Speaker 1: This podcast contains information and details relating to suicide. We
Speaker 1: urge anyone struggling with their emotions to contact Lifeline on
Speaker 1: thirteen eleven fourteen thirteen eleven fourteen or visit them at
Speaker 1: lifeline dot org dot au. A twenty four year old
Speaker 1: devoted mother of two fleeing a violent relationship as a
Speaker 1: bags pack car running her daughters strapped into the backseat.
Speaker 2: Mom told me that she needed to go back inside
Speaker 2: to grab something.
Speaker 3: Panic.
Speaker 4: I Amy is dead, Sir aim his dead?
Speaker 5: Eight Confusion World about five minutes, say sit not to
Speaker 5: suicide one hundred percent.
Speaker 1: This is emersing. What do you think is really the
Speaker 1: honest truth about Amy? The Truth About Amy?
Speaker 6: Episode two.
Speaker 1: I'm Liam Bartlett and.
Speaker 6: I'm Alison Sandy.
Speaker 7: At the next intersection, turn left.
Speaker 1: It's a sunny still day as we head to Serpentine
Speaker 1: on the way to the house where Amy Wensley died.
Speaker 8: Turnal left.
Speaker 1: It rained the day before, so there's a heavy smell
Speaker 1: of petrocore, a unique earthy scent mixed with the rich
Speaker 1: eucalyptus so abundant in Australian flora. This area is alive
Speaker 1: with wildlife and despite the rain, the landscape is still
Speaker 1: dry dotted with autumn colored trees, green, yellow, and a
Speaker 1: rusty red. The semi rural estate owned by Robert Simmons,
Speaker 1: comprises more than two hundred thousand square meetings or about
Speaker 1: twenty hectares, and there's a long driveway heading up to
Speaker 1: the impressive pale yellow weatherboard, six bedroom, three bathroom, two
Speaker 1: story home. There's a dam, a riding arena for horses,
Speaker 1: and of course, a large industrial shed just next door
Speaker 1: to the prefabricated house where Amy lived with her daughters
Speaker 1: and David Simmons back in twenty fourteen. It's only about
Speaker 1: the size of a two bedroom unit, and Mark, a
Speaker 1: kind octogenarian who now lives there, agrees to take us
Speaker 1: on a quick tour. This is beautiful, he tells Allison
Speaker 1: how much he loves the location, especially being so close
Speaker 1: to the rest of his family.
Speaker 6: Yeah, it's a lovely little spot though, like it looks good.
Speaker 1: When you walk in the back door, there's a toilet
Speaker 1: on the right and a bathroom to the left. Straight
Speaker 1: ahead is the kitchen, which opens out to the dining
Speaker 1: and living room. After the bathroom is a small hallway
Speaker 1: leading to two bedrooms, with the master bedroom on the right.
Speaker 1: It's now Mark's bedroom and set out very similarly to
Speaker 1: how it looked when Amy was there, a queen size
Speaker 1: bed taking up most of the space, with a bedside
Speaker 1: table either side, a window to the right upon entry,
Speaker 1: and in front of the bed is a large built
Speaker 1: in wardrobe with mirror doors. Next to the wardrobe behind
Speaker 1: the door is where Amy's body was found. Allison is
Speaker 1: surprised at how tiny the area is.
Speaker 6: Is very tight and I imagine the bed would have
Speaker 6: been very similar sort of way, because she was that's right, yeah, yeah, guns,
Speaker 6: oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 8: Four tens only a small book. The closure range is
Speaker 8: blood illegal.
Speaker 1: Mark shows Alice and the large shed next door, where
Speaker 1: a lot of his belongings are held, including books and
Speaker 1: old records. He jokes about having spent a fair bit
Speaker 1: of time there, especially when his late wife got annoyed
Speaker 1: with him.
Speaker 8: Too used to tell them clear off to.
Speaker 6: The big spider up there, just sort of yeah, and
Speaker 6: how long ago did your wife die?
Speaker 8: About three months ago?
Speaker 7: Now.
Speaker 1: Mark says he met David Simmons once became mere one.
Speaker 3: Hole.
Speaker 8: We ate and he keep saying me back tires, back
Speaker 8: to I said no, I said, I'll see it's not
Speaker 8: go And in the end Jesse.
Speaker 1: Was with me. Mark is referring to one of his
Speaker 1: grandsons who also lives on the estate.
Speaker 8: All he was trying to do was coveras in gravel.
Speaker 8: He hit the frog and spun it around and gravel
Speaker 8: went everywhere. But I said, there's another hells up the
Speaker 8: top of you now, he said, I know he used
Speaker 8: to have in Libya, so that was him. I've had
Speaker 8: some really strange people coming here, really have. And apparently
Speaker 8: the superintendent that came here to investigate in apparently wanted
Speaker 8: to go on Holy so he didn't want to know
Speaker 8: about Heim, so he just put it down as his suicide. Yeah,
Speaker 8: didn't need an investigating but they reckoned the angle.
Speaker 5: She was shot out.
Speaker 8: She couldn't have done it herself.
Speaker 1: The estake was sold in twenty sixteen for one point
Speaker 1: seven million dollars. There were two police investigations into Amy's
Speaker 1: death prior to the inquest in twenty twenty one. One
Speaker 1: was an investigation by the Major Crime Squad in twenty
Speaker 1: fourteen and the other by the Cold Case Homicide Squad
Speaker 1: in twenty eighteen. In its investigation, Major Crime quickly concluded
Speaker 1: there was no criminality identified and no evidence to identify
Speaker 1: the involvement of another person. The investigation by Cold Case,
Speaker 1: called Operation Mix, was more thorough and involved interviews with
Speaker 1: sixty two people, of which thirty seven witness statements were obtained. Now,
Speaker 1: between the statements given to Major Crime Cold Case and
Speaker 1: the witnesses that testified at the inquest, there were a
Speaker 1: lot of discrepancies, some minor, some major, which we will
Speaker 1: discuss in more detail throughout this podcast, but none of them,
Speaker 1: not one of them, were considered important by officers assigned
Speaker 1: to review the case. In its final report, Cold Case
Speaker 1: attributes inconsistencies from Price and Simmons to trauma, alcohol consumption
Speaker 1: or both. They also concluded there was quote insufficient evidence
Speaker 1: to substantiate the involvement of another person in Amy's death.
Speaker 1: Their attitude is certainly at odds with that of the
Speaker 1: uniformed officers who were first on the scene. One of
Speaker 1: those officers, although no longer in the police force, was
Speaker 1: Larry Blandford. Larry tells me he'll never forget when he
Speaker 1: first saw Amy's body. Obviously, when this goes to air,
Speaker 1: it'll be ten years. Ten years is a long time.
Speaker 1: Do you feel any differently today than you did ten
Speaker 1: years ago.
Speaker 5: I made a pledge to Aimy on that fatal night,
Speaker 5: I said the words out loud to her, I'm sorry
Speaker 5: for what's happened to you, Sis. We will get to
Speaker 5: the bottom of it.
Speaker 1: You said that to her in the bedroom.
Speaker 5: I said that to her in the bedroom, and I
Speaker 5: felt a little bit guilty by leaving the room and
Speaker 5: not being with her.
Speaker 1: Why did you say that? Why did you feel compelled
Speaker 1: to say that?
Speaker 5: Because because the evidence I gained from that room, it
Speaker 5: was obvious to me that she didn't shoot herself. So
Speaker 5: someone's got to be accountable for that action.
Speaker 1: It's almost a fatherly thing to say, isn't it.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I probably is. Yeah. I was sixty at that time,
Speaker 5: so you know, I wasn't a young cop. I got
Speaker 5: in it fifty four, and at this time I was
Speaker 5: about sixty, and I had a lot of life experience
Speaker 5: and done a lot of things abattoir and all the
Speaker 5: other stuff that I've done.
Speaker 1: Seen a few things.
Speaker 5: Yeah, been on my own affair bit as well, And
Speaker 5: you know I have to. When you're on your own,
Speaker 5: you have to be accurate. You have to be accurate,
Speaker 5: and everything you do you're driving your vehicle, maintenance, your level,
Speaker 5: a few extra batteries because you're miles from anywhere.
Speaker 1: So detail is important.
Speaker 5: Detail is important.
Speaker 1: Yes, What was your rank and position on the day
Speaker 1: Amy died?
Speaker 5: I was first class Constable, soon to be Senior Connie.
Speaker 1: And are those events still fresh and clear in your mind? Larry?
Speaker 1: Is that fair to say?
Speaker 5: Yeah? It was just like like I've been through it
Speaker 5: that many times in my head. I sort of think
Speaker 5: about it a fair bit, and it's just like it
Speaker 5: happened yesterday, which to me is pretty sad because I
Speaker 5: haven't been able to move on now. I was speaking
Speaker 5: to a Constable Dixon about two years ago, and she says,
Speaker 5: I think you need help, you need counseling, And I
Speaker 5: said to her, No, I don't. I know what I'm thinking.
