015, she manipulated him into making her the sole beneficiary of his estate, including the $3.4 million property 'Pandora' in Walcha, in the Northern Tablelands about halfway between Sydney and Brisbane.

The 'Widow of Walcha' has made headlines across the globe, but Mr Dunbar's nearest and dearest want the world to know the man they loved was kind, caring and generous.

"I want him to be remembered for his community work, his quiet and dedicated nature - he would not have hurt a soul and he loved to help people," Mr Partridge said.

"It's a shame someone with such endearing characteristics could be taken advantage of like he was, and he should still be here with us."

Mr Partridge, a wool classer and sheep farmer, met Mr Dunbar working at Pandora when the tall, lanky teenager returned from boarding school in nearby Armidale.

"We had a lot in common, I did a lot of community things and Mathew just loved helping me out," he said.

The pair would spend hours typing up plays Mr Partridge had written for the local theatre.

He was the kind of person who despite having no chickens, joined the local poultry club to help them out.

From Walcha's quaint main street, Thunderbolts Way winds through grazing country and rolling hills, often obscured by mist on wintry days and early mornings.

It's a quick trip from town to Bill and Dianne Heazlett's house and another few clicks to Pandora.

The Heazletts knew Mr Dunbar as a baby - before he was playing in Pandora's paddocks, before he was a teenager off to boarding school, and well before he became the adult that dropped in for sudoku every Sunday.

"This is a great community, so when you lose somebody it hurts ... life goes on as it is each day, but we have had a loss," Mr Heazlett said.

Mr Dunbar would pop by the house six days out of seven, and never missed the Sunday puzzle.

"He would always bring a packet of lamingtons or biscuits or something, and he'd say 'I'll put the kettle on Mrs H'," Mrs Heazlett said, her voice cracking with emotion.

"I don't think you can ever put something like this behind you and move on - everything in this house reminds me of Mat.

"He had a heart of gold."

When Darcy came on the scene, Mrs Heazlett warned Mr Dunbar not to get involved. Darcy had hit her estranged husband, Walcha paramedic Colin Crossman, on the head with a hammer and set fire to the house for insurance money in 2009. She'd also earlier been charged with fraud, involving the unauthorised use of a previous partner's credit cards.

"I felt I had to warn him because I knew what she was like," Mrs Heazlett said.

When that early morning phone call came, the Heazletts and Mr Partridge gathered in the living room before dawn.

"We knew straight away that she had killed him," Mrs Heazlett said. When Darcy's sentence was handed down she felt relieved, but sad it had happened at all.

"We thought we would be cheering, but I felt sick in the stomach and had a tear, not for Natasha, but for Mat," she said.

The ripple effect left by Mr Dunbar's death was felt across the community, not least by his mother Janet.

The pair were estranged, but she remembers her inquisitive boy always asking "'why mummy?', playing with the family dog at Pandora, kicking a soccer ball and eventually winning the praises of his teachers.

"Nothing is going to bring my son back," she said. "Nothing could take the amount of love I have for him away." The loving and trusting 42-year-old man, who only wanted to help others, had tried to do the same for Darcy.

While he spoiled her, she was secretly plotting his murder and began weaving her web of lies.

It was unravelled at the hands of a tireless investigation, which culminated in a guilty verdict at the end of a 10-week jury trial, in June last year.

"Callous, relentless and heartless" were the words Justice Julia Lonergan used at the sentencing this week, describing Darcy's efforts to "get rid of" Mr Dunbar.

Her internet searches are chilling for the wicked content and the sheer amount of them.

From February to April 2017 she searched "poisonous mushrooms" and "spider venom", though Justice Lonergan said she couldn't be certain they were made in an effort to make murder look like misadventure.

Darcy shifted her focus, looking up "air injected into vein", "stabbed in the brain" and "spinal tap".

In June, she searched "how to commit murder".

A month later she searched for "99 undetectable poisons" and "murder by inducing heart attack".

She trawled pages on "suicide", "drugs used in suicide", "overdose pain killers" and started acting out what Justice Lonergan described as an "elaborate, clumsy and ugly ruse" that Mr Dunbar had taken his own life.

It's a fictitious narrative she has maintained for almost five years and Justice Lonergan said she's never shown anything remotely resembling remorse.

On the afternoon of July 29, 2017, Darcy stumbled across a website which talked about helium as a method of suicide. That evening, she searched "delete all web history". Within days, she went hunting to hire helium in Tamworth.

In the early hours of August 2, she killed Mr Dunbar and texted a suicide note from his phone to her estranged paramedic husband, who was first on the grisly scene.

"Her lies and methods were stupid, clumsy, and ugly ... they were not, however, good enough to evade detection," Justice Lonergan said at sentencing.

Darcy will be 77 years old when she is eligible for parole. But even with Mr Dunbar gone and his killer behind bars, the tragedy is one the tight-knit Walcha community won't forget.

They will remember that Mathew Dunbar and the life he lived was so much more than his murder.

Our journalists work hard to provide local, up-to-date news to the community. This is how you can continue to access our trusted content: