At the sentencing, the courtroom’s public gallery with packed with family, friends, police officers, and members of the public who’d observed the trial.
The Crown sought a minimum period of imprisonment (MPI) of 18 years, while the defence suggested it should be 17 years.
However, Justice Peter Churchman adopted the Crown’s position, sentencing Deluney to life imprisonment with an MPI of 18 years.
More to come
Motivated by money
At Deluney’s trial in July, the Crown said the murder was motivated by money.
Evidence showed Deluney was living beyond her means and had already taken money from her mother, who had large quantities of cash stored throughout her house, including her freezer.
DeLuney visited Gregory’s home on the evening of January 24 last year to book tickets to the ballet in celebration of her upcoming 80th birthday.
At some stage during the three-and-a-half hours Deluney was there, she violently attacked her mother with a heavy object, thought to be a vase, leaving her dead or dying. The vase has never been found.
She left the house at 9.45pm, after staging the scene to make it look like her mother had fallen from the attic, only to return 90 minutes later with her husband Antonio, who called emergency services.
The defence case was that Deluney was not responsible for her mother’s death, and someone else had come into the home.
Like a ‘warzone’
The Crown’s circumstantial case included a neighbour’s CCTV footage showing DeLuney leaving her mother’s house and later returning with her husband, with no one else arriving at the address while she was away.
CCTV footage from petrol stations showed DeLuney buying a lighter and several changes of clothes that evening.
Forensic evidence from inside the three-bedroomed home revealed Gregory’s blood smeared in the hallway and splattered on the bedroom walls.
DeLuney claimed she’d helped her mother after she had fallen from the attic and that she only had minor injuries.
She said she left her on the floor in the spare bedroom and went to get help.
DeLuney said she hadn’t called emergency services because she was scared she’d be blamed for allowing her mother to climb into the attic and claimed her mother disliked hospitals.
It was like walking into a “warzone” when she returned to her mother’s house, she told police, claiming someone must have entered while she was away and attacked her.
A forensic senior scientist told the trial the blood staining wasn’t consistent with that scenario, and she thought the crime scene had been staged.
She estimated Gregory had been struck in the head 10 times.
Blood on the walls and items inside the utility cupboard, from where access was gained to the attic, had been transferred and blood had been “poured” down the back wall.
Swipe marks on the walls contained clotted blood, which takes five to 10 minutes to form. There was also extensive blood staining on the bedroom walls and furniture.
The trial heard DeLuney worked as a school teacher until about 15 years ago, and more recently, she’d turned her hand to trading cryptocurrency.
Details of DeLuney’s financial activities presented in court showed she’d spent $150,000 on cryptocurrency in the years before her death. Her credit card balances showed she was living beyond her means.
Gregory kept large quantities of cash stashed in her freezer, kitchen cupboards, and wardrobe, because she distrusted banks.
In the year before her death, cash had gone missing from her house.
On one occasion, DeLuney initially denied taking $85,000, but later admitted to taking it and investing it in cryptocurrency.
Catherine Hutton is an Open Justice reporter, based in Wellington. She has worked as a journalist for 20 years, including at the Waikato Times and RNZ. Most recently she was working as a media adviser at the Ministry of Justice.
