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 bags
Speaker 1: 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 1: Panic.
Speaker 3: Amy is dead, Sir aim his dead?
Speaker 4: Eight confusion about five minutes, say sit not to suicide.
Speaker 5: One hundred percent.
Speaker 3: This is emergency.
Speaker 1: What do you think is really the honest truth about Amy?
Speaker 2: The Truth About Amy?
Speaker 6: Episode one O.
Speaker 1: Amy Wensley and her daughters, six year old Maya and
Speaker 1: Tay who's almost four, lived in Serpentine, Western Australia. It's
Speaker 1: a small town about fifty five kilometers southeast of Perth.
Speaker 1: They were in a small fibro house with Amy's partner,
Speaker 1: David Simmons, situated on acreage owned by his father Robert.
Speaker 1: In the late afternoon of Thursday, June twenty six, Amy's
Speaker 1: girls were seated in the back of a running car
Speaker 1: on that rural property where they lived. Their bags were
Speaker 1: packed with clothes and toys, waiting for their mum to return.
Speaker 1: After she'd headed back inside the house for a few
Speaker 1: of her own belongings, including makeup and her passport. Tay
Speaker 1: starts singing Twinkle Twinkle, Little Star, Naya Watchers Simmons go
Speaker 1: back into the house. Neither girls will ever see their
Speaker 1: mum again.
Speaker 2: Who picked up from school?
Speaker 6: My mother?
Speaker 2: And what did she do when she used to pick
Speaker 2: you up? When she saw you?
Speaker 7: She would.
Speaker 5: Hug me and I would run up to her. My
Speaker 5: arms would be wide open so I could cuddle her,
Speaker 5: and her arms would be wide open so she could
Speaker 5: cuddle me.
Speaker 2: All right, So I'm just wondering if there's anything specially
Speaker 2: you want to tell me about your mum.
Speaker 5: Yes, what she promised, and she said she'll never break
Speaker 5: a promise, that she'd take us to the movies like
Speaker 5: she never did when just before she passed away.
Speaker 2: What was Mum's favorite color?
Speaker 6: Pink?
Speaker 5: My favorite color too? Was mum up in heaven?
Speaker 6: This is Tay a couple of years after Amy's death.
Speaker 5: Yes, I loved her more than anybody.
Speaker 6: Tay didn't grow up with either parent, having been estranged
Speaker 6: from her father, David Simmons, for most of her life.
Speaker 6: As the years were by, she gets upset at how
Speaker 6: the memories of her mum fade. It's now been ten
Speaker 6: years since Amy died. The twenty four year old's crumpled
Speaker 6: body found slumped in a tiny corner of the bedroom
Speaker 6: she shared with Simmons, her skull shattered after the firing
Speaker 6: of a double barrel shotgun at close range. Strangely, the
Speaker 6: doorknob is missing on the inside. I'm Allison Sandy. Some
Speaker 6: of you will know me from other podcasts such as
Speaker 6: The Lady Vanishes and Shot in the Dark, which is
Speaker 6: how I came to learn about the story of Amy Wensley.
Speaker 6: For those of you who have heard that one, you'll
Speaker 6: notice some striking similarities between Gwen Grover and Amy. Both
Speaker 6: were of low socioeconomic working class backgrounds and victims of
Speaker 6: domestic violence. Those tasked to investigate their deaths made quick
Speaker 6: judgments of suicide and failed to follow proper procedure. But
Speaker 6: probably worst of all, the agencies they work for seem
Speaker 6: more interested in supporting and justifying bad behavior than owning
Speaker 6: up and learning from their failures. By this, I mean
Speaker 6: they cherry picked evidence supporting their original decision and ignored
Speaker 6: that which didn't. This alone is incredible to me because
Speaker 6: the purpose of police is to protect and serve, uphold
Speaker 6: the law, and administer it fairly. I knew to tell
Speaker 6: this story I needed someone on the ground in wa
Speaker 6: A seasoned, no nonsense, tough talking investigative journalist, an expert
Speaker 6: in interviews who only ask the hard questions, but isn't
Speaker 6: afraid to push for answers, the truthful answers. Someone who
Speaker 6: has a lot of experience, isn't daunted by obstacles, and
Speaker 6: doesn't care if he ruffles some feathers, particularly of people
Speaker 6: in power. Many of you who know Liam Bartlett will
Speaker 6: know he embodies all of these well qualities.
Speaker 1: Yes, thanks, Al, I think it's true. I've been in
Speaker 1: this journalism game for a long time now, coming up
Speaker 1: to almost four decades. Let's call it thirty odd years
Speaker 1: for the sake of not sounding too much like a dinosaur.
Speaker 1: But in all that time, and really, one of the
Speaker 1: reasons I chose to be a journalist in the first
Speaker 1: place is that I am a believer in holding people
Speaker 1: to account when they've done the wrong thing to other people,
Speaker 1: whether it be politicians, or police, or shire counselors or
Speaker 1: health workers, or bosses or bureaucrats or con menal criminals.
Speaker 1: I think justice is always a concept worth fighting for,
Speaker 1: and to find justice, real justice, you must get to
Speaker 1: the truth without the truth, Separating fact from fiction obviously
Speaker 1: is impossible. And even though journalism has changed in many
Speaker 1: ways over those thirty odd years, one thing that remains
Speaker 1: constant to me is that the truth still matters, and
Speaker 1: that's why we want to find the truth about Amy.
Speaker 1: It's crucial for her family and loved ones left behind.
Speaker 1: They deserve the truth. That's the least they deserve, and
Speaker 1: it's crucial for justicerely come across a case like this
Speaker 1: where authorities have been so determined to stick to their narrative,
Speaker 1: to stick to their version of the story, despite overwhelming
Speaker 1: evidence to the contrary. Even a decade ago, it was
Speaker 1: widely known, if not reported, that domestic violence was the
Speaker 1: scourge of our nation. And while this issue is finally
Speaker 1: starting to garner political attention as the media reporting ramps up,
Speaker 1: our research has revealed that in just one family protection
Speaker 1: unit in Wa alone, an average of one hundred referrals
Speaker 1: come in each and every week. That's in one family
Speaker 1: Protection unit. Now there are seventeen of those units seventeen
Speaker 1: districts in WA, and statistics show that only about ten
Speaker 1: percent of domestic violence cases are actually reported. Amy's was
Speaker 1: one of those unreported until after she died. After Family
Speaker 1: Protection Unit workers interviewed Amy's mother, Nancy, the alarm was
Speaker 1: raised to detectives on her case that further investigation was required.
Speaker 1: David Simmons was arrested twice, having denied any involvement in
Speaker 1: her death. He was let go both times and never charged.
Speaker 1: Throughout the course of this podcast, we will reveal the
Speaker 1: pattern of behavior of the key people involved, will interview witnesses,
Speaker 1: dissect known evidence, present new evidence, and provide an in
Speaker 1: depth analysis of the inquest. We will then provide details
Speaker 1: on how this case can and hopefully move forward and
Speaker 1: justice finally be found for Amy.
Speaker 6: While researching Shop in the Dark, I learned the rate
Speaker 6: of gun use by women taking their own lives between
Speaker 6: nineteen oh seven and twenty twenty two was at most
Speaker 6: zero points six percent per one hundred thousand of population
Speaker 6: at any given time, according to the Australian Institute of
Speaker 6: Health and Welfare. Some may argue the reason it's so
Speaker 6: low is because women typically don't have access to firearms.
Speaker 6: Others say it's simply a vanity issue. For people who
Speaker 6: knew Amy, and even those of us who were drawing
Speaker 6: on everything available to us to try to get to
Speaker 6: know her, It's clear Amy cares about her appearance. Amy
Speaker 6: was a pretty girl who loved dressing up and taking
Speaker 6: a selfie. There were hundreds of these stored on her
Speaker 6: pink iPhone, which authorities is found hidden in one of
Speaker 6: the boots she was wearing at the time of her death.
Speaker 6: Similarly with her daughters, so many photos of her pulling
Speaker 6: faces with them, wearing detox masks, and just goofing about.
Speaker 3: Her.
Speaker 6: Friends describe Amy as a girly girl, always well groomed,
Speaker 6: often made up. She was also petite and quite thin,
Speaker 6: just one hundred and sixty five centimeters tall and fifty kilos.
Speaker 6: On the night she died, it takes less than an
Speaker 6: hour for police detectives to decide she somehow propped up
Speaker 6: a double barrel shotgun on a bed while crunched into
Speaker 6: a tiny space behind the bedroom door, and shot herself
Speaker 6: through the temple. To do this, evidence shows the gun
Speaker 6: would have had to have been horizontal and hurled and
Speaker 6: triggered with her left hand. By eight point thirty pm,
Speaker 6: forensics was called off and Amy's death deemed non suspicious.
