Naomi Lee Morrison appeared at the High Court at Dunedin for sentencing this morning. Photo: Otago Daily Times/ Christine O'Connor
A Dunedin hairdresser who stabbed her friend to death and buried her in a shallow grave in the backyard can't explain why she did it.
Naomi Lee Morrison, 44, appeared before the High Court at Dunedin this morning where she was jailed for life for the murder of 41-year-old Ameria Prunella Aroha Charlene Whatuira, with a minimum non-parole period of 12 years and three months.
Justice Jan-Marie Doogue described the killing and the concealment of the body as "callous".
"[It] will only have compounded the anguish her death has caused her friends and family. While they agonised over her fate for 62 days and police continued their search you did nothing as the body lay beneath your house," she said.
The court heard from several relatives of the victim who spoke of the acute pain they felt, particularly given it was the fourth whānau member who had been lost to murder.
An aunty said one of the last conversations she had with Whatuira was about her saving money to buy a headstone for her son who died from suicide in 2017.
"Now she lies beside him," she said.
On 6 August last year, Morrison and the victim drank alcohol and smoked cannabis at the defendant's Glenleith home.
Whatuira sent a message to a friend saying she was "with a good mate", but just hours later Morrison stabbed her seven times in the chest and several times in the head.
One of the wounds penetrated the woman's heart, a post mortem found.
Morrison then taped a bin bag over Whatuira's head, wrapped the body in bedding and left it on the deck beside her lounge for several days.
The court heard how she poured paint over her victim to mask the odour.
Eight days later, Morrison invited her friend Tialoren Topping over for a drinking session and told her she had something to show her.
Together they rolled the body over the deck, dug a shallow grave and buried her with perfume to cover the smell.
Topping cleaned the garden tools then they resumed drinking.
On 1 September, a man approached police alleging that a murder had been committed at Tanner Road.
A team searched the house and its steep, bushy backyard but a police dog did not find the body.
Two weeks later, however, Whatuira's family reported her missing and an investigation commenced.
On 8 October, police again scoured the property and this time found the victim.
Morrison admitted socialising with Whatuira, but said she had been picked up late on 8 August and she had not seen her since.
Counsel John Westgate said while his client could provide no explanation for her violent actions, she was "incredibly sorry" for what she had done.
He said she had some idea of what Whatuira's whānau felt since she too had lost a family member to murder.
"There's a clear link between the defendant's background and her spiralling into substance abuse and the destructive lifestyle she was living," said Westgate.
"Her adult years were characterised as a victim and perpetrator of physical violence."
One of the victim's cousins urged the court to impose a sentence that provided justice for the family.
"I hope the sentence is long and hard... I hope she's cold and she's sober so she can experience the full weight of what she's done," he said.
"Most of all I hope she becomes a better person."
Topping was jailed for 13 months after admitting being an accessory to the murder and later had 11 months added to her sentence on unrelated charges.
* This story originally appeared in the Otago Daily Times.