Jury to consider verdict in murder trial

Murder accused Shaylene Wharerau.

A Whangarei woman accused of stabbing her boyfriend to death is expected to know her fate today.

The Crown yesterday closed its case against Shaylene Wharerau, 22, who is on trial in the High Court at Whangarei facing a charge of murder.

She faces alternative charges of wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm and wounding with reckless disregard. Wharerau has admitted stabbing Mr Ripia in the chest during a domestic dispute over a smashed cellphone and access to a social media site on October 30, 2012. Her defence is that it was an accident.

Mr Ripia had surgery in Auckland after the stabbing but died three weeks later.

At the end of the Crown case about 12.30pm yesterday, defence lawyer Arthur Fairley said Wharerau didn't wish to call or give evidence.

The jury was then excused for the rest of the day and advised to come back for closing addresses and the judge's summing up today.

Forensic pathologist Dr Paul Morrow, who conducted an autopsy on Mr Ripia a day after he died on November 20, 2012, was the last Crown witness.

His principal finding was that Mr Ripia died due to bleeding around the sac that surrounded the heart as a result of an old stab wound.

Unfortunate movement in heart muscles caused Mr Ripia's healing stab wound to rebleed and send him into a form of a heart failure before he died, he testified.

The jury, of seven men and five women, was expected to retire to consider its verdict this afternoon.