{"id":605690,"date":"2026-04-14T06:27:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-14T06:27:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/605690\/"},"modified":"2026-04-14T06:27:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-14T06:27:09","slug":"man-charged-over-alleged-murder-of-hayley-mcclenahan-ernst-in-sydneys-west","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/605690\/","title":{"rendered":"Man charged over alleged murder of Hayley McClenahan-Ernst in Sydney’s west"},"content":{"rendered":"

The former partner of Hayley McClenahan-Ernst has been charged with her murder, nine years after the pregnant mother’s suspicious death in Sydney’s west.<\/p>\n

Thirty-year-old Max Spencer was arrested by NSW detectives at a property in Coffs Harbour on Tuesday morning and later charged with murder.<\/p>\n

The charge comes two weeks after police renewed a public appeal into the suspected cold-case killing.<\/p>\n

Ms McClenahan-Ernst was found unresponsive at a home on Derby Street in Kingswood during the middle of the night on May 21, 2017.<\/p>\n

Paramedics attempted to resuscitate the 21-year-old, but she died at the scene.<\/p>\n

Despite homicide detectives declaring Ms McClenahan-Ernst’s death suspicious in 2017, no-one had been charged over her death for almost nine years.<\/p>\n

A coronial inquest into her death was suspended in 2025 and the matter referred to the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

A man has been charged in the investigation into the death of Hayley McClenahan-Ernst in 2017. (Supplied: NSW Police)<\/p>\n

Shortly after, police re-launched their investigation, which led to the arrest of Mr Spencer less than six months later.<\/p>\n

In a statement released last month, Ms McClenahan-Ernst’s mother, Lisa Ernst, pleaded for witnesses to come forward with more information about her daughter’s death.<\/p>\n

“Hayley was deeply loved by our family and we have never stopped missing her smile, her infectious laugh, and the fierce love she had for her children,” she said.<\/p>\n

“My grief over losing my daughter has only deepened with time, especially as I still have no answers about what happened to Hayley.”<\/p>\n

Facing bail division court, Mr Spencer was not required to appear on-screen and did not apply for his release on bail.<\/p>\n

His matter was adjourned to Penrith local court on June 12.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The former partner of Hayley McClenahan-Ernst has been charged with her murder, nine years after the pregnant mother’s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":605691,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,23218,2025,61602,48,1300,106338,294745,5315,294748,294747,294746,2968,44,2733,4277,47642,201368,670,16391],"class_list":{"0":"post-605690","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-australia","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-charged","11":"tag-charges","12":"tag-coffs-harbour","13":"tag-crime","14":"tag-death","15":"tag-former-partner","16":"tag-hayley-mcclenahan-ernst","17":"tag-investigation","18":"tag-kingswood","19":"tag-lisa-ernst","20":"tag-max-spencer","21":"tag-murder","22":"tag-news","23":"tag-nsw","24":"tag-nsw-police","25":"tag-pregnant","26":"tag-suspicious","27":"tag-sydney","28":"tag-western-sydney"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/605690","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=605690"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/605690\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/605691"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=605690"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=605690"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=605690"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}