A woman accused of violently murdering her mother and staging the scene to look like an accidental fall has had a loud outburst in the courtroom.
Julia DeLuney, 53, is on trial in the Wellington High Court for the murder of her 79-year-old mother, Helen Gregory.
The Crown case is that DeLuney killed Gregory at her Baroda St, Khandallah home on January 24 last year, then staged the scene to look like Gregory died after an accidental fall.
She claims she drove from the Khandallah property back to the Kāpiti Coast to get help after her mother fell from the attic, and that her mother was murdered in the 90 minutes that she was gone.
The trial has been running for several weeks and is nearing an end, with Crown prosecutor Stephanie Bishop delivering her closing address to the jury today.
Bishop was traversing the facts around visits that had been made to the skip bin at the property DeLuney lived on, suggesting that DeLuney had concealed the murder weapon in the bin before removing it and putting it in a different bin which was about to be emptied into a rubbish truck.
She asked the jury what reason DeLuney or her husband would have to make multiple trips to the skip bin on the night of the death, when the quiet calm of the courtroom was suddenly broken by DeLuney herself.
“Our dogs,” DeLuney called out in a loud voice, glaring at Bishop.
Bishop did not respond to the outburst and continued on with her address, but the quiet was disturbed a couple of times more by noises from the dock, where DeLuney sighed loudly. Shortly after, a loud bang was heard from the dock.
Bishop began her closing address yesterday afternoon and resumed at 10am today.
She has been closely detailing the strands of the Crown case which she said could help the jury be sure DeLuney was the killer.
Bishop today pointed to the bloodstains in the home, which she said must have been put there by somebody staging the scene so it appeared as though Gregory had fallen from the attic then, bloodied, staggered to the bedroom while smearing blood along the walls.
According to expert evidence, the blood patterns and clotting meant the blood must have been put there after the fact.
Bishop noted the blood on the top rung of the attic ladder, saying it would not make sense for there to be blood there if that was where the fall began.
The expert evidence was that the blood did not follow the patterns of blood that had dripped directly from an injured person, and in places appeared to have been rubbed on with fabric in a side-to-side pattern.
The only other possibility was that a burglar had staged the scene, she said, adding this would require the burglar to have known exactly what story DeLuney was going to tell police later, and to have known that Gregory had earlier fallen from the attic and that DeLuney had helped her into the bedroom.
“The Crown suggests that it’s just simply not plausible,” Bishop said.
“Most importantly . . . why would a random burglar or intruder that has just brutally murdered an already injured 79-year-old woman stick around to stage the scene? Why risk that? What’s the reason for that? Why not leave immediately?”
She also argued if a burglar was responsible for the death, there might have been items taken from the house. Police found multiple items of value around the house that were not taken, including electronics.
Bishop also pointed to DeLuney’s interviews with police, where she said she smeared at least some of the blood on the walls while trying to get it off herself and off a cap that had been under Gregory’s head.
Bishop suggested to the jury, pointing to CCTV and other evidential images, that DeLuney took a yellow council rubbish bag from Gregory’s home, putting her bloodied clothes and the murder weapon - believed to be a heavy vase - inside.
She then accused her of taking the bag in her car back to Kāpiti, where she put the bag in the skip bin before later transferring it to a non-transparent black rubbish bag and putting it in a wheelie bin that was then emptied into a rubbish truck.
She also covered in detail DeLuney’s financial troubles, saying she was living outside her means and had been taking money from Gregory and lying to her about it. She argued DeLuney had committed an “elaborate fraud” on her mother just two days before her death in order to extract the last of her money.
“It seems like Mrs Gregory’s tolerance might have been running out,” she said, referring to text messages between the pair in November 2023.
DeLuney had texted Gregory asked for a $10,000 loan. Gregory responded “Julia there is only $2700 left in my hiding place!!!!!”
DeLuney responded by telling her mother that her money was now making money and that she would be delighted by the result in April. She convinced her mother to transfer more money to her.
“Please be careful, when I transfer this I will have zero,” Gregory responded.
“I thought I had at least $25,000 in box.”
DeLuney’s response was reassuring.
“I will take care of you. Please trust me. Xoxoxox.”
The Defence case is that police had “tunnel vision” in investigating the killing and focused too quickly on DeLuney. Defence lawyer Quentin Duff will deliver his closing next.
Melissa Nightingale is a Wellington-based reporter who covers crime, justice and news in the capital. She joined the Herald in 2016 and has worked as a journalist for 10 years.