Speaker 6: Amy died just over three hours prior. Her case was
Speaker 6: destined to become yet another unexplained sudden death, to fly
Speaker 6: under the radar until the intervention.
Speaker 7: Just one moment, because already I feel like this thing
Speaker 7: into two of this woman. It's ten years of of
Speaker 7: all the cost of emotion, and it's encompassed so much
Speaker 7: of my life. It has come my life, and Amy
Speaker 7: is the first thing that in my life all the time,
Speaker 7: every day she's been there, and everything is about her
Speaker 7: and anything to do with her. I drop everything immediately
Speaker 7: for her. For this ten years of my life I'd
Speaker 7: been spent trying to prove Amy's innocence because she's not
Speaker 7: here to do that for herself. And when she has
Speaker 7: members of a police force pointing the finger at her
Speaker 7: and blaming her for her own death and she's not
Speaker 7: here to prove them wrong and to prove that she
Speaker 7: didn't do this, it's a really tough fight. So ten
Speaker 7: years of my life has been trying to do that
Speaker 7: for Amy and to get her justice. So that her
Speaker 7: girls can live in peace, so that her mother can
Speaker 7: have some sort of a peace. You know, she's my sister.
Speaker 7: Nancy is not the same person. She's so so different,
Speaker 7: and she hasn't been the same since that night, you know,
Speaker 7: ten years on. Just recently, Amy's eldest daughter turned sixteen
Speaker 7: years old and got an ell. And I know that,
Speaker 7: you know, the children are going to grow up and everything,
Speaker 7: But when I hear that, when I hear that she's
Speaker 7: just got Earl's and she's just turned sixteen, It's like,
Speaker 7: it's like it shakes me out of where I am,
Speaker 7: to remind me I'm no longer in twenty fourteen. I'm
Speaker 7: still stuck in twenty fourteen, still stuck there, trying to
Speaker 7: prove Amy is innocent and did not do this. While
Speaker 7: the world still moves on. Her children are growing and
Speaker 7: everything's changing that my life hasn't, and everything that I've
Speaker 7: done for her hasn't changed. I'm still there and I'm
Speaker 7: still fighting.
Speaker 1: Anna Davy is Amy's auntie. But why are you? Why
Speaker 1: has it fallen to you to be the family champion? Sorry,
Speaker 1: you're right, because it is a big burden, isn't it.
Speaker 2: It is a heavy burden. It's a really heavy one
Speaker 2: to carry. But I've got the shoulders for it. Liam,
Speaker 2: I've got the shoulders for it. As Amy's mother, Nancy
Speaker 2: is a very devastated person, and she is a very
Speaker 2: broken person. She's not capable of doing this. It is
Speaker 2: too much for her to try and fight a system
Speaker 2: that is just trying to sweep this under the carpet
Speaker 2: and not do anything. So how could I expect her
Speaker 2: to do any of this when just talking about Amy.
Speaker 2: She couldn't do that. For months and months after Amy died,
Speaker 2: it was too painful. I had to do it. I
Speaker 2: had to. It's not a matter of really of falling
Speaker 2: on me. It was me wanting to do it. It
Speaker 2: had to be me. I wanted to.
Speaker 1: But month after month, year after year, ten years of it.
Speaker 2: I'm not a quitter. My love for Amy runs deep
Speaker 2: and I'm not quitting. This is not over. You know,
Speaker 2: somebody knows the truth, and I'm not quitting.
Speaker 1: When did you first realize that this story of suicide
Speaker 1: just does not add up?
Speaker 2: The moment Nancy told me The moment she told me
Speaker 2: over the phone that police went to her house and
Speaker 2: said that Amy took a life right then. As soon
Speaker 2: as she told me that, I didn't believe it because
Speaker 2: I was so confused. And my question to her was
Speaker 2: did they find a suicide note? Because it happened in
Speaker 2: less than twenty four hours, the suicide finding, so for
Speaker 2: it to happen so quickly, they must have found a
Speaker 2: suicide note evidence pointing towards that. And she told me
Speaker 2: she didn't know. That's where it all began for me,
Speaker 2: the moment they said suicide and in less than twenty
Speaker 2: four hours, How could anyone believe it?
Speaker 1: What obvious sign did they see that they could have
Speaker 1: come to that conclusion so quickly?
Speaker 2: When I started asking those questions, they weren't giving me answers.
Speaker 2: They don't want to share anything with you and whatever. Eventually,
Speaker 2: after some time, you get told things and you think, well,
Speaker 2: that doesn't really convince me. You haven't provided me evidence
Speaker 2: to show that. You're just giving me words. And what
Speaker 2: you think, Well, you know she was on antidepressants, so
Speaker 2: there are a lot of people on antidepressants. They don't
Speaker 2: go and kill themselves. What does that prove? It proves nothing.
Speaker 1: Was it also about your perceptions of the sort of person?
Speaker 2: Amy was, oh, yes, yes, I knew Amy as a mother,
Speaker 2: as a young mother, and those children were so important
Speaker 2: to her that I knew straight away she would not
Speaker 2: do this. I know she would not do this. It
Speaker 2: is not her. She's a fantastic mother. Everything was about
Speaker 2: her children. Everything. It was about their education, it was
Speaker 2: about their safety. She used to follow the school bus
Speaker 2: when her eldest daughter started school. She'd put her on
Speaker 2: the bus and then she'd drive behind the bus and
Speaker 2: in fact, lamb in her mobile phone, the bus driver's
Speaker 2: phone numbers in there. Why is that?
Speaker 3: You know what I mean?
Speaker 2: Like, she wanted to make sure her daughter was okay.
Speaker 1: That's detail.
Speaker 2: It is detail, and it is making sure that your
Speaker 2: child is safe. She also sought advice from a friend
Speaker 2: who worked in childhood education about her youngest daughter, who
Speaker 2: she thought was probably not progressing where she should be.
Speaker 2: So she went and discuss that. So everything was about them.
Speaker 1: I want you to think very carefully about this. Was
Speaker 1: she the sort of num in any world that you
Speaker 1: can imagine, who would leave her two little girls in
Speaker 1: the car with the engine running and then go back
Speaker 1: inside the house and shoot herself dead.
Speaker 2: Absolutely not. There is no way she would have done that. Now,
Speaker 2: Let's pretend for a moment that she did this, but
Speaker 2: she didn't. Let's pretend the mother I know Amy to be,
Speaker 2: she would have put those children in the car. She
Speaker 2: would have driven to her mother's house, and she would
Speaker 2: have dropped those children off and possibly said mom will
Speaker 2: be back soon, love you bye, gone back to the
Speaker 2: house and killed herself if that's what she was going
Speaker 2: to do. Because she knew her eldest daughter could unclip
Speaker 2: the seat belt from her child's seat, she wouldn't want
Speaker 2: her daughter to run in and find her like that,
Speaker 2: do you know what I mean?
Speaker 7: And she wouldn't.
Speaker 2: She just wouldn't. She would not want her children to
Speaker 2: find her like that.
Speaker 1: That's the part I don't understand in all this, because
Speaker 1: everything points to planning on her behalf. Her mom phones her,
Speaker 1: she plans to come to her mom's place. Your sister, yep,
Speaker 1: she plans for the kids, because she packs their bags,
Speaker 1: she puts the kids in the car. Everything is planned.
Speaker 1: She tells one of the girls they're going to watch
Speaker 1: a movie that night, so in the immediate horizon, her
Speaker 1: world is planned. And then somehow we're to accept that
Speaker 1: she simply goes back into the bedroom and shoots herself
Speaker 1: with a double barrel shotgun.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's utterly ridiculous. What she was doing with everything
Speaker 2: that you just said is called escaping. That's what it is.
Speaker 2: She is escaping a situation. I believe she's getting her
Speaker 2: children away from a violent situation. She has just been
Speaker 2: physically assaulted, verbally abused, and she is getting away and
Speaker 2: she's taking her children with her.
Speaker 1: According to people closest to Amy, the relationship between Amy
Speaker 1: and her partner David, was almost always volatile.
Speaker 7: Sami was a single mom, and I think she was
Speaker 7: working part time at a tavern or a pub, and
Speaker 7: she met one of the regulars that go there, and
Speaker 7: I guess, you know, he flooded her. Perhaps he was
Speaker 7: probably really nice to her, and she started dating him.
