A Victorian teenager accused of murdering her stepfather allegedly told a prospective boyfriend her stepfather had threatened to kill her.
The accused, now 19, is alleged to have shot dead her stepfather on March 13 last year, before dismembering his body and disposing of his torso in the backyard of their Mooroopna home.
She is alleged to have dumped more remains in a long drop toilet and bushland at an Old Toolamba campsite.
She has not yet entered a plea.
The boyfriend told a pre-trial hearing in the Shepparton Magistrate's Court on Monday the teenager said her stepfather had threatened to stab her "straight in the heart" if she told police of photos he had taken of her.
The comments were allegedly made during a late-night conversation between the pair in February 2008, when the teenager told him she could not begin a relationship because her stepfather would not allow it.
"I said to (the teenager) that I liked her and she said she liked me too (but) she wasn't allowed to be with anyone because (her stepfather) wouldn't allow it," the boyfriend told the court.
"She told me he took photos of her when she was little.
"I said, 'you should go to police' and she said, 'he told me he would stab me straight in the heart'."
The teenager's boyfriend, a family friend with whom she went on to form a relationship three days after the alleged murder, said the conversation in February followed an earlier incident, in which he confronted the stepfather about the relationship while on a camping trip.
When questioned about the nature of his relationship with his stepdaughter, the man replied if he and his stepdaughter were to become a couple there would be nothing wrong with that because they were not blood related, the boyfriend told the court.
Earlier, the teenager's mother described her de facto husband as a "control freak" who in the early days of their relationship exercised staunch control over her life.
She said he relinquished his grip on her around the time of their third son's birth in June 2003.
"He sort of let go of me and started to control (my daughter)," she said.
She said she regularly confronted the pair about their relationship but her estranged partner - who by that time slept in a separate bedroom - would laugh off the suggestion.
A neighbour told the court that in the months preceding the man's death, she would regularly hear him and his stepdaughter arguing loudly when the mother left for work.
The committal hearing, before Magistrate Ian von Einam, continues on Tuesday.
Front page
RSS Feed