October 27, 2024 • 51 mins
A cold case investigator has volunteered their expertise to help solve the case of Amy Wensley! Alison and Liam are joined by Dr Xanthe Mallett to discuss what is required to ensure Justice for Amy.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
This podcast contains information and details relating to suicide. We
urge anyone struggling with their emotions to contact Lifeline I'm
thirteen eleven fourteen thirteen eleven fourteen, or visit them at
lifeline dot org dot AU.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Welcome to the seventh installment of the Truth About Amy Conversations.
I'm Alison Sandy. I hope you're enjoying this as much
as wa Police is. I'm joined by Liam Bartlett Mourning.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
Liam, hi el, how are you?
Speaker 2 (00:41):
I'm very well. I'm afraid Tim Clark is still stuck
in his trial. So is an apology this week. But
today we are joined by our very special guest, doctor
Zanthe Mallet. Xanthe Mallett is an Associate professor at Newcastle
University School of Law and Justice. A criminologist and forensic anthropologist,
(01:02):
Zanthy is devoted defining the truth. Welcome to our conversations. Hello,
thank you so much for joining us, Anthy. Now, according
to Wikipedia, for.
Speaker 1 (01:12):
Such a little bit of research on you, that's dangerous.
Speaker 3 (01:14):
I would be telling my students off with those very well,
let's see what Wikipedia got right today.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
All right, I've only taken a little excerpt, Okay, but
as part of your relentless quest for justice, your research
interest extends to the efficacy of expert witness evidence and
the impact of external influences that may result in bias
or prejudice in decision making. Is that right and if so,
can you tell us more about this?
Speaker 3 (01:40):
Yeah, I would say that is right, And that started
way back with my PhD actually though I was studying
at the University of Sheffield and the UK. My PhD
focused on forensic facial recognition. That's where the forensic aspect
comes in in terms of measuring the human face comparing
them to determine if we can see what an average
face is. And this was a project that looked to
(02:00):
improve methods of identification in a mass screening scenario, so
at train stations or whatever by measuring faces. But I
also looked at when evidence is presented in court, especially
highly technical or scientific evidence, when that can be misrepresented
or when an expert can basically overstep their bounds or
(02:23):
in other words, lead the jury erroneously potentially partly to
a conclusion. So the impacts of expert evidence and when
ultimately that can go wrong.
Speaker 2 (02:32):
Haven't you got an example of this that you can
cite to give us an idea of what exactly you're
talking about.
Speaker 3 (02:38):
Oh well, the example that I looked at heavily in
my PhD was Professor Soro Meadows, who was an eminent
pediatrician in the UK, and he gave evidence in a
number of child death cases where the mothers were accused
of murdering their child, and he came up with this
ethos that became known as Meadows Law that one child
death was sad within a family, two were suspicious, and
(03:01):
three was murder unless proven otherwise. And he put some
stats around this which had no basis in reality at all,
but is very significantly influential in a number of high
profile child death cases where the women were found guilty
and subsequently those cases were overturned. When I got to Australia,
I was disturbed, to say the least, to find that
(03:22):
Meadow's Law, as it became known, was still influential in
cath Folbigg's conviction, not only the original conviction but even
the most recent inquiry. And obviously we all know her
convictions for three murders and one man's laughter have been overturned.
She's been acquitted, she's now an innocent woman in the
eyes of law, correctly so, but he was still being
(03:43):
quoted in the most recent inquiry. So his evidence was
incredibly misleading and did untold damage to women across the globe.
And I'm sure that there are still permeations of that
in place today. And the way we view women who
accused of harming their children.
Speaker 1 (04:01):
It's so incredibly general, isn't it, Santhia. I mean, it's
amazing that you can just for anyone in any scenario,
lay a template across such a serious incident, in any
circumstance and think that that's going to fit, you know,
one size fits all. It does my hitting.
Speaker 3 (04:19):
Actually yeah, And actually, at the time when Cerromeadow's actually
was giving this evidence, it was clear from research available,
but losing child to sudden infant death, which is just
an umbrella category meaning we don't know why a child
has died, there was evidence to suggest that if you
lose one, you're actually predisposed to lose more than one.
So that could be environmental, it could be genetic. It's
(04:39):
genetic in Cathpolbig's case, and so this evidence was never reliable,
but it made it to court and he was the
way he presented. He was so well respected and he
presented in a very authoritative way and it had a
huge impact on the jury both in the UK and
in Australia.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
ZAMPI, there's a few parallels here in relation to our
case about Ami Wensley in the suicide, because there are
so many and I know in Britain, I know that's
where you originally from. The whole hidden homicide issue has
come to light a lot more than it has in Australia.
Have you delved into or come across or has it
(05:20):
been an area of research for you in relation to
these hidden homicides and women's deaths, often in domestic violence
situations written not for suicide or accident rather than looked
at suspiciously. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (05:35):
So I actually run at the University of Newcastle the
Justice Clinic, and I established that in twenty nineteen. It
was initially called an Innocence Initiative, but we changed the
name because we do look at cases of miscarriages of
justice from full conviction. But then when we established it,
people started coming to us with all sorts of different cases,
cold cases, long term cold cases for example, but also
(05:58):
what we've now classed as misclassification of death cases or
those hidden homicides, and we've worked through with a number
of families in the Justice Clinic and we still have
a number of ongoing cases of exactly that hidden homicide.
So it's something we've been looking at at the University
of Newcastle since I would think around twenty twenty, and
(06:20):
sadly it's a lot more prevalent than I ever imagined
until those families started contacting us and saying, can you
please help my loved one's death was ruled a suicide
or misadventure. And sometimes you look at these cases and
I can't detail them because they're obviously classified. We're working
through them legally, but yeah, you know, you look at
it and go, how on earth was that classified as
(06:42):
a suicide? When you look at the facts of the case.
Speaker 2 (06:45):
All right, Well, I guess then that brings us to
Amy's case and what your impressions general impressions are of
this case since you've had a look at it.
Speaker 3 (06:55):
So this falls into that very much that category, doesn't it?
Of suspicious deaths? I guess one of the biggest questions
for me looking at this as a forensic scientist and
behavioral expert, is how on earth the detectives arrived at
that scene and classified this so quickly as not suspicious
as a suicide. Obviously, the uniform officers believed that this
(07:21):
was suspicious, but the detective seemed so keen to dismiss
this very very quickly. And that's a pattern that I've
seen in hidden homicides. It's that initial response, that lack
of interest in capturing the scene forensically, lack of interest
in interviewing those key witnesses, and so sadly, it was
(07:43):
all too familiar when I read those initial stages of
the investigation and what had gone so obviously horribly wrong.
Speaker 1 (07:50):
That's just the start of at Zanthea, isn't it. I mean,
that's the sort of the organic beginning of the whole
Amy Wensley case, where people only have to read a
summary of what happened from the start and they get
six or seven lines down, and I think that's weird,
you know, that's I mean, just that you don't consider
(08:11):
those circumstances suspicious is weird in itself. But then where
does it go from that? There? Do you think? I mean?
From because you, in your position and all the positions
you've held, you're a lover of detail, right, because that's
the key to a lot of these things. The devil's
in the detail. So for you, well, what detail in
(08:31):
this case sort of troubles you most or you think
needs the biggest question mark beside it?
Speaker 3 (08:37):
Well, looking at the biomechanical evidence. Obviously, I'm a forensic scientist, anthropologist,
so that was where my interest was really tweaked in terms,
I would love to see those biomechanical reports because for me,
I was listening to this in the car and hearing
about these biomechanical experts, and for me, I was trying
to imagine a small woman literally physically being able to
(09:00):
do what the detectives said that she did.
Speaker 4 (09:03):
Apart from the fact that.
Speaker 3 (09:05):
My experience has been that when people commit a crime
or in fact suicide, it's usually path of least resistance, Okay,
so they're not going to set up a scenario that
makes it incredibly difficult for them to achieve their aim.
So suicides, when they're in the situation as described in
Amy's case, it would have been so difficult and for
(09:28):
her to get physically into that position if it was
even possible, And that's what I would love to have
known I would have liked to see, you know, the
size of the weapon, the length of her arm, the
body position, all of that information that the biomechanic experts had,
and that would have been That was my big question.
It's like, this doesn't feel like this was ever possible,
(09:49):
And how could you look at that scene as a
detective and not realize that it just made no sense?
Speaker 1 (09:56):
And it's fascinating that you should phrase it like that,
because indeed, as it turned out, the police used that
to then argue against the biomechanical experts. Yes, in the
sense that they said, well, well, you know now that
obviously Amy's not here and there's no body to experiment with,
and we couldn't do it anyway at the scene. Even
(10:18):
if that was possible. There are inherent limitations. But I
couldn't agree more. I mean, I thought that just from
a physical point of view, pushing aside all the science,
can we call it science? I mean the body of
evidence that tells us that when women's suicide, they rarely
use a gun, you know, because of the I don't
(10:40):
know human nature aspect. I suppose they don't want to
disfigure themselves, if I can put it that way. I mean,
as I say, it's not completely unusual, not out of
the question, but it is, but it is still very
much a rarity. So combining all that, it's don't you
think you know where I'm getting at? I do.
Speaker 3 (11:00):
It is unusual for women to choose that method of suicide.
I would agree with that, but that is subjective at
the end of the day, because it's not impossibility as
you as you state, It's possible that somebody could have
made that choice to use a gun, and occasionally women do,
although they have less access to firearms, less comfort with
firearms generally speaking than men. However, I haven't seen those
(11:21):
biomechanical experts reports.
Speaker 4 (11:23):
What I would like to have.
Speaker 3 (11:24):
Seen is somebody of a similar stature, with similar arm length, etc.
To Amy to be sat in that specific scenario with
a weapon of the same dimensions to see whether it
is literally possible to do that.
Speaker 1 (11:41):
We did that, and we did exactly that, didn't we all? Yes,
for Spotlight, we had Scott rodercount I didn't.
Speaker 3 (11:46):
See Yeah, yeah, I didn't see that episode.
Speaker 1 (11:48):
People can still see that. Any of our our listeners
can go to YouTube and dial up that Spotlight episode.
So what we did we reconstructed that room, send them
made it perfect. With apology to Dennis committee, everything was
to scale, including the lady that we used as a
stand in as an actor. And Scott Rhoda came to
(12:11):
exactly the same decision, didn't he l In fact, his
decision was if I could say hardened compared to the
other biomechanical experts at the inquest, he was left in
no doubt whatsoever that that was as you say, zanthe
that was an impossibility.
Speaker 3 (12:28):
And then when you add the behavior or layering over
the top of that, If it's a physical impossibility for
somebody of that size and strength to maneuver themselves into
that position to actually suicide in that fashion, then on
top of that you have the fact why would you
why would you wed yourself behind a door, Why would
you do it with your left hand? Why would you
(12:50):
actively put your right hand out of action by putting
it underneath your thigh when we all know that a
shotgun is heavy, So it makes no physical or behavioral
sense that somebody would suicide in that fashion when it's
much There are much easier ways to do.
Speaker 2 (13:07):
It, yeah, like lying on the bed.
Speaker 3 (13:09):
Yep, any number of ways, and certainly with both hands.
