A man’s claim that he helped dispose of Danielle Easey’s corpse and destroyed the murder weapons out of love and concern for his former partner has been attacked as unbelievable.
Justin Kent Dilosa, 37, has pleaded not guilty in the NSW Supreme Court to taking part in the bloody murder of Ms Easey on the Central Coast in 2019 and pointed the finger at his former partner.
Mr Dilosa has pleaded guilty to being an accessory after the fact and admitted to wrapping Ms Easey’s body, placing it in the back of his van and later dumping it at Cockle Creek, on Newcastle’s outskirts.
However, he claims that Ms Easey was murdered by his former partner Carol McHenry and that he played no part in the savage killing.
Ms Easey suffered multiple stab wounds and blows to the head with a blunt object, similar to a hammer.
According to the Crown prosecution case, Mr Dilosa and McHenry were both responsible for killing Ms Easey inside McHenry’s bedroom on August 17, 2019.
However, Mr Dilosa has claimed that McHenry was responsible for her death and afterwards showed him a knife and hammer.
In his evidence, Mr Dilosa claimed that on one occasion when he was driving her home, McHenry began crying and told him: “Jay, I’m never going to see the kids again. I don’t know what I’ve done. She had to go. I need your help.”
The court has been told that many of the key players in the trial, including Ms Easey, Mr Dilosa and McHenry were involved in drug taking, in particular methamphetamine.
The court has been told that Ms Easey, McHenry and Mr Dilosa were together on August 17 when they went to Nowra where McHenry visited an inmate in jail.
They returned to the Reeves St, Narara home where Ms Easey was killed in McHenry’s bedroom later that day.
According to Mr Dilosa, he was asleep in his van, parked out the front of the house, when McHenry killed Ms Easey.
“The Crown submission about that is that it is unbelievable and you wouldn’t accept it,” Crown prosecutor John Stanhope said during his closing address to the jury on Wednesday.
The court has been told that later that evening at a friend’s house, Mr Dilosa threw a knife – referred to as a “pigsticker” – and a hammer into a bonfire.
On Mr Dilosa’s evidence, he was given the weapons by McHenry.
However, it’s an act, the Crown has argued, that points to his guilt.
On August 20, Mr Dilosa and McHenry returned to the Narara house and Mr Dilosa loaded a cupboard containing Ms Easey’s body into the back of his van, the court was told.
Ms Easey’s body was placed in a chemical suit and wrapped in plastic and taped off.
Mr Dilosa drove around with Ms Easey’s body in the back of his car for a week before he dumped it at Cockle Creek.
“The Crown says (disposing of the body) is not conduct that he would be engaged in unless he was guilty of the murder,” Mr Stanhope argued.
After Ms Easey was killed, McHenry began using her phone and pretended to be her in Facebook messages, the court was told.
Ms Easey’s badly decomposing body was discovered by passing motorists on August 31, 2019.
The Crown prosecution has also relied on alleged admissions made by Mr Dilosa to several people.
One man, Jacob Collins, told the trial: “(Dilosa) said something like ‘you know that chick, she was no good, I had to kill her, she was going to hurt my friends and I’d do it again’.”
Mr Dilosa has argued that he also made those statements to cover up for McHenry.
Mr Stanhope said both McHenry and Mr Dilosa had moved on from their relationship months before Ms Easey’s death, and it was inconceivable that he would go to those lengths for someone he was no longer romantically involved with.
“He tells you that he was doing that to cover up the crime committed by Carol McHenry,” Mr Stanhope said.
“He was preparing to take responsibility for her killing Danielle Easey … It is so incredible to think Mr Dilosa would simply say on occasion ‘I’m going to take responsibility for Carol McHenry having killed someone’.
“It’s totally out of proportion and you should reject it.”
The trial continues.