Latest news with #QuentinDuff
RNZ News
23-07-2025
- RNZ News
Julia DeLuney's lawyer won't say if she will appeal murder conviction
Julia DeLuney will be sentenced in September. Photo: RNZ / Mark Papalii It is not yet known if Julia DeLuney, found guilty of murdering her mother, plans to appeal the conviction. On Wednesday night, following a four-week murder trial at the High Court in Wellington, the jury found DeLuney guilty of murdering her mother , 79-year-old Helen Gregory. Gregory was killed at her Baroda Street home in Khandallah in January last year. DeLuney had denied killing her mother, and through the trial her lawyer Quentin Duff argued that the police investigation had been "one-eyed" and they had failed to consider anyone else for the murder. But the jury was more convinced by the Crown's argument that DeLuney was at the house that night and had been the one to kill her mother. After the verdict was handed down DeLuney cried silently in the dock, but otherwise remained stony faced. Photo: RNZ / Mark Papalii Duff later told RNZ DeLuney was "devastated" by the jury's decision. When asked, he could not say whether she'd look to appeal or not. DeLuney has been remanded in custody and is expected to be sentenced on 5 September. Detective senior sergeant Tim Leitch, who led the police investigation, told media outside the court that he hoped the guilty verdict provided Gregory's friends and family with some answers and certainty as they moved forward with their lives. "Many of them have been in court every day over the past month, and have sat through the most difficult and confronting evidence" which, he said, "must have been almost unbearable at times". "The dignity, compassion and support the family have demonstrated every day of the trail has been incredible, and also quite remarkable," he said. Helen Gregory Photo: Supplied Gregory's friend Liz Askin was one of those who sat through the trial. She described her friend as an intelligent, kind, and generous woman who was full of vitality. "She loved her family deeply, following their achievements and going to their sporting events and family gatherings," and it was "with great sadness that her life was cut short". Cheryl Thomson was another of Gregory's friends who had been at the court every day after giving evidence herself. "This is the place we come to for justice in New Zealand and I am pleased we have now got it," she said. "Helen is sadly missed by all of us, holds a special place in our hearts and will never be forgotten."
RNZ News
21-07-2025
- RNZ News
Julia DeLuney's defence says no evidence of breakdown in relationship with mother
Julia Deluney at High Court. Photo: RNZ / Mark Papalii Julia DeLuney's defence says there's no evidence of a breakdown in the relationship between her and her mother, Helen Gregory, that would explain a murder. DeLuney is on trial at the High Court in Wellington charged with murdering the 79-year-old at her Khandallah home in January 2024, which she denies. The Crown finished its closing argument on Friday , arguing DeLuney had been stealing cash from her mother and then violently attacked her, leaving her dead or dying, perhaps following a confrontation about money. But defence lawyer Quentin Duff said there was no evidence of a breakdown in the relationship between DeLuney and her mother. There was only evidence, he said, of "an ordinary and loving relationship, albeit with its own problems". He asked the jury not to accept that they were being asked to decide that DeLuney had killed her mother, without knowing why. He argued the police investigation had failed to consider other suspects - by 7 February, it had narrowed down to DeLuney only. Julia DeLuney and Helen Gregory, pictured in Gregory's walk-in wardrobe. Photo: SUPPLIED "Of course she should have been a suspect," Duff said. "In none of our cross examination have we criticised that." But he said there should have been two others - the first, a mysterious person who knocked on the door of a house further up the street that same night, but left before the homeowner answered. The second was a contractor who had previously worked for Gregory, and who she had suspected had taken money from her in the past. The Crown argued on Friday it was DeLuney who took that money, and she who put the idea of the handyman being the culprit in her mother's head. Duff drew the jury's attention to the "myth" of the attic fall, which had "perpetuated itself right throughout the way of this investigation, through to this trial". He said DeLuney had told them about the fall, but had never claimed that had been the cause of death - rather, the police had latched onto that, and worked to disprove it. "They were hellbent, you might think, on disproving and exposing Ms DeLuney for being a liar." He also accused the police of inserting themselves into the story, to make judgement calls on what DeLuney had done. But he said DeLuney's decisions made sense when you considered what we had heard about the people involved. The court heard that, on a past occasion, Gregory had fallen out of her bed - therefore, it made sense for DeLuney to put her on the floor. It heard her Gregory hated hospitals, and was scared of being put in a home. On top of that, DeLuney was scared of being blamed for letting her mother climb into the attic in the first place - so it made sense that she didn't call an ambulance. And it made sense, Duff said, that DeLuney would leave her mother to fetch her husband, Antonio - if the injury was minor, and all she needed was monitoring overnight, it would be "a load shared" to fetch someone who happened to know CPR, Duff said. "That's common sense." The defence's closing argument continues this afternoon. Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero , a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
