Spare a thought for doting mother, always the believer, as her son found guilty of murdering model girlfriend

Along the same bench of the NSW Supreme Court, Gordon Wood's distraught mother, Brenda, 70, was helped, sobbing, from the courtroom by her two daughters, Michele and Jacqueline.

Spare a thought for Brenda Wood. Her son's murder conviction came after seven agonising days of jury deliberation, and three months of trial, during which she had been forced to listen to forensics and physics experts, police and witnesses say her son was a brutal killer.

It came two years since his arrest in London by Scotland Yard, 10 years and two days since Ms Byrne was found dead at the foot of the Gap in Sydney in 1995, two years in which Mrs Wood suffered failing health and met financial ruin as she sold her house, moved state and plundered her superannuation funds to pay her son's legal costs, and, for a time, his rent.

Throughout, Mrs Wood, a widow since 1986, when she lost husband Michael to cancer, has expressed only confidence in her son. In 2007 she had put him up in her home in suburban Marsfield, as required by his bail conditions.

She put the home up, too, agreeing to forfeit $100,000 in equity should he break those conditions. Before she was forced to downsize, her funds exhausted, and move this year to a small house in Adelaide, she could be seen accompanying her surfer son on outings to Bondi Beach.

She was always confident of his character.

Last year in a statement to police she described her son as "an affectionate person", "shy", and "tactile", and "comfortable around women", adding, "Gordon wouldn't want to let me down. He would want to maintain my respect."

In the same statement Mrs Wood described Caroline Byrne as a "nice person" who had "no charisma", and who was without "any natural homemaking skills ... Caroline couldn't even knit. She didn't bring a pot or a pan to the relationship. She could cook, but for a model she didn't have many clothes, mostly black."

Mrs Wood also called Ms Byrne's family "the most dysfunctional I have met", saying Caroline's siblings Robert, Peter and Deanna had been kept by their father and had achieved little, compared with her son.

After the verdict, Gordon Wood was escorted to Parklea Correctional Centre.

Brenda Wood and her daughters made their way back to the family's Rose Bay apartment.

Holding back tears, Jacqueline Wood said the family was not interested in talking.

"I'm sure you could imagine how we are feeling," she said.

At last it's all over. And now it begins.