How Zak Grieve backed out of a murder plot but got life anyway

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The mother who paid for an ex-lover's murder; the son who organised the hit; the accomplice who turned against his mates; and the man who wasn't there. The story of Ray Niceforo's murder exposes the inconsistences in the Northern Territory justice system.

Zak Grieve says he wasn't there when his friends broke into Ray Niceforo's flat.

The young Indigenous man says he wasn't there when one of them swung a spanner eight times into Ray's head.

Zak Grieve says he wasn't there when the body was dumped, nor when the evidence was burnt.

That's the story Zak told a Supreme Court judge, who believed him. But then he had to sentence him to life in prison anyway.

I know this because it's the story Zak has told me from the Darwin prison where he's serving that life sentence for murder.

A bushland grave

It was a terrible place to dump a body. The clearing, off the road to Katherine Gorge, was often used by people looking for a free spot to camp near the national park.

The body looked like a swag or a bundle of sheets. As Darryl Hill approached he saw flies buzzing around the bundle. He lifted a sheet corner and saw a human foot. He tried to find a place with enough reception to call triple-0.

Darryl's call came in at 10:15am on October 25, 2011. That same day, I came back from lunch to the ABC's tiny, one-person studio inside the tourist information centre in the tiny town of Katherine, three hours' drive south of Darwin.

The manager asked me if I knew why the road to the gorge was closed. I didn't, so I went for a drive to the spot 15 kilometres north-east of the town.

The few dozen police there looked unimpressed to see a car with the ABC logo. None of them would talk to me, so I took a few photos and left.

Later that evening, Brenda Heal went to check on her friend, Ray Niceforo, who she hadn't seen for a few days. She called the police when Ray didn't answer, but after waiting she decided to break in to his flat.

"I could see Ray's bed stripped down to the mattress. It didn't make any sense … There was a pool of blood and a smeary hand mark dragged down a cupboard. I stepped back outside of the unit and that's when the police finally arrived."

Brenda had also called Ray's estranged former fiancee, Bronwyn Buttery, to try to get a key.

"She didn't show any concern and it was like she wasn't even surprised about getting the call. I can't quote her exact words, but her words were to the effect of 'I don't have any keys to the unit, Ray and I have a DVO, I don't see Ray, we have no contact' and I knew that all to be a lie."

Raffaele "Ray" Niceforo was dead. Within a few days three young men would be charged with his murder. Ray's ex-fiancee Bronwyn Buttery would be charged a month later. That's almost the last certain, provable fact of this story.

The rough justice system of the Northern Territory is no place for nuance, but this is a story that lives almost entirely in the grey areas.

In it, a loving friend can become an abusive monster, depending on who's telling it. A battered wife can become a conniving temptress. A joke between mates about the best way to dispose of a body becomes a conspiracy for murder in the eyes of another.

It's a story where the bloke the judge reckons wasn't there when the murder happened gets longer than the one who admits he was, while the person who paid for the murder beats them all out of prison.

Bronwyn and Ray

Bronwyn Buttery told police she met Ray Niceforo in Adelaide four years before his murder. She was working at a Woolworths and he was working as a truck driver making deliveries.

They hit it off and saw each other for two-and-a-half weeks. But Ray was from the Northern Territory and wanted to go home.

"He seemed like a really nice man, he made me laugh and even though I didn't know him real well I wanted to get to know him better, see if there was a chance," Buttery would later tell police.

She decided she wanted to give the relationship a go, leaving her two adult sons and the house she owned to move almost 3,000 kilometres to Katherine — Ray's home town.

Bronwyn got a job running housekeeping for a hotel, and it came with a place to live. Ray was working in Darwin and would come back every second weekend. Things were going well, Bronwyn said, until New Year's Eve.

"He got fairly drunk and just changed from being a nice fella to being this man who called me horrible names, ignored me half the night, the other half of the night spoke to me as if I was just something to scrape off the bottom of his shoe," she told police.

"In the end I got a text message from him [saying] why don't I pack my shit and f*** off back to Adelaide. That was the first time he told me to f*** off."

But she didn't. She moved into a flat owned by Ray's family. A week later he lost his job in Darwin and moved in with Bronwyn. Things went OK for a bit, but then got much, much worse.

"At the merest little thing he'd get angry and call me names, horrible names. He would belittle me, tell me to pack my shit and f*** off, he would grab me so that he knew it would hurt but not enough to leave a bruise.

"It just got worse and worse and worse, the fights got more regular, the abuse went from just pinching and a bit of a slap to breaking a finger."

After a year in Katherine, Bronwyn made a decision that would make it harder to leave: she went into business with Ray. Sort of. She arranged a loan to buy the local laundromat from Ray's brother Nino.

But in her police statement, Bronwyn said Ray shouted at her:

Don't you know f***ing anything, you never use your own money, don't you understand this you dumb c***. You are nothing but a stupid c**n c**t.

Bronwyn said that last bit was his favourite thing to call her.

The two sides of a 'troubled man'

Brenda Heal says she was one of the few people to actually know Ray. She describes him as a "troubled young man", one she had known for 20 years.

The way Brenda talks about him seems to be as part sister, part mother, part confidante. When she appeared as a witness in the murder trial it was suggested she was more than a just a friend. She insists she was not.