Speaker 7: And it wasn't long after that that she felt pregnant
Speaker 7: with her second child, and she had a child for him,
Speaker 7: and they moved in together, and I just things progress
Speaker 7: from there, you know, after a while. I guess I
Speaker 7: like to call it a mask. You know, it's like
Speaker 7: a prince charming mask. They come in the long full
Speaker 7: of compliments and flattery and flowers and all that sort
Speaker 7: of things, and then they get into a relationship, and
Speaker 7: I believe the mask starts to fall off, and I
Speaker 7: think Aily saw that, and I think that things that
Speaker 7: started to become violent. He became controlling of any jealous,
Speaker 7: accusing her of being unfaithful. You know, I only know
Speaker 7: these things because it all came to light after she died,
Speaker 7: because it's not something that you're going to tell your family,
Speaker 7: you know. Whether whether a person is ashamed or embarrassed,
Speaker 7: or they don't want to put friends or family in danger,
Speaker 7: I don't know, but I think things became quite violent
Speaker 7: and quite ugly not long after she or maybe before
Speaker 7: she had the child to him. And on the twenty
Speaker 7: sixth of June twenty fourteen, she had a daughter up
Speaker 7: from school and was turning home and a fight had
Speaker 7: occurred between her and her partner.
Speaker 1: Nancy rings her daughter Amy at about five pm to
Speaker 1: find her hysterical. This is a reenactment of that call.
Speaker 3: I fucking hate him.
Speaker 8: He'd better not have hit you. Did he fucking hit you?
Speaker 1: We use voice actors to reenact key moments throughout the
Speaker 1: entirety of this podcast.
Speaker 7: He grabbed me by the throat and he threw me
Speaker 7: to the ground.
Speaker 8: What pack your shit? Pack some of the girl's stuff
Speaker 8: and come here. I don't care if you stay here
Speaker 8: a week, a month, a year, I don't care. Get
Speaker 8: here now. In fact, I'll come up and I'll get you. No, mom, hey, mom, oh,
Speaker 8: I will I'll see you soon. I will come.
Speaker 1: When she hangs up, Amy has less than fifteen minutes
Speaker 1: left to live.
Speaker 7: Amy was shot in the head with a double girl
Speaker 7: shot and then and then the person who was on
Speaker 7: the proper of her partner and his friends, the baby's
Speaker 7: two children in the car, drove to the roadhouse to
Speaker 7: make a triple zero call ambulance.
Speaker 3: What's theaters the emergency two.
Speaker 9: Seven A three Southwestern Highway serventine.
Speaker 3: Okay, tell me exactly what happened. Somebody shot themselves in
Speaker 3: the head. Okay, are you with that person at the moment? No,
Speaker 3: I'm not. I had to drive down the service station
Speaker 3: because my phone's broken. I have two kids, and my
Speaker 3: wife has shot itself. Okay, how old is she? How
Speaker 3: old is she?
Speaker 7: Twenty three?
Speaker 3: Okay? I just she's dead, all right, So she's not
Speaker 3: conscious or breathing. Yes, I've got kids in the car.
Speaker 3: I'm going to have to take him to Okay, yeah,
Speaker 3: all right, and I have a mate standing on the highway. Okay,
Speaker 3: can you please just come and take her or do something. Yes,
Speaker 3: we're going to get that organized. So that was R. J. Simmons,
Speaker 3: R and B. Simmons, R and B. Simmons. Okay, what
Speaker 3: was your name, sir, David Simmons. David Simmons. W What
Speaker 3: did you fucking do that? Okay, I'm going to get
Speaker 3: that organized for you straight away. All right, thank you
Speaker 3: very much, all right, all right, see bye.
Speaker 1: According to ambulance records, this call happened at five eighteen pm.
Speaker 1: They proceeded to immediately alert police. Simmons, who was with
Speaker 1: his best mate Gareth Price at the time, says he
Speaker 1: also calls his father, Robert, but his dad doesn't answer. Robert,
Speaker 1: who is at home in a much bigger house nearby
Speaker 1: on the same property, does, however, receive a call at
Speaker 1: five twenty three pm from the Saint John ambulance operator
Speaker 1: who advises they just received a call for that address
Speaker 1: from David Simmons requesting an ambulance. Robert says he doesn't
Speaker 1: have a clue what's happened, but there are two houses
Speaker 1: on the property and he will head to the other
Speaker 1: one to find out, so he drives down to the
Speaker 1: house where Amy and her daughters are living with his son.
Speaker 1: He smells gunpowder, spies the shotgun from outside the room,
Speaker 1: pushes the door open, and walks straight into the bedroom.
Speaker 1: He cracks the four to ten boito open and proceeds
Speaker 1: to unload a spent and live cartridge, placing both of
Speaker 1: them on the bedside table. He closes the gun and
Speaker 1: puts it back on the floor. When Robert Simmons turns around,
Speaker 1: he sees blood spatter on the wall behind the door
Speaker 1: and takes a look. He says it was a gray
Speaker 1: or khaki jacket over the head and upper body, so
Speaker 1: he pulls it off and it's Amy. He immediately calls
Speaker 1: wa police. He is an excerpt of what was said.
Speaker 1: The time is five twenty eight pm.
Speaker 10: I live in Serpentine two seven eighty three. Saint John's
Speaker 10: ambulance just rang me and there'd been a call mate
Speaker 10: from here. I've come down the hill to where my
Speaker 10: son and partner lives and she's dead. Someone shot her.
Speaker 10: I think it must have been my son.
Speaker 3: He's not here.
Speaker 10: My son made the mistake, but she's been shot in
Speaker 10: the head and she's dead.
Speaker 3: Okay, see your daughter and Laura's dead? Is that right?
Speaker 10: I think so, yes, pretty much. I didn't see her
Speaker 10: behind the door. I didn't see until I just walked in.
Speaker 10: She's behind the She's behind the door, and I just
Speaker 10: saw the feed and they had a jacket over her
Speaker 10: head and I just took the jacket off. I can't
Speaker 10: believe this has happened. I don't know where my son is.
Speaker 10: The ambulance people wrung me and they said you'd better
Speaker 10: ring him. So I just I didn't know what was
Speaker 10: happening because they lived down the bottom hill. So I
Speaker 10: just drove down there fast, and I just walked straight
Speaker 10: inside and I had to look around. And I walked
Speaker 10: in his room and there was a gun laying on
Speaker 10: the floor and I could smell the powder. I picked
Speaker 10: up the gun and pulled the There was one light bullet,
Speaker 10: one dead bullet, and I pulled them out, and then
Speaker 10: I want.
Speaker 3: To get.
Speaker 1: It's worth noting at this point that there are many
Speaker 1: discrepancies in the evidence provided by David Simmons, Gareth Price,
Speaker 1: and Robert Simmons in relation to the night Amy died.
Speaker 1: One of those is what was over Amy's head Price
Speaker 1: says a red or my own towel, but it's a
Speaker 1: blue towel police found on her, contradicting Robert Simmons claim
Speaker 1: it was a gray or khky jacket. There doesn't appear
Speaker 1: to be any reference to such a jacket existing again,
Speaker 1: or any attempt to clarify the discrepancies, but Robert Simmons
Speaker 1: always maintains it was a jacket, not a towel. So
Speaker 1: after Amy was shot and David drives to the roadhouse
Speaker 1: to make the triple zero call, he drove back.
Speaker 7: He dropped his friend Gareth's Price off at the bottom
Speaker 7: gate so that he could wave down the ambulance because
Speaker 7: it's a long stretch of road with no streetlights. He
Speaker 7: drove and dropped Amy's children off at Amy's mother's place
Speaker 7: and told her that Amy had taken her own life.
Speaker 7: Nancy immediately hopped in her car and drove to the
Speaker 7: Prophecy and he followed. When she got there, police were there,
Speaker 7: and they stopped her at the gate, and she aw
Speaker 7: she wanted was a daughter, Where's my baby? And I
Speaker 7: told him that she was gone, And then Nancy started
Speaker 7: yelling and saying that it was his fault that he
Speaker 7: did this, and you know, not one detective spoke to
Speaker 7: Nancy on that night. So there's the mother of a
Speaker 7: victims yelling and saying that he's done this, that he's
Speaker 7: stile for them, and they don't even speak to us.
Speaker 1: There's a dispute between the uniformed officers and detectives.
Speaker 7: There were three uniform police officers, and those police officers
Speaker 7: were very concerned by what they were in fronted with
Speaker 7: and they found it highly suspicious. They are the ones
Speaker 7: that falled in the detective and they also called in forensics.
Speaker 7: And when the two detectives turned up at the scene,
Speaker 7: my understanding after speaking to one of those uniform police
Speaker 7: officers was that they weren't even going to go into
Speaker 7: the room. They were happy enough to look at the
Speaker 7: photographs that the uniform police officers had taken and they
Speaker 7: were just going to look at those photos and not
Speaker 7: go into the room. And the uniform police officers said, no,
Speaker 7: you have to go in there and have a look.
