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A twenty four year old devoted mother of two fleeing a violent relationships am bags packed car, running, her daughters strapped into the backseat.

Mom told me that she needed to go back inside to grab something.

Panic.

Amy is dead, Sir Amys dead.

Eight Confusion World.

About five minutes they said, NA, it's a suicide.

One hundred percent.

This is emmersing.

What do you think is really the honest truth about Amy?

The Truth about Amy?

Episode seventeen.

Well, welcome back.

I'm Liam Bartlay.

And I'm Alison Sandy.

This week we returned to the Wild West.

Well, Liam, I know you're still there, but I'm referring to our most recent shoot.

So we've touched on the places we've gone to before, like Perth and Serpentine.

But I realize a lot of our listeners may not know a terrible lot about Australia's largest at least in area state, and I think it's important due to the level of detail we're going into for this investigation, particular in relation to the police and political culture.

So what do you say, Liam, do you want to give them a bit of background about living in WA and the climate here?

Yeah?

Okay, well where do I start?

Now?

Wild West owl I'll take that as a compliment on behalf of all the other West Australians.

Let's let's begin with that.

But let's just do a broad brush.

Okay, start with the geography.

As you mentioned, Way's Australia's largest state, and we've got something like two point six million square kilometers a little under one hundred thousand square miles in the old language.

So that's about a third of the entire nation of Australia, Larger than any state in the United States, larger than Texas, can you believe that?

Bigger in Texas, but a little bit smaller than Argentina or a little Trivia or Factotum.

We only have a population though, of around about three million, give or take a couple of dogs.

So to give you some context, Australia's most populous state, New South Wales, is almost three times that, followed by Victoria that comes in at about seven million and Queensland, you're joint ol five million, five million compared to our three million.

Well we're a little bit over three now, I think.

But you know, which just.

Goes to prove you know, quality is not always on the Gold Coast, you know what I'm saying, just for ever of Australian for ACUSM.

But despite this, WA is the richest state in Australia because we produce almost half of Australia's goods in exports and obviously through the resource sector, we generate billions of dollars.

Now, last year our GDP.

Per capita per capita was one hundred and fifty five six hundred and forty four dollars.

It's just to give you.

Some context, Australia's GDP per capita is sixty eight thousand dollars, so well and truly yeah, well and truly twice that.

Now, now that's still relatively good.

I mean Australia is ranked thirteenth in the world, thirteenth in the world for GDP per capita, so you know, pretty good, yong.

But I guess what it all boils down to is the nation's good standing is largely attributable to Western Australia because of its mining industry, specifically minerals and petroleum.

So it's not surprising, then, Liam, that there's been a few moves made for Western Australia to become its own country Australia.

Is that?

Have you heard of this term?

Of course you have.

Wasn't there a referendum in nineteen thirty three where a third of the population voted in favor of this happening?

Do you reckon that would still happen now?

You reckon a third of the population wants Westralia.

No, No, I don't.

I don't.

I think after we put the fluoride in the water, I think a lot of us got a little a lot smarter.

No, because it's a very different It's a very different makeup now, isn't it.

And that was not long after federation.

Really in historical context, you know, I think, look, you know what it's like with remote places, right, Perth's the most remote capital city in the world, So it's sort of that isolation context, the distance to the east coast.

It does give people a different sort of mental you know, a mental state, if I can put it that way in a nice way, in a nice way.

So become territorial, is what I'm trying to say.

And that's good.

You know, West Australians are very proud and very you know very you say, people can get house proud, you know what I mean.

That's a good way of putting it, I think for most West Australians.

But I think the idea of secession, you know, when people point out you have to have your own armed forces and you have to pay for this and that and the other thing, and I think that starts to.

Become it's too hard basket.

But it's not.

And especially in sport, in sporting contests, you know, it's nice to say, oh we beat the Vicks, so we've beat New South Wales or whatever.

You know, so that's all good, that's all good.

But apart from that, we're you know, we're all one.

We are one and three.

It is.

It is different, though, I mean, I don't know.

It seems like because of the large land mass and the smaller population that there is, it's a bit tighter, like people know people more and there seems to be.

True.

It can be very clique.

You're right, you're right, but that also comes I think from being isolated more, you know, people feel as they have to protect their patch and it becomes a smaller it's a smaller pool.

Yeah, Queensland is a little bit like that.

It is.

But I don't think I would know as many people in Brisbane, like you know of you know what I mean.

Like, I don't think it's I think it's the population is big enough just in Brisbane that you're not you know, it's not a case of everyone knows each other's business.

No, true, you used to be.

But I agree with you.

It's that critical mass in the last sort of twenty twenty five years you start to get over that.

Yeah.

Also, though, doesn't it have a big English and South African migrant base expat population?

Yeah, it does, it does.

Yeah, a lot of a lot of English people early on, sort of more in the southern suburbs, southern coastal suburbs, now a little bit sort of some of the northern coastal suburbs.

But a lot of a lot of Poms, as we say, quite a few South Africans.

Yeah, a large, a large South African expat population.

I know.

We had to get a South African voice actor over here to voice the lawyer in the inquest representing Amy's family Rain Waite, So yeah we did.

But yes, also fun fact, it's quicker to fly from Perth to Bali than Sydney or Melbourne.

So many people do, don't.

They Well, yeah, because it's cheap.

But you know, I don't know whether i'd invoke Bali as being a great thing for Western Australia.

I mean, you've got Fiji over there, that's that's the East Coast barley.

Yeah, yeah, but I don't think as many of us go to Fiji as per people or Western Australians necessarily got a balley.

I don't know, No, that's true.

Although I did hear an interesting thing yesterday that the incidents of Bali belly was up seventy nine percent year on year.

