A court has heard the mother of a woman accused of murdering her partner on Christmas Eve feared for her daughter’s life in the lead-up to the alleged stabbing.
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Elise Walker, 34, faced the Bendigo Magistrates’ Court on Tuesday, charged with murdering Matthew Johnston, 37, in their Kangaroo Flat home last year.
Ms Walker’s mother, Jacqueline Stallinga, told the court Mr Johnston had previously sold drugs out of a previous residence and had weapons, including a baseball bat with nails sticking out of it and barbed wire wrapped around it, hanging on the walls.
Ms Stallinga said Mr Johnston was spiraling into a “rant and revenge cycle” and “plotting revenge on anyone that has wronged him” and spoke about beating people with the baseball bat and cutting them up with a chainsaw.
“We used to call it his rant mode and he would just sound off,” she said.
“If he didn't kill her in some way shape or form, he was going to sell her off for drugs.”
Ms Stallinga said Mr Johnson could be “lovely” and she sometimes saw “the Matt my daughter fell in love with”, “but then just as quickly he would spiral down into this cycle of violence”.
She said she had noticed “unexplained bruising” on her daughter during the relationship, including black eyes and an apparent broken nose.
“She worshiped the ground he walked on but the reality is he controlled almost every moment of her day,” she said.
On the night of the alleged murder, Ms Stallinga said Ms Walker told her she didn’t remember stabbing Mr Johnston but recalled holding the knife in her hand and making a sideways movement, telling her “I’ve killed my boy” and “I can’t believe it happened”.
“Matt brought the knife into the argument and said for her to leave she had to kill him,” she said.
Ms Stallinga said her daughter was “still shattered” by what had occurred.
“At the end of the day, because of that action the man that she loved died,” she said.
The hearing continues before magistrate Bruce Cottrill on Wednesday.