The Truth About Amy - Episode 3: Nothing makes sense about Amy Wensley’s death

They were young girls then. They are young women now.

The two girls who were the centre of Amy Wensley’s world. The young women who would have made their mother so proud — if their mother was still alive to see them grow.

On June 26, 2014 Naya was aged just six, and Tay four. They were in their mother’s car, ready to leave. Waiting for their mum.

But she never returned to take them away.

Instead, Amy Wensley’s life was taken away that night. And the life of those two girls was changed forever.

Now, for the first time, Amy Wensley’s daughters have spoken about their mum, about the night she died, and about all the days since, in the latest episode of Seven’s major true-crime podcast The Truth About Amy.

And her family — the family left behind to raise those two girls — have also given a vivid insight into the grief, pain, suffering and anger they have suffered in the decade since the body of Amy was discovered in her Serpentine bedroom.

It is Amy’s mother Nancy who has raised her granddaughters since the night her daughter died.

And the words used to deliver that terrible news, by Amy’s partner David Simmons, are still burnt in her memory: “Amy is dead, she killed herself.”

“I kept trying to ring and ring and ring. Nothing, she didn’t answer,” Nancy recalls.

“She wouldn’t have done it — she wouldn’t have put her girls in the car and walked a couple of metres into the house and do that.

“Why would you say: ‘All right, we’re going to Nana and Pop’s’. And then go inside and commit suicide? It’s bullshit.”

Nancy has shed countless tears in the years since. But she also remembers Mr Simmons not shedding any as he delivered that news.

Her anger at what happened to her daughter, and what has happened since, is visceral. She speaks of her disbelief at the police investigation, which ruled within hours her daughter’s death was self-inflicted.

She describes the frustration at the subsequent inquest, which did not rule her death was suicide — but could not reach any other cause of death either.

She tells of her long-time unease about her daughter’s relationship with David Simmons, and his violent streak.

And of the hysterical call between mother and daughter just minutes before Amy died.

“When I rung Amy, she was hysterical. I said: ‘Has he hit you?’. She said: ‘He has grabbed me by the throat and thrown me on the ground.

“That’s when I said: ‘Pack your shit and the girls, and get down here now.’

“And by then, Amy had calmed down, she wasn’t as hysterical as she was when I first rung. And she said: ‘I’ll be there soon.’”

It was Nancy whom the police approached to say they had quickly ruled her daughter’s death a suicide.

She was certain then, and still is now, that is not how Amy died.

“How could she hold a double barrel shotgun? How could she turn her head like that? It doesn’t make sense,” she says.

While Nancy has raised Amy’s children, her sister Anna has raised Amy’s violent death at every opportunity, in a bid to get to the truth.

“They were just babies, just little girls – and they were Amy’s babies and she should be here,” Anna says.

The memories those girls now hold are predominantly positive ones, especially movie nights on Friday dressed in matching onesies.

But her older daughter Naya also remembers that final night.

“She told me that she needed to go back inside to grab something. And she told me that the next movie we’re going to watch would be Rio — and then she went inside, and she never came back,” Naya said.

“It does have an effect on me, but I don’t think it affects me as much as it does everyone else.

“It’s not too painful for me. But I know that some people get really emotional and upset with these things. And this could have happened a lot easier if it was done properly.

“It’s still going on, like 10 years now. And we shouldn’t have come to the point where we didn’t know what happened.

“We should have just known on the day.”

Anyone with information can email thetruthaboutamy@seven.com.au or leave an anonymous tip at www.thetruthaboutamy.org

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