So yeah, I'd be going somewhere else.

But anyway, so you're not one of those people.

I digress.

No, Also, I had and again tell me if this has any truth in it, but one top businessman from here told me recently how success here can really be about not upsetting Perth's power brokers, this tight knit as you talked about this click and you know, I know the police have probably seen as an arm of that.

I mean as they are in many capital cities, obviously the media and the mining industry.

So anyway, I guess the only reason I say that is because it makes it much more impressive, given how careful people are not too upset other people, because of the repercussions that we have so many people speaking out on Amy's case.

I think that's right.

I think that's right.

And also can I just add though, that there has been that thing in Perth in the past, especially back in the alum Bond days especially you know you have because you had a very tight click between businessmen, developers and government and people in the mining industry obviously played a big part of that.

But I think that's largely that's that's very different these days, very different.

But I think the legal community, not just in Perth, Australia wide every capital city.

I think that it's a very tight club.

And I think that's combined with the connections with police and prosecutors, and I think I think that makes a big difference.

Yes I do, Yes, I do.

And the legal grape vine is so much smaller in Perth, which I think makes a big difference.

So that traditional, if I can put it this way, boys club, but I don't mean that in a gender way, because I think there's plenty of women involved these days in those top echelons of the legal circle.

But I think that very much exists, and I think they a lot of them protect each other.

When I say protect each other, a lot of them just won't speak out because they don't want to get involved, because they don't want to be seen to be critical of their fellow legal brethren, even though they might be on the other side of the bench, if you know what I mean.

And I think that that very much happens in Perth.

It happens in Sydney and Melbourne as well, but you notice it more in Perth.

And it comes back to what you're talking about.

I think sort of that sort of power base.

And I think that's why it's so impressive that a lot of people have been prepared on a legal footing, or people who continue to deal with people high up in the legal circles, have been prepared to speak out on behalf of Amy Wensley.

I think that's been terrific.

Yeah, it really is.

And I think what we're finding in this season lamb Is and later in this episode is the fact that those people who are in the know involved, credible people with good reputations may be not necessarily a member of the cool club.

There is always a bit of a cool club in every city, but they're willing to keep going at it because they believe in it too, And I think that's been really heartening.

Absolutely.

Yeah, No, I couldn't agree more.

Also, though I have worked in Adelaide, I don't have this issue so much in Brison, but there's probably a bit of it.

But where if you you know, particularly if you're in the part of the local news cycle, right, you can get punished for suing a story like this, right, Yeah, And I think it's worth telling or letting our listeners know that we're both national reporters, and I think that gives us a little bit of protection.

Yeah, I absolutely get where you're coming from.

I mean, it is a lot easier for us because we can move on to other stories at the end of the day.

We don't have to be dependent upon any you know, one particular area to feed us information or to release information to us.

And that's right, all of the circle is Adelaide's a good example.

Then the harder it is for those reporters to push back and do their job properly, because remember, cases like Amy's are a great example of this.

The truism is you're not in journalism to make friends.

And if you are a journalist who wants to make friends, find something else to do.

It's not your job.

It's not your job.

You're there to find the truth and you're there to disseminate as much of that truth as you possibly can to your listeners, readers, viewers, whatever that is.

So in that context, yeah, I take your point, you know, because we do a national role call, if I can put it that way, you know, because we don't have to go back to the same old pot on the same old stove, do we.

So it makes it, it makes it a little bit easier.

Well, I'm just glad that I don't have to ring Waypole every day asking what happened last night, you know.

Or following up on and they're probably glad you don't rememberies.

Don't do it up to the presses anyway.

So let's discuss it again.

The reason we've once again assembled in.

Perth apart from it being a great city.

Oh absolutely, and obviously Amy's death being at Serpentine near Perth.

But now Obviously it's a lot of work involved with these trips.

Yeah, a lot of planning, isn't there with trips like this, and logistics trying to get people to not only talk but be in the right place at the right time, and as you say, our both of us to be here and then organize other people to support us.

Yes, including the brilliant producer Dwayne Heavily.

So it was great to have him along because obviously he's been with us on a few projects.

Now were you more so than me?

But I love having Dwayne along, So that's been good.

Yeah, Dwayne does some great work with Spotlight and as well as the engagement of an experience camera operator of course, which makes a big difference, but that can vary depending on who's available and again the logistics of it.

This time it was one of WA's best wellow called Simon Heidzik.

Simon was fantastic, absolutely, and of course the talent the actual reason for us coming here, whose insight is integral to helping us realize the truth about amy.

So those of you who've traveled from the East Coast, no, going to Perth is treated like an international flight.

It takes almost six hours.

These flights are almost always full, mostly of FIFO workers.

That's fly in, fly out, which isn't surprising giving the mining industry employs hundreds of thousands of people.

And I don't mind telling you, Liam, I'm always pretty disgruntled if I get stuck in a middle seat for six hours.

I do take care, may have moved and could form out.

But this time, this time I was by the window over the wing and it was a smooth landing and the peanuts.

Were all right, yeah, well look and you're laying it on there.

I mean, it can be less than that if there's depending on where you're coming from, of course, but it's a tough one.

From Brisbane, I must have known it is a tough one.

It's a long way.

It's a long way, but ol, you did make it.

And I'm really excited about this and letting our listeners hear some of these people.

The first person we caught up with is somebody whose appearance I think was well overdue.

Well we've certainly heard a lot from him, but yes, this is the first time was spoken with him directly.

But he was worth the weight lamb.

Yeah, absolutely, And just by way of background, Professor Tim Ackland did his PhD at the University of Western Australia back in the nineteen eighties as a tutor working his way up to professor.

Now his career spanned something like forty five years and at the time he was recruited to assist with Amy's case.

