Facebook posts reveal Ann Marie Smith’s grief for deceased parents
Facebook posts by neglect victim Annie Smith in the years before her “disgusting and degrading” death reveal her loneliness, devotion to her pets and sadness over the loss of her parents.
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Disability neglect victim Ann Marie Smith’s last social media posts, 15 months before her death in “disgusting and degrading” conditions, reveal a grief-stricken and lonely woman devoted to her “best friends” - her pets.
The cerebral palsy sufferer’s more than 100 Facebook posts are almost entirely dedicated to her deceased parents, grandmother and two dogs Maggie and Deana.
Ms Smith, who calls herself Annie, lost her mother to cancer in 1999. Thirteen weeks later her father died suddenly from a heart attack. Her grandmother died in 2012.
“I Love you Mum and missing you. Merry Christmas my BEAUTIFUL Mum. Mum is my BEAUTIFUL white Angel looking after her girl,” she posted in December 2015.
Ms Smith tells her mother she often looks at a photo she has of her parents and talks to them. “Miss u alot (sic) Mum & DAD xxooxxoo”.
A year later, she writes: “Happy birthday to my nanna she would have been 98 to day. I miss you so much. U still are my beautiful best friend & my beautiful white Angel who is looking after me.”
Ms Smith’s list of 174 Facebook friends are almost entirely associated with dog breeders and owners from across the world. Responses to her posts, and there are few, are from random Facebook users overseas
The posts made from December 2012 to January 2018 are the first public insight into the 54-year-old’s life before she died in April from severe septic shock, multi-organ failure, severe pressure sores, and malnutrition.
They reveal an isolated existence shared with her “best friends and babies” – dogs Deana and Maggie and come as recommendations from an independent inquiry by former federal Court Judge Alan Robertson into Ms Smith’s death are expected on Monday (August 31).
Police evidence indicates Ms Smith had spent most of the year leading up to her death in an almost sedentary state, living in putrid conditions in a woven cane chair in the family room of her Kensington Park home.
Ms Smith’s carer for several years Rosemary Maione has been charged with manslaughter.
The three-bedroom home was purpose built for Ms Smith by her family and was where she lived after her father’s sudden death. It was part of a $1.3 million inheritance left to her by her parents and was recently put up for sale for an asking price of $929,000 by the executor of her will, believed to be a friend.
It was in this home that she used her devices to connect with the outside world as her disability slowly robbed her of mobility and she became less self-sufficient.
Neighbours have reported they had not seen Ms Smith for five years before her death and her only regular visitors were carers. She was known to her family and friends as a private person, preferring the company of her dogs.
One of her last posts was a poem from an online spiritual community that read: “I will love you until my dying breath … and after.”
