By Catherine Hutton, Open Justice reporter of 
The High Court trial has completed its second week and is expected to run another two.
Photo: RNZ / Hamish Cardwell
A woman killed in her home confided in friends in the months before her death that two large sums of money had gone missing from her house, including up to $85,000 her daughter later admitted to investing in cryptocurrency.
Helen Gregory, 79, was killed in her Khandallah home in January last year. Daughter Julia DeLuney is charged with her murder, but claims someone else was responsible.
The Crown has suggested DeLuney, who dealt in cryptocurrency, was in financial difficulty and attacked her mother before leaving the house, driving to her own home and then returning later with her husband.
DeLuney maintains she left her mother with minor injuries, after her mother fell from the attic. She drove back to her house on the Kāpiti Coast, only to return to what she described as a “warzone”.
The High Court at Wellington has already heard that Gregory distrusted banks, preferring instead to keep plastic packets of cash hidden around her Baroda St house.
In September 2023, Gregory was hospitalised after a fall, and during that time, DeLuney and her husband stayed at Gregory’s house.
Gregory’s friends have told the court that, upon being discharged from hospital, she came home to find her house in disarray.
Alcohol bottles were strewn throughout the house and DeLuney’s dogs had defecated throughout the house.
A friend, Cheryl Thomson, recalled a conversation where Gregory told her about putting $85,000 into a pocket of her dressing gown and folding it in a certain way, so she’d know if someone had touched it.
After her release from the hospital, Gregory noticed the money was missing and mentioned it to Thomson during a phone call.
Asked if Gregory disclosed who’d taken the money, Thomson told the court: “She told me categorically, without any doubt, that the only person who knew that the money was there was Julia.”
She said Gregory told her daughter in case anything happened to her.
Thomson said Gregory was upset because her daughter took the money without asking.
She told the court that, when Gregory asked DeLuney about it, the accused said she’d taken and invested it in cryptocurrency.
“It’s all safe, mum, don’t worry,” Thomson recalls Gregory told her.
Another friend, Elizabeth Askin, told the court she thought the amount that DeLuney took to invest was about $75-76,000.
She recalled Gregory telling her that DeLuney promised her mother she’d return the money by November 2023, only to then change her mind and say she wouldn’t repay the money until April the following year.
Phone calls
The court also heard Gregory noticed $13,000 she left inside a salad bowl went missing at the end of 2023. The phone call of Gregory reporting the theft to the police on New Year’s Day was played to the jury.
During the call, Gregory also told the police she had received phone calls, almost every day for the past month. When she answered the phone, no-one was there.
Gregory also mentioned the calls to her friend, Jennifer Patterson, who told the court that Gregory said she received these calls at all hours of the day and night.
Patterson said Gregory was worried that someone was trying to case the joint and it was “freaking her out”.
When questioned by DeLuney’s lawyer, Quentin Duff, her friends confirmed that Gregory was a lovely person, who was strong both mentally and spiritually, and regularly attended church and prayer meetings.
She was very generous and always keen to help those in need, but was discreet about her generosity and didn’t like to blow her own trumpet.
The jury trial before Justice Peter Churchman has now finished its second week and is expected to run for a further two.
* This story originally appeared in the New Zealand Herald.