Speaker 5: I know what I'm talking about.
Speaker 1: Constable Dixon was one of the other uniformed officers, and
Speaker 1: there was also Constable Roberts.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it was Senior Connie Ian Roberts. Yeah, good Blake,
Speaker 5: good operator.
Speaker 1: Where were you and how were you told to attend
Speaker 1: that event?
Speaker 5: It was start of the shift, so we were in
Speaker 5: the office. Obviously, we were on CAD the Tartess Information Service.
Speaker 5: Who who knows our PD numbers, radio numbers and our
Speaker 5: mobile phone AI police issued mobile phone?
Speaker 1: So how does this work? All three of you asked
Speaker 1: to attend? Were they?
Speaker 5: Well, we were three up. One of us may stay
Speaker 5: behind to do a bit of paperwork while they catch up.
Speaker 5: The other two will go out and do a job
Speaker 5: if there's a job. But at this time it seemed
Speaker 5: it was urgent, so all three of us jumped in
Speaker 5: the car.
Speaker 1: And how did that call come in? What was the
Speaker 1: nature of it? Did you get a notification of a
Speaker 1: shooting or it.
Speaker 5: Comes in by radio? Juliet one O one, we require
Speaker 5: you to attend an address in Serpentine would have been that.
Speaker 5: And then when you jump into the car, we checked
Speaker 5: the Tartness and that gives you the job. What's actually
Speaker 5: happened at that time and a location?
Speaker 1: And what was the detail at that story? Which can
Speaker 1: you remember?
Speaker 5: Yeah, a woman has been shot with a shotgun. That
Speaker 5: was virtually all it was.
Speaker 1: Larry, can you take us through what happened when you
Speaker 1: got there, the moment you got there.
Speaker 5: The moment we pulled up at the driveway. Gareth Price
Speaker 5: was sitting on the fence, rail and a bloke I
Speaker 5: now known to be Robert Simmons was standing by the gate.
Speaker 1: David Simmons father, Yeah, Robert Simmons, Yeah, did you know
Speaker 1: Gareth Price?
Speaker 5: Yes. I've had dealings with Gareth before. He's always to me,
Speaker 5: he's always been a pretty nice sort of bloke. I've
Speaker 5: never had any trouble with him, even though that i've
Speaker 5: I had arrested him in the past. And I actually
Speaker 5: met him with his friend somewhere and I said the
Speaker 5: words Gareth Edward told Price, and his mates all laughed
Speaker 5: because I knew his name.
Speaker 8: Yeah.
Speaker 5: So we're at the gate and I said what's going on?
Speaker 5: And Robert Simmons says there's been a shooting. Gareth would
Speaker 5: be the best person to talk to. So I said, Gareth,
Speaker 5: what's going on?
Speaker 8: Mate?
Speaker 5: And he said, ah, my friend's partner is up in
Speaker 5: the house and she committed suicide. And at that time
Speaker 5: I thought, well, have you been schooled to say that,
Speaker 5: because you know you're illiterate. It's a big word. So
Speaker 5: it's my partner has committed suicide. If he was in school,
Speaker 5: he just would have said my partner's been shot.
Speaker 1: So that immediately sprang to your mind.
Speaker 5: Sprang to my mind that there's better be on me
Speaker 5: toes here, you know, And.
Speaker 1: Because you knew him previously, and he knew his level
Speaker 1: of intellect.
Speaker 5: Yeah, when I interviewed he months before, his mother was
Speaker 5: there as the interpreter because he couldn't read, or he
Speaker 5: doesn't know how to read, which is it's not a fault.
Speaker 5: But and she was also there too as his interview friend.
Speaker 1: And that's why that word suicide sort of stuck out
Speaker 1: for you. Then what happened.
Speaker 5: I said to the fellas, say, at the gate, we're
Speaker 5: going up. So I and Pep and I went up
Speaker 5: the top Ian went into the shed and I went
Speaker 5: into the house. I think Pep came in too. And
Speaker 5: I didn't really want to Pep to see what I saw,
Speaker 5: but I says, oh, you don't have to stay in here. Anyway,
Speaker 5: she did her a little bit for the investigation.
Speaker 1: You didn't know at the stage when you went through
Speaker 1: that front door. I mean it was a tiny house,
Speaker 1: but you didn't know which room Amy was in.
Speaker 5: No, I didn't have a clue. You go from the
Speaker 5: back verandah into the kitchen, and there's a hallway off
Speaker 5: to the left and there's a bathroom to your right,
Speaker 5: and after that is a bedroom.
Speaker 1: And how did you discover her?
Speaker 5: That's probably the first door I pushed open, and there
Speaker 5: was something obstructing the door, as all evidence shows that
Speaker 5: her leg was pushing against the door. I looked around
Speaker 5: the corner and came into the room, and I sort
Speaker 5: of I wasn't shocked, but I was sort of alert
Speaker 5: to the fact that this is this is not right.
Speaker 5: I saw a blue towel over her head, and I
Speaker 5: never looked under that towel. And then there was a
Speaker 5: firearm about a meter away and four to ten shotgun,
Speaker 5: double barrel, side by side.
Speaker 1: The gun was about a meter away on the floor.
Speaker 1: On the floor, yep. So you had squeezed through the
Speaker 1: door because her leg, one of her legs, was obstructing
Speaker 1: the door.
Speaker 5: Yeah, as I pushed through like a bit of a
Speaker 5: bull because I didn't know this person needed medical help
Speaker 5: or what.
Speaker 1: And you didn't know what the obstruction was.
Speaker 5: No, So when I got into the room and sort
Speaker 5: of that out and it came in as well.
Speaker 1: So effectively she was behind the door, sort of wedged
Speaker 1: behind the door.
Speaker 5: Yeah. Well, there's a wardrobe in the room. There's a
Speaker 5: wardrobe to the right. The door opens into a recess. Yes,
Speaker 5: so it doesn't hit the wardrobe door. And in that recess,
Speaker 5: once the door is closed, there is a quite a
Speaker 5: substantial little recess there and that's where she was laying.
Speaker 1: You say she had a blue towel on her head, Larry,
Speaker 1: covering her face? Yep, her head. How did the blue
Speaker 1: towel get put on her head?
Speaker 5: What I learned later is that Gareth Price put the
Speaker 5: towel on her head.
Speaker 1: He put the towel on her head. Yes, Why did
Speaker 1: he do that?
Speaker 5: Oh? I would say out of respect. You know, he's
Speaker 5: not a disrespectful person and it would have been a
Speaker 5: shock to him.
Speaker 6: Pausing here before speaking to Larry, we caught up with
Speaker 6: Gareth Price at his home, which you'll hear in a
Speaker 6: later episode. In that interview and all the others he's
Speaker 6: given since Amy's death, Price has never deviated from his
Speaker 6: description of the position of the gun when he first
Speaker 6: walked into the bedroom.
Speaker 1: He's told us that when he discovered her, the gun
Speaker 1: was on her lap, Yes, and sort of down her legs,
Speaker 1: so to speak. Did he remove the gun and put
Speaker 1: it on the floor.
Speaker 5: Yeah, he did make admissions that he removed the firearm
Speaker 5: from her lap and put it about a meter away.
Speaker 5: So that's the time I saw it at that location,
Speaker 5: at that position.
Speaker 1: Why would you touch the gun?
Speaker 5: Not sure, mate. There's a few things that you shouldn't do,
Speaker 5: and that's probably one of them. It's it's a situation
Speaker 5: that has to be has to be believed at the time,
Speaker 5: you know, because there's no cover up from the attending
Speaker 5: police officers. You know.
Speaker 1: David Simmons father Robert, has also given evidence that he
Speaker 1: unloaded that gun. So he's picked the gun up and
Speaker 1: unloaded the spent cartridge, put it on a bedside table.
Speaker 1: Why would you do that?
Speaker 5: That's another question. I haven't got a crystal ball. I
Speaker 5: can't answer that. But there was a live cartridge and
Speaker 5: a spent cartridge on the bedside table, which was probably
Speaker 5: about three three and a half meters from aim.
Speaker 1: Now, as a police officer, did those actions strike you
Speaker 1: as strange?
Speaker 5: Oh for sure.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 5: At that time I just saw a mouth yep, I know.
Speaker 5: I went over and had a look, and I spent
Speaker 5: a few bit of time in the room looking in
Speaker 5: the cupboard, looking at all unsecured ammunition and rifles and
Speaker 5: bits and pieces laying around, so you know, I formed
Speaker 5: an opinion that it's it was it suicide. And as
Speaker 5: I looked at Amy, there was blood spatter on the
Speaker 5: walls and it was probably about as high as a chair,
Speaker 5: the first big blood spatter, and I thought, well, that
Speaker 5: would mean that she's been pegged on the way down.
