KEY POINTS:
A teenager says he heard nothing to alert him to his sister allegedly murdering their mother with an axe in another room of their Christchurch home.
The 15-year-old told police it was not until he got out of bed minutes later, and walked into the lounge four to
five metres away to use the telephone, that he found what his 16-year-old sister had allegedly done.
His mother was slumped over the end of the couch, and he first thought she was asleep and had fallen off.
"I went over to give her a hand back up on the couch. It was then I noticed her face in a big pool of blood. I just started screaming ... I was going mental. I just started punching walls."
The murder accused, now 17, was yesterday committed to stand trial for murdering her mother, 46, with an axe used to split logs at the Christchurch home in November last year.
According to witness statements produced in the Christchurch Youth Court yesterday, the girl went to a convenience store with her staffordshire dog after the killing and asked to use the phone.
The Asian store owner said the girl told him she needed to call the police, so he dialled 111 and handed the receiver to her.
"I then heard [her] ask for the police and then say 'I kill my mum'," the store owner told police.
"[She] talked on the phone for a long time, I cannot remember all the words she said, but I did hear her say 'I'm not joking I kill my mum'. [She] was not crying and just seemed normal."
A police officer who met her at a Christchurch police station that evening, Senior Constable Graeme Olds, said she was very calm and collected. He asked her: "Are you being straight up about what you have rung about?"
And he said she replied: "Yes, I have done what I said I did."
Police statements said the girl had not been living with her mother and brother at the Christchurch home, but visited almost every day to see her dog.
The girl had returned to Christchurch in about September last year after staying with her grandmother in Manurewa for a few months.
Her brother said she had initially moved back in with them, but after a while started fighting with her mother.
"It wasn't over anything in particular, just silly stuff."
When he last saw his mother alive, she had been sleeping on the couch in front of the television. He saw his sister arrive at the house, from his bedroom, about 8.10pm.
"I did not talk to her, but I saw her walk across the veranda to the back door of our house."
Detective Constable Anthony Clare said an axe was found leaning up against the house, and the sharp end was covered in what appeared to be blood and black hair.
Pathologist Martin Sage said the victim had at least four large chopping wounds on her face and forehead. Ten cutting or chopping wounds were found on the back of her head, neck and right shoulder.
Some of the impacts showed a pattern very strongly indicative of use of a chopping instrument such as a log-splitting axe, Dr Sage said.
"She would have died very soon after the infliction of the wounds to the face and forehead."
Evidence from the Institute of Environmental Science and Research was that the accused girl had smoked cannabis before her mother's death.
The girl will appear in court this month for a pre-trial hearing.