This is important he was being called upon regularly by WA police and other authorities to provide expert advice in the area of biomechanics.

So I began the interview by asking Tim more about that.

Can you outline the extent and the depth of your experience in sharing forensic cases details with authorities around Australia.

Give us an idea of what you've been associated with.

Yes.

So, in addition to my work as a teacher and a researcher at University of Western Australia, I also undertake consulting work.

Most of it's in the sphere of people being injured at work and applying the biomechanics knowledge that I have to those situations.

But on occasions I've been asked to undertake consultancies for the police and coroners in various jurisdictions around Australia in order to try to work out or try to give some indication as to whether the scenario that they have seen or come across could have been caused in one way or another.

So mostly workplace insurance claims, Yes, that's right, working out who's in the right and who's in the wrong.

Yes, And could a person have injured themselves in the manner that they've said and ended up with the injuries that they've eventually got.

But when it comes to the difference between that and cold cases, especially involving homicides around Australia, it must be pretty confronting.

It is confronting.

I won't deny that.

But my background in anatomy and applied anatomy has dealing with deceased persons has helped me to work through that evidence, that visual evidence in particular, and remain scientific as much as I can.

How many cases do you think you've looked at criminally professor criminal cases?

Probably about fifteen to twenty criminal cases.

So you've had a fair breadth of experience in terms of knowledge and information shared.

Yes, And who approached you initial to look at Amy Wensley's case.

So I was initially approached by some officers from the homicide squad.

They asked me some questions and showed me some photographs and said could I make a determination?

And I said no, with that information alone, I couldn't do.

So.

Then a little bit of time went by, and then I got a call from the State Coroner's office and asked if I would be happy to look at some of the evidence that they have available and to give my preliminary views.

They were particularly interested to know if I could give a determination from my perspective on the basis of that information alone.

So what was the essential brief?

What were they asking you to try to ascertain?

They asked me if I could make a determination of whether Amy had committed suicide in the manner in which the detectives who were on the scene had suggested, or whether this was indeed some other form of homicide.

So your advice was going direct to the coroner.

At that point.

Yes.

At the same time, they asked if I would interrogate the various witness statements, the information from forensic scientists, and to see if there were any inconsistencies in that information, which I was able to write a report in twenty eighteen, I believe, and sent that report to the state coroner.

So just to be clear, you were looking at the biomechanics of this in Amy's case, yes, whether or not she could have potentially shot herself if someone else had done it, et cetera, et cetera.

But also surrounding that crime scene photographs witness statements as rare as they were on the ground from that night.

And you also, as I understand it, you traveled to the location.

So this occurred later and on the basis of that report that I wrote, I believe that you State Coroner then asked the Cold Case Squad of the West Australian Police to allow me to go and do a reconstruction and simulation of the events that supposedly took place on that particular day, and that was the basis of my second report, which was for the WA Police.

So essentially you had two cracks at it, didn't you.

First your role was with the Coroner's court and then as you say, with the cold case squad the homicide squad.

So you really did a deep dive, as it were.

Yes, as a deeper dive as I could do given the circumstances.

Yes, But in the whole case, you've probably been privy to the entire caseload of information as it is available.

I mean, you would be not an orphan, but you would be one of the few.

I guess.

So nothing was withheld from me that I know of in making my determinations.

And in terms of determinations, have you ever had a case where you've been in error, even in hindsight, in terms of your assessment your determination.

I only go on the facts that are presented to me and using my science background, what is the likelihood of the facts being consistent?

True?

In many cases, I may not be privy to all of the facts, but I think in this case, nothing was withheld from me that I know about.

I guess.

The point I'm getting to, Professor is your track record is pretty.

Good, if you'd like to put it that way.

Yes, I mean, there has not been a case that you've looked at so far, even with a rearview mirror, where you've been proven to be wrong with your assessment.

Liam, with respect, I've not been proven wrong.

It's sometimes the decision maker, be it the jury or the judge, waits my evidence differently to the way I wait it.

So let's say decisions can go against my recommendations, but that doesn't mean that I'm.

Wrong, understood, But scientifically, your results in your assessment have not ever been proven to be inaccurate.

Not in those cases that I've looked at.

Known.

Okay, So when you first looked at Amy's case, was there any particular thing that stood out for you?

Was there one thing that looked unusual or extraordinary?

There are about twenty things that looked unusual and extraordinary.

There was so much inconsistency in the witness statements and in what people had said had occurred, and the evidence such as it was that I was presented with.

So the whole thing from the start did not ring true.

And it's unfortunate that those various witnesses had not been interrogated correctly or properly at the time.

Not much so the witness statements information made sense to me.

The only thing that made sense was the report of the attending uniformed officers who were the first people on the scene, apart from those witnesses.

The first three constables, that's right, Professor.

The witness testimonies, particularly from Gareth Price and David Simmons, what did you make of those?

They had plenty of time to get their story straight.

But when it came to what they witnessed when they walked into the bedroom, and David Simmons was apparently the first person to go into the bedroom, followed sometime later by Gareth Price.

Those stories did not match up, so there were still glaring inconsistencies.

Is that fair to say?

Or am I overdoing it?

There were inconsistencies.

Once they described what they saw when they went into the room, they were quite consistent with the the story that they were suggesting that they were both standing out by the car with the children in the car and they both heard a loud bang.

That part of it was consistent between the two of them.

Can we drill down a little bit on that room?

Yes?

Can we talk about the bedroom, because, as I say, you had the benefit of being allowed back into that room Amy's bedroom at a later date in order to do some of your tests and some of your simulations.

Yes, that particular house was occupied by a third party who were very generous in allowing us to go back and do our recreations and simulations.

