A man who begged neighours for help saying his girlfriend had hit her head on a coffee table has been charged with breaching an Apprehended Violence Order in the wake of her death.
Max Spencer, 21, was in court just last week and was due in Penrith Local Court on Tuesday in relation to the AVO. He has now instead been charged with breaching it after his girlfriend Hayley Ernst, 21, was found dead in her Kingswood home Saturday night.
Miss Ernst’s neighbour Ashley Egtberts, 23, said she was at home with her fiancé Kevin when a man knocked on their door around midnight asking for a phone, saying his partner had a head injury and needed help.
Kevin called 000 and ran next door to follow the instructions of the emergency operator but the young woman no longer had a pulse.
Ms Egtberts said the 21-year-old mother of two was sitting upright with her hands beside her, as if she had been propped up, but had no signs of blood, bruising, or other visible sign of injury and she and Kevin were told she had hit her head on the coffee table.
“I didn’t even know who they were until last night,” Ms Egtberts said.
Ms Ernst is believed to have moved into the Kingswood house, of which her cousin and his partner are long-time renters, in the past couple of weeks, with her partner understood to start staying shortly after.
The cause of death is still unknown, according to St Marys Local Area Command’s Supt Greg Peters.
“We will no doubt wait until the body is conveyed to Sydney mortuary, sometime this morning, and then we have to wait for the results of a post mortem … at this stage I am unable to say what the injuries area,” he said.
Friends and family are mourning the young mum’s death.
“She was a beautiful treasured young mother, she was too caring, she was a great mother, and her daughters loved their mum so, so much,” friend Sarah Nevaeh Steven told The Daily Telegraph.
“I’ll miss her tremendously and my children will miss their aunty Hayley.”