Speaker 5: She was sitting on her right hand and she was
Speaker 5: right handed, so if she's going down, forced to go down,
Speaker 5: she'd use her right hand to push against the wall
Speaker 5: to go to the ground. And then she had gun
Speaker 5: residue on her fingers as well on a left hand,
Speaker 5: so she's pushing the barrel away.
Speaker 1: So the gun residue on her left hand to you,
Speaker 1: indicated that she was using her left hand to try
Speaker 1: to push the muzzle away.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I'm saying the gun residue on hand, I didn't
Speaker 5: know until forensics sorted that bit out after the fact.
Speaker 5: That was after the fact. But the fact is at
Speaker 5: that time her hand, her left hand was on her
Speaker 5: lap and her league was out. Her left league was out,
Speaker 5: so that was the only hand she had to defend
Speaker 5: herself with. And I wasn't surprised that it had gone
Speaker 5: residie on that hand.
Speaker 1: But in those moments with you looking around the room
Speaker 1: and taking all that detail in, as you said, detail
Speaker 1: is so important, you formed the definite view. Did you
Speaker 1: that it was not suicide?
Speaker 5: Yeah? I was convinced by my experiences that it wasn't suicide,
Speaker 5: and this was confirmed as I gained other information at
Speaker 5: later times.
Speaker 1: We're all three of you in agreement at that time.
Speaker 1: Did you all think that there were suspicious enough signs
Speaker 1: that you needed the detectives and that it was a
Speaker 1: crime scene?
Speaker 5: We congregated, the three of us congregated sort of every
Speaker 5: ten minutes or so. How'd you go? What did you find?
Speaker 5: I got this? I got that, and Pip went back
Speaker 5: to the car to check for more firearms because I
Speaker 5: had a bundle of firearms. Was about four I had
Speaker 5: and there was five registered for the for the residents
Speaker 5: of the property. And as we got together, I said,
Speaker 5: this is suspicious. This is just not a suicide. So
Speaker 5: I conferred with him. So that's why he in called
Speaker 5: for the crime car. We need a car, We need
Speaker 5: someone here to do this, We need help.
Speaker 1: But both your colleagues agreed with you.
Speaker 5: Yes, oh, yeah, one hundred percent, And to this day.
Speaker 1: So there was complete consensus, yes, from three uniform police
Speaker 1: officers exactly exactly.
Speaker 5: Forensically, it wasn't good because there had been three people
Speaker 5: that had handled that firearm. I didn't at the time
Speaker 5: that Robert Sipons had handled it and unloaded it, Gareth
Speaker 5: Price had moved it, and the perpetrator used it. So
Speaker 5: there's three people touch that fire up. So from then
Speaker 5: on we had to be really vigilant, let no one
Speaker 5: in the house, and it was declared a PFA.
Speaker 1: PFA is protected forensic area ye.
Speaker 5: So couldn't let anybody in, and we had to leave
Speaker 5: everything in its place and just seize items that needed seizing,
Speaker 5: but leave them where they are and we'll deal with
Speaker 5: it later.
Speaker 1: It's apparent from the records that Senior Constable Roberts On
Speaker 1: declaring it a PFA, asked for forensics, a formal request
Speaker 1: for the forensics team to turn up, but they never
Speaker 1: turned up.
Speaker 5: What happened there, well, he asked for crime car, so
Speaker 5: the detectives rolled up along with a second car with
Speaker 5: other trainee detectives. And I've seen these people around, but
Speaker 5: when people become a detective or in the crime car,
Speaker 5: blue collars not to accept it that, well, it's a
Speaker 5: bad habit that detectives have got. They don't want to
Speaker 5: listen to their ground crew, which are their eyes and ears,
Speaker 5: which are of the frontline police.
Speaker 6: According to police records, detectives Tony Kirkman and Tom Wiederman
Speaker 6: arrived about seven pm.
Speaker 1: So in the ranking system, you're well and truly the
Speaker 1: foot soldier and they turn up as officers. And there's
Speaker 1: very much division there.
Speaker 5: Is there, I think, So, yeah, there's always been that
Speaker 5: division from years before. It's always been the same.
Speaker 1: So let me just get this right. I'm struggling to
Speaker 1: understand this. So there's three police officers on the scene,
Speaker 1: and you're treating this bedroom and the house by extension,
Speaker 1: but you're treating the bedroom where Amy's body is still
Speaker 1: sitting as a PFA.
Speaker 3: Officially, yes, the whole place, actually the whole shed's house,
Speaker 3: everything protected forensic area YEP. And by definition of that category,
Speaker 3: then a forensic team has to turn up. But somehow,
Speaker 3: somewhere in the ensuing two or three hours, that request
Speaker 3: gets overruled by somebody and the forensic team never turns up.
Speaker 1: How does that happen?
Speaker 5: Well, I think that when the crime car would arrive
Speaker 5: Normally they would call for forensics. We called for assistance
Speaker 5: with a crime car, so that, you know, they'd take
Speaker 5: it from there and we'd be the people just doing
Speaker 5: all the bagging and mopping up and taking statements if
Speaker 5: it's necessary. You know, we'd be doing all that.
Speaker 1: You're telling me. The detectives overruled what the three of
Speaker 1: you were thinking.
Speaker 5: Oh, definitely, definitely. When the detectives arrived, they didn't want
Speaker 5: to go in. Kirkman did all the talking. He said, no,
Speaker 5: we don't have to go in because he says, we've
Speaker 5: got photographs. Well, we'll just look at photographs. And I said, no, no,
Speaker 5: I know, you've got to go in. You can't just
Speaker 5: look at the photographs. And I was getting I was
Speaker 5: a little bit vocal because the truth is the truth,
Speaker 5: and I don't I don't like people Dutch shoving Dutch
Speaker 5: shoving jobs.
Speaker 1: Hang on, you and your colleagues had taken photographs.
Speaker 5: Ian took the photographs.
Speaker 1: Yes, Senior Constable Roberts do for photographs in the bedroom.
Speaker 5: Yes. On the police supplied camera. Everything has got a
Speaker 5: continuity of flows. So it has to be a police radio,
Speaker 5: a police phone, and a police camera.
Speaker 1: So the photographs were taken on the police camera. Yep,
Speaker 1: the detectives turn up. What's the first thing they say?
Speaker 5: They just said, well, what's going on? And we told
Speaker 5: them and he goes, oh, well we won't have to
Speaker 5: go in. Then I almost look at the photographs and
Speaker 5: it was a bit heated because I had a word
Speaker 5: and then Ian had a word as well with this
Speaker 5: Kirkman who was doing on talking. And then Tom Wiederman
Speaker 5: disappeared for a couple of minutes and came back and
Speaker 5: in his hand he dropped down the cover shoes. They're
Speaker 5: sort of forensic overshoe, right, So that meant that Weederman
Speaker 5: was saying, let's go inside.
Speaker 1: Well, what sort of detective turns up to a crime
Speaker 1: scene and doesn't want to physically look at the crime scene?
Speaker 5: While he's made his own admissions at the currentis Court
Speaker 5: that he was slack and he was also going on
Speaker 5: holidays that night, so he didn't want anything upsetting his leave.
Speaker 1: So, just coming back to that point, is it fair
Speaker 1: to say that these heated words you and your colleagues
Speaker 1: embarrassed the detectives into going inside and having a look
Speaker 1: seeing what you saw, Oh for sure. Yeah, And when
Speaker 1: they did and then came out of the house.
Speaker 5: Well about five minutes. They said, no, it's a suicide.
Speaker 1: They spent five minutes in that.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I think it's about five minutes. I didn't put
Speaker 5: the clock on it, but we were waiting outside and
Speaker 5: we weren't waiting that long.
Speaker 1: It's that all.
Speaker 5: Yeah, they might have been in their ten minutes, but
Speaker 5: it just seemed a very short time to me, not
Speaker 5: enough time to do a preliminary excavation in there to
Speaker 5: see what they can find, take more photos, look at
Speaker 5: spatter and stuff like that, look at the ammunition, I
Speaker 5: look at the gun, just see how Amy thought. So
Speaker 5: nights on the wardrobe and stuff like that. So, no,
Speaker 5: they didn't have enough time to do any of it.
Speaker 1: Well, we know from the inquest that they took hardly
Speaker 1: any notes. Between the two of them. There was less
Speaker 1: than a page.
Speaker 5: Yep.
Speaker 1: So it backs up what you're saying. When they came out,
Speaker 1: how did they say that?
