A senior police investigator has admitted that the first investigation in the death of Christchurch man Philip Nisbet was flawed.
Helen Milner, dubbed the black widow by some of her workmates, was on Thursday found guilty of the 2009 murder of her husband and one count of attempted murder, but not guilty on another charge of attempted murder.
Andrew Nisbet said the family looks forward to an appropriate sentence for Helen Milner. Photo: RNZ
In mid-2009, Milner's parents went to police just weeks after Mr Nisbet died, saying they suspected she had killed him. It was only after a coroner said that the death was unlikely to be a suicide that a homicide inquiry began.
The Crown's case was that Milner poisoned her 47-year-old husband with about 40 tablets of the antihistamine Phenergan that she crushed into his food in order to cash in on his $250,000 life insurance policy. Mr Nesbit was allergic to the drug and Milner went to extraordinary lengths to cover up the crime by making it look like a suicide.
The 50-year-old denied the charges and will be sentenced in February 2014.
The jury of five women and seven men returned its verdict late on Thursday morning after seven-and-a-half hours of deliberation that began at 11am on Wednesday.
The verdicts were the result of a second police investigation after the Coronial ruling in 2011 that Mr Nisbet's death was unlikely to have been self-inflicted.
Canterbury district investigations manager Detective Inspector Tom Fitzgerald acknowledged that there were major flaws in the first investigation, but said they got the right outcome.
"This is by no means a standard type homicide investigation. Anyone who has been following it, the aspects of the family, the poisoning, the notes - this is something that isn't the norm. As a result of a very good investigation - the second investigation - we've got the result we've got."
Mr Fitzgerald said a senior investigator had been questioning the conduct of the first investigation in 2009, even before the inquest. He said officers in the first inquiry have been taken to task, but no one sacked. They were retrained and not involved in the second investigation.
Family members in the public gallery including Philip Nisbet's parents, brother, sons and former wives clapped on Thursday, while Helen Milner cried.
Outside court, Andrew Nisbet told reporters that his family is grateful and relieved.
"I'd like to thank Detective Inspector Greg Murton for all the effort his team's put in, friends and family for supporting us. Finally, some justice for my brother after over four-and-a-half years.
"We want to now move on and look forward to a sentence that's going to be appropriate to this terrible crime."
Milner already in jail
A previously suppressed report of a Parole Board hearing has revealed that Helen Milner is in prison for perverting the course of justice.
She is serving a sentence of two years and eight months for sending text messages to herself, pretending to be from her son Adam.
The texts were sent in an effort to make it look like her son was breaching a restraining order. The board says it was a calculated effort to have her son imprisoned.
The papers also show that Milner has convictions for theft from an employer.
