A Sydney cleaner says she can't remember repeatedly beating and stabbing her elderly client and woke up with a knife surrounded by blood, her murder trial has been told.
Hanny Papanicolaou, 38, has pleaded not guilty to murdering Marjorie Welsh in her Ashbury home on January 2, 2019.
The 92-year-old died six weeks later in hospital, but not before she told police "Hanny the housekeeper" turned up unexpectedly and attacked her before she sounded an emergency medical alarm.
Papanicolaou admits to killing the woman and has pleaded guilty to manslaughter on the basis of substantial impairment due to abnormality of the mind.
The Crown has rejected this plea.
The house cleaner giving evidence on Tuesday in the NSW Supreme Court says she "blacked out" after driving to Peace Park behind Ms Welsh's inner western Sydney house.
She then jumped the back fence and allegedly hit Ms Welsh with her walking sticks so forcefully they broke, and smashed heavy ceramics down upon the defenceless woman.
But Ms Welsh was still alive, so Papanicolaou used a kitchen knife to "fix this problem," stabbing her in the lower chest and abdomen, prosecutor Christopher Taylor said in cross-examination.
Papanicolaou said she doesn't know what happened that day and had been feeling increasingly distressed for months, after outlining events of childhood trauma.
"I see Marj ... the sound of the (alarm) machine makes me open my eyes and get up, I don't know what I'm doing, just looking in front of Marj in front of the fridge with a lot of blood," she said.
"The blood is in my hands, I was holding the knife ... I just grab the cloth and I just run."
Earlier that morning the regular gambler lost $430 from poker machines in under an hour and was left with just $11 in her bank account, the jury has been told.
Mr Taylor asked why Papanicolaou left her client of one year in a pool of blood, ceramics and broken cane, never calling for help.
"I don't know," she responded.
After the attack she left a bloodied DNA trail in two bedrooms and a cupboard as she "frantically" searched for cash, he said.
Mr Taylor asked why the call machine records showed the power source was switched off after the alarm was sounded.
"No explanation," she said.
Papanicolaou admitted wrapping the bloodied knife and Ms Welsh's home phone in a white cloth before jumping back over the fence and driving away quickly.
She then dumped the package in a bin and her clothes in another street.
"I am just thinking I want to go home and see my child ... I'm just so panicked I don't know what I'm doing."
The crown case is Papanicolaou wanted to rob Ms Welsh after learning she had come into $8 million from the sale of a property.
She had been told Ms Welsh would be away on holiday until the end of January, but was confronted and attempted to make it appear like a random home invasion, the Crown says.
Papanicolaou said she felt increasingly isolated in an unhappy marriage, and was struggling with a newborn baby, had become deeply depressed and escaped her problems through gambling.
She admitted lying to police in an interview where she said Ms Welsh had been the one who attacked her first after accusing her of stealing $50.
The Crown says this "long story" to detectives included significant details she could only know having full memory of the event.
The trial continues.
