IS he a hitman who travelled to Newcastle to execute a grandmother on her front door step or a "blow in from Canberra" who came up to do some roofing work and was unknowingly "roped into" the murder plot.
A jury will on Friday morning retire to begin determining the fate of Jason Paul Hawkins, 48, who is accused of executing the "targeted" and "premeditated" murder of 61-year-old Stacey Klimovitch at Stockton.
Mrs Klimovitch was shot once in the chest at close range with a shotgun when she answered her front door in Queen Street about 8pm on June 9, 2021, the culmination of an ugly dispute with her former son-in-law, Stuart Campbell.
Campbell, a drug dealer who masterminded the shooting over ongoing animosity with Mrs Klimovitch, was charged with murder, but died before facing trial.
Mr Hawkins has pleaded not guilty to murder and gave evidence earlier this week, telling the jury that while he did get into the Holden Commodore bound for Stockton on the night of the murder, he jumped out a short time later and fled into bushland on John Renshaw Drive.
Mr Hawkins, of Canberra, said the man driving the Commodore, who prosecutors say was the getaway driver in the murder, had just pulled over behind another car when he saw a person get out holding a firearm.
He said he took off into the bush and laid down before walking some 18 kilometres back towards a house at Argenton. He said he never went to Stockton on the night of the shooting and maintained he knew nothing of the plot to murder Mrs Klimovitch.
The jury has spent the last few days listening as the prosecution and defence delivered their closing addresses in the case.
During his address, defence barrister Ben Bickford urged the jury to look at CCTV footage from a house at Heddon Greta in the hours before the murder.
He said Mr Hawkins body language and demeanour showed he had not been included in the plans for that night and did not know until they were leaving that he would be getting into the Commodore with the getaway driver.
"Does that look like a premeditated arrangement to you, in so far as Mr Hawkins is concerned," Mr Bickford asked the jury. "Consider if Mr Hawkins is in on this premeditated plan to shoot Mrs Klimovitch and he's gone to all this trouble to drive back to Canberra to pick up the shotgun and then come back to execute the plan. Why wouldn't he already know that he's going with [the getaway driver]?" Why wouldn't he know that is the car that he's getting into that night?"
Mr Bickford also questioned why, if he was involved in the plot and was about to murder someone, would Mr Hawkins go into a house full of strangers hosting a State of Origin party.
"And also what's he doing still wearing hi vis work wear?" Mr Bickford said. "Why wouldn't he get changed before leaving for Heddon Greta and then onto Stockton, perhaps into something far less conspicuous than an orange fluorescent jumper together with the bright red hat. "I mean, he's the assassin. If he knows what he's about to go and do, what's he doing? Going and sitting inside the house, why wouldn't he just wait outside somewhere for his ride over to complete the mission. The prosecution case is that this is a premeditated assassination."
Mr Bickford said Mr Hawkins's version about fleeing from the car on John Renshaw Drive wasn't so implausible and might explain how the shotgun used to kill Mrs Klimovitch got into the Commodore.
The getaway driver had given evidence that he made no stops on the way to Stockton and no one got out, but Mr Bickford called his evidence "self-serving" and "outright dishonest".
He said there was no forensic evidence to suggest Mr Hawkins was "ever there" outside the house in Queen Street and if it wasn't for a red hat spotted on the gunman in CCTV then it would be "difficult to argue" the person resembled Mr Hawkins "in any way".
The trial continues.
