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The daughter of a woman murdered with an axe last year says her mother's death was like another high-profile tragedy.
Atlanta McIntyre's half-sister Bonny Nga Karohe Hohepa McIntyre was 16 when she killed her mother, Moera, with a log-splitting axe at her home in Papanui, Christchurch, last November.
Paddy Burton was stabbed to death by her son Mark, then 20, 24 hours after being released from Southland Hospital's mental health unit in 2001. He was found not guilty of murder by reason of insanity.
On Friday, the day after Bonny McIntyre was sentenced to life imprisonment, 28-year-old Atlanta said circumstances leading to the two deaths were eerily similar.
Both Bonny and Mark Burton had mental health problems and both families struggled to get their concerns taken seriously, she said.
The McIntyre family had moved to Christchurch from the West Coast so Bonny could have access to mental health services. Just weeks before the murder a family member said Bonny would hurt or kill someone.
"There was just nowhere for Bonny to go really," Atlanta said. "I would never blame anyone for what happened, but I would hate for it to ever happen again."
Atlanta said the family, who read two victim impact statements to Bonny in court on Thursday, was still coming to grips with what happened.
The mother of three has only recently been able to talk about the killing to her 11-year-old son. Her younger children, aged 2 and 5, still don't know how their grandmother died.
"I don't know how long I will be able to keep it from my 5-year-old... She's already started asking questions."
Atlanta said she and Bonny were close when growing up. She found it difficult to write her victim impact statement.
"We were probably as close as sisters could be. The whole family was... I'm the big sister. But when it came to writing something I just didn't know what to say... I just had a conversation with her... I still find it easy to talk to her, even though this has done its best to rip us all apart."
Moera McIntyre's sister Zelda described feeling a "venomous hate" over the senseless killing of "a sister, mother, grandmother".
"It's left pictures in everyone's minds - Bonny's put them there - that they can't take out. It's finished for her. She's in a safe place and that's good for her, but it hasn't finished for us."
The family expects to raise concerns over the lack of mental health services within the next month.
"Bonny was really into the whole whanau thing," Atlanta said. "She had a lot of respect for kohangas and things like that. If there was something that was more oriented towards Maori youth, maybe it would have helped."