Speaker 1 (13:13):
Why wasn't there also a discrepancy raised about those visuals? Zanti,
Can you give us a bit of insight into that,
because because only minutes before how many minutes was it, roughly, ol,
I don't know if you've got the exact time at
your fingertips, but it was between the time that Amy
took that selfie of her standing in front of the
mirror with the gun. Because this has been used again,
(13:35):
this has been used against her in fact, for the
people who want to promote the idea of suicide. They've
used that selfie as a way of saying, oh, you know,
this was her sort of preparing for it, right, That
was the line used at the inquest. But that was
about about what forty minutes all was life It's roughly
roughly forty minutes.
Speaker 2 (13:54):
But this is very very vague, but around about about
a quarter to five that selfie might have been for oh,
I think it was forty eight passed or something like that.
But it was about the time I remember, because it
was about the time that Josh Briden said he left, right, Yeah,
that's right. And then she had phone call with her mum,
which was about five o'clock five ish, and it was
(14:15):
about five twelve when the two boys were making the
phone call down at Serpentine Rae House, so very tight
time frame.
Speaker 1 (14:23):
Within half an hour, certainly within the hour, certainly within
the hour, but maybe half an hour. So my point
is a very short space of time between her taking
the selfie, so standing out in the middle of the room,
loud and proud, taking the selfie, So within thirty forty minutes,
what her whole mentality changes? I mean, how would you
(14:45):
possibly start to explain that, Zante?
Speaker 3 (14:48):
I mean, it's very difficult, isn't it, because obviously we
can't get into the mind of Amy when she took
that photograph, and that would be kind of a dangerous
almost thing to do.
Speaker 4 (14:55):
But I agree that there is a juxtaposition between that.
Speaker 3 (14:59):
Image, that very bold image in the you know, that
she obviously wanted to capture, and from the scene descriptions
hiding in the corner. So those two to me, well,
I wouldn't want to extrapolate from that that that was
an image that represented suicide.
Speaker 4 (15:16):
That to me would be problematic.
Speaker 2 (15:18):
Yeah, I mean, it is strange that they did that,
because the stuff that you would think can't be argued
about is the science right, I mean I gather that's
from your point of view, what you'd be looking at
the most, what you'd give that the most weight, is that, right,
ZAMPI correct?
Speaker 3 (15:34):
I mean I'm a forensic scientist, so you know, I'm
very fact driven, very detailed driven, and so that is
what I rely on, and the circumstantial evidence and the
witness statements that all builds a picture, right, But it's
not solid. It's not something that's testable, repeatable, And those
are the things that give me comfort when a conclusion
(15:55):
is reached, things that can be tested by other people
and checked.
Speaker 2 (15:58):
Yeah. So, as Lam pointed out one of the things
that seemed to be the I guess objective of the
coroner for this case was not being able to rule
it out. So to her, she couldn't rule out suicide
because there was limitations on the biomechanic testing. Is it
a case of what the probability is? How do you
(16:21):
get that full picture? Yeah, I mean three biomechanic experts now,
but then there's all these other issues, I suppose, So
how do you approach it in those sorts of instances
when the forensic scene has been cleaned up.
Speaker 3 (16:36):
Well, not only is the forensic scene being cleaned up,
but the images, well, the necessary information wasn't even captured
in the first place, was it. So you know, a
blood spatter expert should have come in to interpret the evidence,
to look at really what angle the shot was taken at.
Was the victim standing or sitting or crouching or whatever
was you know, was it possible to achieve that with
(16:57):
her height and the way she.
Speaker 4 (16:58):
Would have held the gun. Of these things needed.
Speaker 3 (17:01):
To be captured in those those minutes, those hours after
this event happened. And so it's really difficult to put
to really quantify how likely something is to have happened.
But if you can demonstrate that it's physically impossible via
the science, I think that goes a really long way
to excluding that as a possibility. And I think once
(17:22):
that has been excluded, ultimately the police will surely be
you know, encouraged, is a kind of way of putting it,
to look at the alternatives. And if suicide is ruled
out by the science, surely they have to look very
closely at the alternatives at that point.
Speaker 1 (17:39):
Isn't it fair to say, Anthea that sometimes science can't
completely rule something in or out. There still has to
be at the conclusion level. There still has to be
a modicum of what shall we say the ingredient is
common sense? Well, yes, you know, because some things are possible, right,
I mean things are possible. I find a body in
a lane way with a knife in the back or
(18:01):
in the stomach, I can say, well, man, there's no
one else here. It may not be murdered. The person
may have been playing with the knife and it's been
a wet night, and that's got to you know, this
water on the pavement. They might have slipped and the
knife's gone into their stomach. You know, I mean, yeah,
is it possible. Yeah, it's possible, But is it likely exactly?
Speaker 3 (18:21):
And I've seen through my years of being a forensic scientist,
you know, I finished my PhD in two thousand and seven.
I don't know how many cases have looked at since then,
A number of which have been suicide cases, which, on
the first looking at it, you go, no, that cannot
be suicide. But when you delve into it in detail,
you go, Okay, fact truly is stranger than fiction, and
(18:42):
there will always be that. You know, what's the percentage
chance of it being being a not suspicious death, well,
there is still a chance, and ultimately, any recreation of
that scene using a stand in as Amy with everything
you know exact is possible in terms of the size
of the room and the weight of the gun and
all of that, it cannot actually recreate what was happening.
Speaker 1 (19:05):
In that moment.
Speaker 3 (19:06):
You do not have Amy anymore. So the stature may
be slightly off. And also people can do all sorts
of extreme things under extreme circumstances that you cannot predict
for in a controlled environment. So there's always that doubt.
But ultimately, if the science is saying it is highly
unlikely that that situation is the correct one, it's much
(19:29):
more likely that it's something else, then that is something
that needs to be interrogated very closely.
Speaker 1 (19:34):
And that's exactly what the two original biomechanical experts said.
Ol that's exactly the language that they used at the inquest,
that it was highly unlikely and that it was more
likely that someone else had pulled the trigger. And I
got to tell you, I mean, one hundred and ninety
three centimeters I've held exactly the same gun in our reconstruction.
(19:56):
There is no way in the wide world. There's no
way I could have held that up and pull the trigger.
Speaker 4 (20:01):
And again I would come back to why would you?
Speaker 3 (20:03):
Why would you do it in that fashion with your
left arm twisted around your body to shoot yourself in
the right temper It makes no.
Speaker 1 (20:10):
Sense, absolutely plus plus. On top of that, the coroner
has the evidence that on her left hand she has
a muzzle burn, so she can't pull the trigger with
her left hand because it's got a muzzle burn on it.
Speaker 3 (20:23):
But surely the coroner was also encouraging the police to
go back and reinvestigate at that stage of it's an
open finding. Clearly the answers couldn't be achieved the coroner's
satisfaction during that inquest. Therefore they are actually saying to
the police, go back and reinvestigate, have open minds, collect
all of the available evidence, talk to all of your witnesses,
(20:43):
do due diligence to get to the correct answer.
Speaker 1 (20:46):
Well, you're being very kind, and you're much more generous
of spirit than I am.
Speaker 4 (20:49):
Not always.
Speaker 2 (20:59):
It's just like the Lady Banishes case. The currently does
recommend the police do that, but they don't have to
now and often don't. So the investigation is still open,
yet we're not actually doing anything. How often do you
come across that where there's been an error at the
beginning and there seems to be a reluctance to change
(21:22):
their mind. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (21:23):
In all of the hidden homicide cases or miscastification of
death cases that I've come across that have come in
to work into the Justice Clinic at the University of Newcastle,
there has inevitably, I'm thinking all of them, maybe bar one,
there has been a reluctance by the investigating force to
(21:44):
really reopen that case. And that's generally why the family
has come to us. Similar with here, it is out
of desperation. You know, they're not feeling they're getting the
answers from the investigators. Often families will report to us
that they're treated like they're the problem that they just
you know, the police want them to go away, they
want them to stop asking questions. And I'm talking some
(22:05):
of the cases we've looked at go back over fifty years,
you know, where cases are either cold or hidden homicides,
we believe potentially and so that has been a core problem. However,
I have worked on a couple of cases where the
police have actually approached us and asked us to review
those cases. So it can depend on the particular agency
(22:26):
and the particular officers within that agency, but sometimes there's
definitely a feeling they would rather shut it down than
reinvestigate because it's this going to open up more problems
potentially than solve them, because their focus maybe isn't where
it should be, which is on the victim and their family.
Speaker 1 (22:42):
Yeah. That's good, isn't it. I'm pleased to hear that
that you get approached sometimes in the odd case by
the police to go back and get a fresh set
of eyes.
Speaker 4 (22:50):
Correct.
Speaker 1 (22:51):
Yeah, that's really good.
Speaker 3 (22:51):
It's happened more than one Yeah, in more than one
state in this country. We've had multiple states come to
us and say, you know, we don't necessarily have all
of the resources we need to review all of our
cold cases or long term missing persons cases. And at
the University of Newcastle we work with criminology, law and
psych students predominantly in multidisciplinary groups in their final years,
(23:13):
and they are so clever and they're so keen, and
they go down all the rabbit holes and they pick
apart the detail and they can put fresh eyes over
it that maybe sometime the police agencies don't have the
resources to do.
Speaker 1 (23:25):
That's the thing, isn't it Anthea. It's not just you know,
the quality of the review is quite often just literally
in that fresh look, the fresh approach. That's the same
body of evidence or the same collation of evidentiary material,
but just those fresh eyes, you just look at it
slightly differently. Absolutely, it can be worth itswighting goal.
Speaker 3 (23:45):
And that's happened a number of times where a student
will come to me and just raise something they've seen
in one of the case files that I may have
seen a hundred times, and they'll say, did you notice this?
And if have you thought about that? And it will
be less a little light bulb, something that I wouldn't
have thought of, because you know, they are bright, they're young,
but they're so enthusiastic and committed to actually progressing these
(24:06):
cases that they are absolutely detail oriented. And the mixture
of those skills between the law, the psyche and the
crime students is a really powerful tool to unpick some
of these cases and really take a holistic view. And
that's ultimately what they need.
Speaker 2 (24:23):
So where do you go from their zem the Once
you do that, do you do operate port for the police.
How does that work.
Speaker 3 (24:30):
Well, that really depends. Yes, Sometimes we'll do a report
for the police. They may be doing a mirrored report internally,
so like an internal review, and then see what our
review comes up with to see whether there's anything that
you know, we've come up with that they haven't. In
other cases where they may be we may put forward
a statement for example, we may recommend you know, another
(24:51):
coronal inquest. We may go for freedom of information because
we also have an active law school. I work within
the School of Law and Justice, and we have a
legal clinic, so we can get freedom information, to get
different materials that may be blocked to us for other reasons.
And so it really depends on that particular case what
is going to benefit our client, and that client could
(25:12):
be somebody who's incarcerated, it could be a family member,
or ultimately it could be the police. If we're working
closely with one of those agencies.
Speaker 2 (25:20):
Hopefully WA police might look at that as well. I mean,
any any help that they give them that.
Speaker 3 (25:26):
We would love to work with them. Yeah, we've never
been approached by WA. It's always been East Coast, but
we're very happy because ultimately our aim at.
Speaker 4 (25:33):
The Justice Clinic is to progress these cases.
Speaker 3 (25:36):
You know, we and the police forces we work with
and the officers we work with, we all want the
same thing. We want the right people to go to prison,
and we want people who are innocent not to go
to prison. If it's a suicide, the family need to
know that. But ultimately, if it's something else that needs
to be addressed, because in a case like Amy's, if
it were not to be a suicide and somebody else
is responsible, they're still out there. And so really I
(26:00):
think ultimately we are all on the same team, so
we will work with anybody who's working towards that justice
for these families.
