It's taken 27 years for justice to be done for Susan Burdett's family with her son, Dallas McKay, going through a harrowing time as the defence alleging he murdered his mother.
With serial rapist Malcolm Rewa found guilty of Burdett's murder, the family are able to try and move on, but during the trial, the defence tried blaming Mr McKay for his mother's killing.
"You had ample opportunity to travel from Whangarei, get into the house, kill your mother, joke, you murdered your mother," Rewa’s lawyer argued.
"It makes me feel pretty bad, actually, but you know, I was the number one suspect and I knew that and when they reopened this again," Mr McKay said.
Mr McKay was adopted out at birth and had only known his mother for two months before she was killed but during that time, they developed a strong friendship.
"Oh, it's terrible. You know, you walk down the street and people might think, 'Oh, that's Dallas McKay', but other people go, 'Oh, the old boy, he wouldn't do that,'" Mr McKay said.
Mr McKay was 22 when his mum was murdered, engaged to Tracey at the time, but their wedding was just one of many milestones Burdett missed out on.
"She would have loved our kids - my boys are two-of-a-kind, you know what I mean? They missed out on time with their grandmother or 'nana' as she would have been like to be called," he said.
Mr McKay and Tracey married one year after Burdett was killed with their two boys now grown up, but the family will be forever haunted by the killing.
"It's always been there, yes. Every time we heard about Teina Pora and things like that, it always things would just keep coming back again."
"The hard, sad thing was having to tell the children, you know? Cause we sort of had to prepare them slowly and as they got old enough to understand but how do you prepare your children you know for anything like what happened to Sue,” Mrs McKay added.
After the wrongful conviction of Mr Pora, the family said they have no animosity for the police.
"Justice had to be served and they got it right this time, which is really, really cool and it is the right result."
The killer, already behind bars, now awaits his latest sentence.
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