As you walk through the house, you come to the main bedroom.

There is a door into that bedroom which opens into an alcove.

The bed is on the left, hand side as you're facing that, and straight ahead is a wardrobe.

So the little alcove is bordered by the wardrobe on the far side of wall, and the door the bed is off to the left.

As I say, can you recall with clarity when you went in there to start those tests, what it looked like and how you felt about what had happened.

Yes, we were very fortunate.

Even though the detectives shut the scene down and declared it a suicide and therefore there was no opportunity for proper forensic photographs, etc.

We're very fortunate that one of the attending uniformed officers took photographs at the time, so we were able to set the room up pretty much exactly the way it was as seen in those photographs.

There was Constable Roberts, I think, yes, So from his photographs you sort of pieced it together.

Yes, And what conclusion did you come to?

So my conclusion has always been, from that very first report that I did for the coroner, is that Amy Wensley did not shoot us, did not did not definitively as definitively as I can be as a scientist, there's always a small percentage of doubt but as definitively as I can be, she did not take a gun and shoot herself in the manner that people have described.

Is there a particular reason which makes you so sure?

From that bedroom scene?

There are probably half a dozen reasons which, when taken together, mean that, in my view, it would be biomechanically impossible, let's say, for her to have shot herself and then the scene to have been left the way we saw it in those photographs taken by Constable Roberts.

What are the most compelling for you, professor?

So the most compelling is the position that Amy was found in the blood and other biological material spatter on the wall adjacent to her left side of her head and shoulder, the upright position of her head, the almost horizontal entry and exit points of the wound, the position most importantly of her right hand, and her right hand was in the photograph, tucked under her right thigh, right up near her buttock and virtually completely covering her right hand.

The other two important bits of information are that, even though there was a limited forensics taken after this, Dr Pitts was able to show that there was gunpowder resnue on Amy's left hand, but not on her right hand, which is tucked underneath her thigh.

And there was transfer blood on both the barrel of the gun and Amy's left hand, but nothing on her right hand.

So they're the important bits of information that lead me to my conclusion.

So in terms of a scientific eg saw puzzle, it just didn't add up.

That's correct.

The pieces are just in the wrong position.

They are they are for the various scenarios that were put by the detectives to promulgate their notion of suicide.

Indeed, we had an opportunity go and test other scenarios where Amy perhaps could have held begun in a different manner, and then both of those I can discard for the fact that they don't match up with the other parts of the evidence.

Can we put a figure on it?

Because when we're talking about using science as you do, you're only dealing with the facts as they are, the cold heart clinical facts.

Is there a hard scientific percentage?

I mean when you say you concluded Amy did not shoot herself.

So in science we're always dealing with probabilities.

You know, we test hypotheses.

There are some limitations to our tests and those have to be acknowledged and That's why we never say with one hundred percent certainty that a equals be if you like, so, if you ask me for a percentage, I would say that, you know, the ninety five percent confidence that I would have is that my suggestion that she did not kill herself is true.

Ninety five percent sure, ninety five percent.

See, it's fascinating because your conclusion and the results of your simulations are almost identical to that of Scott Rhoder's experiments.

And as you know, Scott Roder is a similar forensic biomechanical expert who we brought to Sydney from Los Angeles, has dealt with dozens of American police forces and consulted to a lot of different homicide units in the States.

He recreated that bedroom to the centimeter in a studio in Sydney and did exactly the same barrage of tests in his own way and came to exactly the same conclusion that you've come to.

I would hope, so, Lene, if he's worth his salt, Science doesn't lie, does it.

I guess that's what you're pointing to.

The Scientific aspects of this don't lie.

The human aspects can be manipulated let's say.

So, then you went ahead and made your final report.

Yes, and that went to the police.

Yes, and in that final report.

And correct me where I'm wrong here, But you basically said, the evidence that you found overwhelmingly suggests that Amy did not shoot herself.

That's correct.

And what was the police reaction to that?

I did not get a reaction from the police at the time.

They simply took that and took it to the coroner.

And so the next time I encountered the police was in the coronial inquest.

Well, we know what the reaction was from police to get another opinion.

It's funny because they didn't, but going for another opinion when they got say the psychologists report from the internal police psychologists back to you, Liam, you then asked Professor Acklan what he thought of the coroner's finding.

Yes, that was the deputy coroner, I believe, and she delivered an open finding.

But she did give weight to the evidence of the various experts, and she was I think the words were convinced that there was some doubt about the histories that were purported to have happened by the various witnesses.

So there was doubt, but for reasons of her own.

She could not deliver anything other than an open finding.

Were you surprised?

I was surprised you were, Yes, because again you have had access like no one else to all the information, the photographs, the witness statements, and then conducted your own experiments in situ at the crime scene.

Yeah.

We must remember that simulations and reconstructions come with a number of limitations.

For example, we used a live model similar size, age, weight, etc.

As Amy.

We used a replica gun which was loaded with blank bullets to be exactly the same weight.

All of those things are limitations.

They have to be acknowledged as limitations, and it just depends on the decision maker as to how much weight they put on those limitations compared to the eventual conclusions that I came to have.

You worked on any cases, Professor, where you have made such a definitive conclusion and they haven't gone to trial.

No.

Is there anything about Amy's case that troubles you?

Yes.

The longer this goes on, it troubles me more and more that I believe an injustice has been done, and it's part of the reason why I'm sitting here today.

You're in a difficult position.

I've got to say, because police still call upon you as they should for your professional opinion in other cases.

Yes, and so you walk a fine line, don't you.

You have to deal in fact you're a scientist.

But there's also the politics of this.

There is a lot of politics around this.

But I deal with the facts and my job as an expert is to provide the best information I can to the decision maker, if that's the coroner or a judge or a jury.