Speaker 5: They said it's non suspicious like that, and Ian and
Speaker 5: I said again, you know no this, you know you're
Speaker 5: missing the point. There's the whole story is that it
Speaker 5: is suspicious. And I said, well, you've already dismissed it.
Speaker 5: Again and there's a car, a rocking hand car, taking
Speaker 5: two statements down the front driveway from Price and Simmons.
Speaker 5: You haven't read them yet, And their reply was, oh, yeah,
Speaker 5: well we'll read the statements and let you know. We'll
Speaker 5: ring the phone, and Pip had the phone and she
Speaker 5: advised about, I don't know, five or ten minutes later
Speaker 5: again now it's non suspicious. And then we declared it
Speaker 5: a non pair fait. So then it was open slab.
Speaker 5: You can go where you want, to do what you wanted,
Speaker 5: and click what you wanted and put it all in order,
Speaker 5: get an interim property receipt, ready to handle the goods
Speaker 5: over because you couldn't leave them there. So from then
Speaker 5: on we just sort of we're a little bit fizzed
Speaker 5: about it, but we just had our orders.
Speaker 1: So it was no longer forensically protected. It was open
Speaker 1: slather yep. Once they decided the hammer had come down,
Speaker 1: they said, no, it's non suspicious. Yep. While this is
Speaker 1: going on, while they're in that house, even for that
Speaker 1: short amount of time, where are David Simmons and Gareth Price.
Speaker 5: David Simmons and Gareth Price, we're giving a statement down
Speaker 5: at the front gate to the rocking Ham car.
Speaker 1: That was a police car from the Rockingham point.
Speaker 5: We were assisted. We needed a bit of help, and
Speaker 5: I said to the fellas earlier, I said to take
Speaker 5: a statement if you don't mind, from these two blogs,
Speaker 5: and keep them apart when you do it, and don't
Speaker 5: let anybody up the driveway. We don't want any more
Speaker 5: people up here. Shortly after that, we've still got Amy
Speaker 5: in the room. We've secured some firearms, put them in
Speaker 5: the back of our police car the lock door, and
Speaker 5: we were then joined by Price and Simmons.
Speaker 1: So after David Simmons and Gareth Price gave their statements individually,
Speaker 1: they were allowed to come up to the.
Speaker 5: House, allowed to come up to the area, but I
Speaker 5: wouldn't let them in the house.
Speaker 1: And how would you describe David simmons demeanor at that stage?
Speaker 5: Oh, I suppose he was a bit reserved. You know,
Speaker 5: I've known David Simmons for a little while. He was
Speaker 5: fairly reserved. And Gareth came up to get his car.
Speaker 5: They came up in Amy's commodore.
Speaker 1: Did you talk to Simmons at all?
Speaker 5: I had a word with him briefly. He made his
Speaker 5: way to the house and I said, boy, you can't
Speaker 5: go in there, mate. He said why, I said, because
Speaker 5: I said so, Because we hadn't shifted Amy. We don't
Speaker 5: know what she's got on her. So it was just
Speaker 5: a matter of keeping him out.
Speaker 1: Why was he wanting to go back into the house
Speaker 1: of that stage.
Speaker 5: He said the words I want to get my phone,
Speaker 5: and then Cantabell Dixon said there's a phone here. He said, no,
Speaker 5: that's not mine. Mine's pink and I said, no, mate,
Speaker 5: you can't go in the house. Definitely not. So he
Speaker 5: left the area with Gareth Price right, and then I
Speaker 5: said to Casper Dixon, I said, there's no big hair
Speaker 5: he guru or alive who owns a pink phone? That
Speaker 5: was my word, So you know, I was sort of
Speaker 5: that gets the point across straight away to pick that. Yeah,
Speaker 5: he does know a pink phone. And the pink phone
Speaker 5: was found a bit later on Tuckey in Amy's left sock,
Speaker 5: so it was Amy's fun.
Speaker 1: He was Amy's phone, so clearly he was trying to
Speaker 1: access Amy's fun.
Speaker 5: Yeah, for sure, why would you want that? I don't know,
Speaker 5: might might have had something on it that he wanted
Speaker 5: to see.
Speaker 1: So the detectives then went and what read the statements
Speaker 1: of both Price and Simmons while they were on the property.
Speaker 5: They down the driveway right down the front of the property.
Speaker 5: They read the statements, and about five minutes later it
Speaker 5: was declared and non PFA. They've read the statements. It's suicide.
Speaker 1: So they just read the statements. The detectives did not
Speaker 1: interview them formally. No, there was not even an attempt
Speaker 1: to take either of them back to a police station
Speaker 1: and separate them and just have a formal interview.
Speaker 5: No. Nothing.
Speaker 1: You were in the police force for some what three
Speaker 1: years after this event, yep, and no one has ever
Speaker 1: come to you like we're doing today, sitting down and
Speaker 1: asking you questions about your experience.
Speaker 5: I was approached by cold case to be interviewed. I
Speaker 5: was out of the police by then, so I had
Speaker 5: to go to Manda John's station and I spoke to
Speaker 5: the senior counciple in charge of the cold case.
Speaker 1: And did she ask you a whole list of questions
Speaker 1: and talk about your experience.
Speaker 5: No, she didn't ask me anything at all like that.
Speaker 5: All she wanted me to do was change my statement.
Speaker 2: Why.
Speaker 5: Well, I stood firm and I said my Statement's my statement.
Speaker 5: I said, I'm not changing anything. And this person dropped
Speaker 5: her insistence and said, why does your statement have a
Speaker 5: different font there? There and there? And I said, well,
Speaker 5: we use a different computer. You don't go to the
Speaker 5: same computer every time. And they'd written in extra things
Speaker 5: that I should have had should have said, well, they
Speaker 5: think I should have said, but it was all if
Speaker 5: it was a homicide. But it wasn't a homicide, so
Speaker 5: I didn't have to say a lot. I said enough,
Speaker 5: I've done enough statements to know what to do. So,
Speaker 5: you know, and you haven't got time to sit there.
Speaker 5: You haven't got all day or all shift ten hours
Speaker 5: to work on your file. You've got to get out
Speaker 5: in the road and protect the public and just you know,
Speaker 5: just be a police officer, mum, John. Police always had
Speaker 5: a backlog of work and there wasn't a lot of
Speaker 5: coppers there at the time.
Speaker 1: So when the police, sorry to laugh, but that almost cometic.
Speaker 1: When the police did talk to you about about the case,
Speaker 1: they're more worried about the font. Yes, the different fonts
Speaker 1: on your statement.
Speaker 5: And why I didn't put this in, didn't put that in?
Speaker 5: And I've got all these statements here if police want
Speaker 5: me to bring them forward, I'm only too happy to
Speaker 5: I've kept all the records.
Speaker 1: But they've never sat down with you like this, No,
Speaker 1: and talked about the events of that night.
Speaker 9: No.
Speaker 5: Never. And I'll just let you know now, if I
Speaker 5: am interviewed by police, I will need an interview friend,
Speaker 5: because I don't know what's going on. I haven't got
Speaker 5: a clue.
Speaker 1: You appeared at the inquest, Larry, yep, and you were
Speaker 1: represented partially by the police lawyer.
Speaker 5: Yep.
Speaker 1: What did the police lawyer say to you? Do they do?
Speaker 1: They want to tease out that this and find out
Speaker 1: what you knew?
Speaker 5: The police lawyer, I think their role is to make
Speaker 5: sure that the the cops give good evidence. And I
Speaker 5: looked after.
Speaker 1: They adequately represented, Yeah, for sure yep.
Speaker 5: And I went to Perth with Ian Roberts and we
Speaker 5: went to police headquarters and I dropped in and saw
Speaker 5: this solicitor right and we had an appointment to be there.
Speaker 5: And when it was my team to go into the
Speaker 5: solicitor's office, I gave her a barrage of unanswered questions
Speaker 5: all out of my head and she just sort of
Speaker 5: looked a bit bewildered. Why I was asking all these questions.
Speaker 5: It's like, look, I haven't been spoken to. I'm so frustrated.
Speaker 5: So that all went okay. About a month later it
Speaker 5: was the currentis court. So when I did give evidence,
Speaker 5: this same solicitor said to me, I'll put a scenario
Speaker 5: to you. I answered a few questions, and then it
Speaker 5: was put a scenario to you. I turned to your
Speaker 5: honor and I said, your honor, can I speak freely?
Speaker 5: And your honor says, please do so. I said, don't
Speaker 5: you give me any scenarios. You weren't there because I
Speaker 5: was protective of the fact that the solicitor already stated
Speaker 5: that she committed suicide. So I didn't want I didn't
Speaker 5: want any scenario. I didn't want anything. I just want
Speaker 5: the truth. And well, for whatever this solicitor said wouldn't
Speaker 5: have been conducive to the way I think.
