The Big Read: Pamper party - Without flinching, Anna Browne murdered her friend

Today a jury found Anna Browne guilty of murder after a nearly three-week long High Court trial. Photo / Peter Meecham.

Graphic content warning: Some readers may find this story disturbing

She plunged the knife deep into her friend's face without flinching.

Others could only watch and scream as they caught glimpses of the horrific moment a butcher's blade cut a vital vein in the woman's neck.

They're now haunted by the sound of the knife being pulled out.

This was no "ordinary pamper party" and eventually led to nearly three weeks of nightmarish, tearful testimony and lengthy legal arguments as those involved re-lived that fateful Saturday afternoon.

October 15, 2016 had started with joy.

It was supposed to be a good day - a fun day - a day everyone was looking forward to.

Nine women were gathering for the party at a home in the Auckland suburb of Te Atatu - they'd hired a beautician for the boozy affair.

One of the women was 36-year-old Carly Stewart - another was her eventual killer.

It may never be known what the murderous mindset of 37-year-old Anna Eiao Browne was, but weeks have been spent during a trial in the High Court at Auckland trying to find out.

Today, a jury found her guilty of murder, forming a unanimous verdict that she had murderous intent.

They delivered their decision in front of a packed, tearful and gasping public gallery... and a motionless Browne.

The women at the party all knew of each other, many had been friends since their school days, many were now mothers.

They were close and called each other girls - they called each other sisters.

Bottles of bourbon and vodka were bought, snacks and guacamole, the beautician set up her table in the lounge before the pamper party officially began at 1pm.

As the drinking grew the party was streamed live on Facebook, parts of which were played in court, and it showed a room full of smiles and laughter.

"[It was] supposed to be a good day - everyone was looking forward to it," the party's host Emmanuelle Sinclair told the court early in the trial.

One of Stewart's friends, Corrin Phillip, who is affectionately known as "Little Corrin", said, "We're happy, we're all happy".

"Big Corrin" was also at the party.

"Carly was getting her nails done, she was happy," the smaller Corrin said.

Carly Stewart was murdered with a butcher's knife at a party with her friends. Photo / Supplied

However, as the afternoon progressed Browne became increasingly "aggressive and irritated" with others.

Browne's agitation further brewed, accusations involving drugs were exchanged, and Browne started abusing guests, witnesses testified.

Stewart intervened.

The women at the party described how she dominated, intimidated and scared Browne, telling her, "you f*** disrespectful b***, my nieces are f*** here".

"[Browne] was saying rude things, saying she was a 'gang whore'," Sinclair said.

"We had a fight, we had a real tussle, the drawers were pushed over straight into the bedroom wall," she said.

"Anna hit Carly, both had a hold of each other, hitting each other ... they were tussling.

"At some point me and Carly had said between us 'what was she on?'"

But Sinclair later added there were no drugs, just alcohol, at the party.

Stewart also grew angry, her cousin Patricia Stewart explained.

"[Carly] said, 'Well, I don't care. I'm not scared of her'. Then she said, 'I'll be the bigger person and walk away'.

"It's not your problem, just leave her," Patricia Stewart told her cousin.

Stewart and Browne would avoid each other until about 4pm.

Stewart was in the lounge - Browne moved into the kitchen.

It was there she selected the largest knife she could find.

"Out of the corner of my eye I saw Anna come into the dining room. She had her hands behind her back," Patricia Stewart said.

"She had a look about her, I could sense something was about to happen.

"I called out to my daughter to just get outside, get out on to the deck."

Browne walked right past her without flinching, she was fixed on Stewart, in what her defence lawyer Marie Dyhrberg QC would later describe as a trance-like state.

Browne then lifted the knife and plunged it deep into Stewart's face.

"I could see her removing - the knife coming out - and I could even hear it," Patricia Stewart said.

"She stabbed Carly, and then just walked back out, she was just staring at Carly."

Phillp said she knew straight away what had happened.

"I knew straight away. F***, she'd been stabbed," she told the court.

"She hid it - none of us knew she had that knife.

"We were family and all standing next to each other, and we didn't know - we didn't know."

Browne took off and ran down School Rd - Stewart grabbed her face, blood gushing out of her mouth, Phillip said.

"I was looking for a towel and just stayed with Carly."

Three of the women called 111 and paramedics began arriving, desperately trying to save Stewart as she lay dying in the lounge.

A fly-through video of the crime scene, played during the trial, showed Stewart's motionless body lying on the floor, medical equipment and blood strewn and splattered either side of her.

Police officers had moved the other guests into the kitchen, where they found the blood-stained knife in the sink.

The mystery of how it got there remains, after a witness saw Browne drop the murder weapon after the stabbing.

But the women were afraid Browne still had the knife and might return to the house, the court heard.

When she did return the remaining guests began to scream.

"Why? I haven't done anything," Dyhrberg said Browne uttered after she returned to the two-storey home.

"What's happened? I've done nothing," Browne continued as she was taken into custody.

The west Auckland home where Anna Browne murdered Carly Stewart. Photo / Greg Bowker

She'd acted unconsciously, suffering from an "automatism", Dyhrberg would later argue on behalf of her client.

However, Justice Edwin Wylie would tell the jury to ignore the automatism claims.

The trial, which began late last month, quickly became "all about Anna Browne's state of mind".

"[The stabbing was] due to alcohol, drugs or a combination of the two, or perhaps something more," Dyhrberg told the jury.

"[It was] not the violent outburst of someone that has lost it."

There were no harsh words, no hot rage, no vicious plunge of the knife, she said, but just a quiet "whimpering" of Stewart's name by her client.

"She was not unleashing words of murderous hate."

Browne also claimed to have had her drink spiked, noting that it "tasted funny".

"No premeditation, no planning, but in the midst of a party, music, friends, good times," Dyhrberg said.

The Queen's Counsel lawyer said her client's bewilderment, confusion and crying after the stabbing showed her lack of murderous intent.

"You do not go back to be at the mercy of the friends of the person you have just murdered," Dyhrberg said.

"You don't murder someone in front of witnesses. You don't return to the scene after being forcefully ordered to leave."

And she said the police's delay to take a urine test, which eventually came some eight and a half hours after the stabbing, and the lack of a blood test meant it may never be known what was in Browne's system.

"Without timely blood and alcohol tests, we cannot go back in time and find out what was going on in her head," Dyhrberg said.

Pathologist Dr Thambirajah Balachandra, who performed Stewart's autopsy, said a vein in Stewart's neck was severed when the knife cut through her face, deep enough to hit the right side of her throat.

He estimated the wound to be about 11cm deep, while about 150ml of blood was found in Stewart's stomach as well as blood in her airways.

Crown prosecutor Nick Webby said in his closing that Browne's disproportionate response to the scuffles led to her grabbing the knife.

This made her guilty of murder under both its legal definitions, he said, adding that she not only intended to kill when she plunged the knife into Stewart's face, but she was reckless to the dangers of her actions.

Medical experts, he said, had testified during the trial that Browne suffered anti-social and attention deficit disorders.

The defence team's own medical expert had said during the trial that the attention deficit disorder combined with extensive alcohol consumption had a direct relationship to Browne's violence and emotional responses.

These responses were "often out of all proportion to the triggering event", Webby would add.

He also described how, out of all the utensils in the kitchen, Browne chose the largest knife before concealing it behind her back to maintain the element of surprise.

Finally, he said, she struck a fatal blow to a vulnerable target - Stewart's head.

"Can you really infer any other intention but an intention to kill?"