Speaker 1 (26:08):
It's a great point to make because it really matters
not who solves the case, who ends up providing the
silver bullet as it were.
Speaker 3 (26:21):
And I work very closely with media too, same thing
because you also want the same thing. So we are
actually all the media, the police are Justice Clinic, we
are all the families. We are all on the same side.
Speaker 1 (26:33):
It always makes me laugh out that, you know, people
go on about ego in this It's not always directed
at the police force, but you know, people worry about
who gets the cutos. I mean that Cutos has forgotten
very quickly. You know, no one really cares. No one
really cares who catches the person responsible. They remember the
(26:53):
person responsible, that that name continues, and that's in a
way a good thing. You know. If we think about
the perpetrator being put behind bars, but the caravan moves.
Speaker 2 (27:05):
On, that's so true.
Speaker 1 (27:06):
There's so many investigations outstanding, there are so many people
who need to be brought to justice. That doesn't matter,
doesn't not at all.
Speaker 2 (27:13):
And like one of the things is is it's never
a sole person anyway, it's always a team ethod. Things
like this are way too involved for it to come
down to one single person and who takes credit for
what it doesn't matter. Everybody, the whole team is responsible. Look,
I wanted to ask his x Anthy. We had Michael Barnes,
(27:34):
the new South Wales Crime Commissioner, on the other day
and he had some very interesting insight. He said, basically
that there needs to be a review process put in
place for decisions made by the dpp I. It's up
to them to decide whether a case goes to trial
or not, but they're not accountable for that decision and
there's no avenue for a family to have that decision
(27:56):
reviewed if they decide there's not enough evidence to charge anywhere,
Like there's just like a two sentence letter saying no,
we haven't got enough evidence. What do you think about that?
Speaker 4 (28:06):
Oh, yes, this is a bang.
Speaker 3 (28:08):
A drummer was banging a while ago in relays when
Chris Dawson was finally charged after another major media podcast,
The Teacher's Pets. So obviously history of that case was
Chris Dawson was suspected of murdering Lentt Dawson below forty
years ago now, and two briefs of evidence have been
presented by the police to the DPP, and the DPP
(28:31):
had said Nope, not enough to charge. It was only
the third brief of evidence that the DPP finally agreed
to charge Chris Dawson. And we all know that he
was subsequently found guilty. But the frustration that I always
found with that case, and it's replicated across all DPP
decisions whether they decide to go ahead or not, is
there's no accountability.
Speaker 4 (28:50):
There's no transparency.
Speaker 3 (28:51):
Nobody can hold them to account, and they have refused
to ask answer questions as to how they've reached a decision,
and I think that's highly problem because it's such a
powerful institution and part of our criminal justice system, yet
they're accountable to no one.
Speaker 1 (29:07):
Do you did right? There's no accountability, there's no line
of questioning from the media because they won't take media.
Speaker 4 (29:13):
Questions, and there's no redress.
Speaker 1 (29:15):
Yeah no, no, we don't discuss those cases.
Speaker 3 (29:17):
Yeah, and that to me is problematic. There needs to
be transparency because we all need to know that it's fair,
it's equitable, that the same rules are being applied to everybody.
And when there's this opacity across such a huge part
of the process, that to me leads to distrust and
to me big questions as to who's making those decisions why,
(29:39):
Because in Chris Dawson's case, I believe it was more
of a political decision and without the teacher's pair, he
may never have been charged. But the police were pushing
for that charge, but the DPP were blocking it, and
ultimately he was found guilty And that may not have
happened without the media's pressure because the DPP just simply
kept saying no.
Speaker 1 (29:58):
But do you have a review process? Now?
Speaker 3 (30:00):
In New South Wales, not as far as I'm aware,
as far as I'm aware, the DPP still makes unilateral
decisions that are there is no opportunity to question those decisions.
Speaker 4 (30:10):
You just have to accept them. And to me, that
is not a fair and equitable justice system.
Speaker 1 (30:15):
Well, they end up being gods, don't they in their
own right?
Speaker 3 (30:18):
There are gods. Absolutely, they're gods. And who knows on
what basis those decisions are made.
Speaker 1 (30:23):
Is there any state in Australia that has a review system?
Speaker 2 (30:26):
No? No, So one case here in Queensland is very
much in the public arena, and that is Brianna Robinson.
One that Anna mentioned the other week, and that was
the girl who fell out of her high rise at
a flat or that she shared with her partner. And
(30:48):
there's been lots of media and you know he has
been charged, but the DPP at last minute decided not
to proceed, saying there wasn't enough evidence and the family
were just waiting for the trial date though you know,
it was all happening and then all of a sudden
they're not going to proceed now with this case. We
(31:09):
finally got to a point where wa Police have advised
that as part of their new Task Force Investigation they're
going to update the brief that they have on Amy
Wensley and refer it to the DPP. But as we'll
we just discussing here, the family is completely at the
mercy of Robert Owen. But when Anna Davey has reached
(31:33):
out to him in writing, he has not been enthusiastic
in his reply.
Speaker 3 (31:42):
Well, as you say, with Chris Dawson, that was a
purely circumstantial case. Nobody cases are incredibly difficult to prosecute
for obvious reasons. We didn't have a primary crime scene,
we didn't have the primary evidence, which is in a murder,
the body itself, and so all of that was lacking.
In Chris Dawson's case. However, the circumstantial evidence was so
strong that obviously that the court was convinced that he
(32:05):
was in fact guilty of the murder. And I believe
that was the right outcome. In this case, it's different
and so surely with enough pressure the police can look
at that.
Speaker 1 (32:15):
Well, it's the way they consider them, isn't it, Anthea,
As you just mentioned before, that's the great in the
old language, sixty four thousand dollars question, you know. And
the thing is it does I use that purposefully because
it comes back to money as well, you know, And
that's the other thing about the lack of transparency, because
the average tax player, the average citizen, doesn't get to see,
(32:37):
doesn't get to hear. In fact, some of it is
non quantifiable depending on who the Director of Public Prosecutions
is that they have to run a budget. They run
a budget for their office. Canthea, I'm sure you'd agree
with this. They're sitting back thinking, Okay, how much what
evidence have I got? The weight of evidence? How strong
is the brief? How's a jury going to react to this?
Speaker 4 (32:57):
How long likelihood of a prosecution correct?
Speaker 1 (32:59):
How long this case going to run? Or run this
in the Supreme Court for eight days? That's going to
cost me x I've got so many cases to run
this year X number of cases major cases. Where does
this fit into the the sort of the tesselated jigsaw.
Maybe not. But you know, they're not going to go
through and detail any of that. None of that's transparent,
(33:21):
any of that logic or sort of thinking around that
decision making process.
Speaker 3 (33:27):
And I do point this out to the students as
well at work. So there is obviously there are resources
and resources of finite. So when cases come to us,
we have to decide which ones to put our energy
into as well in our time and our resources and
everything else. And obviously all of the police forces and
the DPP and all of the elements the criminal justice system,
the courts, they're all battling those resources. And so we
(33:51):
work on a lot of cold cases. But you can
see why a lot of resources are not always put
into cold cases or potential hidden homicides because it takes
a lot of work, takes a lot of leadwork to
go back and reinterview and reinterviewing, as we know as
a problem anyway, you know, memories change, etc. The evidence
can be lost or not captured in the first place.
(34:11):
It is incredibly resource heavy, and when that you balance
that against modern homicides that have happened, you know, with
perpetrators who we know are out there in the public
potentially currently a danger. The police do have these competing
resource requirements that they have to balance, and that's fundamentally,
you know, part of our problem. There aren't enough resources
(34:33):
to really tackle these cases properly.
Speaker 2 (34:35):
But you have to be open minded too, because one
of the issues that we had at the inquest in
twenty twenty one, so it wasn't very long ago. And
also I just remember it was only ten years ago
that Amy died, So it's a cold case, but it's
relatively young for a cold case. So they've got the
information that they've sent to the coroner, and the coroner's
made decision. But the problem at that inquest was the
(34:57):
suicide was the only option they provide added to the coroner.
And when you don't have the police on your site,
we've discovered as late as last year there are still officers,
key officers, senior officers who won't budge on that no
matter what. And then the other issue, of course is
Amy is lower socioeconomic and she was mistaken as fascinations
(35:19):
but it's actually of Tigh descent. But I don't think
they really have a distinction between that, so it's not
a case of every life matters to them. If she
was a white, middle aged woman, for example, like Lyn
Dawson or Lynn Sims, Now that makes a difference too,
doesn't it.
Speaker 3 (35:35):
Well, sadly i'd say yeah, But before I comment on that,
I would say, this isn't a cold case. The definition
of cold case being a case for which all investigative
leeds have been exhausted. I think quite clearly the podcast
is demonstrated that all investigat leeds have not been exhausted.
So this is not my version of a cold case.
This is a case that could be with enough will
from wa police, a very active investigation. There appeared to
(35:59):
be many lead that could be followed to progress this case.
So I wouldn't say it's a cold case. And in
terms of the way we wait human life, yes, sadly,
I've seen that a number of times across my career.
In that I remember working on. It wasn't a suspicious death,
but a man who died on the banks of the
river Tweed. He appeared to be homeless from the situation,
(36:22):
and I covered that for a series called Wanted back
in twenty thirteen, and we did a facial reconstruction of
that individual and the police were wholly committed to identifying him,
and they had gone to great lengths over a number
of years to do so. And a couple of people
said to me, why are you bothering he's homeless? And
that really struck me because to me, every life carries
(36:46):
equal value. I don't care whether you whatever you do
for a living. Whatever your socioeconomic or educational status, or
whether you're the Queen, it makes no difference to me.
Everybody has the equal right for a case to be
investigated and to have their aim returned to them if
they're long term unidentified and so, but that would seem
to be a pervasive thought was does it matter he's homeless?
(37:08):
And I was actually really taken back by that. But
that's something sadly I've come across, not only with members
of the public when I talk about the cases we
work on, but also sadly with some not all, some
police officers. But in that case, they were absolutely committed
to identifying him and his homeless status made no difference
to those police officers.
Speaker 2 (37:27):
That's lovely. I'm glad.
Speaker 4 (37:29):
Yeah, me too.
Speaker 2 (37:31):
That's the whole point as well, that this is not
all in companies, and we're not branding or tarring everyone
with the same brush here. It's just that you know,
this is our biggest fear now that we've come so far,
provided so many contacts. Now even you, if you're happy
for us to pass on your details to WO police, absolutely, yeah,
as you know ways that we can progress this and
(37:54):
get a positive conclusion. But there's so much unknown with
a the quality of the file, the brief that police
do up or provide to the DPP, and then of
course how he's going to look at it when it
hasn't really been given much priority at this stage.
Speaker 3 (38:13):
Every case I've seen though, that has been progressed as
a cold case or a potential hidden homicide, there's been
a champion. And without that or a miscarriage of justice, everybody,
all of those victims or if they're incarcerated, they need
somebody fighting for them on the outside. And that it
can be a lawyer, it can be a family member,
(38:34):
or it can be the media.
Speaker 4 (38:35):
They need that.
Speaker 3 (38:35):
So Amy needed her champions, and fortunately she had them
in her family. Otherwise this case would have gone under
the radar.
Speaker 1 (38:42):
Spot on and so spot Yeah.