But she talks about Ray in an entirely different fashion to the way he's described in the hours of police interviews and thousands of pages of court documents.

Brenda says she never saw any sign of physical abuse. She admits Ray had a temper, and doesn't doubt that he would have yelled and snapped at Bronwyn, but is adamant he wouldn't have hit her.

'I was stuck with him'

Sometime around March 2011, Bronwyn's son Chris Malyschko moved up to Katherine. He was engaged to a girl in South Australia and needed money. But his arrival fuelled tensions with Ray.

Bronwyn told police she had wanted to leave, but she had gone into debt to buy the laundromat, so felt she didn't have a choice but to stay in Katherine.

"I had nowhere else to go so I did not move out, I was stuck there with him, knowing this was going to continue," she said.

But she was considering her options. She spoke with two friends, Lloyd Young and Fran Casey.

"Bronwyn asked me 'do you know anyone that can knock someone off'," Lloyd told police.

Lloyd knew Ray, in fact he was about to become a family member of sorts.

Bronwyn was talking to a bloke who was about to become Ray's brother Nino's father-in-law about the possibility of having him killed.

Bronwyn returned to the topic with Lloyd a week later.

"She said 'I've got some valium crushed up, I'm going to put it in a cake and see what happens' … three or four days later when she got back to the donga after work I asked Bronwyn: 'What happened with your cake?'

"Bronwyn told me 'yeah, I put valium in the cake about an hour later he got up, spewed his guts up and went to bed'. Bronwyn was pretty plain-faced most of the time, I couldn't really tell how she felt about it."

Lloyd's claims were repeated by his partner Fran. Bronwyn would later say it was "just talk". She also denied putting valium in any of Ray's food.

Threats and fear

The relationship between Bronwyn's son Chris and Ray kept deteriorating. Bronwyn says in June, Ray called her at the laundromat and said:

"Tell your son to stop ringing my phone or I will blow his f***ing head off."

She moved out of the flat that night and into an abandoned caravan park owned by the Niceforo family. Chris moved into a flat a few doors down from Ray's with a bloke called Trevor Tydd, who everyone called Nipper. He was Bronwyn's gay best friend who also worked at the laundromat and went out drinking with Chris.

The next day Bronwyn got a domestic violence order. Ray kept his distance, but his family kept contacting Bronwyn, telling her how sorry he was.

After 20 days, she had the order changed so Ray could see her. She went around regularly to visit him, and said she stayed the night once.

After the domestic violence order was lifted, there was an angry confrontation between Ray and Bronwyn, and he started sending threats and demands by text message:

"U better realise your genetic code sitting beside you will disappear and there's no turning back" "Is it really werf losin everything over nothing really think about it really hard old lady no house no family no money no kids no one really f***ing think about it hard" "You better think about [what] u r doing real quic 2day could b the day u lose some1 close 2 u"

On September 20, Bronwyn found two tyres slashed on her delivery van. She showed Chris the texts, and he agreed they were a threat against him.

The same day, Ray was arrested after coming to the laundromat, yelling abuse and making threats to kill Chris. He was bailed the same day on the condition he have no contact with Bronwyn or Chris. Bronwyn asked for a full non-contact order for her and her kids for the longest possible duration.

"With Ray in my life I will never feel safe," she said.

A contract on Ray

A couple of days after the laundromat incident, Bronwyn and Chris were outside having a cigarette.

"He said to me 'Nipper tells me that you may want to put a contract out on Ray' or words to that effect. And I just looked at him and I went 'yeah' and just sort of shrugged it off 'cause to me, I mean, it was all just talk up to that point," she told police.

Sorry, this video has expired Video: Bronwyn explains her role in the murder (ABC News)

A few days later, Chris and Bronwyn were smoking outside again.

"He said words to the effect of: 'I know three people that can do it. It will cost $15,000 Mum. Don't ask me who it is 'cause you don't know them anyway and I won't tell you who they are because if you don't know who they are you're not going to be able to connect it'.

"And I said to him, '$15,000?' and then he said: 'And it will have Ray out of your life forever Mum. He'll never be able to hurt you again.'

"And because of what happened with the breaching of the DVO I thought, 'yep, why not'.

"I said to Christopher, 'OK I'll get the money'. I felt it was either his life or mine."

I contacted Bronwyn through a mutual friend in Katherine. That friend said Bronwyn declined my request for an interview because she was trying to move on with her life.

Ray Niceforo was a flawed man, but can't move on with his life. I'd like to ask Bronwyn why she thought Ray deserved to die.

The beginning of a murder conspiracy

Chris Malyschko had only known Zak Grieve for about three months before he reached out to him. They had met through a girl — Chris had been dating the sister of Zak's best friend.

But what Chris said when he first approached Zak for help, and whether Zak knew what he was agreeing to, is unclear. The police and the prosecutor would argue that this conversation was the start of a murder conspiracy.

Zak was 19 and worked at a sunglasses shop his parents owned in Katherine's only mall. Often, there would be half a dozen or so people spilling out the door smoking. It seems an unlikely spot to mastermind a murder.

Two weeks before the murder, Chris came to visit Zak at work looking stressed.

"We've gone outside for a cigarette and he's just turned to me and said: 'Look man, there's this bloke, I think he's f***ing out to get me and my mum,'" Zak told me from prison.