Speaker 7: So they did, and they were in there for about
Speaker 7: fifteen minutes and they came out and the detective said
Speaker 7: the naming had killed herself that he could discussion. It
Speaker 7: took place because they didn't agree with what the detectives
Speaker 7: were saying, but they felt they were renked by the
Speaker 7: detective and had to do what they were told. So
Speaker 7: forensics was called off, the secured area was called off,
Speaker 7: and the business card for a trauma cleaning company was
Speaker 7: given to David's father. No one spoke to anyone in
Speaker 7: my family. Nobody called Nancy and his mother to ask
Speaker 7: any questions. Nobody did anything. So these two detectives just
Speaker 7: took it upon themselves to decide that Amy did this
Speaker 7: and not speak to the two people present. They did
Speaker 7: not even speak to David or his friend Gareth Price
Speaker 7: and speaks to them. Just sat in a car and
Speaker 7: read two statements. That's all it was. Wasn't even a
Speaker 7: form interview, just two statements taken by uniform police officers
Speaker 7: on the night.
Speaker 1: During this time, Simmons tries to access Amy's phone.
Speaker 7: I do know that he tried to go back up
Speaker 7: into the house and the uniform police officers stopped him,
Speaker 7: and he said he wanted to get his phone, and
Speaker 7: they asked what his phone looked like, and he said
Speaker 7: it was a pink phone. And they both found that
Speaker 7: really suspicious that someone like him would have a pink phone.
Speaker 7: Let me tell you who had a pink phone. Amy
Speaker 7: had a pink phone, and that pink phone would sound
Speaker 7: shoved inside her boot like she's hiding it. Why did
Speaker 7: he want that phone so badly to light at the
Speaker 7: police and say it was he? Why did Amy have
Speaker 7: it hidden in her foot? So in twenty fourteen, Amy
Speaker 7: had a brand new iPhone and on the night she died,
Speaker 7: after those detective declared that this did not need to
Speaker 7: be a secure scene. No one was being arrested, no
Speaker 7: one was being interviewed. Amy's family were not going to
Speaker 7: be spoken to. Nothing was going to happen. Police turned
Speaker 7: up at Nancy's house that night. The uniform police her
Speaker 7: hand over Amy's belongings, and part of that was Amy's phone.
Speaker 7: They gave Amy's mother her phone, the bloody jewelry that
Speaker 7: was on Amy a necklace, and she had some rings.
Speaker 7: It was in a bag. It had Amy's blood and
Speaker 7: god knows what else on it, and it was handed
Speaker 7: to Nancy. The following day, Major Crime became involved, and
Speaker 7: when they found out Amy's mother had that phone, they
Speaker 7: said it should never have been given to us, and
Speaker 7: they wanted it back. So Major Crime detectives came around
Speaker 7: to get Amy's stone and they asked Amie's children. They
Speaker 7: the same mum put in the pin number and they
Speaker 7: remember the pin number well. They tried too many times
Speaker 7: and the phone looked so we couldn't get into it.
Speaker 7: So the phone became useless. So after the major crime investigation,
Speaker 7: which took two weeks, and they came to that same
Speaker 7: conclusion that Amy took her life, they gave the phone base.
Speaker 1: It isn't until cold case becomes involved much later that
Speaker 1: they finally get into Amy's phone and discover the selfie.
Speaker 1: The photo, taken less than an hour before her death,
Speaker 1: showed Amy reflected in the mirror, sitting on the end
Speaker 1: of the bed, holding her pink mobile phone with her
Speaker 1: left hand and a double barreled shotgun with her right.
Speaker 1: It's the same gun used to kill her. She's wearing
Speaker 1: black clothes, Her hair is pulled tightly up off her face,
Speaker 1: which is virtually unreadable in that it's hard to say
Speaker 1: whether she's scared, sad, or defiant, but one thing is clear,
Speaker 1: she looks anxious. The gun is not pointed toward Amy,
Speaker 1: but rather upwards. In court, wa police use the selfie
Speaker 1: to support their case for suicide, but Anna says, in
Speaker 1: her mind, Amy is preparing to defend herself, not to
Speaker 1: end her life.
Speaker 7: She was in a recess behind the door, so her
Speaker 7: back was leaning against a wardrobe, the side of a wardrobe,
Speaker 7: and to her left was the wall. In front of
Speaker 7: her was a wall, and just slightly to the right
Speaker 7: was the door to the bedroom. So she was found
Speaker 7: seated in this corner of the room behind the door.
Speaker 7: I think her legs were slightly bent because the area
Speaker 7: would have been too small for her to be able
Speaker 7: to with her legs stretched straight out. So she's sitting
Speaker 7: there with her knees slightly bent, and she's sitting on
Speaker 7: her right hand. Now, Amy is right handed, and she
Speaker 7: was shot on the right side of her head with
Speaker 7: her right hand under her, which means that she would
Speaker 7: have only had her left hand to hold up a
Speaker 7: double barrel shotgun to shoot herself on the right side
Speaker 7: of the head.
Speaker 1: Complicating matters are the injuries sustained by Amy following a
Speaker 1: car accident a year.
Speaker 7: Prior where she fractured two vertebrates when David Simmons was
Speaker 7: driving and she had halo drilled into her head for
Speaker 7: about three months and she was still having trouble moving
Speaker 7: to her neck, and David said at the inquest when
Speaker 7: he gave evidence, he said something along the lines of
Speaker 7: right up until the day she died, she still had
Speaker 7: trouble moving her neck without turning the top part of
Speaker 7: the body, in other words, her shoulders to turn. So
Speaker 7: Amy seated behind a door, apparently still suffering from this
Speaker 7: neck injury and having trouble turning the head. She's right handed.
Speaker 7: She's sitting on her right hand, but she's going to
Speaker 7: use her left hand to hold up a double barrel
Speaker 7: shotgun straight along to the side of the head to
Speaker 7: tet her self. Now there was no blood spatter on
Speaker 7: her right hand.
Speaker 1: Angry and frustrated, Anna finds herself obsessing over everything that's
Speaker 1: happened or hasn't happened.
Speaker 7: Because the people who should be helping her, I feel
Speaker 7: as though they are not helping her. I think there
Speaker 7: are people who just want this to go away, and
Speaker 7: so the easiest way to make it go away is
Speaker 7: to continue the narrative that was placed on this the
Speaker 7: night she died, which was it was suicide done without
Speaker 7: a proper investigation, done without forensics, done without questioning or
Speaker 7: interviewing the two people who were present.
Speaker 1: So from her home in Sydney, Anna writes to the
Speaker 1: West Australian Corruption and Crime.
Speaker 7: Commission outlining all of my concerns, all the concerns that
Speaker 7: were just calling on deafis, and they actually sat up
Speaker 7: and listened. I sent that same letter to the Coroner's
Speaker 7: office because I wanted them to know. I also sent
Speaker 7: it to the envious and I think what happened was
Speaker 7: after sending it to the Coroner's office, I think kind
Speaker 7: of very concerned about the things that I had said
Speaker 7: in that letter, that they quested the Police Commissioner to
Speaker 7: conduct an investigation, and I think from memory that that's
Speaker 7: how Cold Case may have become involved. Cold Case was
Speaker 7: the first thing to come along and say, look, we
Speaker 7: don't know, so instead of falling back to the good
Speaker 7: old easy way out blame the victim. They did not
Speaker 7: say suicide, but they said they couldn't determine whether it
Speaker 7: was suicide, homicide or accidental deaths. They couldn't determine. And
Speaker 7: as hard as what that was to take, I think
Speaker 7: looking back that it's better than them following what all
Speaker 7: the others had said, which is the easy way out
Speaker 7: it's a suicide.
Speaker 11: An inquest is being held into the shooting of a
Speaker 11: devoted mother of two at her Serpentine home. Amy Wensley
Speaker 11: was just twenty four years old when she died from
Speaker 11: a gunshot wound to the head on a semi rural
Speaker 11: property in Serpentine in twenty fourteen. Detectives took just an
Speaker 11: hour to reach the conclusion of suicide, which her family
Speaker 11: has never accepted.
Speaker 1: The coronial inquest into the death of Amy Wensley starts
Speaker 1: on the ninth of February twenty twenty one and lasts
Speaker 1: two weeks.
Speaker 7: So I did have one detective comment, so I don't
Speaker 7: understand why they've given it so many days. You know,
Speaker 7: she's been like two or three days. And I said, well,
Speaker 7: maybe they need to hear about all the fuck ups
Speaker 7: that were made. You know, there wasn't so many. Maybe
Speaker 7: it wouldn't go for so long anyway. Thing what's happened,
Speaker 7: and it's one of the hardest thing I think I've
Speaker 7: ever had to do, and it was just awful. My
Speaker 7: understanding was that an inquest is for a coroner to
Speaker 7: hear all the available information from everybody, from experts to
Speaker 7: witnesses from everybody, so that the coroner had all the
Speaker 7: information to come to a conclusion about how someone died
Speaker 7: and why someone died. But when we were there, we
Speaker 7: sat there and we listened to some of the evidence
Speaker 7: that we were given, I felt like that's not what
Speaker 7: the case was at all. It felt like there was
Speaker 7: a character assassination taking place on Amy. It felt like
Speaker 7: some of the police officers who were there weren't there
Speaker 7: to help the coroner at all get to the truth.