Speaker 1: What were your impressions? What is your impression of the
Speaker 1: coronial finding?
Speaker 5: I didn't go to every hearing, but I did hear
Speaker 5: your honor say to Tom Wiederman, three Unifine police offers
Speaker 5: reckoned exactly the opposite.
Speaker 6: What Larry is referring to is the uniform officers were
Speaker 6: adamant they made it clear they didn't believe Amy's death
Speaker 6: was suicide, but the detectives gave the impression it wasn't
Speaker 6: express that firmly.
Speaker 10: Did it occur to you that that could be consistent
Speaker 10: with someone trying to keep a door shut with their feet.
Speaker 4: Yes, that is a possibility. But looking at when we
Speaker 4: went in and looking at the blood spatter, and again
Speaker 4: I'm not an expert, and that's something I regret that
Speaker 4: we didn't get certain experts out, But looking at the
Speaker 4: body where Detective Kirkman had sort of supervised me what
Speaker 4: he believed to happen, and I agreed that the shot
Speaker 4: would have been level because of the spatter. It made
Speaker 4: sense if she was sitting there when she got shot,
Speaker 4: So in our view, the body wasn't moved after death.
Speaker 4: Remembering that the barrel of the gun, and look, I'm
Speaker 4: not a gun person, Detective Kirkman is. I was led
Speaker 4: by his knowledge, which I know Kirkman. I've worked with
Speaker 4: him for a long time. I respect him. He's a
Speaker 4: good police officer. I have nothing but good to say
Speaker 4: about his investigating skills. There was blood on the barrel,
Speaker 4: which would indicate that the gun was reasonably close to
Speaker 4: the head as well, talked about would someone again fear
Speaker 4: as a factor, would someone cower in a corner when
Speaker 4: someone stands there with a gun? If someone shot from
Speaker 4: above her, the spatter would have been different, so the
Speaker 4: gun would have been in our view level.
Speaker 10: So the position of her body behind the door with
Speaker 10: her feet against it and no door handle, he didn't
Speaker 10: notice there was no door handle, not.
Speaker 4: That I recall at the moment. Sorry, the other things.
Speaker 4: We checked the body for injuries, you know, defensive injuries,
Speaker 4: we couldn't see any.
Speaker 6: The counsel assisting Sarah Tyler then asks these questions, Are you.
Speaker 11: Aware that the forensic pathologist undertook an examination and found
Speaker 11: bruising to Amy's right wrist?
Speaker 4: I was told afterwards, yes.
Speaker 11: Do you think, with the benefit of hindsight that it
Speaker 11: would have been beneficial to wait for the forensic pathologists
Speaker 11: to do a full examination before forming a view one
Speaker 11: way or the other?
Speaker 4: Benefit of hindsight? And if I what I know now,
Speaker 4: I would have done a lot of further investigation at
Speaker 4: the time, But we can't go back.
Speaker 11: I understand that when you exited the property having made
Speaker 11: the preliminary determination that the death was not suspicious. You
Speaker 11: spoke with the uniformed officers.
Speaker 4: Again, I think it was more detective sergeant Kirkman. But yes,
Speaker 4: I was part of that conversation.
Speaker 11: What's your recollection of that conversation.
Speaker 4: I couldn't give you words. It happened six and a
Speaker 4: half years.
Speaker 11: Ago, not words, just your general recollection of what was.
Speaker 4: He explained what it was, and I don't recall that
Speaker 4: some of the uniform disagreed. But again I couldn't say
Speaker 4: it didn't happen. I don't have any recollection of that conversation.
Speaker 11: You don't remember those officers saying we disagree.
Speaker 4: I don't remember anyone saying, hang on, we believe it
Speaker 4: was suspicious. Quite frankly, at the moment, if someone said,
Speaker 4: hang on, this is suspicious, we would reassess and say
Speaker 4: why and either rule it in or rule it out.
Speaker 11: Your perception is that if one of those officers had
Speaker 11: said to you, this is suspicious, you would have taken
Speaker 11: that on board and you would have reconsidered your position.
Speaker 4: Yes.
Speaker 6: Wiederman Is then asked about the statements from Simmons and Price,
Speaker 6: which they hadn't seen at the time of making that determination.
Speaker 11: We've heard evidence from from some of the uniformed officers
Speaker 11: that suggest that there was some reluctance to even view
Speaker 11: those statements. Does that sound accurate to you?
Speaker 4: We were always going to review statements.
Speaker 11: You never make a determination and ignore statements that were
Speaker 11: taken at the scene. No where did you review the statements.
Speaker 4: We went down to the front gate and we sat
Speaker 4: in the car. There were four of us. Kirkman read
Speaker 4: the statements out.
Speaker 11: To us, and what was your impression of those statements.
Speaker 4: Yeah, there were some inconsistencies, which is not necessarily bad.
Speaker 4: It means there's an independent thought process. I don't recollect
Speaker 4: anything raising any flags in the statements.
Speaker 6: Despite the evidence being different from what he and Detective
Speaker 6: Kirkman believed on the night they investigated. Detective Weedeman doesn't
Speaker 6: believe they got it wrong.
Speaker 11: You stand by the determination that it was a suicide.
Speaker 4: I still believe it was a suicide. Now having said that,
Speaker 4: in hindsight, we would have done or I would have done.
Speaker 4: I can't speak for Kirkman. I would have done further inquiries.
Speaker 6: The deputy coroner makes this point.
Speaker 10: As a coroner for the last seven years, who does
Speaker 10: one hundred of sudden deaths, I can literally only think
Speaker 10: of one where a female committed suicide with a firearm.
Speaker 10: I find it surprising because we've had three uniformed officers
Speaker 10: who to this day have indicated they felt quite strongly
Speaker 10: that it was suspicious, and they feel like they conveyed
Speaker 10: that information effectively to the detectives, that it wasn't factored
Speaker 10: into the decision making. But your evidence is that you
Speaker 10: don't recall those concerns being raised, which is obviously very unusual.
Speaker 10: I have to weigh up the evidence of both, and
Speaker 10: it's quite clear to me that they all continued to
Speaker 10: feel strongly about this case ever since, and they all
Speaker 10: still feel that way.
Speaker 4: I know Kirkman might inform the uniforms at the time
Speaker 4: of why it wasn't suspicious. Again, I wasn't in that conversation,
Speaker 4: so I don't know if there was something raised there.
Speaker 6: Moving on to his partner, Detective Sergeant Kirkman, Kirkman acknowledges
Speaker 6: he was taking leave for seven weeks. The following day,
Speaker 6: he tells the inquest he remembers the missing door handle,
Speaker 6: but didn't think it was significant, and like Detective Weedaman,
Speaker 6: Detective Sergeant Kirkman still thinks Amy's death was suicide.
Speaker 12: I can't imagine somebody sitting there and allowing somebody to
Speaker 12: place it directly onto her head and pull the trigger
Speaker 12: and her not move or try to prevent it. It's
Speaker 12: just not logical.
Speaker 6: However, he admits he read it wrong and shouldn't have
Speaker 6: called off forensics.
Speaker 11: I appreciate your own experienced detective and your experience with
Speaker 11: far arm matters generally. Do you have any qualifications in
Speaker 11: respect of blood spatter?
Speaker 12: I'm not a blood spatter expert.
Speaker 11: No, we are going to hear from a blood spatter
Speaker 11: expert in due course. My understanding is that their assessment
Speaker 11: of the blood spatter is that it wasn't consistent with
Speaker 11: a low to high trajectory. Do you think, with the
Speaker 11: benefit of hindsight, that it perhaps would have been beneficial
Speaker 11: to call an expert to make that determination?
Speaker 12: One hundred percent yes.
Speaker 11: Do you know why you didn't do that?
Speaker 12: Arrogance over confidence, feeling like I was the person that
Speaker 12: was responsible, and I was the one that had to
Speaker 12: make the decision, and I made what I considered to
Speaker 12: be the wrong decision.
Speaker 6: He's then asked about his argument with the uniform officers.
Speaker 13: Do you recall that conversation the conversation was I'd explain
Speaker 13: to them what we'd seen and that it was my
Speaker 13: determination that it was suicide. How did the officers respond
Speaker 13: to that they disagreed? Yes, but like I said, it
Speaker 13: was my decision.
Speaker 11: Did they disagree forcefully? It had been described in evidence
Speaker 11: as a heated discussion.
Speaker 12: Yes, I've had many heated discussions. I'm quite abrasive. I
Speaker 12: can be rude, I can be blunt, but that was
Speaker 12: not a heated discussion.
Speaker 11: Are you the type of detective given that you say
Speaker 11: you can be abrasive and a bit rude, that is
Speaker 11: unlikely to take the point of another officer.