Speaker 3 (38:44):
I think that it's really powerful when somebody has a champion,
But without that, these cases sadly are forgotten.
Speaker 1 (38:50):
Without that sort of level of advocacy, you've got nothing, nothing,
no leverage at all. I really just pick up on
something you say there. I totally agree with you, is Anthea.
I think you know this is this is really not
a cold case. In the timeliness of this it's still
very very current.
Speaker 3 (39:10):
When I listen to the podcast, the main individuals who
the police would need to speak to are still living.
They're still accessible. So you know, this case is still,
in my view, solvable. So the family get an answer
that they can rely on and trust, and that's.
Speaker 4 (39:26):
Ultimately what they need.
Speaker 3 (39:27):
They will no family will ever tell you they get closure,
but they can get some form of resolution, and they
all deserve that because they cannot heal until they have
those answers.
Speaker 1 (39:37):
Yeah, closure, I think closure is a bit of a
become a bit of a cliche, hasn't it.
Speaker 3 (39:41):
Yeah, they never speak of closure. A family will never.
Speaker 4 (39:43):
Use that phrase.
Speaker 1 (39:44):
No, And I don't blame I don't blame anybody who's
had that level of grief. I mean, that's just, you know,
you just learn to live with it. I suppose the
other thing is that that And here's a great old
cliche for you. But I heard an interview recently with
(40:05):
a police commissioner because they asked him about a particular
case and he said his words were, no, this is
an unsolved homicide case. This is an unsolved homicide case,
which is what this is. And this is one hundred
percent right for people here in Western Australia.
Speaker 3 (40:20):
And that's from everything I've heard on the podcast, and
that's that my source of information. I haven't had sight
of those original documents that would certainly be what I
would consider to be the most common likelihood scenario here,
but I would love to look at those original documents
from an anthropological forensic perspective and offer any insight that
(40:40):
could be gained from that.
Speaker 1 (40:41):
Well, I've just based those comments on what's on the
official government website. Yes, and that's what it says, doesn't it.
L there's one million dollar reward for information relating to
the apprehension of the potential killer or killers of Amy
Wensley in this case, the homicide of Amy Wensley, but
it's now labeled at on the government website. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (41:02):
I've never worked on a case that appears to be
a homicide or a cold case. You know, it doesn't
matter how long it is where somebody doesn't know something.
Now people relationships change, loyalties change. There may be a
situation where somebody knew something they couldn't speak.
Speaker 4 (41:17):
At the time.
Speaker 3 (41:18):
A million dollar reward is on offer that can incentivize
some people, which is fine, you know, I would be
very happy for somebody to come forward and give information
and get that a million dollar award, you know, if
that family can get the answers. But somebody knows something,
and that family deserves to know, and Amy deserves to
(41:39):
be treated with the respect of coming forward and sharing
that information. So I would urge anyone to do so.
Speaker 2 (41:45):
Well, it's funny you should say that, because I have
a list of questions for different witnesses that I would
like to get answered, and they weren't questioned properly at
any stage that I can see in any of the
police interviews, in the quest itself, I mean, even simply
with David Simmons asked more we mentioned this lamb about
(42:07):
pink phone. Why did he pursue Amy's phone? Why didn't
your clothes have gun residue on them that you hand
into police when you'd been shooting guns all afternoon if
those were the clothes that you were wearing, for example.
Speaker 1 (42:21):
You know, so many questions, yeah, yeah, so many questions.
Just come back to that one. So just refresh my memory.
Who patted down Amy's body? Was it Gareth Price or Garreth?
Speaker 2 (42:31):
It was Gareth, but that was when they were looking
for a phone to call Triple zero. Right. It was
after they came back to the scene, when the police
were there that he said that I need to go
get my phone. You wanted to go back in the
house and Larry Blamford wouldn't let him, and he said,
I need to get my phone. He says, what does
it look like? He says it's pink and Larry didn't
believe him. And funnily enough, when I looked at that,
(42:54):
thinking why wasn't that raised more in the inquest, he denied,
saying that Glar Blamford, Larry Blamford's got it on record
as what had happened, and he denied it. And it
was kind of like, oh, well, he denied it, so
I guess, you know, I won't.
Speaker 1 (43:09):
Pursue that he denied it, But it's stuck in the
mind of the one of the first constables on the scene.
He pats down the body, but there's no gun residue
on his clothes afterwards. All blood, really, all blood. Anybody
who's been to one of those scenes knows how frankly,
how messy it is.
Speaker 3 (43:24):
It's very unpleasant. A gunshot injury to the head, very
very unpleasant. Yeah, Lock our principle every contact leaves a trace.
Speaker 2 (43:32):
It's fantastical, honestly, as you know, every episode of conversations
we home in on something, something that's inexplicable, right, And
I just can't believe that none of this sort of
stuff was ringing your larm bells to authorities or the
coroner of inquest or any of those people just saying
(43:52):
hang on. But there are dozens and dozens of these
and they're all actually quite significant. We have a few
emails from our listeners I just want to go before
we finish up. One is from m She says, I'm
really wondering when Gareth and Simmons changed their clothes. There
is no mention of it in the policing, and no
(44:12):
question of it after their clothes did not contain any
gun as a jew after they said they'd been shooting
in the afternoon, really annoying they didn't go back and
question them about that, Zanthia, and these red flags for you.
Speaker 3 (44:23):
Oh, certainly, I mean, the lack of evidence is one
of the main problems for me in this case. As
you say, you know, why did they not look for
gun to residue?
Speaker 4 (44:32):
Why was the question not raised? Why it was missing.
That's an issue.
Speaker 3 (44:35):
I know that DV wasn't a particularly strong lens through
which they investigated at the time, but obviously red flags
were missed. They didn't search a handbag, and you know,
women don't carry their passports around on them because we
don't want to lose it, right, And I think if
we can learn anything from this, it's got to be
that we have to do better for potential victims of
(44:55):
domestic and family violence.
Speaker 2 (44:57):
Yes, absolutely so. The other letter that we got is
High Podcast Team. Well, sorry, the only one that I
should say. We get lots of these, but these are
just two that have picked up High Podcast Team. This
is a question that I have thought about for a while.
Perhaps I missed it in an earlier episode. It relates
to Amy's hand being under her buttock. I saw the
reconstruction spotlight, but I don't recall if she was shot
(45:18):
while she was sitting on the floor or was she standing.
It's been annoying me, so I hope you can clarify
it for me. Regards and well, I can just give
you a bit of guidance there she was sitting, you know,
when I look at that reconstruction on Spotlight, she was
sitting down, and there was all this information as to
whether she could have used the butt, you know that
the testing was done, whether she could put the butt
(45:40):
on the bed or on the floor or any of
those sorts of things. But yeah, none of that sort
of worked.
Speaker 1 (45:46):
So the idea was she was sitting down when the
gun went off. That's the way it's been framed, hasn't
it correct.
Speaker 4 (45:53):
And that's from the blood spata pattern.
Speaker 1 (45:55):
Yeah, correct.
Speaker 2 (45:55):
Yes, they had photos. They didn't obviously couldn't go back
to the scene, but they did have photos, so that's
from the blood spatter and also just in relation to
how her body was found. But you know, there was
always one of the issues that sort of prevented the
coroner from ruling suicide out was how much her body
(46:18):
had moved and the fact that the gun had been moved.
Speaker 1 (46:22):
And the fact that there'd been an entry into the
room of three or four people.
Speaker 4 (46:25):
The scene was contaminated.
Speaker 2 (46:26):
Yeah, yeah, so that they were all significant things. So anyway,
that hopefully that answers your question, and sand they just
to finish up. It's really been really good to speak
to you today about even just to the fact that
you don't consider it a cold case, so it really
hadn't dawned on me that. Yes, you're right, you know,
(46:48):
it was only so many years ago that the inquest
was held, there was so much mucking around on it.
But yes, I guess that any other issues that you
think need to be flagged in relation to to these
sorts of cases and an anything that you think specifically
about Amy's case that you haven't mentioned yet.
Speaker 3 (47:07):
I don't think there's anything specifically about Amy's case, But
when the interview with the DV expert, I think that
was really powerful. You know that we know how pervasive
DV is, we know that it's often not reported. In fact,
it's reported very seldomly. And I think, if nothing else,
the fact that the car is running, the children in
the car, the bags are in the car, she's got
(47:27):
a passport on her, this woman was running, and the
fact that that was missed, I think is such a
shame because you know that could have totally changed the
flavor of this investigation early on, and we can't afford
to risk making that mistake.
Speaker 1 (47:44):
Again, I agree with that. Just sitting here just thinking
about something you said in relation to that'santhe about the
fact that you know we need to do better looking
through these things through that DV lens. But I just
don't understand, you know, even with the passing of time,
I just can't. I can't wrap my head around anybody
with a police badge, junior, senior, whatever, not turning up
(48:07):
to that location and seeing those ingredients in play, the
car running, the kids in the car, little kids, little girls,
two little girls, a violent death at the end of
a gun, and the bloke her partner is there saying suicide, suicide, suicide.
(48:28):
Anyone in their right mind putting two and two together
and going could this be domestic violence? Or could this
be a domestic violence issue? Not turning around and saying
months later, oh no, No, we didn't really examine that
too much because we checked our database and there's no
official complaint from miss Amy Wensley on the database. There
(48:52):
was never an official complaint made in the year's proceeding.
I don't get that.
Speaker 3 (48:56):
I think the point is it's always it would always
have to be investigated supicious until it's been determined that
it's not. Rather, because it doesn't work the other way around.
You can't determine later something is suspicious. Once all of
that information evidence is lost. So I think again, that's
a lesson here if when in any doubt, treat it suspicious,
downgrade it later totally.
Speaker 1 (49:17):
But again, it's a domestic environment, it's at their house,
it's in their bedroom. What more do you need to
look at it through a DV lens. It may not
end up being that, you know, you may end up
coming to another conclusion entirely.
Speaker 4 (49:33):
And that's what you do.
Speaker 3 (49:34):
You'd have to investigate all levels, you know, all paths potentially,
so that would be accident, misadventure, obviously falling under the accident,
intentional or other person. And you have to look at
all of those scenarios until the evidence leads you clearly
in one direction, exactly to the exclusion of the others,
rather than excluding them before the evidence has spoken.
Speaker 2 (49:57):
Well, Zampi, you'll be pleased to know that Sharon dev Singh,
who you were referred to before providing the domestic violence aspect,
also having dealt so much with one nation's women, now
he was terrific, but yes he was looking on a
broader scale. Next week we're speaking domestic violence. New South
Wales Deputy CEO Elise Phillips. Oh good, yes, I don't
(50:20):
know if you know Elise or or work with domestic
violence New South Wales. But no, it's good to have
people like yourself, people like the Crime Commissioner New South Wales,
Michael Barnes and now Elise Phillips helping us. We are
reaching out to the WA people as well, but obviously
it's harder I think when you live there. But thank
(50:42):
you so much for your time.
Speaker 4 (50:43):
Thank you so much. That was really awesome.
Speaker 3 (50:45):
Enjoy chatting to you so and thanks for giving a
voice to Amy, because I think it's really important that
somebody is speaking for her.
Speaker 1 (50:51):
Yeah, our pleasure is Anthony. Thank you very much for
being involved and we'll pass on your very very.
Speaker 3 (50:56):
Kind Yeah, very happy to help the invitation.
Speaker 1 (50:58):
Yeah to WA police, thank you so much. Good to
talk to you, good to talk to you.