"I've just looked at him and said, 'what are you talking about?', And he said: 'Well I seriously think my life and mum's life is in danger and we need to get rid of this guy because I think he's going to try to kill us.'

"I sat back and said, 'so we go there and kick his head in', and he's like, 'yeah sure, we need to get rid of him'."

In Zak's telling of the story, Chris didn't use words like "kill" or "murder". I asked Zak if he was sure.

"He most likely did and I'm not going to sit there and downplay it … He definitely said the words get rid of, so he probably did say words along the lines of and to the effect of this bloke needs to die, but to me that did not sink in.

"I thought, all right we'll go over and we'll kick his head in, whereas Chris obviously meant that we were to kill him."

Searching for backup

But Zak was not the first person Chris had approached for help, and for other people at least, it was clear what Chris wanted to do.

Chris had reached out to his girlfriend's brother — and Zak's best friend — Matthew Carroll.

Sorry, this video has expired Video: Matthew Carroll recalls how Chris Malyschko asked for his help in a murder (ABC News)

Matthew says Chris was drunk and talking loudly in the crowded beer garden at the Katherine Hotel. Chris told him he wanted someone killed, and wanted to be there, to be part of it himself. Matthew says Chris offered him $15,000 to help.

"I was young and I didn't know honestly what the f*** to think about it because it's one of those things where you joke about all this stuff, like you have bank robbery plans, or how you would kill someone, or how you would do this crime or how you would do that crime and it's all fictitious," he said.

"But yeah, he told me he wanted to see the life go out of Ray's eyes and I was like: 'Yeah, no. Nope.' I noped out."

Matthew is adamant there was no possibility Chris was talking about beating Ray up. Chris was planning a murder.

The unlikely accomplice

By any account, Zak Grieve was an unlikely accomplice for a contract killing.

"Zak was never supposed to be born," his mother Glenice says.

"I had started miscarrying so rather than stay in hospital I decided to go home and just put my feet up and just say to whoever, the universe, whatever, God: 'You're not taking him, he's staying.' So I just put my legs up, stayed in bed. And he's still here."

Glenice is an Indigenous woman. She grew up on Newcastle Waters Station, a huge cattle property about 600 kilometres from Darwin.

Zak's dad Wal is non-Indigenous. Zak grew up with a loving family in Tennant Creek, a town of a few thousand people in the middle of the vast Northern Territory, before moving to Katherine.

Zak says he's proud of his Indigenous heritage. He told me that when he first arrived at jail most people assumed he wasn't Indigenous, but he enjoyed freaking out the 84 per cent of his fellow prisoners who were by speaking to them in an Indigenous language.

Zak was popular among the young people of Katherine for a few reasons, not least because he had a steady stream of pot to sell.

"All my friends knew that they could get drugs from me at any point on any day," he said.

Zak's social scene was mostly blokes in their late teens or early 20s without much schooling. If they had jobs, they were low-paying ones. Their lives revolved around pot, all-night video game sessions and fantasy fiction.

And in those all-nighters, in the haze of marijuana smoke, that group of friends would make jokes and have hypothetical conversations about how to murder someone and get away with it.

Zak later explained this away as the type of conversation "a bunch of stoners" would have.

Finding some muscle

Whether Zak knew it or not, he was caught up in a murder plot. But Chris had concerns. Ray was a big guy and had a reputation as a violent man. He thought he might still have a gun in the house.

They needed help. So Zak suggested they approach another person. They reached out to Darren Halfpenny, the man who would eventually testify against them both.

Everyone knew Darren as Spider. Zak says it was because he was always lurking in the corner.

Darren had trouble making friends; he got into fights at school, with a guidance officer reporting he had poor social skills. He left school at 15 to work on a cattle station. But after a few years he had a bad fall from a fence and hit his head.

A psychologist later wrote it was highly likely he had a brain injury that was undiagnosed. He had a history of seizures. It meant Darren couldn't drive a vehicle or ride a horse, so there was no more work for him on a cattle station.

Stuck back in Katherine, he became depressed and suicidal. He wasn't taking his medication and started drinking and chain-smoking pot.

A psychologist thought he didn't have the skills he should have as a 22-year-old and had difficulty assessing the consequences of his actions. He was described as "vulnerable and easily led".

But there was no doubt the bloke was strong. And Zak and Chris needed muscle.

"He's one of those guys that goes out in a car and jumps on the bull, rides in and ties it up," Zak told Chris.

The approach to Darren happened at the same spot — outside Zak's shop over a cigarette.

"Get rid of someone, like knock him on the head, kill him, f*** him off, I don't know, get rid of someone," was how Darren described the proposal to the police. Or he'd later just say he had been asked to "bash some c***'s head in".

"I've sort of just turned around and gone, 'rightio', and said, 'yeah, I'll give you a hand'," he said.

"Through my mind, it was like, OK, bit of a shock but I'll do it anyway."

The trio began to plan what they were going to do. Darren and Chris were sure they were planning a murder; Zak maintains he thought it was a bashing. They were sitting at the laundromat where Chris worked, "getting blazed".

"[Chris] brings out this little map or whatever it was and he said, 'well this is where the bloke lives and we're going to go in and beat him while he's in bed', and I'm like: 'Huh, OK. Cool'," Zak says.

