An extortion plot for $100,000 over a false rape allegation was the last straw for the man defence lawyers say really killed Melbourne mum Ellie Price.
The 26-year-old was found dead from horrific stab injuries in the bedroom of her South Melbourne apartment on May 4, 2020.
Her boyfriend Ricardo Barbaro is standing trial for murder in the Victorian Supreme Court.
But his barrister, Rishi Nathwani, says the evidence means jurors can’t rule out brothel owner Mark Gray may have arranged for someone to kill her, and therefore must acquit.
Jurors heard Ms Price had tried to extort Mr Gray, the sugar daddy who paid for her apartment, car, clothes and a $2000 weekly allowance.
Mr Gray told the court in two days of evidence during Barbaro’s trial that he didn’t want anything in exchange for all he provided, but Mr Nathwani asked jurors if common sense and life experience backed that claim.
“Imagine getting all that given to you and going to find somebody else,” he read from texts Mr Gray sent to Ms Price’s sister Danielle after her death.
“At the end of the day she was replacing me with this guy … I was always the bridesmaid and never the bride.”
Mr Nathwani said the relationship between Mr Gray and Ms Price was one-way and it was clear Mr Gray was getting upset and frustrated.
“This was the final straw for him,” he said of the extortion plot.
The brothel owner risked losing his licence to operate his businesses if a rape allegation was made, the barrister said
“After years of being shunned, she went after his business.”
Mr Gray had also professed to know some of the "meanest people in Melbourne" and had himself, more than two years ago, suggested defence would claim at trial that he had hired a hitman to kill Ms Price because of the extortion plot.
Barbaro was arrested in NSW days after Ms Price's death, after first travelling to Canberra.
Prosecutors suggested he fled the state to avoid being detected by police.
But Mr Nathwani said he didn’t leave the state until May 5 - a day after Ms Price’s body was found and six days after it’s believed she was killed.
He also questioned why a person running from the police would rent a van in their own name, using their driver’s licence, from their father’s employer as Barbaro had.
“It comes right back to you,” he said.
He suggested it was not unreasonable Barbaro, like his family, also had a mistrust of police given he had two brothers die with some police involvement.
Prosecutor Damien Hannan said in his closing address on Tuesday that defence had posed this case as a whodunnit, with Mr Gray a distraction from the real issues of the trial.
But Mr Nathwani suggested at the end of their deliberations jurors could not conclude Mr Gray might not have been involved.
“Whodunnit? The distraction,” he said.
Justice Lex Lasry will direct jurors on matters of law before they begin their deliberations.
