Neighbours’ shock at Ann Marie Smith’s ‘horrible’ death
The distraught neighbours of Ann Marie Smith say they had no idea of her dreadful suffering behind the closed door of her Kensington Park home.
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Before cerebral palsy robbed her of mobility, speech and independence, Ann Marie Smith could be seen in her wheelchair in the front garden of her home enjoying the sunlight.
That was five years ago.
“The first I ever knew something was wrong was when all the police cars turned up,” one of Ms Smith’s neighbours said.
Others who spoke to the Sunday Mail –but did not wish to be identified – said they were horrified at her undignified, slow and painful death behind closed doors.
And they lamented that maybe they could have assisted her if only they had known of her plight.
“We weren’t aware there was someone living in that house with a disability,” said a male neighbour.
“We just saw people going in and out,” he said of the disability service workers contracted to care for Ms Smith.
Another neighbour said: “I didn’t even know her name.”
Ms Smith’s small courtyard home is in a neat cul-de-sac off busy Beulah Rd, in Kensington Park.
Hundreds of schoolchildren and office workers pass the house every week, and locals exercise their dogs in the reserve right before the driveway.
It is a very typical, ordinary streetscape – one like many across metropolitan Adelaide.
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“I’m very distressed,” said another resident, wiping away tears as she recounted hearing media reports of Ms Smith’s fate.
“I have cried at night thinking about her,” she said. “It happened near me and I never knew.”
Another resident said: “It’s horrible to think what that woman went through.”
Relatively new to the street, he said: “’I’d not seen her, ever.
“You feel awful as a neighbour – we just didn’t know it was happening and you think what could I have done? And the reality is very little.”
A man a little further away said he last saw Ann Marie in her driveway around 2015.
“It’s such a sad story,” he said.