Speaker 12: I take other people's opinions, but like I said, at
Speaker 12: the end of the day, the decision, as wrong as
Speaker 12: it was, was mine and I made it.
Speaker 10: So at the time, was it pretty clear to you
Speaker 10: that they didn't think you were right?
Speaker 12: They disagreed at the beginning, but like I said, there
Speaker 12: was no you know, VM an argument or raised voice
Speaker 12: or even forceful conversation. But I don't think they agreed
Speaker 12: with me.
Speaker 10: So it was clear with you that they didn't agree
Speaker 10: with you at the time.
Speaker 6: That's correct, man, It was clear at the inquest the
Speaker 6: coroner had a hard time understanding any justification in the
Speaker 6: way detectives handled Amy's case, and.
Speaker 1: Yet it's an open finding.
Speaker 5: Well, it is an open finding now, yes.
Speaker 1: Which I still leave suicide on the table Barry.
Speaker 5: Yes, well that's right. Yeah, that open finding is probably
Speaker 5: the second best result we needed because it won't be closed.
Speaker 5: It won't ever be closed, you know, and police can
Speaker 5: still have a ping at it later on.
Speaker 1: Ten years on. Is your view that Amy did not
Speaker 1: shoot herself still as strong?
Speaker 5: Ah? Yes, I live with it. I've had high ranking
Speaker 5: police officers say to me at least a dozen she
Speaker 5: didn't cheat herself. And of all my mates at the
Speaker 5: Jarediae gun club, and a good friend of mine who
Speaker 5: who runs a Jaredile gun club and I go to
Speaker 5: him for support with fire ups, and they all said
Speaker 5: she didn't shut herself. No way. So I'm hearing it
Speaker 5: from everybody that she didn't shoot herself. It's and that
Speaker 5: makes me firm in what I think.
Speaker 1: You haven't changed.
Speaker 5: I'm not going to change.
Speaker 1: Either, notwithstanding that the forensics were completely mucked up on
Speaker 1: the night and that has destroyed a whole stack of
Speaker 1: potential evidence. Do you think police have tried hard enough
Speaker 1: to find new evidence.
Speaker 5: Well, I've offered a reward. So there's a lot of
Speaker 5: people that need closure on this, including myself, Gareth Simmons,
Speaker 5: and the families other police officers. So if someone comes
Speaker 5: forward with that little nugget of information, doesn't matter how
Speaker 5: trivial it seems, that little nuggative information may may enrich
Speaker 5: their wallet and solve the problem.
Speaker 1: How many people do you think involved in this? No
Speaker 1: more than they're saying.
Speaker 5: Oh, probably probably three or four. Definitely three or four.
Speaker 1: If you had to single out the clues, if I
Speaker 1: can put it that way, Larry, if you had to
Speaker 1: single out the clues in this that to you on
Speaker 1: the day as a police officer stood out as being
Speaker 1: the strongest indicators that this wasn't a suicide. What would
Speaker 1: they be.
Speaker 5: Robert Simons told me that they were firing the gun
Speaker 5: all afternoon, the four ten. And I can back this
Speaker 5: up by the fact that there was a skeep tucker
Speaker 5: in the shed and there was broken skeets all down
Speaker 5: the road. Clay pigeons, they called them, right, So they
Speaker 5: layered them up, flick it out and then shoot it
Speaker 5: with the four to ten. They've been using the four
Speaker 5: ten all afternoon. I'd been cutting figh what I believe
Speaker 5: in the morning. So forensics say there was nothing on
Speaker 5: their clothes that has to be considered. The police are
Speaker 5: saying that forensics didn't pick up any evidence of anything on.
Speaker 1: Their clothes, no gunshot residue.
Speaker 5: No gunshot residue, no blood, nothing but three drops of
Speaker 5: blood were found on the shoes and it was animal blood, right,
Speaker 5: So if you dig a little bit deeper, David Simmons
Speaker 5: had time to change his clothes.
Speaker 1: So between the time of the shooting and the time
Speaker 1: that CCTV vision at the roadhouse happens, there is time,
Speaker 1: you think for a clothing change.
Speaker 5: Oh, it takes me about a minute and a half
Speaker 5: to change, you know. And I've got standard tracksuit pants
Speaker 5: and tops that I've got five pairs of each sort
Speaker 5: of thing, so i could look the same, but I've
Speaker 5: got clean clothes.
Speaker 6: On clarify here. The clothes tested were those provided by
Speaker 6: Simmons and Price, which they say they were wearing on
Speaker 6: the night. One of the witnesses, Joshua Brydon, says Simmons
Speaker 6: did change his clothes from a blue singlet and blue jeans,
Speaker 6: but he said it happened before Amy died, and it
Speaker 6: was because he'd been chopping wood in the rain. We'll
Speaker 6: also discuss this in more detail in a later episode
Speaker 6: of this podcast.
Speaker 1: Amy's eldest daughter said in her interview this can't be
Speaker 1: admitted to court because she's too young. But she says
Speaker 1: in the interview that she sees one of the men
Speaker 1: dragging a wheellybin down to the road.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I'm of the belief. Now I didn't see a
Speaker 5: wheely bin down the road anywhere. I believe that there
Speaker 5: was clothing in the wheely bin because it stands to reason, say,
Speaker 5: someone's just been killed, whether suicide or homicide, why would
Speaker 5: you bother towing a weely bin down the road. That's
Speaker 5: not your priority. That's not his priority anyway, because it's
Speaker 5: not Price's job to do that.
Speaker 1: Why would you toe a weeely bin? Then it's not
Speaker 1: exactly midnight as a priority, is it.
Speaker 5: No? But the thing is what was in the bin.
Speaker 5: That's the question. What was in the bin? Now, this
Speaker 5: clothes that they wore didn't have anything on them. It
Speaker 5: was a clothing that Simmons had to present to forensics.
Speaker 5: There should have been fire wood, chips, on them, and
Speaker 5: there are also should have been gun.
Speaker 1: Residue from shooting the gun all after night.
Speaker 5: From shooting the gun all afternoon. My theory is it's
Speaker 5: a break back four ten shotgun. When you break it,
Speaker 5: both empty cartridges fire out back at you and then
Speaker 5: they hit you. They tip upside down. You would have
Speaker 5: gun residue on your pants, around your belt line, your
Speaker 5: chest because most people hold it to the side and
Speaker 5: do it. But that's how you get this residue on
Speaker 5: you from a breakback.
Speaker 1: Robert Simmons role in going into that bedroom, into that
Speaker 1: crime scene and unloading that weapon, the father of David Simmons.
Speaker 1: Why would you do that, Larry?
Speaker 5: I don't really know how Robert Simmons thinks, but the
Speaker 5: police detectives didn't speak to Robert that night. Robert told
Speaker 5: me when we dropped the interim propery receipt off, because
Speaker 5: we had a crossbow and five firearms and a bag
Speaker 5: full of ammunition, and we took it up. We took
Speaker 5: the property receipt up, which is which you have to
Speaker 5: do if you're seizing something. And he told me at
Speaker 5: that time that they'd be far in the four ten
Speaker 5: all afternoon, and he unloaded the firearm and put the
Speaker 5: spent cart and the live cartridge on the bedside table.
Speaker 1: I just don't understand why you do that. Why would
Speaker 1: you touch the gun at all?
Speaker 5: I don't know, But why would you say my son's
Speaker 5: done it too? He said that in one.
Speaker 1: Of his he said that in his call to the operator.
Speaker 5: Well would you say that? Well? What else can I say?
Speaker 1: Since the shooting? Have you had any contact with David Simmons?
Speaker 5: Yes? I have. About a year later, Ian and I
Speaker 5: were going down Salist Highway and we got to Keysbrook
Speaker 5: because that's really the limit of our area, and we
Speaker 5: were stopped by a Pinjarra police car and that bloke
Speaker 5: had to talk to us and he said, if you
Speaker 5: ever arrest a bloke called David Simmons, take two cars
Speaker 5: with you because he's a handful.
Speaker 1: Of thanks mate, and this is another policeman telling you it. Yep.
Speaker 5: And I said, what's what's he done? He said, I'm
Speaker 5: driving under the influence, so he's got done for that
Speaker 5: as well. And after that, about three years two or
Speaker 5: three years later, my partner and I, who was a
Speaker 5: proby constable, went to a job at the tavern, of
Speaker 5: which that's where Simmons met Amy. She worked at the tavern.
Speaker 5: We go to the tavern, that's about it's probably about
Speaker 5: eight o'clock at night. We're on afternoon shift. But this
Speaker 5: is a few years after the show, a few years later,
Speaker 5: and I went into the hotel. My partner was a provy,
Speaker 5: so she was very green. She I don't know if
Speaker 5: she come in or not, but I've got a duty
Speaker 5: of care to look after it. But at this time,
Speaker 5: soon as I saw it was Simmons, I just had
Speaker 5: to focus on him and I said, come on, David
Speaker 5: outside because he's been kicking the toilet door and making
Speaker 5: a kerfuffle.
