IN THE days after Danielle Easey was allegedly bludgeoned and knifed to death, a court has heard her mother Jennifer Collier continued to receive Facebook messages from someone on her profile pretending to be her.
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On the second day of the NSW Supreme Court murder trial against Justin Kent Dilosa and Carol Marie McHenry, the jury heard Ms Collier had sent a concerned message to her daughter's profile asking her to check-in.
"Danielle darling if you see this and you can't reply, please believe me, there's a statewide missing person report ... please know I love you, mum," one of the messages read.
"Please stop torturing me, where is my girl? Please talk," another said.
State Crime Command Homicide Squad Detective Sergeant Peter Rudens, the officer in charge of the case, gave evidence that when he broke the news to Ms Collier she was in a state of disbelief.
"Yes, we broke the news to her and the family that it was Danielle that we found," he said.
"She was in disbelief because she said 'I'd only been talking to her the previous day', or some days prior to that on Facebook messenger."
It is the Crown's case that those messages were sent from McHenry pretending to be Ms Easey in the days after her death, and that she asked the victim's mother to transfer $50 to her account which she later withdrew at an ATM at Wests Cardiff.
McHenry's defence lawyer Tony Evers argued his client was leaving "breadcrumbs" for police to find and speak with her.
He said McHenry was too scared of Dilosa to go to the police herself, instead flinging the victim's phone onto the lawn of a home where it was likely to be found.
Mr Evers said McHenry repeatedly said she didn't want to go back to the home at Narara where Ms Easey was allegedly murdered, and even at one point made a "half-hearted attempt" to have someone burn it down.
"Shortly after Ms McHenry was arrested on September 19, 2019 by police, police then search her home at Narara," he said.
"They search the home and on the bed are still the bloody sheets, bloody because that's where Ms Easey was killed.
"You will hear that because she wanted to avoid Mr Dilosa from September onwards she was trying to get messages through Ms Burns [a witness] to Mr Dilosa to go and clean up the house.
"Ask yourself, is that the conduct of someone who thinks they are responsible for the murder of a friend?"
McHenry and Dilosa have both pleaded not guilty to murdering Ms Easey on August 17, 2019. McHenry has pleaded guilty to an alternative charge of accessory after the fact to an offence.
On Wednesday, the jury was presented with footage showing a member of the public pulling what looks like a body wrapped in plastic and duct tape to the shore of Cockle Creek on August 31.
Police allege Ms Easey had been dead since August 17 after she was allegedly killed at a Central Coast home before being left in a bedroom, then in the back of a van near Cardiff, before her body was found.
The trial will continue on Thursday and is expected to take five weeks.
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Madeline Link
Madeline Link is a journalist at the Newcastle Herald, with a focus on Lake Macquarie City Council. To keep up with my stories, follow my Twitter @madeline_link, for tips email madeline.link@newcastleherald.com.au.
Madeline Link is a journalist at the Newcastle Herald, with a focus on Lake Macquarie City Council. To keep up with my stories, follow my Twitter @madeline_link, for tips email madeline.link@newcastleherald.com.au.
