An accused killer's story that he left his beloved pig-hunting knife on a lounge at a house at Narara, went outside and fell asleep in his van on the night Danielle Easey was brutally murdered inside "defies logic" and should be rejected, a jury has been told.
And Justin Dilosa's version that he went to great lengths to attempt to cover up the murder, including wrapping the body in multiple layers and dumping it in Cockle Creek, and told associates he took responsibility for killing Ms Easey to protect the real killer, his ex-partner Carol McHenry, and not because he was involved "makes no sense" and "is totally out of proportion".
"[Wrapping Ms Easey's body in multiple layers] is not a task that anyone could do lightly," Crown prosecutor John Stanhope said during his closing address on Wednesday. "Think about the grisly reality of what he was doing and you can see it was an enormous undertaking. When you think about it, it is not something you could possibly do to protect someone else in circumstances where you were not yourself one of the killers."
Mr Dilosa, now 37, has pleaded not guilty to murdering Ms Easey and is nearing the end of a four-week trial in NSW Supreme Court.
He denies being involved in Ms Easey's killing and says his ex-partner, Ms McHenry, acted alone in stabbing and striking Ms Easey in the head with a hammer at a home in Reeves Street, Narara on August 17, 2019.
Mr Dilosa does admit to participating in the cover-up and dumping of Ms Easey's body and has pleaded guilty to being an accessory after the fact.
After the jury spent several days listening to Mr Dilosa's evidence from earlier proceedings and the prosecution closed its case, Public Defender Angus Webb revealed on Tuesday that he would not be calling a defence case and Mr Dilosa would not be giving evidence.
And so on Wednesday Mr Stanhope began his closing address, telling the jury Mr Dilosa's story about going outside to his van and falling asleep on the night Ms Easey was murdered by Ms McHenry with his knife was "unbelievable".
Mr Stanhope said CCTV from a service station after the killing showed Mr Dilosa with a bulge in his right pocket, which he said could be the knife.
"If it is the knife in his pocket then the story about the car being stopped a short time later and Ms McHenry showing him the knife in a bag in the boot would be a lie," Mr Stanhope said.
The trial had heard from a number of Mr Dilosa's former associates, who each claimed he had made admissions to being directly involved in Ms Easey's murder.
And Mr Stanhope said, in some cases, Mr Dilosa did not deny he had claimed responsibility, but he said he did so not because he was actually involved but out of "love and concern for Ms McHenry and her children".
Mr Stanhope took the jury through the chronology of Mr Dilosa's and Ms McHenry's eight or nine month relationship, which ended a year before the murder, and said most of the time in the lead-up to the killing Mr Dilosa had had no contact with Ms McHenry.
"Think carefully about the nature of that relationship," Mr Stanhope said. "The relationship between Mr Dilosa and Ms McHenry and her children. It is not submitted there is no residual affection. But what is submitted is that when you drill down into the reality of that chronology and think about the people involved it is so incredible to think that Mr Dilosa would say and think to himself "I am going to take responsibility for Carol having killed someone". It is totally out of proportion and you should reject it."
And he said that extended to destroying evidence by putting his beloved pig-hunting knife in a bonfire in the backyard of a home at Cardiff on the night of the murder.
"Mr Dilosa would say he was just trying to protect Ms McHenry," Mr Stanhope said. "Do you accept that a person would act in that way? Destroy evidence for a person they had an eight or nine month relationship with, then no real contact, then they would see from time to time? Even if you were in an affectionate and loving relationship would you do that? The Crown says he is destroying evidence relating to the killing of Ms Easey because he was involved in the killing of Ms Easey."
Mr Stanhope said each time Mr Dilosa "took responsibility" for Ms Easey's murder during those conversations with his associates he was doing so not for something Ms McHenry had done, but for his own role in the killing.
And he said that was clear from the fact he had made admissions when there was no need to and before there was a police investigation and because he had wrapped a dead woman's body in multiple layers, put the body in a cupboard and then drove that cupboard around for 10 days before dumping the body in a creek.
"The scale of what he is doing is so enormous he could only be doing it because he is responsible for the killing," he said.
Mr Webb is expected to deliver his closing address on Friday before Justice Deborah Sweeney sums up the case and the jury is sent out to begin deliberations.
