A teenager who stabbed a gay police officer to death has been found guilty of manslaughter.
But the jury of 11 found 17-year-old Willie John Ahsee not guilty of murdering Denis Norman Phillips, at the High Court at Auckland tonight.
Ahsee wiped tears from his eyes after the verdict was handed down.
Mr Phillips, a 59-year-old temporarily sworn police officer who worked as a jailer, was found dead in his Papakura flat on July 31, 2010.
He had been stabbed four times with a serrated knife.
The Crown said Ahsee, who was 16 at the time, was drunk and was seen running down the road yelling: "I killed someone'' on the night of the killing.
In her opening address last Monday, Crown prosecutor June Jelas said Ahsee lived within walking distance of Mr Phillips' home and would visit him regularly to work out his gym in a converted garage.
On the night of the killing, Ahsee had gone to Mr Phillips' house for a workout before neighbours heard "banging, thumping noises'', Ms Jelas said.
One neighbour called police shortly after 10pm and said she hearing "yelling and screaming'' on his way home, including yells of "I killed someone''.
The teenager returned to his family home "emotional and intoxicated'' and smashed two windows, so his mother asked police to keep him overnight to detox, Ms Jelas said.
She said that the next day Ahsee confessed to his mother that he had stabbed the policeman, and he went to a police station.
"He admits to stabbing the deceased but he said he can't remember anything about it. He can't say what was in his mind,'' Ms Jelas said.
Ms Jelas described Mr Phillips as a gay man who liked young men and was known to proposition them, "so to speak''.
Police records showed Ahsee denied any sexual or physical contact with the policeman, she said.
Ms Jelas also pointed out a pair of blue shorts with the accused's saliva on the crotch area in evidence photos.
Mr Phillip's laptop and cellphone were taken from his house and the laptop was found in Ahsee's family home, while cellphone records traced Ahsee's family using the stolen cellphone days after the death.
Ahsee's lawyer David Jones QC told the jury in his opening that his client accepted he was the person who stabbed the policeman. But he asked the jury to consider what was going through the teenager's mind at the time.
He said the defence case would "focus on the circumstances leading up to the wound being inflicted because under our law a person is entitled to use force if they are acting in self defence''.
Ahsee will be sentenced in December.
