Killer's jaw drops as guilty verdict is read

Gordon Hieatt said he could not longer stand being 'ordered around' by his girlfriend, Nuttidar Vaikaew. Photo / Natalie Slade

It was her disappearance and the pungent smell that alarmed a prostitute's landlord.

Nuttidar Vaikaew had been dead for nearly a month. Her body lay beneath sheets and blankets on her bed inside her Western Springs flat. A fan had been set up close-by and incense had been burned but nothing could stop the smell from her decaying corpse.

Yesterday a jury convicted her boyfriend, Gordon Hieatt, of her murder. Hieatt's jaw slightly dropped as the verdict was read out.

Justice John Priestly thanked the jurors for their attention to the "grim" details and offered them counselling at the court's expense.

The jurors had heard nine days of evidence that included Hieatt's appetite for prostitutes and details of the violence he had used to kill Ms Vaikaew.

They were told Ms Vaikaew's landlord called police when he became concerned that he had not seen his tenant for about a month and noticed there was a bad smell in the air.

Two constables visited the Western Springs flat later that day. The officers knocked on the door several times before Hieatt opened it and confessed to killing Ms Vaikaew.

Constable Kym Lam Sam told the court of the gruesome discovery that he made in the couple's bedroom. Inside he saw a mound on the bed, covered in blankets. Larvae could be seen on top of the blankets and there were dead flies on the floor. There was a terrible smell in the air.

Nearly a month before the discovery of her body, Hieatt and Ms Vaikaew had fought. It started with Hieatt being asked to leave their small flat because Ms Vaikaew had to see a client. That night he returned and the couple had dinner together but there was little conversation.

Hieatt went to the backroom of the unit to "brood". At about 10pm, after smoking some marijuana to relax, he was called to bed by Ms Vaikaew and the pair began arguing about rent payments.

Hieatt told the jury himself that he "lost it" and punched Ms Vaikaew.

"I couldn't take it anymore - being shouted at, ordered around, talked down to, treated like crap - I just wanted her to shut up."

He told the jury earlier this week that Ms Vaikaew had told him on three occasions: "You want to kill me."

"It's like something happened and all of a sudden I heard my voice saying 'yes, I'm going to kill you' ... I watched my hands, I couldn't stop it, it was like I was watching a movie, I couldn't stop it happening," Hieatt said.

Hieatt strangled Ms Vaikaew with a rope that the pair had kept in a box by the bed for sex. He had broken a bone in her neck and killed her.

Hieatt washed her body with a cloth and that night, lay down beside Ms Vaikaew to sleep.

His lawyer Peter Kaye said the killing had disturbed his client. He said Hieatt was suicidal in the days following Ms Vaikaew's death.

In his summing up, Mr Kaye said Hieatt had loved Ms Vaikaew very much. "He was addicted to her."

He quoted Hieatt in the days following Ms Vaikaew's death as he chatted to an ex-girlfriend in Thailand online: "I miss her so much, it hurts."

Justice Priestly called for a psychological assessment of Hieatt and will sentence him at the High Court in Auckland in February next year.