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.
“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 someone who left a coffee cup in a pot plant at Gregory’s address, which Duff said was never investigated, and should have been.
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.
rnz.co.nz