A simple plan

The plan, according to both Darren and Chris, was to make Ray Niceforo disappear cleanly and quietly. To get into his flat using Bronwyn's key, knock him out and take him to a sinkhole Chris knew about on Florina Road, a quiet road heading out of town. They would kill him there. No blood, no fuss.

And money changed hands. Darren told police he was given half of the agreed payment — $2,500 — at the laundromat. He also told police Zak got paid at the same time.

Zak denies ever receiving any money, and Chris testified in court he never gave Zak any. He instead claimed Darren received $15,000 in two payments for the job, that Zak asked for nothing and Chris was doing it for himself and his mother.

But a friend of Zak's told police a different story. Tom Smith wouldn't speak to me for this story, but he gave a few statements to police.

Tom said two weeks before the murder Zak said to him: "I'm telling you because I trust you as a friend. Me and a few others are planning to kill someone … I was hoping on the night we do it, we could say we were here. I doubt it will come to that because we are not going to get caught."

The police asked Tom if he took Zak seriously. "F*** no. No way in hell I'd actually take it seriously," he replied. Tom told the police he was surprised Zak was involved in the murder, describing him as "a very friendly person, basically a big cuddly bear".

Tom also told the police one more thing: "Zak indicated to me that he was going to be receiving money."

The stoners wait

A few weeks after he was asked to help, Darren got a text from Zak.

"Hey bro, whats doin has chris gotten onto you? About tonight?"

Darren then texted Chris: "Hay zak just told me that you wont to do it to night cool."

It was Tuesday, October 18, 2011. Chris went to the supermarket to buy shower caps and rubber gloves. About the same time Darren and Zak went around to Tom Smith's house to smoke some cones.

Chris picked them up and they went to his flat in a building a few doors down from Ray's. Chris would leave every now and then to see if Ray was home.

"[We] got stoned and watched movies, waiting for the guy to come home but he never came home," was how Darren described this first attempt at murder.

About 4:00am, the boys gave up waiting and went home.

They repeated the process the next night. Ray didn't come home.

Unknown to the trio of stoners, Ray was in Darwin. His trip had inadvertently extended his life for a few days.

A change of heart

After two nights of smoking pot, watching anime and waiting for Ray Niceforo to come home, Zak Grieve says it had slowly begun to dawn on him that Chris had more than a bashing in mind. He started to avoid his friend.

"Sitting back at his house one night and they'd pulled out the baseball bat, the wrench, and this metal pole and that's when it sort of started to get a bit more than what I thought it was," he told me.

"And I'm like, 'alright, this isn't going to beat him to within an inch of his life, he's going to die'. I'm sort of sitting there looking at them going: 'Is this what you're planning to do?' And Chris has just gone: 'Dude that's been my plan all along.' And I'm like: 'Oh, oh, OK.'

"This is when I've clicked and everything's come together and I've gone, 'oh shit, they're planning to knock him'. And I've tried to avoid them and stop talking to Chris and I tried to call it off."

On the Thursday, Darren and Chris had a conversation via text message.

HALFPENNY: Hay are we going to try agen tonight? MALYSCHKO: Hey man. Have you talked to Zak today??? HALFPENNY: I said hello that's it … Hey maan is that man at home if he is do you wont to do it tonight MALYSCHKO: I thought zak was gonna msg u, he isn't home atm but zak wants to w8 a few nights HALFPENNY: Hmmm I was hoping to do it tonight as I need the dollers

Sunday rolled around and neither Darren nor Chris could get hold of Zak. Around 7:00pm they exchanged texts of frustration.

But Zak broke his silence by texting Darren at 9:43pm.

GRIEVE: Whats doin bro HALFPENNY: I'm at home were are you GRIEVE: At toms come around then chris can maybe pick us up tonight HALFPENNY: Ok

They went back around to Chris's place and resumed their usual pattern: pot, cartoons, video games, surveillance. But this night, Ray was home. When I asked him why he went if he didn't want to be involved, Zak said he also didn't want to let his friends down.

"More than anything I was just too scared to actually sit there and say, 'hey man, I want nothing to do with this'. That's purely it, I didn't know how to go and turn to him and tell him, 'look man I don't want to do this, it's too much for me and this is way too serious'," he said.

"Beating someone up is one thing but actually killing someone, that's something I'm not prepared for."

Chris later told a jury he began making his final preparations for murder. He had earlier found a big shifting spanner for himself to use, a metal pole for Zak and Darren had nicked a baseball bat from his housemate. Chris told the court he was taking those out to his van when Zak went to join him.

"He came outside, out the front of my house to my van and he told me he couldn't help me anymore," Chris said in court.

"I asked him if he was sure he couldn't do it and he told me that he just couldn't kill someone.

"I told him that I understood and I dropped Zak off at his house."

Before he was dropped off, Zak went back inside to tell Darren. His response was: "You're a pussy."

I asked Zak if he was there when Ray was murdered.

Sorry, this audio has expired Audio: Zak Grieve denies he was there when Ray Niceforo died (ABC News)

"No. Chris had taken me home about, I'm gonna guess about 15 or 20 minutes before they'd done it, because I'd said to him beforehand that look I can't go through with this. He looked frustrated but he didn't argue, he ended up taking me home."