Speaker 2 (51:03):
Take care.
Speaker 4 (51:03):
Thanks bye
This podcast contains information and details relating to suicide. We
urge anyone struggling with their emotions to contact Lifeline I'm
thirteen eleven fourteen thirteen eleven fourteen, or visit them at
lifeline dot org dot AU.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Welcome to the seventh installment of the Truth About Amy Conversations.
I'm Alison Sandy. I hope you're enjoying this as much
as wa Police is. I'm joined by Liam Bartlett Mourning.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
Liam, hi el, how are you?
Speaker 2 (00:41):
I'm very well. I'm afraid Tim Clark is still stuck
in his trial. So is an apology this week. But
today we are joined by our very special guest, doctor
Zanthe Mallet. Xanthe Mallett is an Associate professor at Newcastle
University School of Law and Justice. A criminologist and forensic anthropologist,
(01:02):
Zanthy is devoted defining the truth. Welcome to our conversations. Hello,
thank you so much for joining us, Anthy. Now, according
to Wikipedia, for.
Speaker 1 (01:12):
Such a little bit of research on you, that's dangerous.
Speaker 3 (01:14):
I would be telling my students off with those very well,
let's see what Wikipedia got right today.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
All right, I've only taken a little excerpt, Okay, but
as part of your relentless quest for justice, your research
interest extends to the efficacy of expert witness evidence and
the impact of external influences that may result in bias
or prejudice in decision making. Is that right and if so,
can you tell us more about this?
Speaker 3 (01:40):
Yeah, I would say that is right, And that started
way back with my PhD actually though I was studying
at the University of Sheffield and the UK. My PhD
focused on forensic facial recognition. That's where the forensic aspect
comes in in terms of measuring the human face comparing
them to determine if we can see what an average
face is. And this was a project that looked to
(02:00):
improve methods of identification in a mass screening scenario, so
at train stations or whatever by measuring faces. But I
also looked at when evidence is presented in court, especially
highly technical or scientific evidence, when that can be misrepresented
or when an expert can basically overstep their bounds or
(02:23):
in other words, lead the jury erroneously potentially partly to
a conclusion. So the impacts of expert evidence and when
ultimately that can go wrong.
Speaker 2 (02:32):
Haven't you got an example of this that you can
cite to give us an idea of what exactly you're
talking about.
Speaker 3 (02:38):
Oh well, the example that I looked at heavily in
my PhD was Professor Soro Meadows, who was an eminent
pediatrician in the UK, and he gave evidence in a
number of child death cases where the mothers were accused
of murdering their child, and he came up with this
ethos that became known as Meadows Law that one child
death was sad within a family, two were suspicious, and
(03:01):
three was murder unless proven otherwise. And he put some
stats around this which had no basis in reality at all,
but is very significantly influential in a number of high
profile child death cases where the women were found guilty
and subsequently those cases were overturned. When I got to Australia,
I was disturbed, to say the least, to find that
(03:22):
Meadow's Law, as it became known, was still influential in
cath Folbigg's conviction, not only the original conviction but even
the most recent inquiry. And obviously we all know her
convictions for three murders and one man's laughter have been overturned.
She's been acquitted, she's now an innocent woman in the
eyes of law, correctly so, but he was still being
(03:43):
quoted in the most recent inquiry. So his evidence was
incredibly misleading and did untold damage to women across the globe.
And I'm sure that there are still permeations of that
in place today. And the way we view women who
accused of harming their children.
Speaker 1 (04:01):
It's so incredibly general, isn't it, Santhia. I mean, it's
amazing that you can just for anyone in any scenario,
lay a template across such a serious incident, in any
circumstance and think that that's going to fit, you know,
one size fits all. It does my hitting.
Speaker 3 (04:19):
Actually yeah, And actually, at the time when Cerromeadow's actually
was giving this evidence, it was clear from research available,
but losing child to sudden infant death, which is just
an umbrella category meaning we don't know why a child
has died, there was evidence to suggest that if you
lose one, you're actually predisposed to lose more than one.
So that could be environmental, it could be genetic. It's
(04:39):
genetic in Cathpolbig's case, and so this evidence was never reliable,
but it made it to court and he was the
way he presented. He was so well respected and he
presented in a very authoritative way and it had a
huge impact on the jury both in the UK and
in Australia.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
ZAMPI, there's a few parallels here in relation to our
case about Ami Wensley in the suicide, because there are
so many and I know in Britain, I know that's
where you originally from. The whole hidden homicide issue has
come to light a lot more than it has in Australia.
Have you delved into or come across or has it
(05:20):
been an area of research for you in relation to
these hidden homicides and women's deaths, often in domestic violence
situations written not for suicide or accident rather than looked
at suspiciously. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (05:35):
So I actually run at the University of Newcastle the
Justice Clinic, and I established that in twenty nineteen. It
was initially called an Innocence Initiative, but we changed the
name because we do look at cases of miscarriages of
justice from full conviction. But then when we established it,
people started coming to us with all sorts of different cases,
cold cases, long term cold cases for example, but also
(05:58):
what we've now classed as misclassification of death cases or
those hidden homicides, and we've worked through with a number
of families in the Justice Clinic and we still have
a number of ongoing cases of exactly that hidden homicide.
So it's something we've been looking at at the University
of Newcastle since I would think around twenty twenty, and
(06:20):
sadly it's a lot more prevalent than I ever imagined
until those families started contacting us and saying, can you
please help my loved one's death was ruled a suicide
or misadventure. And sometimes you look at these cases and
I can't detail them because they're obviously classified. We're working
through them legally, but yeah, you know, you look at
it and go, how on earth was that classified as
(06:42):
a suicide? When you look at the facts of the case.
Speaker 2 (06:45):
All right, Well, I guess then that brings us to
Amy's case and what your impressions general impressions are of
this case since you've had a look at it.
Speaker 3 (06:55):
So this falls into that very much that category, doesn't it?
Of suspicious deaths? I guess one of the biggest questions
for me looking at this as a forensic scientist and
behavioral expert, is how on earth the detectives arrived at
that scene and classified this so quickly as not suspicious
as a suicide. Obviously, the uniform officers believed that this
(07:21):
was suspicious, but the detective seemed so keen to dismiss
this very very quickly. And that's a pattern that I've
seen in hidden homicides. It's that initial response, that lack
of interest in capturing the scene forensically, lack of interest
in interviewing those key witnesses, and so sadly, it was
(07:43):
all too familiar when I read those initial stages of
the investigation and what had gone so obviously horribly wrong.
Speaker 1 (07:50):
That's just the start of at Zanthea, isn't it. I mean,
that's the sort of the organic beginning of the whole
Amy Wensley case, where people only have to read a
summary of what happened from the start and they get
six or seven lines down, and I think that's weird,
you know, that's I mean, just that you don't consider
(08:11):
those circumstances suspicious is weird in itself. But then where
does it go from that? There? Do you think? I mean?
From because you, in your position and all the positions
you've held, you're a lover of detail, right, because that's
the key to a lot of these things. The devil's
in the detail. So for you, well, what detail in
(08:31):
this case sort of troubles you most or you think
needs the biggest question mark beside it?
Speaker 3 (08:37):
Well, looking at the biomechanical evidence. Obviously, I'm a forensic scientist, anthropologist,
so that was where my interest was really tweaked in terms,
I would love to see those biomechanical reports because for me,
I was listening to this in the car and hearing
about these biomechanical experts, and for me, I was trying
to imagine a small woman literally physically being able to
(09:00):
do what the detectives said that she did.
Speaker 4 (09:03):
Apart from the fact that.
Speaker 3 (09:05):
My experience has been that when people commit a crime
or in fact suicide, it's usually path of least resistance, Okay,
so they're not going to set up a scenario that
makes it incredibly difficult for them to achieve their aim.
So suicides, when they're in the situation as described in
Amy's case, it would have been so difficult and for
(09:28):
her to get physically into that position if it was
even possible, And that's what I would love to have
known I would have liked to see, you know, the
size of the weapon, the length of her arm, the
body position, all of that information that the biomechanic experts had,
and that would have been That was my big question.
It's like, this doesn't feel like this was ever possible,
(09:49):
And how could you look at that scene as a
detective and not realize that it just made no sense?
Speaker 1 (09:56):
And it's fascinating that you should phrase it like that,
because indeed, as it turned out, the police used that
to then argue against the biomechanical experts. Yes, in the
sense that they said, well, well, you know now that
obviously Amy's not here and there's no body to experiment with,
and we couldn't do it anyway at the scene. Even
(10:18):
if that was possible. There are inherent limitations. But I
couldn't agree more. I mean, I thought that just from
a physical point of view, pushing aside all the science,
can we call it science? I mean the body of
evidence that tells us that when women's suicide, they rarely
use a gun, you know, because of the I don't
(10:40):
know human nature aspect. I suppose they don't want to
disfigure themselves, if I can put it that way. I mean,
as I say, it's not completely unusual, not out of
the question, but it is, but it is still very
much a rarity. So combining all that, it's don't you
think you know where I'm getting at? I do.
Speaker 3 (11:00):
It is unusual for women to choose that method of suicide.
I would agree with that, but that is subjective at
the end of the day, because it's not impossibility as
you as you state, It's possible that somebody could have
made that choice to use a gun, and occasionally women do,
although they have less access to firearms, less comfort with
firearms generally speaking than men. However, I haven't seen those
(11:21):
biomechanical experts reports.
Speaker 4 (11:23):
What I would like to have.
Speaker 3 (11:24):
Seen is somebody of a similar stature, with similar arm length, etc.
To Amy to be sat in that specific scenario with
a weapon of the same dimensions to see whether it
is literally possible to do that.
Speaker 1 (11:41):
We did that, and we did exactly that, didn't we all? Yes,
for Spotlight, we had Scott rodercount I didn't.
Speaker 3 (11:46):
See Yeah, yeah, I didn't see that episode.
Speaker 1 (11:48):
People can still see that. Any of our our listeners
can go to YouTube and dial up that Spotlight episode.
So what we did we reconstructed that room, send them
made it perfect. With apology to Dennis committee, everything was
to scale, including the lady that we used as a
stand in as an actor. And Scott Rhoda came to
(12:11):
exactly the same decision, didn't he l In fact, his
decision was if I could say hardened compared to the
other biomechanical experts at the inquest, he was left in
no doubt whatsoever that that was as you say, zanthe
that was an impossibility.
Speaker 3 (12:28):
And then when you add the behavior or layering over
the top of that, If it's a physical impossibility for
somebody of that size and strength to maneuver themselves into
that position to actually suicide in that fashion, then on
top of that you have the fact why would you
why would you wed yourself behind a door, Why would
you do it with your left hand? Why would you
(12:50):
actively put your right hand out of action by putting
it underneath your thigh when we all know that a
shotgun is heavy, So it makes no physical or behavioral
sense that somebody would suicide in that fashion when it's
much There are much easier ways to do.
Speaker 2 (13:07):
It, yeah, like lying on the bed.
Speaker 3 (13:09):
Yep, any number of ways, and certainly with both hands.
Speaker 1 (13:13):
Why wasn't there also a discrepancy raised about those visuals? Zanti,
Can you give us a bit of insight into that,
because because only minutes before how many minutes was it, roughly, ol,
I don't know if you've got the exact time at
your fingertips, but it was between the time that Amy
took that selfie of her standing in front of the
mirror with the gun. Because this has been used again,
(13:35):
this has been used against her in fact, for the
people who want to promote the idea of suicide. They've
used that selfie as a way of saying, oh, you know,
this was her sort of preparing for it, right, That
was the line used at the inquest. But that was
about about what forty minutes all was life It's roughly
roughly forty minutes.
