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Nevaeh Ager, who was killed by her father, Aaron Izett, in Little Waihi in 2019.
Aaron George Izett has been convicted of the murder of his 2-year-old daughter, Nevaeh Ager, after his defense of insanity failed.
The jury of seven men and five women delivered its verdict on Thursday after approximately 10 hours of deliberations, the culmination of a 12-day trial in Rotorua High Court.
Izett was also found guilty of assaulting Nevaeh’s great-grandfather, John Sturgess, and guilty of wounding Sheriff Major Andrew McDonald, who he bit while being arrested.
He was found not guilty of a charge that, with the intent to cause serious bodily harm, he injured Jacob Reid.
Izett never denied killing his daughter. On the opening day of the trial, defense attorney Nicholas Chisnall told the jury that Izett “accepted that he killed his daughter.”
Benn Bathgate / Stuff
Aaron Izett has been convicted of murder.
“He accepts that he is responsible for his death … the physical act is not in dispute,” he said.
Chisnall claimed, however, that his client should be found not guilty on grounds of insanity.
The Crown alleged that Izett, a habitual methamphetamine user, killed his daughter in a “meth attack” by assaulting her with a weapon or weapons and then placing her in the estuary behind her home to drown.
Crown prosecutor Anna Pollett said the girl had been subjected to “assault for assault for assault” before drowning.
It was a judgment that depended less on what Izett had done, the only act he denied was hurting Jacob Reid, who was cut in the back of the neck with some kind of blade, but if he had a mental illness. or was insane at the time of the murder and other alleged crimes.
Izett will be sentenced on February 3, 2021.
