A man beat his girlfriend until she was unable to move or speak, then went to sleep and woke up to find her dead beside him, a court has heard.
Mataio Aleluia had been in a relationship with his girlfriend Brittany Harvie, 22, for about six months when he killed her, the Supreme Court heard on the first day of his murder trial on Thursday.
Senior Crown prosecutor Andrew Tinney, SC, said that Aleluia, 20, became enraged when she denied allegations she had had an affair, and began beating her in her car in the early hours of June 3, 2015. The couple were living in the car at the time, and had parked it near a nature reserve in Clayton South.
Aleluia, who admitted to police the next day he had killed Harvie, has pleaded not guilty to murder, arguing he is guilty of the lesser crime of manslaughter because he did not intend to kill or really seriously injure her.
An autopsy revealed Harvie had suffered 122 mostly fresh injuries and other internal injuries including to her liver. She died due to complications of blunt force trauma, the court heard.
"The acts of the accused... were conscious, voluntary and deliberate and carried out for no better reason than he was angry and jealous," Mr Tinney said.
Defence counsel George Georgiou, SC, said that his client had confessed to killing Harvie to a counsellor the next day and waited for police to arrive, later telling them he did not mean to kill her. Mr Georgiou told the jury to question whether he had intended to kill Harvie or cause her injury, but not serious injury.
"Was he even thinking about the consequences of his conduct as he was committing the assault?" he said.
"The fact that death occurred does not necessarily meant that's what he intended to cause."
While Mr Tinney said there was nothing to suggest that Harvie, a mother of two, had had an affair, Aleluia told police he had punched Harvie about 20 times before she admitted she had cheated on him. He then rolled a cigarette and punched her again.
He also said that after days of denying the allegations, he "lost it" minutes after she maintained "nothing happened".
Harvie later told Aleluia she was cold but could not say anything else or move, the court heard. He put clothes on top of her and dragged her back to the passenger seat of the car before going to sleep.
Asked why he did not take her to the hospital, Alleluia told police he thought she would "make it through the night".
In the morning, he discovered she had died.
Aleluia said she never fought back, telling him during the attack that she loved him. At one point she stopped defending herself from his blows: "It was like it wasn't me... it was like something was controlling me," he said.
The trial before Justice James Elliott continues.