Speaker 2 (13:54):
But this is very very vague, but around about about
a quarter to five that selfie might have been for oh,
I think it was forty eight passed or something like that.
But it was about the time I remember, because it
was about the time that Josh Briden said he left, right, Yeah,
that's right. And then she had phone call with her mum,
which was about five o'clock five ish, and it was
(14:15):
about five twelve when the two boys were making the
phone call down at Serpentine Rae House, so very tight
time frame.
Speaker 1 (14:23):
Within half an hour, certainly within the hour, certainly within
the hour, but maybe half an hour. So my point
is a very short space of time between her taking
the selfie, so standing out in the middle of the room,
loud and proud, taking the selfie, So within thirty forty minutes,
what her whole mentality changes? I mean, how would you
(14:45):
possibly start to explain that, Zante?
Speaker 3 (14:48):
I mean, it's very difficult, isn't it, because obviously we
can't get into the mind of Amy when she took
that photograph, and that would be kind of a dangerous
almost thing to do.
Speaker 4 (14:55):
But I agree that there is a juxtaposition between that.
Speaker 3 (14:59):
Image, that very bold image in the you know, that
she obviously wanted to capture, and from the scene descriptions
hiding in the corner. So those two to me, well,
I wouldn't want to extrapolate from that that that was
an image that represented suicide.
Speaker 4 (15:16):
That to me would be problematic.
Speaker 2 (15:18):
Yeah, I mean, it is strange that they did that,
because the stuff that you would think can't be argued
about is the science right, I mean I gather that's
from your point of view, what you'd be looking at
the most, what you'd give that the most weight, is that, right,
ZAMPI correct?
Speaker 3 (15:34):
I mean I'm a forensic scientist, so you know, I'm
very fact driven, very detailed driven, and so that is
what I rely on, and the circumstantial evidence and the
witness statements that all builds a picture, right, But it's
not solid. It's not something that's testable, repeatable, And those
are the things that give me comfort when a conclusion
(15:55):
is reached, things that can be tested by other people
and checked.
Speaker 2 (15:58):
Yeah. So, as Lam pointed out one of the things
that seemed to be the I guess objective of the
coroner for this case was not being able to rule
it out. So to her, she couldn't rule out suicide
because there was limitations on the biomechanic testing. Is it
a case of what the probability is? How do you
(16:21):
get that full picture? Yeah, I mean three biomechanic experts now,
but then there's all these other issues, I suppose, So
how do you approach it in those sorts of instances
when the forensic scene has been cleaned up.
Speaker 3 (16:36):
Well, not only is the forensic scene being cleaned up,
but the images, well, the necessary information wasn't even captured
in the first place, was it. So you know, a
blood spatter expert should have come in to interpret the evidence,
to look at really what angle the shot was taken at.
Was the victim standing or sitting or crouching or whatever
was you know, was it possible to achieve that with
(16:57):
her height and the way she.
Speaker 4 (16:58):
Would have held the gun. Of these things needed.
Speaker 3 (17:01):
To be captured in those those minutes, those hours after
this event happened. And so it's really difficult to put
to really quantify how likely something is to have happened.
But if you can demonstrate that it's physically impossible via
the science, I think that goes a really long way
to excluding that as a possibility. And I think once
(17:22):
that has been excluded, ultimately the police will surely be
you know, encouraged, is a kind of way of putting it,
to look at the alternatives. And if suicide is ruled
out by the science, surely they have to look very
closely at the alternatives at that point.
Speaker 1 (17:39):
Isn't it fair to say, Anthea that sometimes science can't
completely rule something in or out. There still has to
be at the conclusion level. There still has to be
a modicum of what shall we say the ingredient is
common sense? Well, yes, you know, because some things are possible, right,
I mean things are possible. I find a body in
a lane way with a knife in the back or
(18:01):
in the stomach, I can say, well, man, there's no
one else here. It may not be murdered. The person
may have been playing with the knife and it's been
a wet night, and that's got to you know, this
water on the pavement. They might have slipped and the
knife's gone into their stomach. You know, I mean, yeah,
is it possible. Yeah, it's possible, But is it likely exactly?
Speaker 3 (18:21):
And I've seen through my years of being a forensic scientist,
you know, I finished my PhD in two thousand and seven.
I don't know how many cases have looked at since then,
A number of which have been suicide cases, which, on
the first looking at it, you go, no, that cannot
be suicide. But when you delve into it in detail,
you go, Okay, fact truly is stranger than fiction, and
(18:42):
there will always be that. You know, what's the percentage
chance of it being being a not suspicious death, well,
there is still a chance, and ultimately, any recreation of
that scene using a stand in as Amy with everything
you know exact is possible in terms of the size
of the room and the weight of the gun and
all of that, it cannot actually recreate what was happening.
Speaker 1 (19:05):
In that moment.
Speaker 3 (19:06):
You do not have Amy anymore. So the stature may
be slightly off. And also people can do all sorts
of extreme things under extreme circumstances that you cannot predict
for in a controlled environment. So there's always that doubt.
But ultimately, if the science is saying it is highly
unlikely that that situation is the correct one, it's much
(19:29):
more likely that it's something else, then that is something
that needs to be interrogated very closely.
Speaker 1 (19:34):
And that's exactly what the two original biomechanical experts said.
Ol that's exactly the language that they used at the inquest,
that it was highly unlikely and that it was more
likely that someone else had pulled the trigger. And I
got to tell you, I mean, one hundred and ninety
three centimeters I've held exactly the same gun in our reconstruction.
(19:56):
There is no way in the wide world. There's no
way I could have held that up and pull the trigger.
Speaker 4 (20:01):
And again I would come back to why would you?
Speaker 3 (20:03):
Why would you do it in that fashion with your
left arm twisted around your body to shoot yourself in
the right temper It makes no.
Speaker 1 (20:10):
Sense, absolutely plus plus. On top of that, the coroner
has the evidence that on her left hand she has
a muzzle burn, so she can't pull the trigger with
her left hand because it's got a muzzle burn on it.
Speaker 3 (20:23):
But surely the coroner was also encouraging the police to
go back and reinvestigate at that stage of it's an
open finding. Clearly the answers couldn't be achieved the coroner's
satisfaction during that inquest. Therefore they are actually saying to
the police, go back and reinvestigate, have open minds, collect
all of the available evidence, talk to all of your witnesses,
(20:43):
do due diligence to get to the correct answer.
Speaker 1 (20:46):
Well, you're being very kind, and you're much more generous
of spirit than I am.
Speaker 4 (20:49):
Not always.
Speaker 2 (20:59):
It's just like the Lady Banishes case. The currently does
recommend the police do that, but they don't have to
now and often don't. So the investigation is still open,
yet we're not actually doing anything. How often do you
come across that where there's been an error at the
beginning and there seems to be a reluctance to change
(21:22):
their mind. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (21:23):
In all of the hidden homicide cases or miscastification of
death cases that I've come across that have come in
to work into the Justice Clinic at the University of Newcastle,
there has inevitably, I'm thinking all of them, maybe bar one,
there has been a reluctance by the investigating force to
(21:44):
really reopen that case. And that's generally why the family
has come to us. Similar with here, it is out
of desperation. You know, they're not feeling they're getting the
answers from the investigators. Often families will report to us
that they're treated like they're the problem that they just
you know, the police want them to go away, they
want them to stop asking questions. And I'm talking some
(22:05):
of the cases we've looked at go back over fifty years,
you know, where cases are either cold or hidden homicides,
we believe potentially and so that has been a core problem. However,
I have worked on a couple of cases where the
police have actually approached us and asked us to review
those cases. So it can depend on the particular agency
(22:26):
and the particular officers within that agency, but sometimes there's
definitely a feeling they would rather shut it down than
reinvestigate because it's this going to open up more problems
potentially than solve them, because their focus maybe isn't where
it should be, which is on the victim and their family.
Speaker 1 (22:42):
Yeah. That's good, isn't it. I'm pleased to hear that
that you get approached sometimes in the odd case by
the police to go back and get a fresh set
of eyes.
Speaker 4 (22:50):
Correct.
Speaker 1 (22:51):
Yeah, that's really good.
Speaker 3 (22:51):
It's happened more than one Yeah, in more than one
state in this country. We've had multiple states come to
us and say, you know, we don't necessarily have all
of the resources we need to review all of our
cold cases or long term missing persons cases. And at
the University of Newcastle we work with criminology, law and
psych students predominantly in multidisciplinary groups in their final years,
(23:13):
and they are so clever and they're so keen, and
they go down all the rabbit holes and they pick
apart the detail and they can put fresh eyes over
it that maybe sometime the police agencies don't have the
resources to do.
Speaker 1 (23:25):
That's the thing, isn't it Anthea. It's not just you know,
the quality of the review is quite often just literally
in that fresh look, the fresh approach. That's the same
body of evidence or the same collation of evidentiary material,
but just those fresh eyes, you just look at it
slightly differently. Absolutely, it can be worth itswighting goal.
Speaker 3 (23:45):
And that's happened a number of times where a student
will come to me and just raise something they've seen
in one of the case files that I may have
seen a hundred times, and they'll say, did you notice this?
And if have you thought about that? And it will
be less a little light bulb, something that I wouldn't
have thought of, because you know, they are bright, they're young,
but they're so enthusiastic and committed to actually progressing these
(24:06):
cases that they are absolutely detail oriented. And the mixture
of those skills between the law, the psyche and the
crime students is a really powerful tool to unpick some
of these cases and really take a holistic view. And
that's ultimately what they need.
Speaker 2 (24:23):
So where do you go from their zem the Once
you do that, do you do operate port for the police.
How does that work.
Speaker 3 (24:30):
Well, that really depends. Yes, Sometimes we'll do a report
for the police. They may be doing a mirrored report internally,
so like an internal review, and then see what our
review comes up with to see whether there's anything that
you know, we've come up with that they haven't. In
other cases where they may be we may put forward
a statement for example, we may recommend you know, another
(24:51):
coronal inquest. We may go for freedom of information because
we also have an active law school. I work within
the School of Law and Justice, and we have a
legal clinic, so we can get freedom information, to get
different materials that may be blocked to us for other reasons.
And so it really depends on that particular case what
is going to benefit our client, and that client could
(25:12):
be somebody who's incarcerated, it could be a family member,
or ultimately it could be the police. If we're working
closely with one of those agencies.
Speaker 2 (25:20):
Hopefully WA police might look at that as well. I mean,
any any help that they give them that.
Speaker 3 (25:26):
We would love to work with them. Yeah, we've never
been approached by WA. It's always been East Coast, but
we're very happy because ultimately our aim at.
Speaker 4 (25:33):
The Justice Clinic is to progress these cases.
Speaker 3 (25:36):
You know, we and the police forces we work with
and the officers we work with, we all want the
same thing. We want the right people to go to prison,
and we want people who are innocent not to go
to prison. If it's a suicide, the family need to
know that. But ultimately, if it's something else that needs
to be addressed, because in a case like Amy's, if
it were not to be a suicide and somebody else
is responsible, they're still out there. And so really I
(26:00):
think ultimately we are all on the same team, so
we will work with anybody who's working towards that justice
for these families.