That's my job and I will do that honestly to the best of my ability.

And that's what I do.

If the police wish to use me and like what I do, then I'm very happy to work with them.

I do a lot of work for the WA Police at minimal cost, let's say, because I feel it's my duty to help.

Well, you have a very good reputation.

Thank you, well, you've earned it.

I mean, it's one of the reasons that former Coroner Vicar decided upon the receipt of your report to afford it to the DPPs because it carries weight.

I hope something yes, And just a reminder for our listeners here, Al evel And Vicker was the first coroner who was assigned Amy's case.

Now, she was another key person in this whole chain who was privy to the details, all the details, and did not agree with the WA police's conclusion that Amy killed herself.

We'll be speaking with her in the next episode.

Now back to Professor Ackland.

I'm asking him about any possible connection that he has with Amy's case prior to officially getting involved.

Now, this is important for people living outside Perth because those of us who live there know how tight the community is.

As we've discussed, even if we don't know somebody directly, we often know of them, or we know somebody else who's had some sort of involvement.

Is there any personal connection for you, Professor, And I don't mean with the particular players in this case, in Amy's story, but being exposed to the sort of information and the pictures and all the things that go with it in cases like this, does it have an impact person.

I try to remain dispassionate as much as I can, and that serves me very well in most of the other cases that I'm involved with.

But I guess this one's a little bit different.

It's gone on for some time, and I just get the feeling that you know, the evidence hasn't been weighted in the best way possible for Amy to get justice.

What has to happen, though scientifically in this case, because we can't go back and change any of that, shall I say, nightmarish litany of mistakes at the actual crime scene on the night So that does leave all that potential forensic evidence missing forever.

Yes, that's true.

So how does it progress?

I think it can progress if those various players who were witnesses on the scene have an opportunity to present themselves in a criminal case and be cross examined and interrogated if you like, to find out the veracity of their stories and where the holes lie.

The holes which I saw in my report, but others need to see that and hear that for themselves.

So what you're suggesting, if I may be so bold, is the DPP needs to take a leap of faith, based on the available evidence that's already there in the bottom drawer, go to trial and litigate the whole thing.

I wouldn't like to tell the DPP what to do.

They have their whole series of things that they must check off.

But let me say that I would be very pleased to see that happen.

I don't want to sound morbid about this or gruesome, but one thing that's always struck me as highly unusual in this case is the position of the wound on Amy's head, the entry specifically for person so tiny and also be just generally and correct me if I'm wrong here.

I might be completely off the beaten track.

But if anyone is going to suicide with a weapon like that, I would have thought the last thing you would try to do is shoot yourself horizontally.

Am I being nice?

You're right on the mark.

If I could take you back to the scenario that was painted by the detectives who were on the scene, who called it very early in my view, a suicide.

They suggested that Amy had held this shotgun with her left hand only out here on her right hand side, and shot herself that way.

This was because her right hand was tucked up underneath her buttocks.

There's a whole bunch of problems with that.

We recreated this scenario with the police officer, who, by the way, was naive to the story.

She had not seen any of the photographs, and she acted under my direction.

So we supported that shotgun with some strings and she was able to reach the trigger out here on her right hand side with her left hand, but she couldn't support the weight and aim the shotgun.

It was very you know, it moved around a lot.

And so the detectives were challenged by one of the police officers, Reynolds, I believe, and they said, well, obviously she's supported the butt onto the beder, onto the floor and still used this very awkward action with her left hand and pushed the trigger, not pulled the trigger, but pushed the trigger away.

Now, all of that does not make sense because if she had leant over this way towards her right and pushed the trigger, then the exit wound would have spattered blood high up on that wall.

She would probably fallen over as well onto the right side, and the gun would have been out to the right hand side.

This is a nonsense, This is a fiction.

It cannot have happened that way.

And the reason for that is because Amy was found sitting upright in the alcove.

Her head was upright, leaning against the wall.

The blood spatter and other material was next to her left side of her face and down by her shoulder, so almost horizontal.

Yes, the entry and exit wound.

We didn't have good forensics, but you know, the physics don't lie.

The entry and exit wounds were almost horizontal, probably slightly downward, and the exit room was near where that blood spatter material was there on that so the scenario painted by the detectives at the time could not have been possible given the other evidence.

The other evidence also includes the fact that if she was pushing the trigger with her right hand, she couldn't have blood materi there and she couldn't have gunpowder residue.

So clearly, in my view, if she has committed suicide, she can't have done it in that way.

So part of what we tried to do was to look for other scenarios where she might have committed suicide using a different approach, and the most logical approach one would think about it would be to use the gun and push the trigger with the right hand and maybe hold and support the barrel of the gun with the left hand.

This means that the gunpowder residue on the left hand and the transfer blood on that left hand would have been there, as was found no blood residue on the right hand and no gunpowder residue.

It also means she could have probably stayed up right.

The trouble with all of that is when a person is immediately deceased, they can't move and move things around.

They fall.

The limbs will fall in that position, and the gun fall and probably go out to the right given the action reaction Newton's third law.

When we did this simulation, the right hand dropped down by her side, nowhere near where it was found and photographed underneath her thigh and buttock.

Who had us her arm managed to be tucked under her buttock.

It can't happen, not by her anyway.

So these were inconsistencies even with that scenario that I painted, made even worse by Gareth Price, who entered second into the room and said that the gun was lying with the butt by her feet and the barrel by her head.

Now, David Simmons says he walked into the room and he did not move the body.

So we've got a second witness who says that the gun was lying this way.

If she'd shot herself, then the blood spatter would be behind and the gun may have ended up there.

But all of the other information is incorrect.

It made no sense.