Speaker 7: It was more like they were there trying to talk
Speaker 7: to coroner into a finding of a suicide. And I
Speaker 7: couldn't believe some of the things that were happening in
Speaker 7: that courtroom. And you know, as a family and as
Speaker 7: you know, Laura, abiding citizens, we have to sit there
Speaker 7: and just suck it up and not say anything. We
Speaker 7: have to hold it together and sit there and listen
Speaker 7: to it. It's one of the hardest things that I
Speaker 7: think I've ever had to do, because there are so
Speaker 7: many times I would have loved to have jumped up
Speaker 7: and said what I wanted to say, but I didn't.
Speaker 7: I had to sit there and remain composed and just
Speaker 7: listen to some of the rubbish that was coming out
Speaker 7: of their mouths. Like I said before, I don't know Amy.
Speaker 7: I know Amy. Don't sit there and tell me that
Speaker 7: she was depressed and all these other things. Yeah she was.
Speaker 7: She was depressed because she was in a relationship with
Speaker 7: a piece of shit who wouldn't be depressed. But to
Speaker 7: say that Amy took her life because she was depressed
Speaker 7: about the breakdown of a relationship, I don't think so.
Speaker 7: If a woman depressed about the breakup of her relationship,
Speaker 7: why would she pack her bags and leave. You're saying
Speaker 7: I'm not going anywhere. I love you, let's work this out.
Speaker 7: That's not what Amy did. So the twisted in that
Speaker 7: coroner's courtroom and try and make out Amy was depressed
Speaker 7: about the breakdown of a relationship, so she shot herself
Speaker 7: on the right side of the head using a left
Speaker 7: hand like that. But I just am so grateful to
Speaker 7: the decent and honest people who were in that courtroom
Speaker 7: telling the truth. Thank you to the uniform police officers
Speaker 7: who had the guts to stand up there and tell
Speaker 7: the truth about what they saw that night. So grateful
Speaker 7: for the experts as well, who gave an unbiased view
Speaker 7: that their job as experts is to look at everything,
Speaker 7: and they are experts in their field for a reason,
Speaker 7: and they gave their opinion it is highly unlikely she
Speaker 7: did it, and it is more consistent with her being
Speaker 7: shot by another person. Why had nobody listen to this?
Speaker 7: Ron Idles done, Australia's greatest homicide detective. He gave his
Speaker 7: view as well, why is no one listening? You know,
Speaker 7: we have we have, you know, honest, good people standing
Speaker 7: up in that courtroom giving evidence, and then we have
Speaker 7: other people who just want to cover up with all
Speaker 7: the shit that happened on the night with two detectives
Speaker 7: who couldn't even do their job properly.
Speaker 1: Simmons never turns up to the coroner's court, but he
Speaker 1: does testify.
Speaker 7: On the last day the increase, he was due to
Speaker 7: give evidence and the court kept a journey and they
Speaker 7: somehow reached someone who said that David was on his way,
Speaker 7: and then we adjourned again and he actually didn't turn up,
Speaker 7: and I commented to one of the detectives that perhaps
Speaker 7: they need to go to some of the pubs that
Speaker 7: he likes to frequent and find him and bring him.
Speaker 7: He never turned up on the last day. He didn't
Speaker 7: turn up, so Amy's legal teams saying issue would bench warrant,
Speaker 7: and the police representatives were against the Why why would
Speaker 7: you be against that? Do you know what I mean?
Speaker 7: Your job there is to present the coroner with available information,
Speaker 7: not to be one sided. This is supposed to be
Speaker 7: open and unbiased. But it didn't feel that way to me.
Speaker 7: So the coroner said that a bench warrant had only
Speaker 7: ever been issued once in wa and I remember thinking
Speaker 7: to myself, well, how hard is it this person's not
Speaker 7: turning up the one person that everyone should be hearing from.
Speaker 7: He was there on the night. As it turns out,
Speaker 7: she gave it another day and he actually turned up.
Speaker 7: But he didn't turn up to the coroner's court. He
Speaker 7: turned up to a court somewhere else and appeared via
Speaker 7: a video link. And all I can say to that
Speaker 7: is what a coward? What a coward? He knew there
Speaker 7: was media at court room, he knew Amy's family and
Speaker 7: Amy's friends were in that court room. What evidence did
Speaker 7: he give? I had to make out that Amy was
Speaker 7: physically abusive. Amy was tiny and he was way bigger
Speaker 7: than her. So what a joke? Tried to make out
Speaker 7: Amy was physically abusive, that Amy was the one that
Speaker 7: liked drugs. He said that because it was put to
Speaker 7: him the comments she made to her mother that he
Speaker 7: had grabbed her by the throat and slammed her to
Speaker 7: the floor. Now that was really upsetting for Amy's mother
Speaker 7: to here, because we know about her injuries to her neck,
Speaker 7: and for him to do that, you're risking injury to
Speaker 7: her neck and making it worse, and she could have
Speaker 7: ended up in a bloody wheelchair. So that's what really
Speaker 7: upset Amy's mother when she heard that from Amy. So
Speaker 7: I guess, in course, maybe he's trying to make or
Speaker 7: he did that. Amy lost the temper and was throwing
Speaker 7: things around and did bit And you know she's a
Speaker 7: violent one, and she had buttered me, and I strained
Speaker 7: her gently and put her to the floor. Amy was
Speaker 7: always is really skinny, even when she was pregnant. The
Speaker 7: only weight she put on was like a belly. It
Speaker 7: looked like she had a basketball shoved off a top
Speaker 7: or something. She was so skinny and she was tiny,
Speaker 7: and he is way bigger than her.
Speaker 1: Simmons best mate, Gareth Price also gives evidence.
Speaker 7: Oh my god, okay, careth Price So I've never met
Speaker 7: this person. I don't know this person, and I only
Speaker 7: saw him for the first time at the inquest, and
Speaker 7: I remember sitting there and I was next sitting next
Speaker 7: to one of Amy's friends, and I had to comment,
Speaker 7: and I said, is there something wrong with him mentally?
Speaker 7: Because I watched him on the stand and he was
Speaker 7: it was like he was itching, rubbing his face, scratching
Speaker 7: his head and he couldn't sit still in that seat.
Speaker 7: It was just really jittery and moving around a lot,
Speaker 7: and it was really I found it really odd. It
Speaker 7: was just bizarre. So he said something like this is
Speaker 7: from memory. It said something like he's never seen the argue.
Speaker 7: You know, they got along really well. He loved Amy,
Speaker 7: just you know, obviously painting the picture perfect relationship, which
Speaker 7: is just a lie. Clearly it's not. He said that
Speaker 7: when the gun went off, that both he and David
Speaker 7: were both standing beside Amy's car where the children were seated.
Speaker 7: They were seated in Amy's car when it happened. He said,
Speaker 7: they were both there. But the information that they gave
Speaker 7: when statements were taken from them by the uniform police
Speaker 7: at night, there were inconsistencies in some of their statements,
Speaker 7: Gareth said that when the gun went off, that David
Speaker 7: ran in first, and he said he was right behind David,
Speaker 7: and David went into the room first, and as Gareth
Speaker 7: in there, he passed David in the hallway. David ran
Speaker 7: out and Gareth went in. But in David's statements, he
Speaker 7: said the gun went off and Gareth stayed at the car.
Speaker 7: He went in and found Amy, went back out to
Speaker 7: the car where Gareth was and told Gareth what he saw.
Speaker 7: Gareth said when he went in there that the gun
Speaker 7: was laying on Amy, so the butt of the gun
Speaker 7: was along her legs, if you could imagine, kind of
Speaker 7: between her legs, and the barrel was along her chest
Speaker 7: pointing outwards. When David went in that room, he said
Speaker 7: the gun was about a meter away from Amy.
Speaker 1: At the inquest, the position Amy was found in was
Speaker 1: discussed at length. Like Anna describes, Amy was seated in
Speaker 1: a cramped space behind the bedroom door, with her back
Speaker 1: against the wall of the built in wardrobe. The area
Speaker 1: was so tight Amy couldn't stretch out her legs. The
Speaker 1: unusual placement of her body, given she apparently chose this
Speaker 1: location to take her own life, was noted several times
Speaker 1: during the inquest. Her head, which was facing the bedroom door,
Speaker 1: was tilted to the left, resting against the wall, and
Speaker 1: Amy was sitting on her right hand, leaving only her
Speaker 1: left hand to potentially hold up the gun to fire
Speaker 1: horizontally through her right temple. The shot then exits through
Speaker 1: her forehead. Gunshot residue was found only on Amy's left hand.
Speaker 1: The gun, a Buoyito four to ten side by side.
Speaker 1: The double barrel shotgun was located on the floor in
Speaker 1: the bedroom between the bed and the wall. Toxicology analysis
Speaker 1: detects a normal dosage of the antidepressant drug catelepran, also
Speaker 1: known as cipromil, but no alcohol or any other drug.