CCTV footage shows Chris's van driving in the direction of Zak's house just before midnight, and then back towards Chris's flat a few minutes later. Chris also called Zak's mobile just after midnight, but the call wasn't answered.

Sorry, this video has expired Video: CCTV footage shows the white van used in the murder driving past (ABC News)

Zak's mother Glenice says she remembers him being dropped at home in a white van. She thought it was odd and went out to the kitchen to see her son.

"I just had this feeling. He was scared," she says.

Sorry, this video has expired Video: Glenice recalls her son Zak coming home on the night of the murder (ABC News)

Zak's two alibis who say he couldn't have been part of the murder are the bloke who admitted to doing it and his mother.

Zak and I have spoken about all sorts of things — his workout routine, what's going on in my life, the fantasy novel he's writing.

He had a prison friendship with Dylan Voller, the boy at the centre of the abuses of children in juvenile detention in the NT. Voller makes people in the NT Government nervous. Zak's calls were being monitored.

According to Zak's mother Glenice, Zak has had his phone privileges taken away because he spoke to me, depriving him of contact with his family. I've also been banned from visiting him.

So I haven't been able to ask Zak about Tom Smith's evidence. He does maintain he was never paid any money or wanted any. He maintains he didn't realise he was involved in a murder plot until one of the failed nights at Chris's flat. And when I've asked him whether he took part in the murder, he has never wavered.

Whether Zak was there or not, there's one fact that is certain: a few minutes after Zak says he was taken home, Ray Niceforo was dead.

The plan goes awry

Chris said he dropped Zak home, drove back to his flat and began his preparations for murder. He and Darren agreed with many of the details. They agreed that they put on rubber gloves, shower caps on their heads and over their shoes. They agreed they cut the power before they entered Ray's flat. They waited at his door. What they don't agree on was whether they were alone.

"About 30 seconds we waited at the front door, we unlocked the front door. We were just about to go in and next you know he's opened the front door so we've just gone," Darren told police.

"Zak's floated in first, sort of just grabbed him … I've gone in, [Ray] had Zak up against a wall. I've walked up behind him, put him in a headlock, swung him around a few times.

"He wouldn't let go of Zak, so I threw him and Zak on the ground. Zak's wriggled around and climbed on his back with his arm around his throat and put him in a headlock.

"Then Chris has bashed him several times and several times over the head with a shifter."

Sorry, this video has expired Video: Darren confesses to his role in the murder (ABC News)

Chris admitted he lost control once he started swinging his shifting spanner into Ray's head.

"I honestly cannot tell you how many times I hit him," he said to the prosecutor in his murder trial.

"I couldn't stop myself from hitting him … I felt angry. I remembered everything that had happened between Ray and myself — things that my mother said about Ray, about him strangling her, about him being a violent person.

"At some point I remember Halfpenny telling me that he was dead."

In the dark confusion, Darren copped a blow from the shifting spanner, which Chris estimated was 70 centimetres long and weighed maybe two kilograms. Darren later described how Chris "caved [Ray's] head in".

"I could see Chris hitting him, I heard skull breaking and I could feel blood splatter," he told police.

"Grabbing the shifter and belting the absolute shit out of some c***'s head. And every time he moved he hit him one more time, even though I was telling him, 'it's not him moving, it's nerves'."

Chris's plan to knock Ray out, take him out into the bush and kill him had fallen apart.

"Chris wasn't actually planning on beating him senseless so he didn't bleed everywhere. He wanted to actually have it clean, but one thing led to another, one f***-up, one mistake," Darren said.

His plan in tatters, Chris went to get his van and backed it up to the door.

"I panicked. Ray wasn't meant to be dead at that point and I panicked.

"After I killed Ray, at that point, I couldn't think of anything really. I couldn't remember where [the sinkhole] was. I wasn't thinking very clearly."

But there was another reason to change the plan, Chris said. Zak knew about the sinkhole off Florina Road and had changed his mind about helping.

"Zak had told me that his conscience had gotten the best of him and I was worried a little bit that he might have gone to the police," Chris said.

Chris said he just started driving, at one point telling Darren: "I don't know where I'm going."

Darren said he was in the back of the van with Ray's body. He said he lay down and stared at the roof.

"There was one sort of slight conversation while we were driving along when we had the body in the back. There was sort of a bit of a giggle and, 'he put up a fair fight', that's what Chris said. For an old person he put up a fair fight," he said.

Chris kept driving the van out the Gorge Road until he found a clearing on the side of the road. They stopped, and opened up the back.

"One grabbed the legs and I grabbed the waist and Chris grabbed the head and we carried him, dropped him, got back in the van and f**ed off," Darren told police.

"We just dropped him, it was just one person slipped and we all dropped him and he fell to the ground and we said that will do."

Because Chris had panicked and changed his plan, Darryl Hill would find Ray's body there the next day.

But before that happened, Chris delivered the news to his mother. He took her into a private room at the laundromat, and asked how much she loved him.

"Christopher, you know I love you," she replied.

"Well, I know it's a little bit late, but happy birthday. You should now be free," Bronwyn quoted Chris as saying.

Sorry, this video has expired Video: Bronwyn explains how she found out Ray was dead (ABC News)

Finding the killers

The homicide investigation was huge. More than 50 police officers were put onto the case. As the son of the victim's ex-fiancee, police took a routine statement from Chris Malyschko.

