Lyndi Yates sat in her car with her 9-month-old baby and their dogs while gas from the exhaust poured from a hose through the window.
Yesterday, the 28-year-old hung her head in her hands and wept as a High Court jury in Whangarei found her guilty of attempting to murder her
baby on September 12 last year.
Yates, who has a history of drug problems and previous convictions including aggravated robbery, was found by the sexton at the rear of the Maunu Cemetery sitting in her car as it filled with fumes.
When Yates saw the sexton she removed the hose from the exhaust pipe and drove off. The sexton followed Yates in his work vehicle.
The court heard yesterday that Yates had attached the hose to the exhaust and sat in the car, at times with the hose in her mouth, for about 15 minutes.
During cross-examination she said she felt suicidal but would not have gone through with killing herself.
"It was a blatant cry for help," she said.
She accepted that her baby, Jacinta, had been at risk. "I didn't stop to think what would happen if I passed out."
Prosecutor Mike Smith said that as Yates drove to the cemetery she went past her mother's house and the hospital where her counsellor worked.
She did not leave Jacinta with them or try to put the girl outside the car after attaching the hose to the exhaust.
Defence lawyer John Watson asked Yates if she had given any thought to anyone else in the car when she was at the cemetery.
"All I was thinking was that I had failed [Jacinta] and that I didn't have any hope. All I wanted to be was a good mother because I have never been good at anything else, but all I could think about was that I failed."
The trial, before Justice Ron Young, took two days and the jury delivered its verdict in just over two hours. It was the second trial on the same charge after a trial in May ended with a hung jury.
Yates, who has been living at a drug rehabilitation centre, was remanded in custody for sentencing in the High Court at Auckland next month.
