The partner of Amy Wensley is facing serious criminal charges and has reacted furiously to being asked to tell the truth about what happened in their bedroom before the mum-of-two’s violent death.
The 24-year-old was in June 2014 found with a gunshot wound to her head at the Serpentine home she shared with David Robert Simmons and her two daughters, one of which he’d fathered.
Her gruesome death was deemed a suicide by WA Police initially, then again after a cold case review by the homicide squad.
A third police investigation left open the possibility that her death occurred by suicide, homicide or accident.
But her friends and family do not believe she would have taken her own life.
After a 2021 inquest, Coroner Sarah Linton made an open finding, meaning she could not determine which of the scenarios she believed.
And so the mystery is being re-investigated in Seven’s powerful new podcast ‘The Truth About Amy’, as her loved ones continue to hope the truth will finally be uncovered, more than a decade later.
The latest episode details inconsistencies in the accounts that were given about what happened that late afternoon, when the couple, who had been together almost six years, became embroiled in a nasty fight partly witnessed by two of his friends.
She called her mother, who described her daughter as being extremely upset and hysterical as she arranged to come stay at her house with the two girls, and retreated to their bedroom.
Simmons claims to have been outside helping to pack the car with belongings when he heard a “thud” — admitting at the inquest he had also been shooting birds using one of the guns they kept in their wardrobe. He insists Amy was already dead when he went into the bedroom to see what had happened.
At the inquest, counsel for her family, Peter Ward, put to Simmons that he pointed a rifle at her when he went in, she grabbed hold of it and after it went off, “you just dropped the gun in her lap”. Simmons replied: “No.”
He is currently fighting a further charge of assaulting a cop and also pleaded not guilty to obstructing public officers. Simmons is next due to face Perth Magistrates Court in October.
Outside after entering the pleas, he refused to speak about the case with podcast host Liam Bartlett.
“It’s my life, not yours,” he said. “What’s it got to do with you?
“I’m not talking to you. Are you f…ing deaf?”
In a message Amy sent Simmons the night before she died, she said that she wanted the family to stay together and “give it my all to make it work” but it was “it’s up to you, babe”, adding that she needed “change”, loved him and “just wanted to be happy”.
Anyone with information about the case can email [email protected] or leave an anonymous tip at www.thetruthaboutamy.org.