Speaker 1 (26:08):
It's a great point to make because it really matters
not who solves the case, who ends up providing the
silver bullet as it were.
Speaker 3 (26:21):
And I work very closely with media too, same thing
because you also want the same thing. So we are
actually all the media, the police are Justice Clinic, we
are all the families. We are all on the same side.
Speaker 1 (26:33):
It always makes me laugh out that, you know, people
go on about ego in this It's not always directed
at the police force, but you know, people worry about
who gets the cutos. I mean that Cutos has forgotten
very quickly. You know, no one really cares. No one
really cares who catches the person responsible. They remember the
(26:53):
person responsible, that that name continues, and that's in a
way a good thing. You know. If we think about
the perpetrator being put behind bars, but the caravan moves.
Speaker 2 (27:05):
On, that's so true.
Speaker 1 (27:06):
There's so many investigations outstanding, there are so many people
who need to be brought to justice. That doesn't matter,
doesn't not at all.
Speaker 2 (27:13):
And like one of the things is is it's never
a sole person anyway, it's always a team ethod. Things
like this are way too involved for it to come
down to one single person and who takes credit for
what it doesn't matter. Everybody, the whole team is responsible. Look,
I wanted to ask his x Anthy. We had Michael Barnes,
(27:34):
the new South Wales Crime Commissioner, on the other day
and he had some very interesting insight. He said, basically
that there needs to be a review process put in
place for decisions made by the dpp I. It's up
to them to decide whether a case goes to trial
or not, but they're not accountable for that decision and
there's no avenue for a family to have that decision
(27:56):
reviewed if they decide there's not enough evidence to charge anywhere,
Like there's just like a two sentence letter saying no,
we haven't got enough evidence. What do you think about that?
Speaker 4 (28:06):
Oh, yes, this is a bang.
Speaker 3 (28:08):
A drummer was banging a while ago in relays when
Chris Dawson was finally charged after another major media podcast,
The Teacher's Pets. So obviously history of that case was
Chris Dawson was suspected of murdering Lentt Dawson below forty
years ago now, and two briefs of evidence have been
presented by the police to the DPP, and the DPP
(28:31):
had said Nope, not enough to charge. It was only
the third brief of evidence that the DPP finally agreed
to charge Chris Dawson. And we all know that he
was subsequently found guilty. But the frustration that I always
found with that case, and it's replicated across all DPP
decisions whether they decide to go ahead or not, is
there's no accountability.
Speaker 4 (28:50):
There's no transparency.
Speaker 3 (28:51):
Nobody can hold them to account, and they have refused
to ask answer questions as to how they've reached a decision,
and I think that's highly problem because it's such a
powerful institution and part of our criminal justice system, yet
they're accountable to no one.
Speaker 1 (29:07):
Do you did right? There's no accountability, there's no line
of questioning from the media because they won't take media.
Speaker 4 (29:13):
Questions, and there's no redress.
Speaker 1 (29:15):
Yeah no, no, we don't discuss those cases.
Speaker 3 (29:17):
Yeah, and that to me is problematic. There needs to
be transparency because we all need to know that it's fair,
it's equitable, that the same rules are being applied to everybody.
And when there's this opacity across such a huge part
of the process, that to me leads to distrust and
to me big questions as to who's making those decisions why,
(29:39):
Because in Chris Dawson's case, I believe it was more
of a political decision and without the teacher's pair, he
may never have been charged. But the police were pushing
for that charge, but the DPP were blocking it, and
ultimately he was found guilty And that may not have
happened without the media's pressure because the DPP just simply
kept saying no.
Speaker 1 (29:58):
But do you have a review process? Now?
Speaker 3 (30:00):
In New South Wales, not as far as I'm aware,
as far as I'm aware, the DPP still makes unilateral
decisions that are there is no opportunity to question those decisions.
Speaker 4 (30:10):
You just have to accept them. And to me, that
is not a fair and equitable justice system.
Speaker 1 (30:15):
Well, they end up being gods, don't they in their
own right?
Speaker 3 (30:18):
There are gods. Absolutely, they're gods. And who knows on
what basis those decisions are made.
Speaker 1 (30:23):
Is there any state in Australia that has a review system?
Speaker 2 (30:26):
No? No, So one case here in Queensland is very
much in the public arena, and that is Brianna Robinson.
One that Anna mentioned the other week, and that was
the girl who fell out of her high rise at
a flat or that she shared with her partner. And
(30:48):
there's been lots of media and you know he has
been charged, but the DPP at last minute decided not
to proceed, saying there wasn't enough evidence and the family
were just waiting for the trial date though you know,
it was all happening and then all of a sudden
they're not going to proceed now with this case. We
(31:09):
finally got to a point where wa Police have advised
that as part of their new Task Force Investigation they're
going to update the brief that they have on Amy
Wensley and refer it to the DPP. But as we'll
we just discussing here, the family is completely at the
mercy of Robert Owen. But when Anna Davey has reached
(31:33):
out to him in writing, he has not been enthusiastic
in his reply.
Speaker 3 (31:42):
Well, as you say, with Chris Dawson, that was a
purely circumstantial case. Nobody cases are incredibly difficult to prosecute
for obvious reasons. We didn't have a primary crime scene,
we didn't have the primary evidence, which is in a murder,
the body itself, and so all of that was lacking.
In Chris Dawson's case. However, the circumstantial evidence was so
strong that obviously that the court was convinced that he
(32:05):
was in fact guilty of the murder. And I believe
that was the right outcome. In this case, it's different
and so surely with enough pressure the police can look
at that.
Speaker 1 (32:15):
Well, it's the way they consider them, isn't it, Anthea,
As you just mentioned before, that's the great in the
old language, sixty four thousand dollars question, you know. And
the thing is it does I use that purposefully because
it comes back to money as well, you know, And
that's the other thing about the lack of transparency, because
the average tax player, the average citizen, doesn't get to see,
(32:37):
doesn't get to hear. In fact, some of it is
non quantifiable depending on who the Director of Public Prosecutions
is that they have to run a budget. They run
a budget for their office. Canthea, I'm sure you'd agree
with this. They're sitting back thinking, Okay, how much what
evidence have I got? The weight of evidence? How strong
is the brief? How's a jury going to react to this?
Speaker 4 (32:57):
How long likelihood of a prosecution correct?
Speaker 1 (32:59):
How long this case going to run? Or run this
in the Supreme Court for eight days? That's going to
cost me x I've got so many cases to run
this year X number of cases major cases. Where does
this fit into the the sort of the tesselated jigsaw.
Maybe not. But you know, they're not going to go
through and detail any of that. None of that's transparent,
(33:21):
any of that logic or sort of thinking around that
decision making process.
Speaker 3 (33:27):
And I do point this out to the students as
well at work. So there is obviously there are resources
and resources of finite. So when cases come to us,
we have to decide which ones to put our energy
into as well in our time and our resources and
everything else. And obviously all of the police forces and
the DPP and all of the elements the criminal justice system,
the courts, they're all battling those resources. And so we
(33:51):
work on a lot of cold cases. But you can
see why a lot of resources are not always put
into cold cases or potential hidden homicides because it takes
a lot of work, takes a lot of leadwork to
go back and reinterview and reinterviewing, as we know as
a problem anyway, you know, memories change, etc. The evidence
can be lost or not captured in the first place.
(34:11):
It is incredibly resource heavy, and when that you balance
that against modern homicides that have happened, you know, with
perpetrators who we know are out there in the public
potentially currently a danger. The police do have these competing
resource requirements that they have to balance, and that's fundamentally,
you know, part of our problem. There aren't enough resources
(34:33):
to really tackle these cases properly.
Speaker 2 (34:35):
But you have to be open minded too, because one
of the issues that we had at the inquest in
twenty twenty one, so it wasn't very long ago. And
also I just remember it was only ten years ago
that Amy died, So it's a cold case, but it's
relatively young for a cold case. So they've got the
information that they've sent to the coroner, and the coroner's
made decision. But the problem at that inquest was the
(34:57):
suicide was the only option they provide added to the coroner.
And when you don't have the police on your site,
we've discovered as late as last year there are still officers,
key officers, senior officers who won't budge on that no
matter what. And then the other issue, of course is
Amy is lower socioeconomic and she was mistaken as fascinations
(35:19):
but it's actually of Tigh descent. But I don't think
they really have a distinction between that, so it's not
a case of every life matters to them. If she
was a white, middle aged woman, for example, like Lyn
Dawson or Lynn Sims, Now that makes a difference too,
doesn't it.
Speaker 3 (35:35):
Well, sadly i'd say yeah, But before I comment on that,
I would say, this isn't a cold case. The definition
of cold case being a case for which all investigative
leeds have been exhausted. I think quite clearly the podcast
is demonstrated that all investigat leeds have not been exhausted.
So this is not my version of a cold case.
This is a case that could be with enough will
from wa police, a very active investigation. There appeared to
(35:59):
be many lead that could be followed to progress this case.
So I wouldn't say it's a cold case. And in
terms of the way we wait human life, yes, sadly,
I've seen that a number of times across my career.
In that I remember working on. It wasn't a suspicious death,
but a man who died on the banks of the
river Tweed. He appeared to be homeless from the situation,
(36:22):
and I covered that for a series called Wanted back
in twenty thirteen, and we did a facial reconstruction of
that individual and the police were wholly committed to identifying him,
and they had gone to great lengths over a number
of years to do so. And a couple of people
said to me, why are you bothering he's homeless? And
that really struck me because to me, every life carries
(36:46):
equal value. I don't care whether you whatever you do
for a living. Whatever your socioeconomic or educational status, or
whether you're the Queen, it makes no difference to me.
Everybody has the equal right for a case to be
investigated and to have their aim returned to them if
they're long term unidentified and so, but that would seem
to be a pervasive thought was does it matter he's homeless?
(37:08):
And I was actually really taken back by that. But
that's something sadly I've come across, not only with members
of the public when I talk about the cases we
work on, but also sadly with some not all, some
police officers. But in that case, they were absolutely committed
to identifying him and his homeless status made no difference
to those police officers.
Speaker 2 (37:27):
That's lovely. I'm glad.
Speaker 4 (37:29):
Yeah, me too.
Speaker 2 (37:31):
That's the whole point as well, that this is not
all in companies, and we're not branding or tarring everyone
with the same brush here. It's just that you know,
this is our biggest fear now that we've come so far,
provided so many contacts. Now even you, if you're happy
for us to pass on your details to WO police, absolutely, yeah,
as you know ways that we can progress this and
(37:54):
get a positive conclusion. But there's so much unknown with
a the quality of the file, the brief that police
do up or provide to the DPP, and then of
course how he's going to look at it when it
hasn't really been given much priority at this stage.
Speaker 3 (38:13):
Every case I've seen though, that has been progressed as
a cold case or a potential hidden homicide, there's been
a champion. And without that or a miscarriage of justice, everybody,
all of those victims or if they're incarcerated, they need
somebody fighting for them on the outside. And that it
can be a lawyer, it can be a family member,
(38:34):
or it can be the media.
Speaker 4 (38:35):
They need that.
Speaker 3 (38:35):
So Amy needed her champions, and fortunately she had them
in her family. Otherwise this case would have gone under
the radar.
Speaker 1 (38:42):
Spot on and so spot Yeah.
Speaker 3 (38:44):
I think that it's really powerful when somebody has a champion,
But without that, these cases sadly are forgotten.
