The family of Christine Lundy say the guilty verdict handed down to Mark Lundy yesterday means the victims have got justice and can finally rest in peace.
Lundy was yesterday again found guilty of murdering his wife Christine, and daughter Amber, 7, at their Palmerston North home in August 2000.
In a statement released this afternoon, the Weggery family thanked their friends and the wider community for the support that had been shown to them over the last fourteen and a half years, "especially in what has been a sometimes harrowing last eight weeks".
They also thanked the police and prosecution teams over the past 18 months, as well as members of the original investigation, Operation Winter.
"This backs up everything you did so long ago and well done, you got it right.
"It has been a long hard road to get to where we are now, and we can only hope that this means we can have some closure and that the most important people in all of this, Christine and Amber, have got justice and can finally rest in peace."
Christine Lundy's friend Christine Lockett said it was a "great relief" when the jury found Mark Lundy guilty.
"I just threw my hands up in the air and yelled."
But the court saga had also taken a heavy toll as people waited for the verdict.
"I absolutely fell apart. It was a very emotional time, just waiting with baited breath."
She said there were agonising moments between hearing the jury had reached a decision, and learning what that verdict was.
"Those five minutes seemed like an hour."
Ms Lockett believed most of Christine and Amber's friends and family felt the same way, and believed Lundy was guilty.
Ms Lockett said she first met Mark Lundy in the mid-1980s.
"He was a nice enough guy," she said. "I certainly wouldn't have thought he was a murderer."
She said Lundy "always wanted to be the kingpin" and loved being the centre of attention.
Ms Lockett now had no doubt he was guilty.
"Who knows at whatever point people can crack?" she said. "There must have been a side of him we didn't (know)."
She believed Lundy thought he was home free before the verdict was read out in the High Court at Wellington.
"By the look on his face when the verdict was 'guilty', he absolutely thought he was getting off. He's never had any remorse."
That lack of remorse, or admission of guilt, seemed to extend even to Christine and Amber's shared tombstone.
There, the words inscribed are "forever loved by husband and father Mark."
Ms Lockett said yesterday's verdict brought some closure, but tension remained as Lundy and his lawyers still had a month to decide whether he'll appeal.
"I hope to God that they don't because we just all need to move on with our lives."
Marcelo Rodriguez-Ferrere from Otago University's faculty of law told Newstalk ZB that Lundy now had the same rights of appeal as he did following the first conviction.
"Essentially once the Privy Council decision was handed down everything restarted," Mr Rodriquez-Ferrere said.
However the highest court that could hear an appeal would now be the Supreme Court, rather than the Privy Council.
It was not surprising that Lundy was sentenced to the same 20-year term of imprisonment, he said. "Essentially he's been sentenced on exactly the same facts,".
Lundy's lawyer David Hislop told media yesterday that an appeal had not been considered, but did not rule it out.
Mark Henaghan dean of law at Otago University said it was "a bit unusual" for a judge to hand down a sentence immediately after a verdict is given.
"I suppose in this case a lot of the facts were known and had been known for some time, so it's not out of the question, but it is a little unusual, yes," he told Radio New Zealand this morning.
Lundy's defence team would now be scrutinising everything that happened during the trial to see if there was anything that could be used as grounds for an appeal, Mr Henaghan said.
"They'll have to sit down with Mark and see if there is anything. Obviously you don't want to just take something on a whim, there has to be some basis, some legal basis or some basis in terms of the trial being unfair to show that there was a potential miscarriage of justice. They can't just run it on nothing," he said.
"I'm sure they'll go over everything very, very carefully to see if there is anything in the evidence or the way the trial was run or the way that the jury was directed, to think, 'well is there anything here that we can take to the Court of Appeal that would stand up to scrutiny to say this trial wasn't fair'."
Mr Henaghan said the hefty bill to taxpayers that came with the retrial was the price society must pay for a fair justice system.
"I think it's interesting that we always talk about costs," he said. "I think to have a rule of law in our country and a good criminal justice system it does cost.
"I think it's important - if we want to have a system of justice that works properly, you have to pay a certain amount for it. And it isn't cheap, but on the other hand without paying for it we don't have a system of justice, so it's money well spent."
Greg O'Connor, president of Police Association, said the investigation teams that worked on the Lundy case were relieved by the verdict.
"If you go into any homicide base where the inquiry takes place there's always photographs of the victims there, and the team never forget who they're really working for on these inquiries - it's the victims," he said.
"The first thoughts are, 'we've really done this, we've got justice now for the victims'. So on behalf of them, on behalf of all police really, a sense of relief, and now really pleased that Mr Lundy is where he should be."
Mr O'Connor said the change in the Crown case in the timeline of the night's events - in particular the time of death of Lundy's so-called 'killing trip' - had been because of new facts and the jury had made the right decision.
"As a result of this second inquiry, as a result of people remembering things, people being prepared to say things, and also improvements in science, the second team who started the inquiry again, learnt more facts as a result of that," he said, adding this led them to "a new theory as to what actually happened".
"Those of us who're following these trials through snippets in the media don't really understand that the jury are the ones that see from morning to night, looking at the defendant, looking at the demeanour of those who give evidence, and they're assessing this all the time.
"And obviously they have been satisfied with that explanation, and the new reconstruction if you like. And to the relief of everyone, particularly I'm sure the family, they've come up with this verdict."