Ashley Wadsworth murder: 'What were her

last words - did she ask for us?'

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15 hours ago

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Image caption,
Ashley Wadsworth died after police were called to reports of a disturbance in
Chelmsford
By Laurence Cawley & Zoie O'Brien
BBC News, East
For years, Jack Sepple and Ashley Wadsworth were modern-day pen pals who used
the internet to bridge the 4,500-mile (7,242km) distance between them. But just
months after 19-year-old Ashley decided to leave Canada to start a new life living
with Sepple in the UK, he murdered her. What happened?
"It is so traumatising to think of her last moments," says Ashley's mother Christy
Gendron. "How scared she must have been, what her last words were, did she ask for
us?
"I'll never know. Two people know - one has gone and the other probably wouldn't tell
the truth anyway."
Ashley, from Vernon in British Columbia, arrived in the UK to live with 23-year-old
Sepple at his one-bedroom flat in Tennyson Road, Chelmsford, last November.
On 1 February this year, police found Ashley had been both strangled and repeatedly
stabbed in the chest. She was pronounced dead at the scene. Sepple was sitting in bed
next to her body when he was found by police.
After admitting Ashley's murder, Sepple has been sentenced to life with a minimum
term of 23 years and six months.
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'There was no stopping her'

Image caption,
Christy Gendron describes Ashley as a 'ball of energy'
Ashley was something of a human "Spitfire", according to her mother, Ms Gendron.
"She was amazing," she says. " She was inquisitive, she was adventurous, into sports
and was always outside.
"She was a ball of energy."
As a young girl, Ashley loved horse riding, skiing and boating.
Then, when she was about 12 years old, a friend in Vernon introduced her to an English
boy online - Jack Sepple.
For the next seven years Ashley and Sepple "were pen pals on Facebook", says Ms
Gendron.
"It wasn't a relationship," she says. "They'd be off and on and talk for a bit and then, as
they got older, he would date and so they wouldn't [talk]."
Despite having never met him in person, Sepple's face was a regular part of the family's
life in Vernon. Ashley and he would speak via FaceTime in the family living room. If Ms
Gendron was passing, she would say hello to him.