KEY POINTS:
North Shore widow Doreen Reed awoke to find her teenage killer standing over her early one morning in January, a court heard today.
As she fought off 15-year-old Kori Trevithick, he stabbed her 25 times with a knife he had taken out of the kitchen drawer.
Trevithick was out on bail on a raft of unrelated burglary and other charges when he murdered Mrs Reed and today was jailed for life with a minimum non-parole period of 14 years.
At his sentencing, the High Court in Auckland heard details for the first time of the horror attack which instantly killed the 77-year-old English woman on January 13.
According to a police summary of facts previously released to the Herald, the teen had a row with his girlfriend in the early hours of January 13.
He left the girl's Birkdale home on his pushbike and went to Mrs Reed's home in Eskdale Road. He broke through two locked doors to the living area, and took a knife from a kitchen drawer.
After searching two bedrooms, he found the elderly widow asleep.
The pensioner was then multiply stabbed.
The knife pierced her heart and skull. A number of wounds to her arms and hands showed she had attempted to fight off her attacker. After the killing, the boy turned Mrs Reed's Life Link medical alarm system off at the wall, cleaned off the knife and hid it behind the stove.
He then stole $50 and a set of car keys from Mrs Reed's handbag, and fled in her Rover car.
The power was turned on again, and the garage door shut as the boy left, police say.
"It was a frightening and brutal ordeal at the hands of this prisoner," Mr Burns told Justice Geoffrey Venning when Trevithick appeared for sentencing.
However, in his favour Trevithick pleaded guilty at the earliest opportunity. He was also young and had shown a great deal of remorse.
For Trevithick, Peter Williams, QC, said he had never intended to hurt her. He had picked up the knife but did not intend to use it but when he was confronted in Mrs Reed's bedroom, he panicked.
He was startled and frightened and blacked out. He could not remember what happened, Mr Williams said.
He and his family were devastated and he had written two letters showing his remorse, one to the court and one to Mrs Reed's family.
"Kori still can't really believe he did it. It still just seems like a nightmare," Mr Williams told the court.
Trevithick drove back to his girlfriend's house and later to his own home where he parked the stolen car 50 metres away.
His mother later took him to the police station believing he had breached the curfew which was part of his bail on charges of burglary, fraud and unlawfully taking motor vehicles.
At the police station Trevithick confessed to the brutal slaying and his mother was "shocked and broke down" when she was told he had been arrested for murder.
Mr Williams said his remorse was genuine and he had said in a letter he had wanted to die.
He said he felt as if heaven was about to take the spirit out of his body and he wanted to run away.
"I feel down every time I open my eyes," Trevithick had said.
Mr Williams said rehabilitation needed to be considered.
"There is hope but I believe if the sentence is so crushing it crushes hope, then the lamp of rehabilitation might be extinguished." he told the court.
Justice Venning said Trevithick's parents believe the attack was totally out of character.
However Trevithick had been regularly using cannabis since he was 12 or 13.
Throughout most of the hour long sentencing Trevithick kept his head down but when he looked up his eyes were red and tear-stained.
As details of the attack were revealed in court his mother sobbed and wiped away the tears running down her cheeks.
Outside the court Detective Senior Sergeant Kim Libby said it was a heinous crime.
"It is hopefully closure for a very sad event."
"It was a particularly savage murder," said Mr Libby, one of the first policemen onto the scene.
- NZPA and NZHERALD STAFF