Speaker 1 (38:50):
Without that sort of level of advocacy, you've got nothing, nothing,
no leverage at all. I really just pick up on
something you say there. I totally agree with you, is Anthea.
I think you know this is this is really not
a cold case. In the timeliness of this it's still
very very current.
Speaker 3 (39:10):
When I listen to the podcast, the main individuals who
the police would need to speak to are still living.
They're still accessible. So you know, this case is still,
in my view, solvable. So the family get an answer
that they can rely on and trust, and that's.
Speaker 4 (39:26):
Ultimately what they need.
Speaker 3 (39:27):
They will no family will ever tell you they get closure,
but they can get some form of resolution, and they
all deserve that because they cannot heal until they have
those answers.
Speaker 1 (39:37):
Yeah, closure, I think closure is a bit of a
become a bit of a cliche, hasn't it.
Speaker 3 (39:41):
Yeah, they never speak of closure. A family will never.
Speaker 4 (39:43):
Use that phrase.
Speaker 1 (39:44):
No, And I don't blame I don't blame anybody who's
had that level of grief. I mean, that's just, you know,
you just learn to live with it. I suppose the
other thing is that that And here's a great old
cliche for you. But I heard an interview recently with
(40:05):
a police commissioner because they asked him about a particular
case and he said his words were, no, this is
an unsolved homicide case. This is an unsolved homicide case,
which is what this is. And this is one hundred
percent right for people here in Western Australia.
Speaker 3 (40:20):
And that's from everything I've heard on the podcast, and
that's that my source of information. I haven't had sight
of those original documents that would certainly be what I
would consider to be the most common likelihood scenario here,
but I would love to look at those original documents
from an anthropological forensic perspective and offer any insight that
(40:40):
could be gained from that.
Speaker 1 (40:41):
Well, I've just based those comments on what's on the
official government website. Yes, and that's what it says, doesn't it.
L there's one million dollar reward for information relating to
the apprehension of the potential killer or killers of Amy
Wensley in this case, the homicide of Amy Wensley, but
it's now labeled at on the government website. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (41:02):
I've never worked on a case that appears to be
a homicide or a cold case. You know, it doesn't
matter how long it is where somebody doesn't know something.
Now people relationships change, loyalties change. There may be a
situation where somebody knew something they couldn't speak.
Speaker 4 (41:17):
At the time.
Speaker 3 (41:18):
A million dollar reward is on offer that can incentivize
some people, which is fine, you know, I would be
very happy for somebody to come forward and give information
and get that a million dollar award, you know, if
that family can get the answers. But somebody knows something,
and that family deserves to know, and Amy deserves to
(41:39):
be treated with the respect of coming forward and sharing
that information. So I would urge anyone to do so.
Speaker 2 (41:45):
Well, it's funny you should say that, because I have
a list of questions for different witnesses that I would
like to get answered, and they weren't questioned properly at
any stage that I can see in any of the
police interviews, in the quest itself, I mean, even simply
with David Simmons asked more we mentioned this lamb about
(42:07):
pink phone. Why did he pursue Amy's phone? Why didn't
your clothes have gun residue on them that you hand
into police when you'd been shooting guns all afternoon if
those were the clothes that you were wearing, for example.
Speaker 1 (42:21):
You know, so many questions, yeah, yeah, so many questions.
Just come back to that one. So just refresh my memory.
Who patted down Amy's body? Was it Gareth Price or Garreth?
Speaker 2 (42:31):
It was Gareth, but that was when they were looking
for a phone to call Triple zero. Right. It was
after they came back to the scene, when the police
were there that he said that I need to go
get my phone. You wanted to go back in the
house and Larry Blamford wouldn't let him, and he said,
I need to get my phone. He says, what does
it look like? He says it's pink and Larry didn't
believe him. And funnily enough, when I looked at that,
(42:54):
thinking why wasn't that raised more in the inquest, he denied,
saying that Glar Blamford, Larry Blamford's got it on record
as what had happened, and he denied it. And it
was kind of like, oh, well, he denied it, so
I guess, you know, I won't.
Speaker 1 (43:09):
Pursue that he denied it, But it's stuck in the
mind of the one of the first constables on the scene.
He pats down the body, but there's no gun residue
on his clothes afterwards. All blood, really, all blood. Anybody
who's been to one of those scenes knows how frankly,
how messy it is.
Speaker 3 (43:24):
It's very unpleasant. A gunshot injury to the head, very
very unpleasant. Yeah, Lock our principle every contact leaves a trace.
Speaker 2 (43:32):
It's fantastical, honestly, as you know, every episode of conversations
we home in on something, something that's inexplicable, right, And
I just can't believe that none of this sort of
stuff was ringing your larm bells to authorities or the
coroner of inquest or any of those people just saying
(43:52):
hang on. But there are dozens and dozens of these
and they're all actually quite significant. We have a few
emails from our listeners I just want to go before
we finish up. One is from m She says, I'm
really wondering when Gareth and Simmons changed their clothes. There
is no mention of it in the policing, and no
(44:12):
question of it after their clothes did not contain any
gun as a jew after they said they'd been shooting
in the afternoon, really annoying they didn't go back and
question them about that, Zanthia, and these red flags for you.
Speaker 3 (44:23):
Oh, certainly, I mean, the lack of evidence is one
of the main problems for me in this case. As
you say, you know, why did they not look for
gun to residue?
Speaker 4 (44:32):
Why was the question not raised? Why it was missing.
That's an issue.
Speaker 3 (44:35):
I know that DV wasn't a particularly strong lens through
which they investigated at the time, but obviously red flags
were missed. They didn't search a handbag, and you know,
women don't carry their passports around on them because we
don't want to lose it, right, And I think if
we can learn anything from this, it's got to be
that we have to do better for potential victims of
(44:55):
domestic and family violence.
Speaker 2 (44:57):
Yes, absolutely so. The other letter that we got is
High Podcast Team. Well, sorry, the only one that I
should say. We get lots of these, but these are
just two that have picked up High Podcast Team. This
is a question that I have thought about for a while.
Perhaps I missed it in an earlier episode. It relates
to Amy's hand being under her buttock. I saw the
reconstruction spotlight, but I don't recall if she was shot
(45:18):
while she was sitting on the floor or was she standing.
It's been annoying me, so I hope you can clarify
it for me. Regards and well, I can just give
you a bit of guidance there she was sitting, you know,
when I look at that reconstruction on Spotlight, she was
sitting down, and there was all this information as to
whether she could have used the butt, you know that
the testing was done, whether she could put the butt
(45:40):
on the bed or on the floor or any of
those sorts of things. But yeah, none of that sort
of worked.
Speaker 1 (45:46):
So the idea was she was sitting down when the
gun went off. That's the way it's been framed, hasn't
it correct.
Speaker 4 (45:53):
And that's from the blood spata pattern.
Speaker 1 (45:55):
Yeah, correct.
Speaker 2 (45:55):
Yes, they had photos. They didn't obviously couldn't go back
to the scene, but they did have photos, so that's
from the blood spatter and also just in relation to
how her body was found. But you know, there was
always one of the issues that sort of prevented the
coroner from ruling suicide out was how much her body
(46:18):
had moved and the fact that the gun had been moved.
Speaker 1 (46:22):
And the fact that there'd been an entry into the
room of three or four people.
Speaker 4 (46:25):
The scene was contaminated.
Speaker 2 (46:26):
Yeah, yeah, so that they were all significant things. So anyway,
that hopefully that answers your question, and sand they just
to finish up. It's really been really good to speak
to you today about even just to the fact that
you don't consider it a cold case, so it really
hadn't dawned on me that. Yes, you're right, you know,
(46:48):
it was only so many years ago that the inquest
was held, there was so much mucking around on it.
But yes, I guess that any other issues that you
think need to be flagged in relation to to these
sorts of cases and an anything that you think specifically
about Amy's case that you haven't mentioned yet.
Speaker 3 (47:07):
I don't think there's anything specifically about Amy's case, But
when the interview with the DV expert, I think that
was really powerful. You know that we know how pervasive
DV is, we know that it's often not reported. In fact,
it's reported very seldomly. And I think, if nothing else,
the fact that the car is running, the children in
the car, the bags are in the car, she's got
(47:27):
a passport on her, this woman was running, and the
fact that that was missed, I think is such a
shame because you know that could have totally changed the
flavor of this investigation early on, and we can't afford
to risk making that mistake.
Speaker 1 (47:44):
Again, I agree with that. Just sitting here just thinking
about something you said in relation to that'santhe about the
fact that you know we need to do better looking
through these things through that DV lens. But I just
don't understand, you know, even with the passing of time,
I just can't. I can't wrap my head around anybody
with a police badge, junior, senior, whatever, not turning up
(48:07):
to that location and seeing those ingredients in play, the
car running, the kids in the car, little kids, little girls,
two little girls, a violent death at the end of
a gun, and the bloke her partner is there saying suicide, suicide, suicide.
(48:28):
Anyone in their right mind putting two and two together
and going could this be domestic violence? Or could this
be a domestic violence issue? Not turning around and saying
months later, oh no, No, we didn't really examine that
too much because we checked our database and there's no
official complaint from miss Amy Wensley on the database. There
(48:52):
was never an official complaint made in the year's proceeding.
I don't get that.
Speaker 3 (48:56):
I think the point is it's always it would always
have to be investigated supicious until it's been determined that
it's not. Rather, because it doesn't work the other way around.
You can't determine later something is suspicious. Once all of
that information evidence is lost. So I think again, that's
a lesson here if when in any doubt, treat it suspicious,
downgrade it later totally.
Speaker 1 (49:17):
But again, it's a domestic environment, it's at their house,
it's in their bedroom. What more do you need to
look at it through a DV lens. It may not
end up being that, you know, you may end up
coming to another conclusion entirely.
Speaker 4 (49:33):
And that's what you do.
Speaker 3 (49:34):
You'd have to investigate all levels, you know, all paths potentially,
so that would be accident, misadventure, obviously falling under the accident,
intentional or other person. And you have to look at
all of those scenarios until the evidence leads you clearly
in one direction, exactly to the exclusion of the others,
rather than excluding them before the evidence has spoken.
Speaker 2 (49:57):
Well, Zampi, you'll be pleased to know that Sharon dev Singh,
who you were referred to before providing the domestic violence aspect,
also having dealt so much with one nation's women, now
he was terrific, but yes he was looking on a
broader scale. Next week we're speaking domestic violence. New South
Wales Deputy CEO Elise Phillips. Oh good, yes, I don't
(50:20):
know if you know Elise or or work with domestic
violence New South Wales. But no, it's good to have
people like yourself, people like the Crime Commissioner New South Wales,
Michael Barnes and now Elise Phillips helping us. We are
reaching out to the WA people as well, but obviously
it's harder I think when you live there. But thank
(50:42):
you so much for your time.
Speaker 4 (50:43):
Thank you so much. That was really awesome.
Speaker 3 (50:45):
Enjoy chatting to you so and thanks for giving a
voice to Amy, because I think it's really important that
somebody is speaking for her.
Speaker 1 (50:51):
Yeah, our pleasure is Anthony. Thank you very much for
being involved and we'll pass on your very very.
Speaker 3 (50:56):
Kind Yeah, very happy to help the invitation.
Speaker 1 (50:58):
Yeah to WA police, thank you so much. Good to
talk to you, good to talk to you.
Speaker 2 (51:03):
Take care.
Speaker 4 (51:03):
Thanks bye
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com