By Edward Gay of 
The 21-year-old, who has name suppression, faced a four-week trial at the High Court in Auckland, six years after the victim's death. Photo: RNZ / Cole Eastham-Farrelly
This story contains graphic details which some readers may find upsetting.
The woman accused of the kidnapping, torture and murder of a teenager has been found guilty of kidnapping, but jurors could not reach a verdict on murder or manslaughter.
The 21-year-old, who has name suppression, faced a four-week trial at the High Court in Auckland, six years after 17-year-old Dimetrius Pairama was lured to an abandoned state house.
The jurors deliberated for 12 hours over two days. On Friday afternoon the jurors found the woman guilty of kidnapping, but the jury foreperson said they could not reach unanimous verdicts or majority verdicts of 11 to 1.
The Crown will decide in the next three weeks if they will seek a re-trial on the charge of murder. A sentencing date on the kidnapping charge has not yet been set.
Toko (Ashley) Shane Rei Winter and Kerry Te Amo were found guilty of murder and sentenced to life in prison with a minimum non parole period of 19 years and 4 months and 19 years respectively.
Kerry Te Amo and Toko (Ashley) Shane Winter at their trial at the High Court in Auckland. Photo: RNZ / Cole Eastham-Farrelly
It has been a long wait for justice for the Pairama whānau. They have attended both trials.
At the time Demetrius' mother, Lena Hetaraka Pairama, told Stuff her daughter was a bubbly girl, who was able to give her mihi in fluent te reo Māori and knew her tikanga.
"She would make friends with everyone."
She also had big dreams: "She wanted to be the prime minister of New Zealand, she was going to be rich and buy a house."
The evidence the Pairama whānau have had to endure has at times been harrowing.
The Crown's case was that Winter, Te Amo and the accused subjected Pairama to repeated beatings, tied her to a chair and hacked her hair off before burning her.
They killed her in a hallway before dumping her body, wrapped in rubbish bags and sheets, in an upturned rusty steel drum in the backyard.
The Crown said all three helped and encouraged each other and alluded to the 19th Century Alexandre Dumas novel The Three Musketeers, and their motto "All for one and one for all".
The woman's lawyers said while the then 16-year-old took part in the assaults, she had no intention to kill Pairama.
In her closing address to the jurors on Tuesday, Crown prosecutor Claire Robertson said the accused, Winter, Te Amo, a 14-year-old and Pairama all headed to an abandoned state house on Buckland Rd after a night in town.
But Robertson said once the group were inside the house, the mood changed.
Robertson said the accused, Winter and Te Amo took turns beating Pairama. At one point the accused helped tie Pairama to a chair before she and Winter cut her hair.
Parts of Pairama's body were also burned.
After more beatings, Pairama was untied and allowed to lie on the floor, naked beneath a sheet.
"Ms Winter asked Ms Pairama how she wanted to die. She was given a choice which was really no choice at all.
"Any doubts harboured by [the accused] were short-lived. By the end of the discussion she was all for it. Te Amo and [the accused] had signed on to Winter's plan... they were all in it together, very much so... it was all for one, and one for all."
Robertson said the accused helped Te Amo prepare the killing and with Winter and Te Amo had also gone outside to search for a spade.
Robertson said both actions showed the accused knew Pairama was going to be murdered.
"[The accused] knew what was happening, she acted with purpose. She was there to help Ms Winter and Mr Te Amo to see it through... She was no mere bystander to Ms Winter's deranged plan."
But the woman's defence said the accused tried to stop the violence and was never part of any plan to kill Pairama.
In his closing address, defence lawyer David Niven reminded jurors his client had been born with a "cruel disability". Her fetal alcohol spectrum disorder had caused brain damage and left her with an IQ as low as 60. That made her suggestible and impulsive.
He said the diagnosis by neuropsychologist and world-renowned expert Dr Valerie McGinn had not been challenged by the Crown.
Niven reminded jurors that Winter and Te Amo had been convicted for their roles in the kidnapping and the murder of Pairama.
"Could what happened to Ms Pairama in that hallway be explained by the actions of two people?"
He told the jurors Winter was a "preditorial, negative influence" who dominated the teenagers.
Niven said there was no talk of hurting Pairama until the group arrived at the abandoned state house where "Ashley ambushed them".
It was there that Winter spoke of her gang connections and ordered the beating of Pairama.
Referring to McGinn's diagnosis and that his client functions at the level of a 9-year-old, Niven said his client could only handle simple situations.
"Things very quickly became complex… In that house with a dominating bully, almost twice her age and physically bigger," Niven said, referring to Winter.
Niven said just because his client had been involved in the earlier violence and degrading treatment, did not mean she was involved in the killing.
"There is a gulf between what happened there and what happened in the hallway."
The accused is due to be sentenced in August.
This story was first published by Stuff.
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