Police found CCTV footage of a white van driving around town that night and got a warrant to search one of Bronwyn's delivery vans. They found nothing.

But while Chris was being interviewed, Bronwyn voluntarily brought in the van Chris used to move Ray's body. She handed the keys over to police, who found blood in the back.

Chris also told police that on the night of the murder he was at Tom Smith's house with a group of friends including Zak and Darren.

Three days after Ray Niceforo's body was found, police approached Darren Halfpenny to ask him about his movements. The detective taking the statement asked if he could look at his mobile phone. He handed it over, and the detective found the series of text messages organising the murder.

As they cautioned him that he had a right to remain silent, Darren summed up the situation: "Pretty much we're f***ed."

Darren would go onto to tell police of his involvement in the planning, the murder and dumping the body. He put Zak Grieve at the murder scene and claimed they were both paid $5,000 to help with the murder. Spider, Zak and Chris were all arrested on October 27, 2011.

Bronwyn Buttery remained free. She moved into the flat with Nipper. But police had bugged the flat, her phone and her car. In those recordings, Bronwyn's main pre-occupation was making sure Chris didn't implicate her.

BRONWYN: I know this sounds horrible but you got to try to keep me out of jail. CHRIS: Well I'm actually thinking about that. I could sell you out and save a few years off my sentence. I'm joking. BRONWYN: I can't do anything for you if I'm in jail. CHRIS: Yeah I know.

The police also bugged the visits Bronwyn made to Chris in prison. In the first one, she tells him what to say to the investigators.

"Try to go with you're sick and tired of the abuse that Ray was dishing out on me and you … that you were scared of Ray and you didn't like the way he was treating me. A bit more like self defence, so you may only get manslaughter instead," she said.

Bronwyn talked about counting out the money to pay for the murder with Chris and Nipper. She was worried that her fingerprints would be found on it.

In the privacy of their flat, Bronwyn and Nipper come up with an explanation that of course the notes could have gone through their hands at the laundromat or at a pub.

"Because really, the money is the only thing that ties me to it," Bronwyn said.

Bronwyn was also preoccupied with finding where Ray had put $15,000 he had recently been given by his family.

Chris and Zak refused to talk to the police, but in Bronwyn's visits there's a lot of talk about who has said what. Chris said Zak had been "talking a lot of shit", but that Darren had been getting a lot of threats in prison.

Later Chris told his mother Darren had been moved into protection because "he got three floggings in three days".

"Halfpenny's going to be having it pretty tough for the rest of his time in here … because no one in jail likes a dobber."

Chris and his mother talked about an ABC News report that police were looking for a fourth person — someone involved in disposing of evidence. In his panic, Chris had left the murder weapons in Ray's flat.

MALYSCHKO: I don't know if you know this or not but, when we did it we left everything there because it was kind of, it was botched, really bad. BUTTERY: Obviously. MALYSCHKO: So me and Nipper went back and grabbed everything we could. Everything. BUTTERY: Hmm. MALYSCHKO: I didn't even grab the wrench, the bat or anything like that. That was Nipper that grabbed all that stuff.

A month after the murder, Bronwyn Buttery was formally interviewed by police. She denied any knowledge of the murder and claimed to be shocked that Chris was involved. They asked her if Nipper had told her anything about the murder weapons.

Bronwyn said Nipper had "implied" they were in the King River, a small river that meets both the roads south and west of Katherine.

At the trial, Chris said after he and Darren dumped the body he went back to the flat he shared with Nipper before he and Nipper went back to Ray's. Chris thought about cleaning up the blood that was on the kitchen floor, but didn't. Nipper had a laundry bag with him and placed the murder weapons in them.

"He said he was going to get rid of them," Chris said at the trial.

A few days later, Bronwyn confessed. She told police everything, and painted Nipper as central to the plan. Bronwyn said Nipper helped count the money for the murder.

Sorry, this video has expired Video: Bronwyn tells police Nipper was also involved (ABC News)

She also claimed she got cold feet and asked for the murder plan to be aborted, but "Nipper would say to me he can't go back on it".

"Nipper could tell you more about what the plan was than I could because I didn't know. I didn't know when, I didn't know who and I didn't know how. I was led to believe Christopher wouldn't be there," she told the police.

Nipper's DNA was also found on a rubber glove the police fished out of the garbage. As police interviewed Bronwyn for the first time, they told her they had arrested Nipper. But Nipper was never charged and was released on the same day.

After Bronwyn confessed, she was allowed to call Chris in prison.

"I've told them what I know, Christopher, because it was eating up at me, you knew that," she said.

"I couldn't let you take all the rap for something I was involved in as well. I love you too much for that."

Chris replied simply: "You should have just kept quiet".

Sorry, this audio has expired Audio: Bronwyn Buttery tells her son Chris Malyschko she has been arrested (ABC News)

The trial

More than a year after the three boys were arrested, the murder trial began. It ran for six weeks and had more than 100 witnesses.

Darren Halfpenny had earlier pleaded guilty to murder and was sentenced to life with 20 years non-parole. The judge recommended that the Northern Territory Administrator — the equivalent of a state governor — release him after 14 years if he gave evidence against his friends at their trial.

Zak, Chris and Bronwyn were committed to jointly stand trial in the NT Supreme Court.

