As most of her family and friends had moved away over the years, she rarely had visitors. Her blonde hair was often held out of her face by gold clips, worn with matching bracelets.Īnn Marie was sensitive and cared deeply about people. She got her hair and nails professionally done. She was known for her infectious laugh.Īnn Marie never left her home dishevelled. Gregarious and compassionate, she loved dancing and watching old movies. She owned two dogs, whom she adored more than anything.
She had a good house, a well-kept garden. It was done over the phone and Ann Marie was assisted by Maione, not by a friend, as she had requested.Īfter her parents died, Ann Marie Smith had lived by herself on a nice street with friendly neighbours in the middle-class Adelaide suburb of Kingston Park. It was also noted that an in-person interview was necessary to accurately gauge her support needs. The fact that her carer was charged with manslaughter and not murder says everything.Īs early as September 2017, the National Disability Insurance Agency was made aware that Ann Marie was deteriorating. This sentence for Ann Marie’s neglect and death is yet another indictment on all the bureaucratic systems that failed to value her existence and continue to fail many others in similar ways. Often people feel they have to choose between having inadequate or even abusive and negligent support and no support at all. Her sole carer, Rosa Maria Maione, was sentenced to six years, seven months and five days, with a non-parole period of five years and three months. A day later, she died.Īccording to the sentencing handed down by Justice Anne Bampton in South Australia’s Supreme Court, Ann Marie’s death was manslaughter. Ann Marie’s flesh was dead and decomposing.Īnn Marie was alive but she was literally rotting to death. The chair she had been sitting in had started to decompose and it had been saturated with urine and faeces that had been accumulating for well over a year. She was bound to the chair in which she was found and as a result had pressure wounds that had become infected to the bone. Ann Marie had yeast infections under both of her breasts and her bottom teeth had decayed and fallen out. Inside was an unconscious and emaciated 54-year-old woman, Ann Marie Smith. On a Sunday morning in April 2020, paramedics attended a call at a house in Adelaide’s south. Content warning: This article contains descriptions of serious abuse.