Speaker 1: Deputy State Coroner Sarah Linton delivers her findings on the
Speaker 1: ninth of September twenty twenty one.
Speaker 12: Amy Lee Wensley died on the twenty sixth of June
Speaker 12: twenty fourteen at her home as a result of a
Speaker 12: shotgun injury to her head. She was twenty four years old.
Speaker 12: A discretionary inquest was ordered following consideration of a request
Speaker 12: from Miss Wensley's family, and a date for the hearing
Speaker 12: was set down for August twenty eighteen. However, prior to
Speaker 12: the inquest commencing, an expert biomechanical report was received. Based
Speaker 12: on the expert opinion contained in this report, the inquest
Speaker 12: hearing was adjourned and the matter was referred to the
Speaker 12: WA Director of Public Prosecution. This referral resulted in the
Speaker 12: WA Police Cold Case Homicide Squad conducting a review of
Speaker 12: the earlier police investigations into Miss Wensley's death. The review
Speaker 12: concluded that there was insufficient evidence to establish the involvement
Speaker 12: of another person in Miss Wensley's death. The WA Director
Speaker 12: of Public Prosecutions agreed with these findings and referred the
Speaker 12: matter back to the Coroner's Court to continue the coronial proceedings.
Speaker 12: After further delays due to COVID nineteen, an inquest finally
Speaker 12: proceeded in February twenty twenty one. The Deputy State Coroner
Speaker 12: conducted the inquest with the focus to ascertain whether there
Speaker 12: was any additional evidence that could be obtained through calling
Speaker 12: witnesses to speak to the materials already available in the
Speaker 12: coronial brief that might assist the coroner to determine how
Speaker 12: Miss Wensley came to suffer the shotgun injury that caused
Speaker 12: her death, or whether that question must remain unanswered. The
Speaker 12: quality and conduct of the police investigations was also explored.
Speaker 12: At the time of her death, Miss Wensley was in
Speaker 12: a relationship with David Simons. They had been together since
Speaker 12: two thousand and nine and had one daughter together. Miss
Speaker 12: Wensley also had another daughter from a previous relationship. Miss
Speaker 12: Wensley and her two daughters lived with mister Symonds in
Speaker 12: a small house on mister symons father's property in Serpentine.
Speaker 12: The court heard evidence that the relationship at times was
Speaker 12: tumultuous and characterized by arguments, often prompted by mister symons
Speaker 12: drinking and drug use. In March twenty thirteen, Miss Wensley
Speaker 12: and mister Symonds were involved in a traffic accident where
Speaker 12: mister Symonds was the driver. Miss Wensley was seriously injured
Speaker 12: as a result of the crash. The injuries affected her
Speaker 12: ongoing health and were a further source of tension between
Speaker 12: the couple. Mister Symonds was a gun enthusiast and owned
Speaker 12: a number of firearms. Miss Wensley also became involved in
Speaker 12: shooting during the relationship and owned her own firearm. On Wednesday,
Speaker 12: twenty fifth of June twenty fourteen, mister Simmons and a
Speaker 12: friend went pig shooting and Miss Wensley spent the day
Speaker 12: with the friend's wife. The friends stayed overnight at the
Speaker 12: Serpentine property. The next day, mister Simmons went out the
Speaker 12: back of the Serpentine property to cut firewood with another friend.
Speaker 12: Miss Wensley and her friend had gone shopping and then
Speaker 12: to collect the children from school. Mister Simmons was supposed
Speaker 12: to have returned home with the firewood as someone was
Speaker 12: coming to purchase the firewood. Miss Wensley had difficulty contacting
Speaker 12: him as mister Simmons had damaged his phone, and it
Speaker 12: appears she became angry as she thought he was deliberately
Speaker 12: avoiding her. In the afternoon, mister Simmons collected another friend
Speaker 12: and purchased a carton of beer before returning to the
Speaker 12: Serpentine property. When the three men arrived back home, Miss
Speaker 12: Wensley was not at home. However, she returned soon afterwards
Speaker 12: with her two daughters. At a time estimated betwre between
Speaker 12: four p m and four fifteen p m. Miss Wensley
Speaker 12: appeared to be upset about the events that afternoon, and
Speaker 12: an argument quickly started between Miss Wensley and mister Symonds.
Speaker 12: There was evidence that Miss Wensley tried to strike mister
Speaker 12: Symons with a mirror and head butted him, and that
Speaker 12: he wrestled her to the ground. Miss Wensley then went
Speaker 12: outside the house to a shed and smashed a lizard tank.
Speaker 12: Miss Wensley had a short telephone conversation with her mother
Speaker 12: at five p m. In which she advised her mother
Speaker 12: about the argument with mister Symons. She was described as
Speaker 12: extremely upset and hysterical. During the phone call, Miss Wensley
Speaker 12: arranged with her mother that she would take the two
Speaker 12: children and go and stay with her mother. After ending
Speaker 12: the phone call, Miss Wensley told mister Symonds that she
Speaker 12: would be taking the children to stay with her mother.
Speaker 12: She began packing some belongings while mister Simons took the
Speaker 12: two children and placed them in Miss Wensley's car. Mister
Speaker 12: Symonds told the court that he waited with the children
Speaker 12: at the car. While he was there, he shot a
Speaker 12: bird with a twenty two firearm, and this was supported
Speaker 12: by one of the children and mister symons friend. Mister
Speaker 12: Simmons and his friend gave evidence they were standing outside
Speaker 12: the house near the car when they heard a sound
Speaker 12: like a thud. They went inside the house to investigate
Speaker 12: the noise. Mister Simons entered the main bedroom, where he
Speaker 12: found Miss Wensley sitting on the bedroom floor with a
Speaker 12: shotgun next to her and a gunshot wound to her head.
Speaker 12: Mister Simmons ran outside the room and his friend then
Speaker 12: entered the room and moved the shotgun and placed a
Speaker 12: piece of fabric on her head. Neither men had working
Speaker 12: mobile phones, so they left the house and drove to
Speaker 12: the nearby Serpentine Road house to use the phone to
Speaker 12: call an ambulance. The call was made at around five
Speaker 12: twenty p m, only twenty minutes after Miss Wensley had
Speaker 12: spoken to her mother. The initial attending police officers had
Speaker 12: concerns that another person may have been involved in Miss
Speaker 12: Wensley's death, so they requested the attender of detectives. The
Speaker 12: attending detectives spoke to the uniformed police and viewed Miss
Speaker 12: Wensley in situ in the bedroom. After a short period,
Speaker 12: the detectives formed the view that the evidence supported the
Speaker 12: conclusion that Miss Wensley had committed suicide, they informed the
Speaker 12: uniformed police, who disagreed with this conclusion, but followed instructions
Speaker 12: to release the protected forensic area that had been declared
Speaker 12: and allow Miss Wensley's body to be taken to the mortuary.
Speaker 12: The next morning, mister Simmons' father, who was the owner
Speaker 12: of the house, arranged for the bedroom to be forensically
Speaker 12: cleaned using a cleaner who had been suggested by the
Speaker 12: police the night before. That afternoon, after Miss Wensley's mother
Speaker 12: raised concerns about her daughter's death and some further evidence
Speaker 12: was discovered, the initial decision of the detectives that there
Speaker 12: was no evidence of criminality was reviewed and a new
Speaker 12: investigation was commenced into the death by different detectives. The
Speaker 12: second investigation was hampered by the fact that the scene
Speaker 12: had been contaminated, but ultimately the investigators reached the same
Speaker 12: conclusion that there was no evidence of the involvement of
Speaker 12: another person in Miss Wensley's death. The matter was then
Speaker 12: given to coronial investigators before being provided to the coroner
Speaker 12: as noted above. Following further coronial investigation, a third investigation
Speaker 12: was conducted by police into the possibility that another person
Speaker 12: was involved in Miss Wensley's death. That investigation left open
Speaker 12: the possibility that her death occurred by suicide or homicide
Speaker 12: or accident.
Speaker 1: After hearing from all potential witnesses, the Deputy State Coroner
Speaker 1: concluded there is not enough evidence to make a formal
Speaker 1: finding as to how Miss Wensley died. Accordingly, her honor
Speaker 1: makes an open finding, which means she cannot determine whether
Speaker 1: it was suicide, homicide, or accidental due to the lack
Speaker 1: of relevant evidence as a result of the limited initial
Speaker 1: police investigation.
Speaker 7: Oh my god, can I tell you When we were
Speaker 7: waiting and waiting sort of the coroner's finding, Like I
Speaker 7: would say, it was mainly Nancy, Amy's mother, Kelly, Amy's sister, myself,
Speaker 7: and Amy's closest friends. We were all hanging for that finding,
Speaker 7: and we were all hoping and praying that it was
Speaker 7: going to be a finding that was not suicide. As
Speaker 7: long as it wasn't suicide, that's what we were hoping for.
