Jessica Silva killed her violent, abusive ex-partner James Polkinghorne by stabbing him five times outside her family's inner Sydney home in May 2012.
Now her older brother Miguel Silva is on trial, charged over a murder committed by 28-year-old Mr Polkinghorne two months earlier.
In the Sydney District Court on Tuesday Mr Silva, 30, pleaded not guilty to being an accessory after the fact to the murder of drug dealer Nikolas Argiropoulos.
Mr Argiropoulos, 24, of Earlwood, was shot twice in the face at point blank range in Ballast Point Park in Birchgrove either on or around midnight on March 22, 2012.
Crown Prosecutor Mark Hobart SC told the jury Mr Polkinghorne shot Mr Argiropoulos when the two had arranged to meet on the evening on March 21 to complete a drug transaction.
Mr Hobart said Mr Silva was also at the meeting. After Mr Argiropoulos was murdered Mr Silva left the scene, walking to Darling Street then catching a taxi to the smash repair business he owned in Marrickville.
In the next hour, Mr Polkinghorne used one of Mr Argiropoulos's mobile phones to repeatedly call Mr Silva, who eventually picked him up and drove him back to the Marrickville workshop.
Mr Hobart said Mr Silva assisted Mr Polkinghorne knowing he had committed a murder.
"If he was an innocent bystander he had plenty of opportunity to contact police and give a full explanation but he never did," Mr Hobart said.
Mr Hobart said Mr Silva later assisted Mr Polkinghorne by letting him use his identity card when checking into a hotel.
Mr Silva's barrister Gregory Scragg said his client disputed the prosecution's version of events and the defence case would centre on whether Mr Silva "intentionally assisted James Polkinghorne in the way the Crown alleges,".
"The evidence that emerges during the trial will paint a completely different picture," Mr Scragg said.
"It will become an issue when it was that the accused first became aware that James Polkinghorne had murdered the deceased."
The court heard Mr Argiropoulos began his drug dealing career by selling steroids to people who used a gym in Marrickville where he trained. He graduated to selling cocaine and pills and boasted to friends about his connections with an Asian syndicate distributing methylamphetamine, known as ice.
Mr Polkinghorne was an ice addict who became aggressive and paranoid when using the drug.
On the evening of March 21, Mr Polkinghorne and Mr Silva travelled into the CBD where they collected a quantity of drugs from Mr Argiropoulos. They arraigned to meet a few hours later to hand over the money. Mr Polkinghorne later told a friend he shot Mr Argiropoulos because "I was desperate and I didn't have the money".
Mr Argiropoulos's body was found by a woman on an early morning walk on March 22.
The jury heard that weeks later Jessica Silva stabbed Mr Polkinghorne to death outside her family's Livingstone Street, Marrickville home and was charged with murder.
Ms Silva has provided a statement to be read at her brother's trial, with the court hearing she would find giving oral evidence too distressing.
The trial before Judge Penelope Hock continues.
