A man convicted of murdering two nursing home residents is appealing his lengthy jail term on the basis there was no motive, and claims the killer may have been a woman. Garry Steven Davis was sentenced in December 2016 to 40 years in jail for murdering two residents and attempting to murder a third in 2013 at Wallsend’s SummitCare nursing home. Residents Gwen Fowler, 83, and Ryan Kelly, 80, died as a result of insulin injections. Audrey Manuel, 91, recovered but had since died from unrelated causes. Davis was found guilty of all three offences in a judge-only trial presided over by Supreme Court Justice Robert Hulme. Justice Hulme said Davis had acted with extreme callousness, and it was as if he thought the residents’ lives were worthless. During the trial, the defence agreed with the Crown that none of the victims were insulin-dependent, but in his submission to the Court of Criminal Appeal, solicitor Mark Ramsland said there was no proof it had been Davis who gave the victims the insulin. It was the prosecution’s circumstantial case that Mr Davis was the only person who could have injected all three residents. But the defence submission said not enough weight had been given to evidence by police that 19 other staff members and five other people were potential suspects. They were all in the home at the relevant time, but the Crown successfully argued they could be ruled out. “It is submitted that there was a possibility reasonably open on the facts that these offences had been committed by two or more people, where in pursuit of a joint criminal enterprise or otherwise,” Mr Ramsland said.