It made no sense, so on the basis of those things, I was able to discount the suggestion that Amy had killed herself, either in the scenario purported by the detectives and in the one that sort of made more logical sense if you were going to take a gun and shoot yourself.

Yes, So the only thing that then made sense, And partly because this trajectory of the entry and exit were in the trajectory of the pellets was horizontal but slightly downward.

The fact that Price said that the gun was placed here led me to conclude that Amy was shot by a third party and the gun was placed there.

Now, if we believe what Price says, he took that gun from that position and threw it on the floor, she couldn't have put that gun there.

She couldn't have shot herself from that position.

The gun would have been out to the right hand side.

So, based on every scenario that you've looked at, there has to be a third party involved.

The only thing that makes sense is a third party shot Amy Wensley.

It's the only thing that's consistent with all the other bits of evidence, Lamb.

And the question remains, who is that third party?

That's the question.

It beggars belief for me that police detectives who trained these sorts of things, or even minus the training, just with their common sense, can't come even half way to the same conclusion.

It was a very strange for me to hear that they were sticking with their story through that coronial inquest and wouldn't budge from that.

But these are the same police detectives who didn't even want to enter the room, who were told by uniform officers when they turned up on the scene that there was a dead mum in that bedroom, and they didn't even want to go in and have a look themselves with their own eyes.

I can't recall that as being the case, But I will take your point.

Now, stopping there for a minute, Liam, and you make this point.

Of course, this was never about WA police as a whole, because there were so many officers there wanting to do the right thing.

The thing that surprises me most though, is how those ones were punished while the two detectives got a rap over the knuckles, a token gesture.

Talk about lack of justice.

That's it right there.

How can an organization whose primary purpose is to instill justice have any credibility when they continue to deny it for Amy and her family.

Yeah, it's a hard one, isn't it.

I've got to say, though, I don't think we're the only ones who see it this way.

In fact, I know we're not the only ones who see it this way because of the enormous feedback that we've had to this podcast, although many of the other feedback streams might be a bit more diplomatic the way they put things.

But look towards the end of our interview, I couldn't help lamenting the attitude of authorities ongoing treatment of Amy's case to Professor Ackland Now, who of course was pretty good about that.

He completely understood our frustration.

Do you think that this case is now held up because people who made perhaps erroneous decisions in the first instance ten years ago don't want to be embarrassed.

I suspect that that is the case.

People will hold a position and defend that position.

That's the way of human nature.

I think that there are people who were witnessed to the events and they won't be changing their story.

So it'll be very interesting to see what the DBP does.

It will, indeed, But before we go on, as WA police are no longer answering any more questions from US, I decided to put those questions to WA's new Police Minister, Rees Whitby, similar to what we put to Police Commissioner Cole Blanche.

They were directed at WA Police's credibility among new evidence of senior officers pushing for a suicide finding.

No matter what.

Here's what his spokesman said in a statement.

WA Police Special Crime Squad has carriage of the ongoing investigation into Amy's death, and there is a million dollar reward for information leading to a conviction of the person or persons responsible.

WA Police have been pursuing a number of investigative leads and have committed to presenting any findings to the DPP for consideration.

I encourage anyone who can assist and has information in relation to her death to contact crime Stoppers on one eight hundred triple three, triple zero or online at www dot crime stoppers, WA dot com dot au.

SI liam I politely replied to his media advisor, first by thanking him, but of course also pointing out that this didn't answer my questions or even address the issue of WA Police's integrity.

Yeah, well, it's clearly it's a popcorn reply designed to make you feel better about the fact that they've read it and actually sent something back.

I just wish politicians and the way they run their offices, including media, would just be honest.

You know.

If they don't want to buy into it, they don't want to make a public comment about it, just say nothing.

I mean, that's really quite insulting if the police minister doesn't think there's public interest in a case that is so heavily tarnished with the dv lens and everyone's trying to well, everyone that I know who's responsible is trying to do something to make an impact against domestic violence and the rising numbers.

You know, if a police minister can't find the time to do that, just say, just send you back a proper message in English.

Look, we don't want to be part of this particular podcast because we don't want the public to hear exactly what we've got to say, because you know, for some reason it's the minister is embarrassed, or the minister can't do anything, or the minister's not interested.

Yeah, isn't the lad up?

I mean one of those operational things that they've got to leave in w a police's corner.

So I understand that, but when it comes to the reputation, the integrity, the perception public confidence in WA police, which is severely undermined by the information that's come out from our investigation recently where you have a former police officer another one saying that they were told to treat this as non suspicious and when they didn't, they were reprimanded verbally.

But you know it was a yelled at, which would be I would have thought be a misconduct issue at the very least.

Well, I think again.

You know, you use the word integrity, but it starts at the top.

And I've said this before, but what we need and WA is not an orphan in this case.

If there's a new minister on the block in which mister Whitby is, it's about time that somebody took a stand and became a minister of the Crown for the crown, which is the people, and that's who's paying his wages.

Sometimes they need to be reminded of that.

So we want a Minister of Police, not a minister for police.

We want a minister who's going to keep the police on the right track and keep the integrity implicit in the running of that police service.

That's what we need.

You know, when's the last time you heard a minister who had police as their remit be critical at all of what police did.

I'm telling you, it's like a football club.

They become the card carrying number one member and it's not right.

It's the minister is there as the old overseer, he is the boss.

But they become, as I say, they become the biggest, most important part of the fan club.

At the very least, I would have just said, look, I'm going to catch up with the police commissioner about this, because obviously I want to make sure that but you know, it is a matter for investigation.

The kind of a way of dealing with this in a more frank and honest and you know, at least looking like you care, because I don't know if the police commissioner cares because he hasn't gotten back to us on it, and he's not elected, and I guess they kind of just had an election, so they probably don't care too much.

