Julia DeLuney denies mother’s murder, describes Khandallah home ‘warzone’ scene

Julia DeLuney is on trial at the High Court in Wellington for the murder of her 79-year-old mother Helen Gregory (insert) in her Khandallah home.

The daughter of a woman killed in her own home has described the shock of returning to the Wellington house where her mother lived and freaking out after finding a scene that resembled a “warzone”.

Julia DeLuney, 53, denies murdering her mother, Helen Gregory, 79, in her home in January last year. She maintains that someone else was responsible.

The Crown has suggested the former school teacher, 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, in the High Court at Wellington, a statement DeLuney made to the police in the hours following her mother’s death was read to the court by a detective.

DeLuney said she arrived at her mother’s house on Baroda St in the suburb of Khandallah, about 6pm on January 24 last year. The purpose of the evening was to book ballet tickets, a present for Gregory’s upcoming 80th birthday.

She said that night her mother was “obsessed” with finding a top she’d misplaced and the two hunted the house looking for it.

DeLuney told the police that evening she’d personally put some jewellery, specifically watches, in the attic, which was accessed through a hallway cupboard.

Yesterday the jury were shown photos of the cupboard, including the makeshift ladder inside, which led up to the manhole in the ceiling. DeLuney told the police the attic access was “quite steep” and even she had trouble accessing it.

She said about 8.30pm that night her mother was still talking about the top and also mentioned she wanted to put a bulky packet of toilet paper in the roof.

Julia DeLuney is on trial at the High Court in Wellington for the murder of her 79-year-old mother Helen Gregory (insert) in her Khandallah home.

A big crash

DeLuney said she was in the kitchen when she heard a big crash and ran to find her mother on the cupboard floor, having fallen from the attic. She was holding the top of her head.

She’d helped her mother up off the floor before helping her down the corridor to the spare room, lying her on the floor. DeLuney said she didn’t know why she’d put her mother in the spare room, but said it seemed to have more space.

She said her mother had a little bit of blood on her hand from holding her head, but she couldn’t see an open wound. There wasn’t a lot of blood around, and she didn’t think it was anything major.

Knowing her mother’s dislike of hospitals, she opted not to call an ambulance.

Instead, she told her mother to stay put, and she would drive to her home on the Kāpiti coast, (a distance of about 40km) to get her husband, Antonio, to help.

DeLuney said her mother appeared agitated and wanted to get up, but she told her to stay put.

DeLuney drove to her home and got her husband out of bed, telling him to get dressed as they needed to check on Gregory, who had fallen.

I got a hell of a shock

Arriving back at the house in Baroda St, she said she’d unlocked the front door only to freak out at the amount of blood they saw, which wasn’t there when she left.

“We freaked out because it looked like a war zone. I say it looked like a warzone because there was blood in lots of different places. None of the blood in that room was there earlier when I left her, so I got a hell of a shock.”

Yesterday, the jury was also shown photos of the cupboard, which had blood smeared on the two top rungs of the ladder. Blood could also be seen on the cupboard walls and running down the back walls.

Outside the cupboard, more blood could be seen dripping down the walls. Bloody marks continued down the left side of the corridor to the bedroom where Gregory was, and there was a large amount of blood on the bedroom floor.

Various items could be seen spilling out of the cupboard, including a packet of toilet paper, an ironing board, a metal pole, and other items.

Upon entering the bedroom, DeLuney told police her mother was still on the floor, lying against the foot of the bed.

“One leg was tucked up as if she was holding her weight on it, and the other was bent and unresponsive.”

She was unable to find a pulse. Her husband called 111 before telling her to move so he could begin CPR.

After paramedics arrived, DeLuney told police she’d changed out of the clothes she was wearing that night and left them in her mother’s wardrobe. She changed into her mother’s clothes.

She told police she didn’t know how blood came to be in the kitchen.

In her statement, DeLuney also said that her mother had fallen three times in the 18 months before her death and was hospitalised on one of those occasions.

The court heard that when DeLuney gave her statement, she did so as a witness, not as a suspect.

The defence has suggested someone else was responsible and that a neighbour had reported a mysterious knock on their door earlier that night.

The jury trial before Justice Peter Churchman is expected to take up to five weeks.

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.