A woman brutally beaten after watching a man kill her partner in their home has described how the killer asked for a handshake to let him open the door.
Biannca Edmunds, 34, has been accused of ordering her husband to kill her former partner Michael Caposiena over a dispute over their child.
Prosecutors have charged Edmunds with murder, alleging that she aided, encouraged, or ordered Glen Cassidy to murder Mr. Caposiena at his home in Melbourne’s Westmeadows in March 2016.
Edmunds pleaded innocent.
Mr. Caposiena’s girlfriend, Silvana Silva, whom he had met on a dating website three years earlier, was watching TV with him when she saw Cassidy walking past their home, the Supreme Court heard Wednesday.
She warned her partner, and he told her she was paranoid and told her not to call the police.
But Cassidy came back, armed with a gun, and rang the bell.
She said Mr. Caposiena took a knife from their kitchen, opened the door, and hid the gun behind it.
The couple had a conversation through the locked security door, and she heard Mr. Caposiena say, “I’m sorry I couldn’t do anything for you”.
She said he told her to turn down the volume on the TV, and then Cassidy asked Mr. Caposiena to shake his hand, prompting him to open the security door.
Cassidy came in and pointed a gun at Mr. Caposiena’s head. He tried to move the weapon away while holding a knife beside the shooter’s abdomen.
“I hear the bang…and all I could see was Michael losing his balance for a moment and falling to the ground,” she said.
“I ran to the door screaming for help, just started screaming for use outside, and he pointed the gun at my head and pulled the trigger too.
“But it didn’t work, then he started attacking me.”
She said Cassidy threw her against the door, grabbed her by the hair, and repeatedly banged her head against a step. She was then hospitalized for four days.
Cassidy collapsed and died of stab wounds inflicted by Mr. Caposiena, but Mrs. Silva said she didn’t see the stabbing because her eyes were on the gun.
Prosecutors allege that Edmunds ordered Cassidy to kill Mr. Caposiena over a custody dispute over their child.
Ms. Silva said Mr. Caposiena didn’t see the child until they were two years old, when he had six supervised visits, the last being a day before the murder.
The jury was shown graphic scenes of the crime scene, taken by detectives, with a pool of blood outside the door and a gun in a potted plant.
Cassidy’s body was at the bottom of a flight of stairs, with stab wounds under his arm and medical supplies around him.
Inside, Mr. Caposiena’s body was in front of a refrigerator, with two knives nearby and Cassidy’s shopping bag.
The bag contained a knife, some black tape, and a sheet of paper with text on it.
The trial continues on Thursday.