'A nice house from the outside'
It was more than a month before the
wider public learnt of Ms Smith's fate,
when police held a press conference,
calling for people with information
on the last year of her life to come
forward.
Head of SA Police's Major Crime
branch, Detective Superintendent
Des Bray, delivered the details.
"Ann died in disgusting and
degrading circumstances and her
death was likely preventable," he said.
"It was a nice house from the outside,
it was in a nice suburb but sadly Ann
was living in disgusting conditions
inside."
A manslaughter investigation is
now underway to find out how that
happened, and other agencies are
also looking into the matter.
Thanks to the police statement, the
public know the details surrounding
Ms Smith's death, but her life remains
largely a mystery.
A photo released by police shows
a slightly smiling, young, blonde
woman — another person behind her
is cropped from the frame.
But the photo is decades old, and
unlikely to resemble what she looked
like at 54, shut in her house for years.
Police say she has a brother who
she hadn't been in contact with for
some time, and a friend who she
considered her next of kin, living in
regional South Australia.
By 2009, both her parents had died
and she was living alone.
Neighbours remember security
guard outside home
Most of the residents have lived there
for a decade or more and are well
acquainted with each other's comings
and goings.
They saw her house go up 15 years
ago and said her parents built it for
her.
There are stories on the street that
there had been live-in carers, but
they were sacked years ago, leading
to a dispute at the property.
"They refused to move or they
claimed squatters' rights after a
certain number of years and then
there was a security detail out front
24 hours a day for about three or four
months," Mr Fynnaart said.
The neighbour directly next door to
Ms Smith said that for the past few
years, a carer had been coming to the
house three times a day to look after
Ms Smith.
The Fynnaarts, who live down the
road, said they saw her small sedan
parked out the front every day at
9:00am.
Ms Smith's carer, Hectorville
woman Rosa Maione, has been
interviewed by police as part of their
investigation.
She was working for Integrity
Care, an agency that is now being
audited by the National Disability
Insurance Scheme (NDIS) Quality
and Safeguards Commission, and has
been fined for failing to report Ms
Smith's death.
Police said Ms Smith also had a
gardener, but it appears Ms Maione
was the only person she had regular,
physical contact with.
Isolation baffles taskforce chief
South Australia's state-appointed
disability advocate Dr David Caudrey
is now heading up a taskforce looking
into the case.
He believes Ms Smith's isolation
posed the biggest risk.
"It's not just one pair of eyes or one
person who knows what's going on in
somebody's life, it's multiple eyes, it's
multiple people," Dr Caudrey said.
"How this poor woman became so
isolated that it effectively looks like
there was no-one else in her life other
than this one carer — you could see
that would be very, very unusual."
He said the disability community
is reeling from the revelations,
particularly parents who have
children with disabilities.
Ann Smith's house sits on the corner
of the street, which curves into a
short cul-de-sac in Kensington Park,
a cosy corner of Adelaide's privileged
eastern suburbs.
Ms Smith lived in at 1 Bradman Court, Kensington Park, in Adelaide's eastern suburbs.
(Supplied: SA Police)
8 EBL QUARTERLY NEWSLETTER