The Khandallah house where Helen Gregory died. Photo: RNZ / Ashleigh McCaull
A forensic scientist giving evidence in the Khandallah murder trial says blood spatters show at least one blow was dealt while the victim was lying on the bedroom floor.
Helen Gregory, 79, was killed at home in January last year, and her daughter Julia DeLuney is on trial for her murder at the High Court in Wellington.
The Crown claims DeLuney attacked her mother before staging it to look like a fall, but the defence said someone else caused those injuries in the 90 minutes in which she left to get help after her mother fell from the attic.
Julia DeLuney in the High Court. Photo: RNZ / Mark Papalii
On Monday, the court heard from a neighbour, who said the house was dark and blinds remained open, until she was woken by bright lights from the house between 2am and 3am.
The court also heard from ESR scientist Glenys Knight, who corroborated past witnesses who said Gregory was found lying on the floor of the smallest bedroom, but added the detail that she was wearing blue shorts and silver slip-on shoes.
Knight said the blood stains on the elderly woman's head indicated some of the bleeding had occurred while she had been upright, and then further bleeding occurred when she was face-down, on her left side.
"In my opinion, these directional stains and the circular stains comprised an impact pattern showing that at least one impact to an area of liquid blood occurred very low to the ground just in front of the left side of the mirrored door," Knight said.
"The position of this impact would have been very near to where Ms Gregory's head had been when she was found, and therefore it is likely that at least one impact to her head occurred while it was on the floor in this area."
She said a number of objects, including the headboard of the bed, appear to have been impacted by a bloody object repeatedly.