Speaker 7: But when it eventually came out, Nancy actually got a
Speaker 7: copy of it before it was made public on the
Speaker 7: coroner's website. So Nancy ringed me and she said, I've
Speaker 7: got this letter from the corner's thought, and I said,
Speaker 7: oh my god, Nancy's open up. What is it? What
Speaker 7: is it? Quickly, quick, quick? She goes ages and pages
Speaker 7: and she started reading. Us aid, Nancy, you go to
Speaker 7: the end. Just go to the last two three pages.
Speaker 7: It's going to be there. The finding is going to
Speaker 7: be there. And when she read it out to me
Speaker 7: and said it was an open finding that she couldn't
Speaker 7: determine who called that trigger, we just burst into cheers.
Speaker 7: We were so upset right because what we were hoping
Speaker 7: for was that the coroner could see it was not
Speaker 7: a suicide. So we were extremely upset. We cried, all of.
Speaker 9: These people have something in common, a burning desire to
Speaker 9: know who killed their loved ones or had a hand
Speaker 9: in their disappearance. Now, sixty other cases of missing and
Speaker 9: murdered people from across the state will also attract a
Speaker 9: million dollar reward.
Speaker 1: After fighting so hard for a suicide finding, WA police
Speaker 1: was forced to concede for the state government's decision to
Speaker 1: introduce a one million dollar reward for information into Amy
Speaker 1: Wensley's homicide two years after the inquest finding.
Speaker 9: Also on the list is Amy Lee Wensley, whose death
Speaker 9: in twenty fourteen was declared a suicide after a botched investigation.
Speaker 9: Police now accept she was murdered.
Speaker 1: A few senior officers were disappointed with this decision, but
Speaker 1: we'll come to that a bit later in the podcast.
Speaker 3: It is a huge step forward.
Speaker 7: The WA government is offering million dollar rewards for a
Speaker 7: number of families, including the homicide of Amy. As soon
Speaker 7: as I read those few lines, and I'm at work, remember,
Speaker 7: I had to leave my desk, go find a conference room,
Speaker 7: shut the door, read it, and burst into deers. I
Speaker 7: couldn't believe that for the first time since twenty fourteen,
Speaker 7: I'm reading something from the police that actually says homicide.
Speaker 7: And then I think to myself, how amazing that they're
Speaker 7: going to offer them a million dollar reward. This is fantastic.
Speaker 7: But then on the flip side of that, I become
Speaker 7: really annoyed and very cranky as well, because I think,
Speaker 7: to myself, hang on a minute, how dare you say this?
Speaker 7: So you're saying homicide for whatever reason you're saying it,
Speaker 7: but you haven't come to speak to us, to me
Speaker 7: to tell me what's going on, and you have made
Speaker 7: me for eight years or more fight you on this
Speaker 7: and tell you it wasn't a suicide, and all of
Speaker 7: a sudden, you're doing a turnaround. But hey, I'm happy
Speaker 7: with the turnaround, but what's upsetting me is that I
Speaker 7: had to fight for so long to say that it
Speaker 7: was not a suicide. So no explanation has been given
Speaker 7: to me about this turnaround. But I'm asking questions of
Speaker 7: this poor woman who's emailed me from the police, and
Speaker 7: she says, hey, I'm just here to tell the family.
Speaker 7: I'm really not sure what's going on, so okay. Then
Speaker 7: all of a sudden they give me a new liaison officer.
Speaker 7: By the way, I've lost out how many I've had.
Speaker 7: And I'm told that the reason why they're giving a
Speaker 7: one million dollar reward is because it's a cold case.
Speaker 7: I said, I your grew information as an information come
Speaker 7: to light. No, no new nation has come to Life's
Speaker 7: just because it's a coroll cat, you know, and this
Speaker 7: was a good one. You know, there are other families
Speaker 7: who didn't get this. There's only selected number of families
Speaker 7: that's not this one million dollar reward. And of some
Speaker 7: who didn't, and I remember thinking to myself, and I
Speaker 7: supposed to be grateful.
Speaker 1: However, they don't say sorry for the way they handled
Speaker 1: Amy's death.
Speaker 7: Never have never apologized. I will say this to the
Speaker 7: credit of the uniform police officers, the decent people. I've
Speaker 7: had apologies from uniform police officers who were there on
Speaker 7: the night. The uniformed police officers came up to me
Speaker 7: at the inquest after they gave evidence. One of them
Speaker 7: actually helped me and said how sorry he was for
Speaker 7: what happened. Another police officer, she gave evidence, and she
Speaker 7: waited outside the courtroom, and when there was a break,
Speaker 7: I came out and she came over to him and
Speaker 7: introduced herself and told me how sorry she was for
Speaker 7: what happened, you know, And I appreciated that. I really
Speaker 7: appreciated it. I just felt I felt for them too,
Speaker 7: because I always thought it was just my family and
Speaker 7: I and Amy's friends who were suffering from what happened.
Speaker 7: But I never got to give thought to the people
Speaker 7: who turned up, such as the decent costs, the uniform
Speaker 7: one and even the paramedics that turned up. I never
Speaker 7: stopped to think about how they felt, and obviously it
Speaker 7: affected them. It affected them to the point where they
Speaker 7: came up and spoke to me, to apologize and I
Speaker 7: appreciated it, but those detectives, no, the police commissioner, no,
Speaker 7: it was us in the currenter's court of the superintendent
Speaker 7: who was there, you know, they were going to apologize
Speaker 7: and from memory his comment was something like, I'm not
Speaker 7: authorized to do that. So after the inquest finished, submissions
Speaker 7: were supposed to be done by our legal team and
Speaker 7: the police legal team, and one of the things that
Speaker 7: came up was about the police apologizing to my sister
Speaker 7: and our family, and our legal team received an email
Speaker 7: from the police legal team saying that she had been
Speaker 7: authorized to offer the family a letter of regret.
Speaker 13: Dear Ms Kirk, please accept my deepest sympathy and sincere
Speaker 13: condolences on the loss of your daughter in February twenty
Speaker 13: twenty one. Further to the inquest held in relation to
Speaker 13: Amy's death, I wish to formally express regret for the
Speaker 13: fact that the Western Australian Police officers who investigated her
Speaker 13: death on the evening of the twenty sixth of June
Speaker 13: twenty fourteen did not request the attendance of specialist services
Speaker 13: or specialist units. I also wish to express regret for
Speaker 13: the manner in which our internal processes addressed issues in
Speaker 13: relation to the initial investigation. As you will be aware
Speaker 13: from evidence led at the inquest, the Western Australian Police
Speaker 13: Force has recently undergone significant improvements in relation to police
Speaker 13: supervision and accountability, particularly with respect to requesting the attendance
Speaker 13: of the homicide Squad and forensics at unexplained deaths. I
Speaker 13: hope this letter will be of some comfort to you
Speaker 13: and your family. Your sincerely, Cole Blanche, APM, Deputy Commissioner.
Speaker 1: It's dated twelve October twenty twenty one. Cole Blanche is
Speaker 1: now Commissioner of the Western Australian Police Force. We asked
Speaker 1: him for a formal interview to ask questions about this case.
Speaker 7: He said no, Now the legal team ring me and
Speaker 7: I spoke to my sister. I don't make all the decisions.
Speaker 7: I always speak to my sister when it comes to
Speaker 7: the big stuff and this was one of those moments,
Speaker 7: and I told her that the police would like to
Speaker 7: offer a lot of regrets. Would she like it? And
Speaker 7: she asked me what I thought, and I said, I
Speaker 7: already know what I think, that this is your decision
Speaker 7: and can I tell you It was utter relief when
Speaker 7: she said no, that's not the fucking apology, and I
Speaker 7: thank god, I said, that's exactly what I think. So
Speaker 7: we went back to the legal scene and we said
Speaker 7: to them, no, we don't want this, we don't want
Speaker 7: a letter of regret because that's not an apology. So
Speaker 7: we said no. But the deputy police commissioner at the
Speaker 7: time still sense that it was something like, dear missus Kirk,
Speaker 7: that's my sister, Amy's mother, Dear missus Kirk, condolences on
Speaker 7: the loss of your daughter in February twenty twenty one.
Speaker 7: Amy died in June twenty fourteen. When I read that,
Speaker 7: I just thought to myself, this is just more of
Speaker 7: the same shit, the same attention to detail, just lack
Speaker 7: of lack of care, just more of the same, because
Speaker 7: it's everything that happens now, even if it's small, just
Speaker 7: adds on. It adds on to that mountain of anger
Speaker 7: and that mountain of grief and resentment and all those
Speaker 7: feelings of sadness. All of it not good enough, that's
Speaker 7: not good enough, ownly a mistake, own.
Speaker 1: It, despite everything, and acknowledges a lot has been achieved
Speaker 1: thanks to support from a small group of people.
