KEY POINTS:
Sophie Elliott's mother thought her daughter was being raped as she raced upstairs to answer her screams.
But what she saw was much worse, a court has heard.
Lesley Elliott remained calm as she told the Dunedin District Court yesterday of seeing her daughter stabbed repeatedly.
Mrs Elliott was the first of 17 witnesses to give evidence at a depositions hearing for former University of Otago research fellow Clayton Weatherston, accused of killing 22-year-old Sophie in her Ravensbourne home on January 9.
Crown lawyer Robin Bates said Sophie died after being stabbed or cut 216 times.
Seven blunt force injuries were also found on her body. Details of her wounds were suppressed.
Mrs Elliott said she was at home when Weatherston arrived that day.
"He said he had something for Sophie."
He and Sophie went upstairs, and Mrs Elliott described running upstairs at the first cries of her daughter, hearing Sophie's screams and a "rhythmic thumping", followed by a couple of soft sighs from her daughter.
Unable to get in to the locked room, she ran back downstairs to find a device to unlock it from the outside, called 111 and went back upstairs.
When she opened the door she saw Weatherston kneeling over Sophie's lifeless body.
"Sophie was lying dead, staring, and Clayton was still stabbing her. He was straddled across her legs and she had blood around her neck."
Weatherston then pushed the door closed in her face, Mrs Elliott said.
"It was [close] enough for Clayton to be stabbing with one hand and closing the door with the other."
She described the "on-again, off-again" relationship between her daughter and Weatherston, and told of conversations she had with her daughter in which Sophie told her of put-downs from Weatherston, a series of arguments, an assault by Weatherston at his flat a week before her death and how Weatherston had told her she had ruined his chances of becoming a lecturer at the university.
Mrs Elliott said her daughter's self-esteem had suffered in the relationship, and she had started counselling.
A former girlfriend of Weatherston's, whose name was suppressed, told the hearing he was a generous, extremely motivated person who was good to his students, but was also obsessive and had a "nasty demeanour" at times, especially when he was under stress.
The woman said Weatherston had often spoken to her about his relationship with Sophie, saying it was negative and "sucked his strength" and Sophie was mean to him at times.
Under cross-examination from Weatherston's lawyer, Judith Ablett Kerr, QC, the witness agreed it was fair to describe the accused as hyper-sensitive.
"He would take offence where others might be able to deal with it. He gets offended easily and becomes distressed at someone thinking the worst of him ...
"He talked about Sophie calling him a retard. He got very distressed by it in part because he took it as an insult to his intelligence."
She said Sophie had seemed proud to have Weatherston as a boyfriend.
The hearing continues today.
- OTAGO DAILY TIMES
