Sydney Police investigate, Deborah Spencer died at South Penrith footpath
Homicide squad called to investigate Sydney woman's death found on footpath
A homicide squad was referred to the death of a Sydney woman, discovered unconscious with neck injuries on a footpath five years ago.
On the morning of May 22, 2016, Deborah Spencer, 51, died in Sydney's Nepean Hospital after she was found lying on the South Penrith footpath.
NSW coroner Derek Lee said the fracture of her hyoid bone in her upper neck was considered a major condition leading to her death in findings released on Friday.
But Mr Lee couldn't tell how the injury happened with any certainty.
The facts before him opened up the possibility that Ms. Spencer died after an accidental fall due to alcohol or an episode of interpersonal abuse.
"As for the latter, the evidence is even less clear as to whether any possible episode of interpersonal violence consisted of a push or strike, or a mixture of one or more such acts of violence," he said.
Mr Lee was informed that local detectives had not yet requested the homicide squad's formal assistance or guidance.
The coroner said the inquiry could benefit from the professional expertise of homicide detectives.
Ms Spencer's inquiry heard that from early afternoon on May 21, she and her boyfriend were drinking in Penrith, finally settling under Lemongrove Bridge with a cask of wine.
A friend mentioned seeing Ms. Spencer lying on the ground about 10pm, but alert and aware of her environment.
Around 10.50pm, he got a call from Ms Spencer's partner to say she had a fall and they were coming to the home of her mate.
But they never came - and the boyfriend ended up staying at the home of another friend.
Around 7am the next morning, two people saw a boyfriend trying to rouse Ms. Spencer.
They both saw Ms. Spencer with a black eye when one felt he saw the boyfriend's arm with blood, the inquiry was told.
The boyfriend told one passer-by that he had just found Ms. Spencer lying on the walkway.
The blood alcohol of Ms Spencer on hospital arrival was 0.173, while "unsurvivable" was known to be a significant amount of bleeding on the brain.
Friends later told police that Ms. Spencer, who had lived in England until 2001, drank alcohol on a regular basis and was known to collapse while she was drunk.
But it was also unlikely that Ms Spencer's injuries found in her autopsy can be explained by a single-impact fall, Mr Lee said.
The partner, who was also intoxicated on May 21, provided the police with conflicting accounts of different facts, including when he last saw her.
The pair have had a history of suspected domestic abuse, with Ms. Spencer telling the police that her partner was threatening to kill her and attempting to choke her in March.
He'd previously behaved in similar ways, she said, without explaining more incidents.