WARNING: This story contains forensic details and an image of the scene that could be upsetting.
Julia DeLuney will serve at least 18 years in prison after murdering her mother last year, but continues to deny she is responsible for her death.
Today, Julia DeLuney, a school teacher turned cryptocurrency trader, was sentenced in the High Court at Wellington.
The 53-year-old was earlier found guilty of murdering Helen Gregory, 79, who was found dead in her Khandallah home in January last year after DeLuney struck her around the head multiple times with a heavy object.
At the sentencing, the courtroom’s public gallery was packed with family, friends, police officers and members of the public who’d observed the trial. DeLuney’s husband sat behind her as she sat in the dock.
The Crown sought a minimum period of imprisonment (MPI) of 18 years, while the defence suggested it should be 17 years.
Crown prosecutor Stephanie Bishop submitted that the murder was committed with a high level of brutality and was particularly callous.
She said Gregory was vulnerable and was killed in her own home, a place where she should have felt safe.
In the days before the murder, DeLuney had also convinced her mother to give her the last of her savings, Bishop said.
DeLuney’s lawyer, Quentin Duff, submitted that his client continued to maintain her innocence.
Her position was that at no stage had she employed any violence against any person, “including her beloved mother”, he said.
But Duff said her lack of remorse was not enough to displace an MPI of 17 years.
However, Justice Peter Churchman adopted the Crown’s position, sentencing DeLuney to life imprisonment with an MPI of 18 years.
He told the court that there was nothing to suggest such an MPI was manifestly unjust and the only thing to decide was what minimum period should be imposed.
Justice Churchman said the murder involved a high level of brutality and cruelty, adding that it was a violent, frenzied and prolonged attack.
He said the victim impact statements prepared for the sentencing, several of which were suppressed, indicated the profound impact and the depth of loss that DeLuney’s actions had caused the family.
For the past 18 months, they had not only grappled with their grief, but some also feared for their own safety and bumping into DeLuney in the community.
As a result, some triple locked their doors and slept with a frypan beside their beds.
At DeLuney’s trial in July, the Crown said the murder was motivated by money.
Evidence showed DeLuney was living beyond her means and had already taken money from her mother, who had large quantities of cash stored throughout her house, including her freezer.
DeLuney visited Gregory’s home on the evening of January 24 last year to book tickets to the ballet in celebration of her upcoming 80th birthday.
At some stage during the three and a half hours DeLuney was there, she violently attacked her mother with a heavy object, thought to be a vase, leaving her dead or dying. The vase has never been found.
She left the house at 9.45pm, after staging the scene to make it look like her mother had fallen from the attic, only to return 90 minutes later with her husband Antonio, who called emergency services.
The defence case was that DeLuney was not responsible for her mother’s death and someone else had come into the home.
The Crown’s circumstantial case included a neighbour’s CCTV footage showing DeLuney leaving her mother’s house and later returning with her husband, with no one else arriving at the address while she was away.
CCTV footage from petrol stations showed DeLuney buying a lighter and several changes of clothes that evening.
Forensic evidence from inside the three-bedroomed home revealed Gregory’s blood smeared in the hallway and splattered on the bedroom walls.
DeLuney claimed she’d helped her mother after she had fallen from the attic and that she only had minor injuries.
She said she left her on the floor in the spare bedroom and went to get help.
DeLuney said she hadn’t called emergency services because she was scared she’d be blamed for allowing her mother to climb into the attic and claimed her mother disliked hospitals.
It was like walking into a “warzone” when she returned to her mother’s house, she told police, claiming someone must have entered while she was away and attacked her.
A forensic senior scientist told the trial the blood staining wasn’t consistent with that scenario, and she thought the crime scene had been staged.
She estimated Gregory had been struck in the head 10 times.
Blood on the walls and items inside the utility cupboard, from where access was gained to the attic, had been transferred and blood had been “poured” down the back wall.
Swipe marks on the walls contained clotted blood, which takes five to 10 minutes to form. There was also extensive bloodstaining on the bedroom walls and furniture.
The trial heard DeLuney worked as a school teacher until about 15 years ago, and more recently, she’d turned her hand to trading cryptocurrency.
Details of DeLuney’s financial activities presented in court showed she’d spent $150,000 on cryptocurrency in the years before her mother’s death. Her credit card balances showed she was living beyond her means.
Gregory kept large quantities of cash stashed in her freezer, kitchen cupboards and wardrobe, because she distrusted banks.
In the year before her death, cash had gone missing from her house.
On one occasion, DeLuney initially denied taking $85,000, but later admitted to taking it and investing it in cryptocurrency.
At her sentencing, DeLuney looked ahead as Justice Churchman told her that only she knew the precise reason for the attack.
But Justice Churchman said the most likely explanation for the killing was that DeLuney’s actions in defrauding her mother of substantial sums of money were about to be uncovered.
He said that given DeLuney’s denials, it was left to experts to determine what happened that night. Those experts supported a conclusion that DeLuney struck her mother 10 times, with a blunt instrument, most likely the vase.
“You bludgeoned with the vase repeatedly, while she was helpless on the floor,” Justice Churchman said.
DeLuney inflicted 75 separate injuries on her mother, including a skull fracture and two fractures to her face. The blood splatter was similar to that inflicted by a gunshot wound.
She’d then staged the scene to make it look like Gregory had fallen from the attic.
In giving his reasons for a minimum sentence of 18 years, Justice Churchman said it was a prolonged and frenzied attack.
It involved a high degree of callousness and would have taken Gregory by surprise.
“She would have been terrified,” he said.
He said Gregory, who wore a wrist brace and lived alone, was particularly vulnerable and was killed in her home, where she should have felt safe.
Instead of calling for help, DeLuney left her mother, dead or dying on the floor, driving 40 minutes each way, with a 20-minute stop at her house in Kāpiti, with several changes of clothes.
During the trip, she’d also concealed evidence, with the judge noting the vase and the jeans DeLuney was thought to have worn that night have never been found. Instead, DeLuney gave police a different pair of jeans.
The court also heard that DeLuney disagreed with the Crown’s version of events and still claimed that her cryptocurrency portfolio was profitable.
That was despite overwhelming evidence from financial experts to the contrary. That evidence showed DeLuney’s crypto investments had been disastrous.
Justice Churchman also noted DeLuney was asking creditors for payment plans, was selling personal items and had used her mother’s money to pay off debts.
The court heard DeLuney had continued to change her version of events, telling a report writer when she went to get help she’d left her mother in a chair, rather than the floor of the spare bedroom, as she’d previously told police.
“Your unwillingness to accept what you have done has put Ms Gregory’s family and friends through the anguish of reliving the events around her death,” Justice Churchman said.
“You could have shown true love for your family, Julia, by showing honesty from the beginning and taking responsibility for your actions.”
He said she had instead put them through a five-week court trial, where her violence, manipulation and dishonesty were made public.
DeLuney will serve her sentence in a prison cell, a far cry from the large Remuera home with a pool, four bedrooms and a tropical garden.
She once wrote in her diary of her plans to retire at the property with her earnings from cryptocurrency.
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.