But you know, I mean, this is this is your reputation, and I mean I think that's why people just become so yeah, cynical, cynical.

Yes about politics.

Yeah, so you know, there's the BS for you.

But anyway, we'll move on and hopefully we will try and keep magnifying issues that force the judicial system to do something about Amy Wensley for her family.

And on top of that, I see also where Amy's aunt, Anna Davy, has also written to the Triple C Commissioner.

That's the Corruption and Crime Commissioner John mckeckney.

See seeing the Police minister into that letter.

Dear Commissioner mckeckney, my name is Anna Davy, and I'm writing in regard to the Western Australian police handling of the investigation into the death of my niece Amy Wensley, who died in June twenty fourteen.

As a family, we still have concerns over the adequacy of the police investigations into Amy's death since twenty fourteen.

By way of background, in November twenty nineteen, I wrote to the Corruption and Crime Commission about Western Australia's police mishandling of Amy's death on the night she died and the subsequent investigation by Major Crime that followed Operation Johnde.

At the time, the Corruption and Crime Commission concluded there was reasonable suspicion of serious misconduct by Detective Kirkman and Detective Weedman and referred the matter back to Western Australian Police Internal affairs.

It was only after a twenty twenty one coronial inquest determined there wasn't enough evidence to conclude Amy killed herself that Western Australian Police acknowledged the detectives made mistakes, but not that they wrongly concluded Amy took her own life.

The two detectives each received a warning but no further punishment, and our family has never received an apology.

At the inquest, it was revealed that the officer heading the coronial investigation was instructed by the homicide squad to treat Amy's death as non suspicious and was then severely reprimanded when she didn't.

This is yet more evidence of the extensive mishandling of Amy's case and their bias applied to investigations to try to manipulate a suicide finding.

A transcript of the inquest is not available to our family, and we have tried on a number of occasions to obtain a copy, but to know of it.

However, I urged the Corruption and Crime Commission to obtain a copy to read the extraordinary bias applied by the police hierarchy for yourselves.

It's clear Western Australian police attempted to cover up mismanagement of Amy's case, which is at best police misconduct.

This has never been investigated.

We're repeatedly being told now that there's a lot more awareness in Western Australian police of the sometimes hidden nature of domestic violence than at the time of Amy's death.

Police Commissioner Cole Blanche even stated that a case like Amy's was less likely to happen again after the introduction of a two day domestic violence course for police to attend and a helpline for more junior police officers to call if they feel their concerns were not being heard by more senior police.

However, earlier this year, a police internal investigation found eight Western Australian Police officers did not perform their duty in their lead up to the Floreate murders the Bombard case.

It does not seem like much has changed since Amy's death.

Feeling helpless against an organization such as Western Australian Police, I sought help from investigative journalists to help uncover all the material required to see Amy's case finally be heard in a criminal court.

Their work has been published on Spotlight and the podcast The Truth About Amy Is This what policing has come down to.

Late last year, the Western Australian Police relented following negative publicity about their failure to investigate Amy's case properly and formed a task force to review Amy's case and prepare a report for the Office of the Director of Public Prosecution.

We are pleased about this, but given their approach to Operation Johnde and what they told the coronial inquest, our family is concerned Western Australian Police will continue to perpetuate the very inaccurate theory of suicide, which has now been debunked by three biomechanical experts, or find excuses not to support a prosecution.

I note with interest that the Corruption and Crime Commission website states that during October twenty twenty four to December twenty twenty four you assessed five hundred and seventy three allegations of alleged minor and serious misconduct by Western Australian Police.

That's an average six complaints a day.

There is clearly a serious issue within Western Australian Police and it has been frustrating and negatively impacting my family now for more than a decade.

I urge you to please undertake a new investigation into Western Australian Police's handling of the case of Amy Wensley relating to Operation Johndee, the Homicide Squad's attempt to have an officer in charge of the coronial investigation treat Amy's case as non suspicious, and the obvious bias by senior police officers displayed at the coronial inquest.

I request you also oversee the current investigation being undertaken and receive a copy of the brief of evidence when it's provided to the Director of Public Prosecution at its conclusion, to ensure Amy's case doesn't continue to be mishandled.

Please don't hesitate to contact me to discuss this matter further, kind regards, Anna Davy.

The Triple C replied that the matter would be assessed and they would contact Anna when the process was complete.

Meanwhile, as I finished up my interview with Professor Ackland, I couldn't help but marvel at the expertise of someone of his caliber and his credibility had not managed to convince WA Police even before the inquest that Amy could not possibly have shot herself.

He did well though, to try to give them the benefit of the doubt.

But once again, of course, he emphasized his findings were based on a reconstruction, and fair enough, that's the margin of erar, isn't it.

That's what he's saying.

Look, you know it can't be perfect because it's a reconstruction.

But still it obviously does bother him that they're not being taken more seriously, particularly when taken into consideration with the other evidence.

Ninety five percent lamb, he said, ninety five percent.

He was sure.

Ninety five percent.

Yeah, amazing in that.

I mean from bloke has been around this stuff his whole life, you know, forty five years, all that experience, all that expertise.

I mean he's seen this guy's seen stuff that you know, would keep people awake at night, and he says ninety five percent.

It's good enough for me.

Well, that's a maximum because he's always got to account for the margin of era.

You've always got a margin of ra Yeah.

As you know, I spoke to Professor Ackland about this too, and this is what he told me.

My original thoughts were that there was so much in the evidence trail that was inconsistent, even down to the witness statements by the people who were there at the time, David Simmans, his friend, Gareth Price, David's father, as well Robert Simmons.

There was a veneer of consistency.

