The mother of Stephen Royds, the former Queenstown man who kept his girlfriend's body on dry ice for nearly a year in the United States, says she is "thrilled" to have her son home in New Zealand.
Sally Royds said from her home in Queenstown yesterday her son had arrived back in New Zealand this week after serving half of his four-year prison sentence in California.
Royds (46) was convicted on two drug charges in the Orange County Superior Court in October 2008.
He was arrested in March 2008 at the Fairmont Hotel in Newport Beach, near Los Angeles, after police found him with 54g of cocaine bundled in dozens of small packets.
A search of his room turned up the body of his girlfriend, Monique Felicia Trepp (33), stuffed in a plastic tub and preserved with dry ice.
Tests later showed she died from a drug overdose.
Royds was not charged for failing to report Trepp's death. Mrs Royds declined to reveal when her son would arrive in Queenstown.
"He is [in New Zealand] but he hasn't been here [in Queenstown].
"When he is ready, he will talk.
"We are thrilled to have him coming home and he is very welcome back home again.
"I know he is very happy to be home," Mrs Royds said.
She had not seen her son since January 1997, when she and husband John visited the United States. The couple lost contact with their son a few years later, but had spoken to him on the phone regularly while he was in prison.
When asked if her son had had drug rehabilitation in prison she replied: "Who said he was a drug addict?
"A lot of what has been printed has been hearsay."
At the time of his arrest in March 2008, it was reported Royds had been living at the $300-a-night Fairmont Hotel for more than two years, paying cash.
Police searched the room after receiving a tip-off that Royds had been dealing cocaine.
He told detectives he discovered Ms Trepp dead on the floor on March 24, 2007.
Royds has offered varying explanations for freezing her body including, "everything that happened was for religious reasons", and that he did not want to report the death, as there were already warrants for his arrest from an earlier drug conviction.
His hotel room was so full of drug paraphernalia and wrapped Christmas presents, police officers found it hard to walk around.
His father, John, is a former Queenstown deputy mayor and a respected figure in the real estate industry.
