The family of a woman who was stabbed to death inside her unit at Muswellbrook in 2023 say she had offered her killer somewhere to stay because she was homeless and living under a bridge.
They say that "good deed" soon led to Deidre "Dee" Folpp suffering a "slow and painful death".
Mrs Folpp's killer, Jo-Ann Graham, now 55, on Monday faced a brief judge-alone trial in Newcastle Supreme Court.
It focused solely on whether she was living with schizophrenia at the time of the stabbing.
No witnesses were called and Justice Julia Lonergan was told there was no dispute between the expert forensic psychiatrists that Graham had available to her a defence of mental health impairment.
After reading the expert reports, Justice Lonergan entered a special verdict of act proven but not criminally responsible.
She heard victim impact statements from Mrs Folpp's family members.
One of Mrs Folpp's daughters spoke of having to confront her complex relationship with her mother and the ongoing trauma her violent death had caused.
"The impact of this crime cannot be measured solely by the fact of her death," she said.
"It includes the circumstances of how she died, the trauma of learning what happened, the deterioration in my mental and physical health and the loss of any resolution in our relationship.
"I also continue to struggle with the belief that this crime could have been prevented had an appropriate intervention occurred."
Mrs Folpp's sister also penned a victim impact statement, saying the 60-year-old had offered Graham a bed after she had been living under a bridge.
She said her good deed would lead to her death and she now struggled with thoughts of the "unimaginable fear" her sister must have suffered in her final moments.
Justice Lonergan entered the special verdict on Monday, but will deliver a formal judgment in the case later this week.
The verdict comes after the Newcastle Herald reported earlier this year that there was no dispute that it was Graham who had stabbed Mrs Folpp, 60, to death in her unit in Sydney Street, Muswellbrook sometime between October 26 and 31, 2023.
Graham had pleaded not guilty to murder and was pursuing a special verdict of act proven but not criminally responsible.
Her lawyers argued she had available to her a defence of mental health impairment.
Initially, the trial was expected to run for more than four weeks and call dozens of witnesses.
That was reduced in May to a brief judge-alone trial when the issues were narrowed to include only the psychiatric experts.
In the end there was no contention on the evidence and no witnesses were called, only their reports tendered to form the basis of Justice Lonergan's special verdict.
Police have said they were first called to the Muswellbrook unit about 7.20am on October 30, 2023 in relation to a concern for welfare.
They spoke to Graham and left the property a short time later.
At 7pm that night police were called to a licensed club, also on Sydney Street, after reports Graham was behaving erratically.
She was arrested and taken to Muswellbrook police station, then Muswellbrook Hospital and the Mater Hospital for assessment.
Police were called back to the Sydney Street home about 8.30pm to conduct a welfare check and found Mrs Folpp's body.
She had suffered head injuries and multiple stab wounds.
Police set up a crime scene and called in the State Crime Command's Homicide Squad to investigate the circumstances of her death.
Crime scene officers spent days at the property photographing and seizing evidence.
Meanwhile, Graham spent nine days at the Mater Hospital before she was discharged and then charged with murder.
After her arrest, the criminal proceedings against Graham moved slowly through the local court while prosecutors and defence lawyers sought expert psychiatric reports focusing on Graham's state of mind at the time of Mrs Folpp's death.
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