By PAULA OLIVER
Mark Lundy blinked rapidly, his mouth open, as a jury last night pronounced him guilty of murdering his wife and seven-year-old daughter.
Members of his family gasped and held hands in the High Court in Palmerston North as the verdict was read to a hushed courtroom. One swore.
Lundy was given the mandatory life sentence with a minimum non-parole period of 13 years by Justice Anthony Ellis, but the Crown has said it may seek to keep him in prison longer.
Lundy was then led away, silent and impassive.
A few minutes later, as passers-by and cars stopped to find out the verdict, he was taken from the back of the court in a prison van to Manawatu Prison at Linton.
The jury of six men and six women took just 6 1/2 hours to find Lundy guilty while a crowd of more than 60 people kept a vigil at the court.
The bodies of Amber Grace Lundy and Christine Marie Lundy were found on August 30, 2000, in a bedroom of their Karamea Cres home in suburban Kelvin Grove by Mrs Lundy's brother, Glenn Weggery.
After the verdict, Lundy's sister Caryl Jones, who has not missed a session of the court throughout the hearing, their ageing father, Bill, and two rows of in-laws, cousins and close friends who have supported the accused throughout, were ushered quickly to a private room.
Police shook hands and congratulated one another in the courtroom after the verdict was announced.
Outside, inquiry head Detective Sergeant Ross Grantham was applauded by members of the public. Surrounded by reporters, Mr Grantham said: "I'm just happy now it's over, and that the families and the police can move on with our lives."
Defence lawyers left quickly without comment. Upset members of the Lundy family fled the court without speaking.
Justice Ellis thanked the jury for what he described as an extremely difficult and upsetting task. "The community is in your debt."
He excused jury members from further service for 10 years.
From the outset the jury was confronted with the brutal reality of Christine and Amber Lundy's deaths as they were handed post-mortem photographs. At one point during the trial, proceedings were delayed when a juror found evidence too gruelling.
Lundy was arrested in February last year, six months after the killings, when police confirmed that Christine Lundy's brain tissue was on one of his shirts.
In a trial that lasted nearly seven weeks and heard 160 witnesses, the Crown alleged that Lundy sped from Petone to Palmerston North as part of an elaborate plan to commit the murders, and then fled the scene wearing a woman's blonde wig.
He bludgeoned his wife and daughter repeatedly with a tomahawk or small axe, then tried to make the house look as if it had been burgled.
He then sped back to Petone and ordered a prostitute as an alibi.
To do the trip from Palmerston North to Petone in 75 minutes would have required speeds of up to 150km/h.
Lundy told police that during his drive north the day after the slayings he travelled at up to 160km/h.
The Crown and defence lawyer Mike Behrens, QC, debated how tissue from Christine Lundy's brain got on to a polo shirt belonging to Lundy.
The Crown regarded the shirt as crucial evidence of his guilt, while the defence tried to prove the shirt could have been contaminated with the tissue while in police keeping.
The discovery of the bloodied, bludgeoned bodies of Amber and Christine Lundy shocked Palmerston North and the nation.
The mother and daughter were farewelled at a packed funeral on September 7, 2000, at St Peter's Anglican Church.
Lundy wept openly and had to be physically supported by two people after the ceremony.
Earlier yesterday, Justice Ellis took only 38 minutes to sum up the trial before sending out the jury at 1.53pm.
He said the trial was one in which the collective commonsense of jurors had to be brought to bear.
Grouping the wealth of expert and technical evidence in the case - forensics, pathology, telecommunications, automotive and driving - Justice Ellis said the jury was faced with some conflict and contradiction between them.
"But this is a trial by jury, not a trial by experts," he said.
The presence of brain tissue from Christine Lundy on Lundy's polo shirt was accepted by both sides, the judge said. What was at issue was how it got there.
Justice Ellis said allegations of lies had been made by both sides.
The Crown said Lundy was not telling the truth about August 29.
The defence suggested police, and inquiry leader Ross Grantham in particular, planted the brain tissue evidence.
Jurors must not consider possible lies in isolation and simply short-cut around them, the judge said. The possibilities had to be considered along with the other associated evidence.
Justice Ellis said the jury was being asked to decide on a case of circumstantial evidence which the Crown said came together to prove guilt, and which the defence said was flawed and fell far short of the required standard for conviction.
If the jury found the DNA material on Lundy's shirt got there during or very soon after Christine and Amber's murders, "it is a very powerful piece of evidence for the prosecution. But if you are in doubt, the prosecution case is severely weakened."
Matters of lights at the house and the computer clock needed careful consideration, the judge said.
"For prosecution to succeed, a 7pm time of death is essential. If you have a reasonable doubt about this, it is fatal to the prosecution case."
In his final submissions yesterday, Mr Behrens told the jury that the police thought from the beginning Lundy was guilty.
He made no apology for asking Mr Grantham if he deliberately contaminated the evidence against Lundy.
The defence did not question the fact that it was from Mrs Lundy, but said it could have got there accidentally or deliberately.
Mr Behrens said the trial was not about how brain tissue got on a shirt, but about whether Lundy murdered his wife.
For Lundy to drive from Petone to Palmerston North on the night of the deaths, he would have needed to travel at an average speed of 150km/h, Mr Behrens said.
Cellphone records put him in Petone at 5.30pm and 8.30pm on August 29.
Mr Behrens described evidence from a witness about a fat, running figure in the Kelvin Grove area as "unreliable", coming from a witness whose memory was shown to improve with time and with the help of media pictures.
He warned the jury against prejudice, which "is like an infection - sometimes you don't know you have it".
Baby-faced husband and father turns callous double killer
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