The evidence against all of them would be heard together, forcing the judge to constantly remind the jury that conversations about Zak between other people — including Bronwyn and Chris — was inadmissible hearsay.

"You cannot use any of that against Zak Grieve," he told them. But the jury had heard it anyway.

Bronwyn pleaded not guilty to murder, but guilty to manslaughter by reason of provocation. That plea was rejected by the crown prosecutor, Lesley Taylor QC.

Chris and Zak both pleaded not guilty to murder. Ms Taylor outlined her case for murder against Zak in her opening statement.

"The law says that a person who aids and abets a killing, in other words, provides assistance in the killing, is guilty of murder. Such persons are just as guilty of murder as the person who physically causes the unlawful death," she said.

Zak's barrister, provided through legal aid, was Jon Tippett QC. A short, bullish man, Mr Tippett is known as an excellent legal mind and a master of the theatrics of the courtroom. He argued from the start that Zak wasn't there when Ray died and that he was not responsible for the murder.

Spider in the box

Darren Halfpenny was the star witness for the prosecution. He insisted that Zak Grieve was there, helping him hold down Ray while Chris laid into him with his shifting spanner. Mr Tippett's first question got straight to the point.

TIPPETT: Mr Halfpenny, you're a liar, aren't you? HALFPENNY: Pardon? TIPPETT: You're a liar? HALFPENNY: How do you say? TIPPETT: You lied to the police? HALFPENNY: At the start.

Darren told police that Chris and Zak dropped him off after they dumped Ray's body and stripped their clothes off to give to him. The plan was for Darren to burn them, which he did.

But at first he told police a completely made up story about wandering down to Katherine's abandoned airstrip, near his house. He said he took the clothes and some petrol to burn them there.

The police searched the airstrip but couldn't find any signs of a fire. Darren said he had been doing some donuts and burnouts on the airstrip, and it must have scattered the ashes. He offered to show them exactly where he'd burnt the clothes. But when police told him they had found burnt clothes in a fire pit in his backyard, Darren laughed and told the police the truth. For someone who had just confessed to a murder, it was an odd detail to make up.

Sorry, this video has expired Video: Darren changes his story in police interview (ABC News)

Zak's barrister had a field day with Darren's story, getting him to agree it was "just a bald-faced, rotten lie". And Mr Tippett probed why Darren told lies to the police.

TIPPETT: You must have enjoyed yourself? HALFPENNY: No. TIPPETT: Lying to them? HALFPENNY: I was sitting there f***ing — frigging enjoying- TIPPETT: Lying in their faces and having them go out and work on your lies, act on your lies. You were enjoying yourself weren't you? HALFPENNY: No.

Mr Tippett suggested that Darren lied whenever it suited him, to which he replied: "I lie, yeah." He suggested Darren blamed Zak for bringing him into the murder plot. He pointed out other inconsistencies and lies in Darren's statements to the police.

Darren would later say: "It's not that I don't care if I lie, it's just when I lie, it just comes out."

But he did not back down on his insistence that Zak Grieve helped with the murder.

'Chattering witnesses'

Before Zak was arrested, he had several conversations with people that would be used against him at the trial. One of them was with Ashleigh Carroll, the sister of his friend Matthew. Ashleigh gave evidence that three days after the murder she and Zak were having a talk outside the sunglasses shop.

"You know that guy that was found on Florina Road, I killed him," Ashleigh quoted Zak as saying in her police statement.

"I think I said something like, 'did you get rid of all the evidence', jokingly. Then he said, 'it was clean, we burnt everything'."

Florina Road was where Chris had originally planned to dump the body, but not where it was found. Other details were wrong too.

Ashleigh said Zak told her Ray's neck had been broken. Ashleigh said it was possible she had misheard Zak, but she didn't think she had. Mr Tippett did his best to muddy her words, but it was damning evidence.

Before that conversation, Ashleigh had been hanging out with Zak in the sunglasses shop with another friend Emma Lucchese. She quoted Zak as saying a few days after the murder:

"How much do you think it would cost to get someone killed?"

She also said Zak was asking questions about how people would feel if they killed someone.

Tom Smith gave evidence that Zak asked him to provide the trio with an alibi. After Ray's body was found Zak called Tom.

"When I answered Zak seemed rushed. He asked me if I remembered him being there on Sunday night, and Chris and Darren. I told him I did then I went back to sleep," he said in his police statement.

But Tom misremembered the day and the time of phone call, which Mr Tippett seized on to cast doubt over his evidence.

There was also the girl Zak had a crush on through his high school years, Nyssa Ohem. In her police statement, she said Zak asked her out the day after the murder.

She quoted him as saying: "Nyssa, something big has happened and I still have strong feelings for you and it would mean a lot to me if you would go out on a date with me."

But when Nyssa gave evidence at the trial a year later, she added: "I was informed that something big had happened and it could be possibly the last time I see him."

Several other friends of Zak gave troubling evidence. One said he overheard Zak saying, "I'm not sure if I wish to kill him", at a party, to which the friend replied: "Well, for five grand I wouldn't." Another friend said Zak asked him if he'd ever kill for money.

At the trial, Zak's barrister described his friends as "chattering witnesses". He quoted Jessica Mauboy's song Chinese Whispers to make the point that "everyone wants to own a bit of a dramatic situation".