Speaker 1: He was the subject of the call.
Speaker 5: Was he David Simmons was the subject?
Speaker 8: Yep?
Speaker 5: He was a Blaker's disturbing everybody. And we went outside
Speaker 5: and I said, we know each other. Let's just get
Speaker 5: this sorted. And he goes, yeah, you took my kids
Speaker 5: off me, and you took all my guns off me.
Speaker 5: Nothing about Amy, and he is pretty full on and
Speaker 5: he went for my taser. So I pressed my PRESSL
Speaker 5: switch and all the time this is going on, the
Speaker 5: PRESSL switches on your radio and an alerts VICI that
Speaker 5: you need assistance, and I have a duty of care
Speaker 5: to accounstable. The LA was with and I'm trying to
Speaker 5: fend him off. And I looked Dave, and she's hiding
Speaker 5: behind the passenger seat passenger side front door, looking at me.
Speaker 1: Were you armed?
Speaker 5: I was armed with a taser and a firearm and
Speaker 5: a baton.
Speaker 1: So was she?
Speaker 5: That's right confronting? Yeah, oh yeah, because within five minutes
Speaker 5: a armada car roll up and two officers got out.
Speaker 5: One was a fairly tall junior officer with all the
Speaker 5: he had all the power about him, and the other
Speaker 5: one was a female sergeant. And Simmons said to me,
Speaker 5: you're dead. I'm going to kill you, kill your family
Speaker 5: and all this shit, and now do you like it
Speaker 5: if your partner gets killed and all this sort of shit,
Speaker 5: You're dead sort of thing. Has kept saying that, and
Speaker 5: then this young bloke, this young copper, jumps out of
Speaker 5: the passenger seat and throws him on the bonnet. And
Speaker 5: then the other officer come around. Then they handcuffed him right,
Speaker 5: but they did pull him off me, and.
Speaker 1: So he got in a few punches to you, did he?
Speaker 5: Oh? I offended him off. I wasn't worried about him
Speaker 5: too much. But the funny thing is he turned to
Speaker 5: the officer who threw him on the bonnet, Ah, you're dead.
Speaker 5: You're as good as dead. So they took him to
Speaker 5: arm at Our police station. I had to go there
Speaker 5: with my partner and she did the paperwork, hand him
Speaker 5: over sort of thing, give a statement of who's who
Speaker 5: and who's what. I sat in the car because it'd
Speaker 5: be best if I don't go into the lockup. And
Speaker 5: he was charged. He was remanded that night, and he
Speaker 5: was in charge and got nine months for assaulting me,
Speaker 5: got nine months in jail, yep, for sulting public officer.
Speaker 1: And now he's up on another charge exactly the same.
Speaker 5: I'm really not up with what he's up with. As
Speaker 5: I said earlier, to keep an open mind, i haven't
Speaker 5: listened to anybody's stories. I've just read my own notes,
Speaker 5: and I just want to be clearing the head without
Speaker 5: anybody giving me advice or telling me what's going on.
Speaker 1: Larry, this is a value judgment, But the detectives on
Speaker 1: the night, I think it's been pretty well proven during
Speaker 1: the inquest. That's the arrogance and the sloppy detective work,
Speaker 1: the lack of judgment. All of that combined to really
Speaker 1: damage this case. But that's one thing. Why do you
Speaker 1: think for so many years the police have seemingly been
Speaker 1: so intent on maintaining this line about a suicide. It's
Speaker 1: almost like they're locked on and they won't consider anything else.
Speaker 5: As I said earlier, a lot of police have spoken
Speaker 5: to me and they are convinced it's not a suicide.
Speaker 5: I don't think the right people have handled the job.
Speaker 1: It's the state government that's come up with the reward
Speaker 1: money and police have gone into lockstep with that. And
Speaker 1: this case has been included as a bundle with a
Speaker 1: whole stack of other cases. So it's almost an accident,
Speaker 1: if I can put it that way, that it's turned
Speaker 1: out to be now a homicide. Appealing for information? Yeah,
Speaker 1: do you know if things are different for the two
Speaker 1: other constables involved because they're still in the police force,
Speaker 1: you're retired. Have they had anybody come to them and
Speaker 1: ask them questions that you haven't been asked?
Speaker 5: I don't know. I have lost contact with them all.
Speaker 5: I've lost contact with every police officer ever known. I
Speaker 5: had some really good friends, but I don't see anybody now.
Speaker 1: Why is that?
Speaker 5: I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I
Speaker 5: sort of They used to come up my driveway when
Speaker 5: I was at home. You know, they're on shift and
Speaker 5: yan and then they'd burn off. But you know, it's
Speaker 5: sort of people change venues. I suppose as well.
Speaker 1: You still think there are things that could be done, Oh.
Speaker 5: For sure, Yeah, for sure, yep. But now it's got
Speaker 5: it's got beyond all the all the cops that are
Speaker 5: spoken to me. It's got technical. But I've worked it out,
Speaker 5: so why haven't they? I'm no hero, mate, but it's
Speaker 5: it's obvious, you know, sort of you're going to go
Speaker 5: with it.
Speaker 1: You want to clear your conscience, too, don't you.
Speaker 5: I want to clear my mind. My conscience is good.
Speaker 5: I've done the right thing, and I just want to
Speaker 5: have clarity, finalize this issue and move.
Speaker 1: On and keep the promise you made to Amy.
Speaker 5: That's dead, right, Yep? I will do that whatever whatever,
Speaker 5: I will not.
Speaker 1: Stop from everything you saw, everything you witnessed, and the
Speaker 1: people you've spoken to then and after, what's your best
Speaker 1: guess at what really happened? What do you think is
Speaker 1: the real truth about Amy?
Speaker 5: Gareth said to me one day, I wouldn't get between
Speaker 5: Simmons and his partner. So that meant to me straight
Speaker 5: away he's a bit shy, which i've Simmons having a guardian.
Speaker 5: I suggest that she didn't commit suicide. The only ways
Speaker 5: can now be proven, I think, is if they have
Speaker 5: some kind of inquiry and put all these police on
Speaker 5: notice that they'll have to go to the inquiry and
Speaker 5: answer the questions.
Speaker 1: So you want a proper formal judicial inquiry, Yeah.
Speaker 5: For sure, And that way I might be spoken to
Speaker 5: as well, I hope. So. But there's another little thing
Speaker 5: that's stuck in my mind is I had a great
Speaker 5: deal of arrests at Mono. John warrants, serve the summonses,
Speaker 5: the VROs and I've arrested fair few people prior to
Speaker 5: the new police station. And even now with the new
Speaker 5: police station, you're reluctant to take a person back there
Speaker 5: and arrested person unless there's other people in the office,
Speaker 5: because if you've got no one in the office, you
Speaker 5: can't sort of leave this person on their own in
Speaker 5: the lockup. You've got to monitor them, or you've got
Speaker 5: to get someone else to monitor them. The on the screen.
Speaker 5: So I always made it a decision to go to Armadale,
Speaker 5: and I've took most of my arrests to Armadah, and
Speaker 5: I actually went there that frequently. The OIC gave me
Speaker 5: a swipe card to get in through the gate, you know,
Speaker 5: because it might be afternoon shift, late or something like that.
Speaker 5: I had an arrest and I went to Armadale. My
Speaker 5: partner and I went into the lockup and they had
Speaker 5: a police auxiliary officer there doing the entry into custody.
Speaker 5: So I just said to my part I'm going to
Speaker 5: buck upstairs and notify the sergeant that we've got an arrest.
Speaker 5: So I go up and you know, I just wandered
Speaker 5: into the sergeant's office, Gale's serge, and it was Tom Wiederman.
Speaker 5: He looked up at me, and it was within a
Speaker 5: half a second said it was a bit strange that night,
Speaker 5: wasn't it. It's still on his mind. Three or four
Speaker 5: years later.
Speaker 6: In Western Australia, State Corners Court figures reveal there were
Speaker 6: one hundred and seventeen deaths involving firearms between twenty fourteen
Speaker 6: and twenty twenty, of which ninety eight were suicides. Only
Speaker 6: three of those were female. WA Police procedure for firearm
Speaker 6: fatalities include securing the scene, examining and assessing it for
Speaker 6: possible suspicious circumstances or other party involvement, and if criminality suspected,
Speaker 6: contacting the homicide squad. Identify and photograph blood spatter and
Speaker 6: see if it's consistent with the scene. Consider whether the
Speaker 6: deceased could have reached the trigger. Verify scene factors, positioning
Speaker 6: of the body and weapon location, whether it's consistent with
Speaker 6: the method of death that's occurred. If further advice or
Speaker 6: specialist assistance is required, contact forensic if necessary, Bag the
Speaker 6: deceased hands in paper bags to protect gunshot residue search
Speaker 6: for a suicide Note.
