Khandallah murder trial: Blood 'wiped' onto walls to stage scene
Photo:
RNZ / Mark Papalii
A forensic scientist has told the jury in the Khandallah murder trial that, in her opinion, the blood on the hallway walls was staged.
Julia DeLuney is accused of murdering her 79-year-old mother, Helen Gregory, who was killed at her Wellington home in January last year.
The jury has already seen photos of blood smeared on the walls in the hallway, in and around the utility cupboard which houses the entrance to the attic.
DeLuney's defence is that her mother was injured falling from the attic, and she put her in the bedroom on the floor while she drove to get help.
In that time, the defence said, someone else caused those fatal injuries.
But Knight gave evidence that the blood smears on the hallway walls looked like it had been applied to the wall with fabric.
Defence lawyer Quentin Duff asked whether it could have been applied by someone staggering around the house - to which she replied that she doubted it.
"I've never seen it in my experience."
Knight said in her opinion, the most likely scenario was that blood was wiped onto the walls.
She explained that the horizontal bloodstains along the wall curved upward and downward, making it unlikely they were made by the leaning shoulder of either an injured person - or an attacker covered in blood.
She told the court an orange fake nail, broken off beside Gregory's body, was found sitting on a pool of blood, and was also covered in tiny blood spatters.
Knight said it was possible it had been kicked onto the area of pooled blood, but in her opinion, it had been present and lying face up on the carpet while blood was flying around.
DNA testing had shown there was "extremely strong scientific support" for at least some of the DNA on the nail coming from DeLuney.
But the defence has argued throughout that the investigation suffered from tunnel vision from the very beginning.
Duff pointed to an online exchange between Knight and her peer reviewer.
He challenged her on her likely scenario, asking her to present an alternative explanation, and instead Knight doubled down, offering information she gained from police about what they think happened that night by way of explanation.
She pointed out a number of things she understood DeLuney had done that night, which she said she was told by the police, to lend weight to her likely scenario.
For example, she told her reviewer that DeLuney supposedly changed her clothes, took a shower, and chased a rubbish truck down the street to dispose of some clothing.
It is not yet clear from the proceedings of the trial so far whether all of those things did happen.
The defence said it caused the reviewer to change his own conclusion - but Knight said she thought of it more as a lightbulb coming on for him during the course of the conversation, and by the end of it, he came around to her way of thinking.
Friday would mark the final day of the trial's second week, and it was set down for at least a further two weeks after that.
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