But when I looked with my forensic head hat on, it didn't hang together very well.

In there were aspects of those witness statements which were contradictory that weren't picked up by other parties, and that was the basis of my report.

It was simply to say these things don't hang together from a logic perspective.

I then asked him about the ongoing reluctance of WA police to change their mind from suicide.

I mean, even at the inquest after your evidence, they just didn't seem to want to contemplate anything other than suicide.

Yeah, that astounded me actually.

So the other thing, of course, is about her hand being tucked under.

There seemed to be some talk about how possibly maybe going in in that the door right, pushing her body, that sort of thing, But then there seems to be contradicting it evidence saying well, her body can't have been moved much because of the blood spatter and all the other forensic evidence.

So is it feasible that somehow her body could have been pushed Do you think so that her hand ended up under her thigh after the fact.

Yeah, This was a question put to me by the cold case detectives.

So in order to look at that scenario, we had our model seated with both feet up against the door as you would imagine someone trying to stop someone coming in the door.

After ten pushes, each time the right knee, which was bent at the time because her feet were up against the door, it flopped down to the right hand side once that occurred.

Once you tried to open the door, the knee stopped the door from opening more than about halfway.

So after ten trials of that we were fairly convinced.

I was fairly convinced that the right leg would have gone from a vertical position to a horizontal onto the ground still bent, but that the door could not be opened more than about halfway.

So we marked that position on the floor.

We then position the hand.

So again, if we go back to the first set of tests, the right hand did not fall anywhere near her thigh.

It was out to the side, but in order to test this hypothesis, we positioned the right hand where it was found to have been or to finish up in those photographs.

So again I need to need to say that this is not where the right hand would have finished.

We put it there, and we had one of the detectives open the door with a fair amount of force up to that marked position that we had on the ground.

And indeed, each time the door was stopped by the model's knee on the ground, so it really would have taken a lot more force to push it even further.

After ten trials, we could not get that thigh to cover the right hand in any way, as shown in that photograph taken by the uniformed officers who attended site.

Okay, so it's safe to say then that that positioning of the hand was in that position when she died like that, that didn't move into that position.

That was my conclusion.

Yes, I know that we can't really say where the gun fell, particularly because I mean the presumption is potentially it was moved, so that doesn't help us.

But just with that position of her hand under the thigh, you would think that that would have been enough.

Am I just looking to basically at this that would be enough to say that there's no way she could have, I mean, highly unlikely, as you say, to have been up to kill us.

Yeah, there's a whole bunch of things that go along with that, Allison.

She kind of moved after her gun was discharged, so she kind of put her hand there.

Our simulations show that the thigh could not have been pushed over the hand.

The lack of biological material and residue on the right hand shows that that was nowhere near the barrel at the time.

If she had used the right hand to push the trigger, then it would not have finished up in the position that it ended up in.

And so all of those things combined tell me that I'm fairly convinced that Amy did not discharge that weapon by herself using her right hand on the trigger, nor could she have done so using her left hand on the trigger.

The various reasons for that is you've got to also take into account the horizontal orientation of the gun, which has helped the spatter on the wall, the location of that, as well as the entry and exit rooumds.

So all of those things inspire to say that she could not have done it.

Herself.

I do go back to the evidence of the witness statements and run my ruler over them to see if there's consistency and does it match with the evidence that we see after the fact.

And a lot of things don't match up in this case, and I'd just like to go through what those people who entered the room said.

So David Simmons said that when he entered the room after they'd heard this shot apparently outside, he said that Amy was lying on the floor and the gun was out to her right hand side.

He then exited the room and his mate Gareth Price, said he came straight into the room.

It was difficult to open the door.

Amy was seated in that position, and he said that the gun was lying on top of her, with the butt down by her feet and the barrel resting on her shoulder, so in other words, not out to the right hand side, but in fact facing her propped up there.

So somebody is not telling the truth.

Clearly, the gun could not have been discharged in that position, and the biological material, etc.

And the entry and exit worns being in the way they were in the photographic evidence, so someone has put that gun there.

Mister Price says that he then took the gun and threw it to his left side, which is Amy's right side, and that's where David's father, Robert, says he found that gun out to the right hand side.

So I guess what I'm saying is she could not have killed herself holding the gun in front of her with all those other pieces of evidence.

One of their issues that has been raised is that because forensics was called off, we can't rely upon this.

But when I listen to you and doctor Gibson and Scott Rohta, I mean, there's no way she could have killed herself.

Sure, it would have been great to have all the other forensics, but it seems like you've got enough.

Right, Am I wrong in that?

In my view, we've got enough.

Well.

Next week, Al the first coroner to see Amy's case, really looking forward to letting our listeners hear what she has to say.

What we've got is evidence she didn't pull the trigger herself.

Some people don't agree with that, but that was probably enough for me.

And how Amy's family is coping As WA Police's latest investigation draws to a close.

We wouldn't be doing not reliving every single time, So de.

ReBs.

Now do you.

If you knew Amy and have information, any information about her death, we'd love to hear from you.

Just email us at the Truth about Amy at seven dot com dot au.

That's s E V E N The Truth about Amy at seven dot com dot Au, or visit our website sevenews dot com dot Au forward slash the Truth about Amy.

You can also send us an anonymous tip at www dot the Truth about Amy dot com.

If you're on Facebook or Instagram, you can follow us to see photos and updates relevant to the case, but for legal reasons, unfortunately, you won't be able to make any comments.

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Presenter and executive producer Alison Sandy, Presenter and investigative journalist Liam Bartlett, Sound design Mark Wright, Assistant producer Cassie Woodward, Graphics Jason Blandford, and special thanks to Brian Seymour.

This is a seven News production.