Speaker 1: This was in twenty twenty one following Amy's shooting. There
Speaker 1: wasn't much point in police going back because Robert Simmons
Speaker 1: had the cleaners in the very next day after detectives
Speaker 1: called off forensics, deciding a protected forensic area was no
Speaker 1: longer necessary as the case was closed, any evidence was gone.
Speaker 1: After the inquest into Amy's death, WA Police announced they
Speaker 1: had put procedures in place so that if lower ranked
Speaker 1: police officers harbored concerns about the conduct of their superiors
Speaker 1: in similar situations, there was now a number they could call. Undoubtedly,
Speaker 1: anyone who used that number wouldn't be very popular, and
Speaker 1: it's still not mandatory for forensics to automatically be called
Speaker 1: in the event of an unexpected sudden death. While the
Speaker 1: scene may have been lost, Amy Wensley's body was, however,
Speaker 1: subjected to further examination. This included chemical analysis by Forensic
Speaker 1: Science Laboratory Senior Chemist and Research Officer, doctor Cary Pitts,
Speaker 1: who reported the following.
Speaker 9: One, no gunshot residue particles were detected on the sample
Speaker 9: elected from the right thumb of Amy Lee Wensley. Two
Speaker 9: twenty two particles consistent with gunshot residue were detected on
Speaker 9: the sample collected from the left thumb of Ami Lee Wensley.
Speaker 1: While they were at the crime scene, Detectives Kirkman and
Speaker 1: Wiederman determined Amy could have held and fired the gun
Speaker 1: with her left hand, either with or without the assistance
Speaker 1: of her right hand. There was a suggestion she could
Speaker 1: have balanced the butt of the shotgun on the bed.
Speaker 1: You'll remember, Amy was a very petite young woman, just
Speaker 1: one hundred and sixty five centimeters tall and weighing just
Speaker 1: fifty kilotes. Wa Police's own tests to the possibility of
Speaker 1: her having shot herself were inconclusive. University of Western Australia
Speaker 1: Professor of up hyde Anatomy and Biomechanics, Timothy Ackland, is
Speaker 1: one of two biomechanical experts called on for independent analysis
Speaker 1: of Amy's death, specifically whether suicide was possible. Professor Ackland
Speaker 1: made findings on a series of questions, including one whether
Speaker 1: Amy could have supported this shotgun in a near horizontal
Speaker 1: orientation on her right side, with the barrel held to
Speaker 1: her temple, using her left hand or with the support
Speaker 1: of her right hand.
Speaker 7: In my report to the Coroner dated fourteenth of August
Speaker 7: twenty eighteen, I concluded notwithstanding the deceased having sufficient strength
Speaker 7: to support the shotgun, this does not mean she would
Speaker 7: have had the ability to support, aim, and then push
Speaker 7: the trigger with her left hand. This is a very
Speaker 7: awkward posture to have adopted, especially when the task could
Speaker 7: have more easily been accomplished by the use of the
Speaker 7: right hand. I am not convinced that a person would
Speaker 7: attempt such an action with just a left hand, especially
Speaker 7: when the right hand could easily have been employed to
Speaker 7: support the gun or pull the trigger. Our attempt to
Speaker 7: recreate a scenario demonstrated clearly to me that such an
Speaker 7: action proposed by the detectives who attended the scene is
Speaker 7: not consistent with the evidence.
Speaker 1: Two, The probability that after a self inflicted gunshot, the
Speaker 1: firearm could possibly have fallen where Gareth Price said he
Speaker 1: found it, being that the firearm was in Amy's lap
Speaker 1: with the barrel pointed up toward her head, while the
Speaker 1: gun's butt was on the floor, is as follows.
Speaker 7: Mister Price as the first person who have entered the
Speaker 7: bedroom after mister d. Simmons has stated the location of
Speaker 7: the gun truthfully, then my conclusion remains that the gun
Speaker 7: was placed there by a person other than the deceased.
Speaker 1: And three, Finally, whether it's possible Amy shot herself.
Speaker 7: My opinion expressed in my report to the coroner was
Speaker 7: the deceased did not shoot herself. Nothing resulting from these
Speaker 7: simulations and reconstructions has changed my view in this respect.
Speaker 7: I therefore restate my opinions as follows. The evidence is
Speaker 7: not consistent with the assertion of detectives who first attended
Speaker 7: the scene that the deceased had pulled the trigger herself
Speaker 7: using her left hand by pressing the butt of the
Speaker 7: gun against the bed and leaning over with her left arm.
Speaker 7: The evidence is also not consistent with the possible scenario
Speaker 7: that the deceased had held the shotgun horizontally on her
Speaker 7: right side and pushed the trigger using her left hand.
Speaker 7: The evidence is highly consistent with the scenario that the
Speaker 7: deceased was shot by another person who had held the
Speaker 7: shot gun near horizontally on her right side with the
Speaker 7: barrel closed to her right temper.
Speaker 1: So he then makes this determination.
Speaker 7: Following these simulations, I am now in the position to
Speaker 7: add the evidence is also not consistent with the possible
Speaker 7: scenario that the deceased had held the gun horizontally on
Speaker 7: her right side and pushed the trigger using her right hand.
Speaker 1: Similarly, on the thirteenth of April twenty twenty, the other
Speaker 1: independent expert engineer, Thomas J. Gibson, makes these following observations.
Speaker 14: Based on the available evidence, Miss Wensley may have held
Speaker 14: the shotgun in two hands, left hand at the muzzle
Speaker 14: and right hand at the trigger, and discharge the gun herself. However,
Speaker 14: this scenario fails to adequately explain two features of the scene.
Speaker 14: The position of the right hand of miss Wensley under
Speaker 14: her right thigh and the position of the shotgun after
Speaker 14: the shooting as reported by witnesses. Therefore, it is unlikely
Speaker 14: the gun shot was self in flat by Miss Wensley.
Speaker 14: There is no evidence to suggest that the gunshot was accidental.
Speaker 14: The available evidence also allows an alternative scenario for the shooting.
Speaker 14: Miss Wensley, when seated upright behind the door to the bedroom,
Speaker 14: may have had a muzzle of the shotgun placed against
Speaker 14: her right temple and been shot by another person. The
Speaker 14: gunshot residue on Miss Wensley's left hand in this case,
Speaker 14: resulting from attempting to ward off the shotgun.
Speaker 1: As well as being a chartered professional engineer with more
Speaker 1: than thirty years experience in the area of biomechanics of impact,
Speaker 1: injury causation and mitigation, Doctor Gibson has expertise in the
Speaker 1: areas of accident reconstruction, vehicle design, biomechanics, and injury causation.
Speaker 1: This is what the coroner said in her findings.
Speaker 10: I have some reservations about accepting Professor Ackland and doctor
Speaker 10: Gibson's opinion that the biomechanical evidence is highly consistent with
Speaker 10: the scenario that Amy was shot by another person and
Speaker 10: taking that as compelling evidence that another person was involved
Speaker 10: in Amy's death, given the many limitations that were inherent
Speaker 10: in the experiment. In saying that, I make no criticism
Speaker 10: of Professor Ackland, as he was placed in a difficult
Speaker 10: position given there were so many unknowns. I accept he
Speaker 10: did his best as a scientist to eliminate those factors,
Speaker 10: but in my view, the weight to be given to
Speaker 10: the conclusions must be reduced as a result. However, what
Speaker 10: Professor Ackland and doctor Gibson's evidence does do is add
Speaker 10: to the other evidence suggesting Amy did not commit suicide
Speaker 10: sufficiently to create doubt about the police conclusion that the
Speaker 10: evidence that Amy died by suicide is compelling.
Speaker 1: Hello, next week a family reunion. It's just so much,
Speaker 1: and we speak to Amy's daughters.
Speaker 2: We shouldn't have come to the point where we didn't
Speaker 2: know what happened.
Speaker 1: We should have just known on the.
Speaker 2: Day solation You see soda Rea, then.
Speaker 5: Until me.
Speaker 1: Until If you knew Amy and have information, any information
Speaker 1: about her death, we'd love to hear from you. Just
Speaker 1: email us at the Truth about Amy at seven dot
Speaker 1: com dot AU. That's s E V E N. The
Speaker 1: Truth about Amy at seven dot com dot au or
Speaker 1: visit our website sevenews dot com dot au forward slash
Speaker 1: the Truth about Amy. You can also send us an
Speaker 1: anonymous tip at www dot the Truth about Amy dot com.
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Speaker 1: Presenter and executive producer Alison Sandy, Presenter and investigative journalist
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