THE woman accused of murdering her partner in order to inherit his Walcha farm has offered to plead to an "unusual charge".
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Natasha Beth Darcy sat silently, listening via video link in Tamworth Local Court on Wednesday morning as magistrate Roger Prowse was told prosecutors are considering the offer made.
Darcy is being held in custody at Mary Wade Women's Correctional Centre in Sydney on one count of murdering Mathew Dunbar.
"We received a new plea offer from the defence," DPP solicitor Andrew Baker told the court.
Darcy's solicitor Tracey Randall also appeared via video link, confirming the further offer from Darcy.
"The charge being offered is an unusual one," she said.
"The charge is one that is not a very common charge, and that needs careful consideration.
"[There's] not a lot of case law, in terms of background."
The charge being offered is an unusual one.
- Darcy's solicitor Tracey Randall
Darcy, 43, stands accused of murdering the Walcha grazier on August 2, 2017, on his property, Pandora, outside of Walcha. Detectives allege Darcy killed her de-facto partner in order to inherit the farm.
The Leader revealed in 2017 that it was the police case that Darcy lied to investigators, used aliases and false names to allegedly source drugs, and researched then deleted web browser searches on how to commit murder.
Police will allege that many of these searches relate to certain methods of causing death that are undetectable or hard to locate during a post-mortem, and were allegedly deleted from her phone, but were recovered by police.
The case against Darcy is voluminous.
"The Crown prosecutor briefed in the matter went on leave ... he's unable to consider the offer," Mr Baker said, asking for a six-week adjournment to allow the Crown to consider the plea.
Ms Randall said the public defender, Janet Manuell, "is briefed, and discussions have been occurring at the Crown level, with Ms Manuell".
Mr Prowse highlighted the delays in the case with the adjournment, "it'll be two years and three weeks old" ... "since the act that is alleged to have given rise to the charge" and "it's not a matter of congratulations" on the time taken.
"There not being an application for bail, it's refused," Mr Prowse said.
The case was adjourned to late-August.
Darcy has been behind bars since her arrest in Walcha in November 2017 for the Walcha farmer's murder three months earlier.