Speaker 7: I was blessed enough to meet amazing, bloody people, good
Speaker 7: decent human beings with hearts of gold. So I'll tell
Speaker 7: you how this started. After Amy died, and everyone's saying.
Speaker 7: When I say everyone, I'm talking about the people in authority.
Speaker 7: When you have all of them saying Amy did it
Speaker 7: and you know she didn't, I've got to come home.
Speaker 7: So I'm home three weeks after Amy dide, feeling lost,
Speaker 7: feeling so alone, like I had the whole world against me.
Speaker 7: You know who is going to believe me?
Speaker 5: Who?
Speaker 7: They're just going to think I'm a greeting arts that
Speaker 7: won't accept this or hang on a stet. The detectives
Speaker 7: who turned up on the night and major crime squad
Speaker 7: are all sayings, she committed suicide. Who's going to listen
Speaker 7: to me?
Speaker 1: Contact details of a domestic violence legal expert by the
Speaker 1: name of Charon dev Singh are passed on to Anna
Speaker 1: and they arranged to meet at a cafe. In preparation,
Speaker 1: Ana lists everything she knows about Amy's death.
Speaker 7: And I sat across the table from him and I
Speaker 7: gave him this thing and he's reading it, and as
Speaker 7: he's reading it, he's shaking his head. And when I
Speaker 7: saw that him shaking his head. My heart just stunk
Speaker 7: and I thought, oh my god, he can see it too.
Speaker 7: You know, when you feel like everyone's going to be
Speaker 7: against you and everyone's just going to think you're silly,
Speaker 7: and you know you're not accepting this. To have people
Speaker 7: do that was just so up listing. And he said
Speaker 7: to me, you know, what you're about to take on
Speaker 7: is really big. He said, if you do this, it's
Speaker 7: going to take up at least five years of your life.
Speaker 7: And I'll never forget him saying that to him. And
Speaker 7: I said to him, do you know what, Charon dev
Speaker 7: I said, I have five years. Amy has nothing. She
Speaker 7: doesn't have any more years. What's five years in my life?
Speaker 7: Let's do this? And he said, I'm going to try
Speaker 7: to get a legal team pro bono. I've got a
Speaker 7: list and I'm going to start at the top of
Speaker 7: the list and work my way down. And we waited
Speaker 7: for a little while, and I'm very anxious waiting, and
Speaker 7: he reached out to Peter Ward at ours Hirst Law
Speaker 7: Firm and they said yes. And I couldn't believe how
Speaker 7: lucky we were that the first he wanted to approach
Speaker 7: actually said yes. But again, I dispersed into two because
Speaker 7: each time something amazing happens amongst all this shit, it's
Speaker 7: just uplifting and it's hopeful. And to have people that
Speaker 7: don't even know you, who are total strangers to you,
Speaker 7: willing to help, willing to give up their time and
Speaker 7: believe amy, it's truly amazing. I cannot thank these people
Speaker 7: enough for seeing the truth.
Speaker 1: There's still a long way to go, and the world
Speaker 1: today is very different than it was in twenty fourteen.
Speaker 10: For a third day, Australians take to the streets.
Speaker 1: Domestic violence is now recognized as one of the nation's
Speaker 1: biggest issues.
Speaker 11: This is just one of many rallies across the country
Speaker 11: today and over the weekend, with thousands of people turning
Speaker 11: out to take.
Speaker 3: A stand against domestic violence.
Speaker 1: Of control laws have been rolled out in New South
Speaker 1: Wales and most recently Queensland, with other states set to follow.
Speaker 1: The legislation outlaws an adult engaging in a course of
Speaker 1: conduct of abusive behavior that is intended to coerce or
Speaker 1: control the other person.
Speaker 11: We're God, We're we are, and we are fed up.
Speaker 1: Pressure to do more is mounting because while there's more recognition,
Speaker 1: there isn't resolution. If you talk to people who work
Speaker 1: with domestic violence victims, it's actually getting worse.
Speaker 8: Why is it that so many of us have to
Speaker 8: endure abuse?
Speaker 1: And attention has now turned to the highest office in
Speaker 1: the land.
Speaker 13: In Canberra, the march was to Parliament House, where the
Speaker 13: Prime Minister told the crowd.
Speaker 4: And this is a national crisis.
Speaker 1: We're here today to demand that governments of all levels
Speaker 1: must do bettering my own. We need to change the culture,
Speaker 1: we need to change. But for Anna, the fight for
Speaker 1: her niece continues.
Speaker 7: I always think people who were mums understand.
Speaker 1: This, and she's as determined as ever to do whatever
Speaker 1: it takes to ensure the truth about Amy comes out.
Speaker 7: Because I loved her like a daughter. She was mine.
Speaker 7: Did I tell you about when she was born? Nancy
Speaker 7: was eighteen and I was twenty, and Nancy and I
Speaker 7: are really close growing up, right, we were very very close.
Speaker 7: And when she got pregnant, I was so excited and
Speaker 7: we were together all the time. Right. I'd go and
Speaker 7: see her after work, I think, you know, on weekends
Speaker 7: I'd go and see we'd hang out and we'd always
Speaker 7: say this baby, we're going to have two mums. That's
Speaker 7: what We used to say, this baby's so lucky. It's
Speaker 7: going to have two moms, you and I. Right when
Speaker 7: Nancy went into later, she rang me in the days
Speaker 7: before mobile phone. But I write up to the hospital
Speaker 7: and she was in labor and the doctor's saying she
Speaker 7: didn't be like long hours an hour. I went home
Speaker 7: and had Sis. I went back up in the outernoon
Speaker 7: and she's still in labor. And I was there because
Speaker 7: she always said she wanted me with her, and Amy's
Speaker 7: father was there, and I just stayed with Nsy. I
Speaker 7: didn't go down the other ende. But when the doctor said, oh,
Speaker 7: the baby's got a head full of hair, I thought,
Speaker 7: how to look at this? Isn't it funny when like,
Speaker 7: I don't think of anything like down there except me
Speaker 7: Amy's head, right, I just had all his black hair.
Speaker 7: And then this baby came out. And I remember getting
Speaker 7: really too because although you know where a baby comes from,
Speaker 7: its really weird. It was the most beautiful thing I'd
Speaker 7: ever seen, do you know what I mean? Like it
Speaker 7: was beautiful. They wrapped Amy up and they put Amy
Speaker 7: or needs his chest, and she was so tired. So
Speaker 7: I took the baby off needs his chest, and I
Speaker 7: held the baby before Amy's father could hold her. I
Speaker 7: looked at that baby and I cried because even before
Speaker 7: she was born, I loved her because her mother and
Speaker 7: I were together all the time, and we said this
Speaker 7: baby was so lucky because she was going to have
Speaker 7: two mums. And after she was born, I went brought
Speaker 7: a baby castic for my car, and I come and
Speaker 7: take her because she was mine too. Amy and I
Speaker 7: are really close. When she was growing up, she gave
Speaker 7: me a nickname. She used to call me Goog right,
Speaker 7: and her kids, Amy's little one called me Annie Goog.
Speaker 7: And when she was very little, she said to me, good,
Speaker 7: Can I call you mom? I said, only if it's
Speaker 7: okay with your mom. She goes, mom, can I call
Speaker 7: good mom? And there she said, yeah, I don't care.
Speaker 7: And so from that day it was mum. And then
Speaker 7: sometimes she'd say mum and we'll both go.
Speaker 1: What In the next episode, will head back to the
Speaker 1: scene of the crime.
Speaker 4: I made a pledge to Aimy on that fatal night.
Speaker 1: And speak to the police officer first, just on the scene.
Speaker 4: When Amy died, I said the words out loud to her,
Speaker 4: I'm sorry for what's happened to you, Sis. We will
Speaker 4: get to the bottom of it.
Speaker 1: Er your say so, Desm.
Speaker 4: We both know the nasty untill 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 A you that's s e v E N
Speaker 1: The Truth about Amy at seven dot com dot au,
Speaker 1: or visit our website sevenews dot com dot au forward
Speaker 1: slash the Truth about Amy. You can also send us
Speaker 1: an anonymous tip at www dot the Truth about Amy
Speaker 1: dot com. If you're on Facebook or Instagram, you can
Speaker 1: follow us to see photos and updates relevant to the case,
Speaker 1: but for legal reasons, unfortunately you won't be able to
Speaker 1: make any comments. And remember, if you like what you're hearing,
Speaker 1: don't forget to subscribe. Please rate and review our series
Speaker 1: because it really helps new listeners to find us. Presenter
Speaker 1: and executive producer Alison Sandy Center and investigative journalist Liam Bartlett.
Speaker 1: Sound design Mark Wright, Assistant producer Cassie Woodward, Graphics Jason Blandford,
Speaker 1: and special thanks to Tim Clark and Brian Seymour. This
Speaker 1: is a seven News production