Family of Vernon teen killed in U.K. remembers brave, adventurous woman

Ski trips to SilverStar Mountain in Vernon, B.C. will never be the same for the family of Ashley Wadsworth.

The 19-year-old woman, a vibrant and charismatic person with a heart of gold, was all but guaranteed to be there for the family vacation at the Okanagan mountain.

“We’ve been doing it for 13 or 14 years now, she’s never missed one,” said Melissa Locke, Ashley’s cousin. “She was the one out there, teaching the kids to ski. She would gather kids up and play hide and seek. She was that camp counselor type girl.”

But the annual trip will now be without Ashley’s happy presence. She was killed in a home in England on Tuesday, shortly after police in Chelmsford were called about a disturbance.

Ashley moved to England in November, according to social media, and had posted several photos of her trip with a man she referred to on Facebook as her “bestie.”

Jack Sepple, 23, has been charged with murder.

Ashley was part of a large and close-knit family in the Okanagan.

“There’s over 50 of us that live in the same small town,” said Locke who thinks of Ashley more like a sister. The family is shattered over the loss.

“This isn’t supposed to happen to your family.”

Photos of Ashley on her social media page depict a smiling and happy person. Locke says she was like that all the time.

“We want the world to know who she was because she was an amazing girl — adventurous, and brave, and smart. We loved her very, very much.”

Locke remembers her cousin as a kind person who loved her family deeply.

“She was amazing with my kids,” Locke said, adding Ashley was the eldest of her family’s generation. “Even though she was older, she would get down on their level and play with them.”

When Ashley announced her move to England, it made sense to Locke.

“She’s spreading her wings. It wasn’t a shock to us that she wanted to travel. She always loved to travel,” she said.

“That smile in those pictures … I’m so glad she got to do something awesome in — it’s hard to say — the last days of her life. But she looked happy.”

Ashley had big plans for her life. Locke says her cousin wanted to be a lawyer.

“She studied so hard to get the grades to get into university. She just cared so much about the rest of her life. She wanted to do so many things and she got robbed.”

Detectives in Essex have released little information, but say Ashley’s family is “being supported by specialist officers.”

Friends mourn Ashley’s death, remember a ‘beautiful soul’

Tributes online share the heartbreak being felt by others who knew her, especially those in Vernon and the Okanagan.

“Ashley was one of my best friends that I’ve met here in Canada. We lost a beautiful soul,” one post reads.

Another person wrote, “Rest In Peace sweet girl. I remember the most beautiful, brightest; most special moments watching you grow up. I will cherish them forever.”

Ashley’s friend expressed her shock and described her as an “incredibly sweet, beautiful and a literal angel.”

“Thinking of everyone in Vernon today, but most importantly the Wadsworth family,” the post added.

Sepple is in Colchester Magistrates’ Court Thursday.

With files from The Canadian Press