Julia DeLuney is on trial at the High Court in Wellington for the alleged murder of her 79-year-old mother, Helen Gregory (insert), in her Khandallah home.
Warning: This article contains graphic content
Security camera footage from outside a Wellington house where an elderly woman was found dead shows no one else parked outside and walked up the steps to the house after her daughter - who is accused of murdering her - says she left to get help.
Julia DeLuney, 53, denied she murdered her mother, Helen Gregory, at the 79-year-old’s Khandallah home on January 24, last year.
DeLuney has been defending the charge in a jury trial in the High Court at Wellington which is now in its third week.
She says she visited her mother that evening to book ballet tickets as a birthday present for Gregory’s upcoming 80th birthday.
During her visit, her mother fell from the attic, but suffered only minor injuries, DeLuney claimed.
She maintained she helped her mother to the spare bedroom where she lay her on the floor, before leaving the house to drive to the Kāpiti Coast and collect her husband, Antonio, to help - a round trip of almost 90 minutes.
When she returned, she claimed the house looked like a “warzone” with blood everywhere.
The defence maintained Gregory’s injuries were worse than what she sustained in the alleged fall and that someone else was responsible for it.
But the Crown has suggested DeLuney, who dealt in cryptocurrency, was in financial difficulty and attacked her mother before leaving the house, driving to her own home and then returning later with her husband.
Today, the court was shown CCTV footage from the area taken the night Gregory died.
Detective Constable Danny Farrell took the jury through snippets of the black and white footage, which spanned from the early evening through to the early hours of the following morning.
Deluney’s black hatchback could be seen arriving at the address just after 6pm and parking across the road. Footage showed her walking to the house wearing a bright fluorescent green top and jeans, with a handbag slung over her shoulder.
At 9.40pm, the camera showed a light coming down the stairs of Gregory’s address. The lights on Deluney’s car flash as it’s unlocked and someone, who the defence accepted was Deluney, could be seen walking to the car.
DeLuney then returned to the house before getting into her car at 9.44pm and leaving the street at 9.47pm.
At 11.26pm DeLuney’s car returned, this time parking outside her mother’s carport. DeLuney was now in the passenger seat and her husband was driving. The couple could be seen getting out of the car and walking up to the house.
Between 11.34pm and 12.03am, the footage showed first responders arriving at the address.
Questioned by Crown prosecutor Nicole Jamieson, Farrell confirmed he had watched the footage in its entirety, even though only small snippets were played to the jury.
Between the time DeLuney left the address at 9.40pm and returned with her husband, no other person had parked outside and entered the address, he said.
Farrell agreed with defence lawyer Quentin Duff that when DeLuney and her husband got out of the car, she walked up the stairs to the house with no sense of urgency.
Meanwhile, other CCTV footage from a service station in the nearby suburb of Johnsonville was also played to the jury.
That showed DeLuney arriving at the Mobil at 9.50 pm, shortly after she had left her mother’s house. DeLuney had changed her clothes and was now wearing a pink top and black trousers. Her hair appeared to be wet.
Constable Timothy Stott told the court that while DeLuney bought a lighter at the service station, it appeared she was missing a fake fingernail from her right thumb.
He also noted it appeared there was a large rubbish bag sitting on the front passenger seat.
DeLuney’s car was seen driving out of the service station at 9.53pm heading back to the Kāpiti coast.
The court was also shown footage of DeLuney wearing a green coat, jeans, and white sneakers, while dropping a black rubbish bag into a large red rubbish bin near her house on the morning after Gregory’s death.
Truck driver Gavin Twist told the court the woman approached him before 7am as he was emptying roadside wheelie bins on Seaview Rd, Paraparaumu Beach on January 25.
Twist told the court the woman asked him very nicely if she could put the black plastic bag in the large red rubbish bin he had just emptied. He agreed.
“She was cradling the bag as she put it in the bin,” he said.
When the bag landed at the bottom of the bin, it made a thud, he said.
Cameras inside the truck show the black bag being compacted.
The court heard DeLuney later visited her regular nail salon in Paraparaumu. She’d removed her nail extensions and wanted new ones put on.
During the visit, DeLuney took a phone call, telling the caller her mother had died the night before. She appeared upset and started to cry.
The trial before Justice Peter Churchman continues.
Catherine Hutton is an Open Justice reporter, based in Wellington. She has worked as a journalist for 20 years, including at the Waikato Times and RNZ. Most recently she was working as a media adviser at the Ministry of Justice.