RNZ News
17-07-2025
- RNZ News
Khandallah murder trial: Murder-accused Julia DeLuney will not give evidence
Julia DeLuney is on trial for the murder of her 79-year-old mother. Photo: RNZ / Mark Papalii The defence has chosen not to call any witnesses, nor will Julia DeLuney give evidence, in the trial in which she is accused of murdering her 79-year-old mother, Helen Gregory. DeLuney denies the charge and faces a jury in the High Court in Wellington, with the trial nearing the end of its fourth week. Cross-examination of the Crown's final witness, detective senior sergeant Tim Leitch who led the police investigation, wrapped up earlier on Thursday afternoon. Julia DeLuney (L) and Helen Gregory on 9 January, 2024, in a photo retrieved from DeLuney's phone by police. Photo: SUPPLIED Defence lawyer Quentin Duff then told Justice Peter Churchman that the defence would not call any witnesses, nor would DeLuney give evidence herself. The court has also not heard from DeLuney's husband, Antonio, who was there that night. He is not charged with any crime relating to these events. It is the Crown's case that DeLuney, who traded cryptocurrency, was financially struggling, and on 24 January when she visited her mother to book ballet tickets, she fatally attacked her before staging it to look like a fall from the attic. But the defence says there was a 90-minute window of opportunity in which DeLuney left her mother to fetch help after the elderly woman fell from the attic. On Thursday, lead Crown prosecutor Stephanie Bishop began closing the Crown's case, urging the jury to put aside feelings of sorrow or sympathy for the people involved, or their family. The defence will take its turn to address the jury and close its own case after the Crown. Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero , a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
RNZ News
03-07-2025
- RNZ News
Khandallah murder trial: Blood 'wiped' onto walls to stage scene
Julia DeLuney is on trial for the murder of her mother Helen Gregory. 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. Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero , a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
RNZ News
25-06-2025
- RNZ News
Helen Gregory murder trial: How the investigation shifted away from accidental death
Julia DeLuney in the High Court. Photo: RNZ / Mark Papalii Details of how the police investigation into the death of Helen Gregory began to shift from accidental death to murder have been revealed to a jury. Julia DeLuney is accused of murdering her 79-year-old mother Helen Gregory at her Khandallah home in January 2024. She has pleaded not guilty to the charge. One detective told the High Court at Wellington on Wednesday that he locked down the scene when he saw the amount of blood around the house. Under cross examination by defence lawyer Quentin Duff, detective Luke Hensley said when he was called in, the death was not being treated as suspicious. But he said the blood around the house struck him as strange - as did the fact DeLuney had left her mother on the bedroom floor after her fall from the attic, to drive back to Kāpiti to pick up her husband, rather than calling an ambulance. In DeLuney's initial statement to police as a witness, she explained her mother did not like hospitals. When she and Antonio DeLuney returned, there was far more blood than before. The Crown's case is that DeLuney attacked her mother, and then staged it to look like a fall, but the defence's case is that while she was gone, a third person caused those fatal injuries. The DeLuney's gave their statements in the early hours of the morning, at the Johnsonville Police Station. But Julia DeLuney's status as a witness would change in the coming days. On Wednesday afternoon, Detective Sergeant Guilia Boffa told the court about her notes from the time, regarding the results of the post-mortem - something experts are expected go into in more detail in the coming days. "There were seven to nine lacerations on the scalp, and that there were defensive wounds, three skull fractures, two separate impacts, and that there was a brain bleed to the front and back, bruising, blunt force trauma, that was not consistent with a fall." Meanwhile, other information was coming to light. DeLuney had changed her clothing multiple times over the course of the evening, observed in different outfits by ambulance officers and on CCTV. Police also discovered there were previous protection orders against DeLuney and record of a gambling problem dating back to 2015. In the following days, police sought a search warrant under the offence of manslaughter. But during cross examination, Duff for the defence asked Boffa whether she recalled a neighbour approaching a scene guard in the days following the death, to say someone had knocked on their door that same night, between 9.30 and 10pm. On reviewing her notebook, Boffa confirmed she was aware of that happening. Earlier in the week Duff accused the police investigation of tunnel vision when it came to pursuing the case against DeLuney, and failing to properly investigate whether a third person could have done it. The trial continues today. Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero , a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
