The murder trial of Clayton Weatherston took place in Christchurch over five weeks, during which the court heard often graphic and harrowing evidence, including that of the accused.
Weatherston, 33, admitted killing Sophie Elliot but insisted he was guilty of manslaughter not murder. He maintained that he was driven to the crime, by his victim.
He has been been found guilty of the murder of his former student and girlfriend by stabbing her more than 200 times in her Dunedin home in January last year.
"He asked why did you kill her. And the accused replied - the emotional pain she has caused me," Crown Prosecutor Marie Grills told the court.
From day one it was clear, this was not a trial about whether Clayton Weatherston killed Sophie Elliott, it was a trial about whether the killing was murder.
Among the Crown's 31 witnesses, Sophie's mother Lesley recalled the day her daughter died.
"I can't remember whether she said 'Don't Clayton, don't Clayton' or ' Stop it Clayton, stop it Clayton'. And I tore up the stairs. Clayton continued to stab her - right chest, left chest.....He was kneeling, straddled over her legs," she said.
The 216 stab wounds were not denied but the defence team attempted to show provocation..
Weatherston's lawyer Judith Ablett Kerr asked Sophie's mother if she would agree their relationship was highly unstable - to which Lesley Elliot replied "Absolutely".
Friends gave similar evidence. "He was violent towards her, he had been yelling a lot of different things at her and one of them was that she was ugly," the court heard from a friend of Sophie's, Jessica Smith.
As did university colleagues, such as Professor Robert Alexander.
"He pushed her down the stairs and told her that he wished her dead, that now he had a new girlfriend who was 5'10" and such a step up from her."
Near the end of week two the accused began an almost unheard of five days in the stand, during which he delivered gruelling testimony about his crime.
"I just recall her coming at me with scissors from my left side, as she said the words 'f... you Clayton'," Weatherston recalled.
"The most vivid recall I have next is of standing or kneeling over her, with a pair of scissors in my right hand and the scissors had gone through the front of her throat. And I can feel a crunching sound, like its against her spine."
Weatherston went on to say she was out to demonise him.
During his evidence, he reacted to the Crown's challenge.
"I can't believe that we are talking about this. You are really scraping the barrel with this. Are you lying to me Mr Bates? Are you not telling the truth?" he said during one exchange.
The court was also told that the accused suffered from personality disorders.
"A grandiose sense of self-importance, exaggerating achievements and talents, expecting to be recognised as superior," was how defence psychiatrist Dr David Chaplow described Weatherston.
These were disorders which the defence argued had contributed to
his loss of self-control.
