The family of an Australian woman is demanding more justice after her death. Kiara Ferguson was six months pregnant at the time of her death, and already had young children at home. To her shock and ire, she found a gun her boyfriend had made inside their home. It was just sitting out, which posed a safety hazard to the children. Unfortunately, while the woman was scared for her children’s safety, she didn’t think of her own. She ended up being killed by the gun, and now her boyfriend is facing a minimal charge. Her family is not happy about it.
On April 1, 2023, pregnant Ferguson was at home with her two young children, and her 4-year-old daughter found a gun tucked between the couch cushions, per The Guardian. Naturally, the woman was irate, and went to confront her boyfriend, Adam Winmar, while he was in the bathroom.
“What have I told you about this?” she reportedly asked her partner of 10 years. Ferguson then dropped the loaded homemade 12-gauge spring pipe gun onto the tiled bathroom floor. When the gun hit the tile, it fired a single shot, which hit Ferguson under her eye.
In a court hearing, Supreme Court Justice Michael Croucher called the incident “a stroke of terrible misfortune.” The judge said, “She fell to the floor, mortally wounded.”
Winmar called emergency services, but Kiara Ferguson died on the bathroom floor. Allegedly, prior attempts to fire the gun had failed.
“It was a profoundly stupid thing to do,” Croucher said of Winmar storing the gun in the couch. “Any loaded gun is to be treated as potentially dangerous, especially so when young children might get their hands on it.”
Initially, Winmar was charged with a firearm offense and pleaded guilty. Prosecutors then upgraded his charge to negligent manslaughter. However, they abandoned the most serious charge before the trial. Winmar pleaded guilty to reckless conduct endangering life and possessing a firearm as a prohibited person. He was sentenced to three months in prison on November 28, 2025.
“Kiara deserved justice. She deserved a response from the court that recognised the irreversible impact of this violent choice,” Ferguson’s family told the Australian Associated Press. “A lenient sentence sends a dangerous message: that a life taken in the context of persistent domestic violence is somehow worth less.”
According to AAP, after Winmar is released from prison, he must perform community service and undergo treatment for drug and alcohol issues at a residential facility. He has a long history of substance abuse and other criminal issues that have continued after Ferguson’s death.
Ferguson’s family said they were “utterly devastated” by both her death and Winmar’s sentence.
“Kiara was killed in an act of domestic violence — an act that was preventable, and final,” the family said in a statement. “Yet the sentence fails to acknowledge the full gravity of what was done to her, her daughters, to us, and to our community. We ask that her memory be honoured with the seriousness and justice she deserved in life and in death.”
