Blessie: Accused found guilty of rape, murder

A jury has found a 28-year-old man guilty of raping and murdering Blessie Gotingco.

After just under two hours of deliberation, they returned the unanimous verdicts in front of a packed public gallery in the High Court at Auckland.

The 56-year-old North Shore mother of three was walking home on May 24, 2014 when the Crown says she was deliberately run down by the defendant, who was driving a silver BMW.

He bundled her into the back of the car and drove swiftly to his Birkdale apartment just before his 8pm Corrections-imposed curfew.

While inside his garage, he raped Mrs Gotingco and subjected her to a frenzied knife attack.

The defendant told the jury as much from the witness box earlier this week when he opted to give evidence.

But he said he thought Mrs Gotingco was already dead and explained his actions as trying to make the death look like a "random attack" while he was high on methamphetamine.

The jury rejected that version of events and believed he had the requisite murderous intent to prove the charge.

The jury gave its guilty verdict for the rape charge first, after which the defendant put his hood over his head.

After being found guilty of murder he was led away by security staff without incident.

Antonio Gotingco, left, Blessie's husband, arrives at the High Court at Auckland on day two of the murder trial. Photo / Jason Oxenham

Before the verdicts, the judge asked those in the public gallery to remain silent throughout - a request those in attendance observed.

After Justice Timothy Brewer entered convictions on both charges, Crown prosecutor Kieran Raftery indicated they would be seeking a term of preventive detention on the rape charge.

Defence lawyer Chris Wilkinson-Smith opposed the lifting of name suppression on the grounds that his client would be taking the case to the Court of Appeal.

Pathologist Dr Carl Wigren detailed the deep wounds suffered by Mrs Gotingco, one of which was so violent links of the her necklace were found embedded in its depths.

He told the jury Mrs Gotingco's throat was slashed, severing her windpipe and she would have died in minutes.

But he was certain she was alive when the injuries were inflicted because he found blood in her lungs.

On May 26, Mrs Gotingco's body was found in Eskdale Cemetery - a location his GPS anklet showed he had visited in the hours leading up to the murder.

"This was not you looking for drugs, this was for you already looking for possible locations to dump the body of the person you were going to rape," prosecutor Kieran Raftery said.

A search of the defendant's property the next day turned up various bloody items as well as pools of blood in his car.

A knife, as well as items belonging to Mrs Gotingco, were found buried in the back of his property; enough to persuade the jury he intended to kill.

Blessie Gotingco's family described her as the light of their home. Photo / Facebook

The defendant's explanation of contamination and "police malpractice" when it came to his semen found inside the victim also did not wash with the seven men and five women.

Having now been convicted of murder, he will serve a term of life imprisonment with a minimum non-parole period of at least 10 years.



- NZME.