Detective tells court of 'unusual' actions by murder-accused Julia DeLuney

RNZ News

2 days ago

Julia DeLuney at Wellington High Court.
Photo:
RNZ / Mark Papalii
A detective who was among first responders to 79-year-old Helen Gregory's death has told the court he thought it was strange that her daughter, Julia DeLuney, chose to drive back to Kāpiti and get her husband instead of calling an ambulance.
The trial before a judge and jury at the High Court in Wellington is set down for four to five weeks, and on Wednesday entered its third day.
The Crown's case is that DeLuney violently attacked her mother on the evening of 24 January last year, possibly using a vase that was missing off one of the bedside tables, and staged it as a fall from the attic.
DeLuney dealt in crypto currency and appeared to be in some financial trouble.
However, the defence has asked the jury not to discount the possibility that there was a third person involved, with a neighbour reporting a mysterious knock on their door that same evening.
The detective, Luke Hensley, under cross examination by defence lawyer Quentin Duff, said when he was called in the death wasn't being treated as suspicious.
But he said the blood around the house struck him as strange - as did the claim from DeLuney that, when she had left her mother on the floor of a bedroom to drive back to Kāpiti to pick up her husband to help, there had been no significant blood.
Hensley had eight years' experience at the time, but called a more senior officer to get advice, and they walked through the house on Facetime.
In his statement on the night, he wrote they agreed it was "likely some sort of accident, but where the blood was located around the house was strange".
They locked the scene down for an examination the next day.
Hensley also noted at the time he thought it was "unusual" that DeLuney had driven to Kāpiti to fetch her husband, instead of calling an ambulance.
The defence's case is that while she was gone, a third person caused those fatal injuries to her mother.
Duff asked Hensley on the witness stand: "Did it ever occur to you that perhaps someone else might have broken into the house and caused those injuries and spread that blood?"
Hensley replied: "At the time I believed that getting the statement from Ms DeLuney would cover off a lot of that" and "fill in those blanks".
On the night of the death, DeLuney was not yet being treated as a suspect.
She and her husband followed police officers in their own car to the Johnsonville police station in the early hours of the morning to give statements.
The court heard DeLuney's account for the first time on Wednesday, in the form of her statement given in the early hours of that night in January 2024.
Detective Elizabeth Lee, who worked in the Wellington Crime Squad based in Johnsonville, read out the written statement to the court.
She was one of the officers who was on the scene, but then took witness statements from the DeLuneys at the police station just after 2am.
The statement begins by detailing some recent falls her mother had had in the past two years, both times ending up in hospital. One fall resulted in a concussion and a skull fracture.
She said her mother often lost her balance, or felt that she might lose her balance around home.
That evening, Julia DeLuney's husband, Antonio DeLuney, had brought the car home from work, and she had driven it to her mother's house on Baroda Street around 6pm.
It was her mother's birthday in May, and she and her daughters had thought tickets to the ballet would be a nice present.
They sat down at computer and picked out seats.
"She was in a good mood," she said in her statement.
But her mother was "kind of obsessed" with a shirt she had misplaced and asked for help finding it, going into cupboards and wardrobes.
At one point, DeLuney went up into the attic to store some watches.
The rungs of the ladder to the attic were built into the wall.
"Even I struggle to get up there," DeLuney said.
About 8.30pm, Gregory went into a cupboard to search for the shirt again, and knocked over some toilet paper, which she said she wanted to put into the attic.
DeLuney said at this point, she was in the kitchen.
"All of a sudden, I heard a big crash, and I went over to find that she had fallen."
Her mother was "sore everywhere" and holding the top of her head, "crumpled and tangled" against some objects at the base of the attic entrance.
She moved her to one of the bedrooms, with her mum saying things like, "I'll be alright".
She had a little bit of blood on her hand from holding her head. DeLuney said she couldn't see any open wounds, but it looked like the blood - "not a lot" - was coming from the top of her head.
She told her mother she was going to get her husband Antonio to help.
"At this stage I didn't think there was anything major going on, and I knew she hated hospitals," she said.
She left Gregory lying on the floor, with her feet facing the window. She was "agitated" and trying to get up, but she told her to stay put.
Then, she drove 40 minutes home, and found Antonio in bed. She told him her mother had fallen and she needed him to come with her to check on her.
It took another 40 minutes to get back to the house, and when they entered, they ran into the bedroom and "freaked out" because "it looked like a warzone" with blood in lots of different places.
She said none of that blood was there when she left, "so I got a hell of a shock".
The trial continues, and is set down for four to five weeks.