Guilty of murder at pamper party
Anna Eiao Browne has been found guilty of murder by a jury as the pamper party trial came to a stunning conclusion.
The 37-year-old had been on trial for nearly three weeks in the High Court at Auckland, charged with the murder of Carly Stewart.
The public gallery has been packed every day with the friends and family of those involved in the arduous ordeal.
They did not wish to immediately discuss the case, while detectives in charge said they would comment after sentencing on September 29.
The jury spent the entire afternoon deliberating after Justice Edwin Wyllie gave his closing remarks. The jury reached a unanimous verdict and there were gasps in the public gallery as the verdict was read.
Browne stood in the dock, showing little to no emotion, as she had throughout the trial.
Stewart, 36, was killed at a Te Atatu home in Auckland’s west, where nine women and some of their children had gathered for a boozy pamper party last October 15.
She died from uncontrollable blood loss when Browne plunged a large butcher’s knife deep into the Anna Browne plunged a large knife into the face of Carly Stewart (right). left side of her face.
During the trial, pathologist Dr Thambirajah Balachandra, who performed Stewart’s autopsy, said a vein in Stewart’s neck was severed as the knife cut deep enough to hit the right side of her throat.
He estimated the wound to be about 11cm deep.
The events prior to the extraordinarily bloody episode at about 4pm that Saturday afternoon had provided no indication as to the violence which would unfold, witnesses testified.
Browne had, however, became increasingly agitated as the afternoon progressed.
Some arguments and scuffles ensued, but not enough for any of the women to expect her “disproportionate response”, as Crown prosecutor Nick Webby described it.
He said witnesses had seen Browne abusing other guests before Stewart came to restrain her.
Stewart dominated and intimidated Browne during the scuffles, telling her, “you ****ing disrespectful b****, my nieces are ****ing here”.
“Carly was angry,” Stewart’s cousin, Patricia Stewart told the court. “[Carly] said, ‘Well, I don’t care. I’m not scared of her’. Then she said, ‘I’ll be the bigger person and walk away’.”
Soon after Browne made her way to the kitchen and selected the largest knife she could find.
Patricia Stewart described the next moments for the court.
Browne “had a look about her” as she entered the living area, hands behind her back, clutching the knife, she said.
“Out of the corner of my eye I saw Anna . . . I could sense something was about to happen.”
She said Browne walked right past her without flinching, before plunging the knife into her cousin.
“She stabbed Carly, and then just walked back out, she was just staring at Carly.”
Stewart bled to death, paramedics unable to save her.
Browne had taken off down the road, but later returned to the crime scene, seemingly unaware of what had happened.
“[The stabbing was] due to alcohol, drugs or a combination of the two, or perhaps something more,” defence counsel Marie Dyhrberg QC argued in her final address to the jury yesterday.
She had argued that her client showed no murderous intent and claims she acted unconsciously, suffering from an “automatism”.
However, Justice Edwin Wylie told the jury to ignore the automatism claims.