Mr Tippett argued Zak's phone call to Tom Smith was made because he was panicking once he heard Ray had actually been murdered.

'Not the sharpest tool in the shed'

Zak also bought a few things that would later raise suspicions: some new clothes, two X-Boxes, some expensive headphones, and an ounce of weed and a 76-centimetre-long bong for $311.95.

The prosecution would argue these purchases were financed by his payment for the murder, but Zak countered that he was working two jobs. He was also selling weed. His father Wal says he had also given him some money around the same time.

Zak's defence relied on him being "not the sharpest tool in the shed". Mr Tippett also pointed out that there was no DNA evidence found linking Zak to the crime, while the other people charged — and Nipper — all had some of their DNA found during the investigation.

In Mr Tippett's closing address, he painted his client as naive and "wet behind the ears". He argued that Zak's contribution to the murder was sending some text messages and going around to Chris's flat to play video games and get stoned.

In his summing up the case against Zak for the jury, Justice Dean Mildren told the jury the Crown was relying on a lot of circumstantial evidence.

It was Justice Mildren himself who pointed to CCTV footage of Chris's white van travelling around Katherine at times of the night that fitted with Zak's story that he had been taken home. The van was seen at 11:44pm.

"Could this be — I ask rhetorically — to drop off Zak Grieve?"

Justice Mildren also pointed out that Chris had called Zak at 12:04am the night of the murder. "You might wonder why Malyschko was trying to phone Grieve at that hour and does it mean they were not together?" the judge asked the jury.

He warned the jury it would be dangerous to convict Zak Grieve on the evidence of Darren Halfpenny alone.

But Justice Mildren also explained to the jury how they could find Zak guilty of murder.

"It is not necessary for the Crown to prove that he was physically present and aided in the killing in the flat that night. It is sufficient that he aided at some earlier time, provided that he intended to help in the killing."

The verdict

Zak Grieve says he knew the jury had found him guilty as soon as they walked into the room. He made eye contact with a female juror, who burst into tears.

Five days before Christmas, they had unanimously found him guilty of the murder of Ray Niceforo.

They found Chris guilty by a majority verdict, and they unanimously found Bronwyn guilty of the lesser charge manslaughter.

No one outside the jury room will ever know why they unanimously found Zak guilty. They may not have believed Zak pulled out at the last minute, or they may have thought he didn't take "reasonable steps" to stop his friends.

Zak's mother Glenice believes the all-white jury was prejudiced against Zak because he's Indigenous.

"It's impossible to know if the jury were racist or what happened in that jury room, but I believe they were," she says.

Sorry, this video has expired Video: Glenice on whether Zak got a fair trial (ABC News)

Glenice claims there were three jurors in particular who seemed bored by the whole process.

"They were toying with us … They went to sleep during the days of the trial. It was like it didn't matter, they didn't care. I thought that was blatantly disgusting because there was people's lives at stake here and they didn't care," she said.

Justice Mildren handed down his sentences early in the new year. For manslaughter, Bronwyn Buttery was sentenced to eight years in prison, with a four-year non-parole period. She was released in 2015.

Chris Malyschko was able to access special provisions under the mandatory sentencing laws in the Northern Territory, because the judge found a "significant degree of provocation". Chris was sentenced to life without parole for 18 years.

Justice Mildren accepted that Zak Grieve pulled out of the murder at the last minute. But the Sentencing Act gave the 20-year-old man no special considerations. Justice Mildren sentenced him to life in prison with a non-parole period of 20 years.

"I take no pleasure in this outcome. It is the fault of mandatory minimum sentencing provisions which inevitably bring about injustice," the judge said in his sentencing.

Glenice said Justice Mildren reacted physically to the sentence he imposed.

"I stared at him and watched his reaction and he just sunk in his chair. He was just bewildered and then it took him a while to come back and he was just gobsmacked," she says.

"This was the only bloke I've ever had convicted of murder where he wasn't even there," the now retired Justice Mildren told me.

But the judge did put in one provision. He recommended to the Northern Territory Administrator that Zak Grieve be considered for parole after 12 years, if he behaved well in prison. If he was free to do so, that was what Justice Mildren would have given Zak.

"All I could do to overcome that was to make recommendations to the Administrator, which was turning the clock back 60 to 70 years."

But this would be a political process. It would require whoever is the NT attorney-general in 2023 to recommend Zak's release to cabinet, and for the cabinet to approve it. Law and order is an ongoing political issue in the Territory and there's very little sympathy for offenders. It's hard to imagine any attorney-general finding the courage to recommend Zak's release.

As I've been getting to know Zak, I've been amazed at his attitude to how he has been treated by the Northern Territory's rough justice system.

I don't know whether it's an act for me, but he doesn't seem bitter about his sentence. He's using his time in prison to write a novel and paint. He's been tutoring other prisoners.

But he also says he's not thinking about being released after just serving 12 years. He knows convicted murderers rarely get parole. He says he can't expect that he will, and doesn't want to hold onto a hope that could easily prove to be false.

The young man is bracing himself for more disappointment.

Steven Schubert is writing a book on the case for ABC Books.

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Topics: murder-and-manslaughter, crime, law-crime-and-justice, police, indigenous-aboriginal-and-torres-strait-islander, courts-and-trials, katherine-0850, darwin-0800, nt

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