HE admitted to the cover-up, but denied the murder.
And now Justin Kent Dilosa, accused of killing Danielle Easey and dumping her body in Cockle Creek, will face a re-trial on his own after a jury could not reach a unanimous or majority verdict in the case against him, days after they convicted his ex-partner of killing the 29-year-old mother.
Mr Dilosa and Carol Marie McHenry had been on trial in NSW Supreme Court since early October, accused of murdering Ms Easey at a house at Narara on August 17, 2019.
The pair had pointed the finger at each other, both claiming they were asleep when the other stabbed and bludgeoned Ms Easey with a hammer in the bedroom of McHenry's home in Reeves Street.
On the stand for a week, Mr Dilosa claimed he had fallen asleep in his van, parked near Reeves Street, on the night Ms Easey was killed.
He said when he woke up and knocked on McHenry's door she told him "we've got to go".
He gave evidence that on the drive up to Newcastle, McHenry started crying, asked him to pull over and told him: "I'm never going to see the kids again. I don't know what I've done. She had to go."
Mr Dilosa said McHenry then showed him a bag containing a knife, a hammer and a bloody piece of material and in the following days he got to work, covering up what he said she had done.
Mr Dilosa admitted to burning the weapons and returning to the house at Narara to wrap up Ms Easey's body in black plastic and a doona.
He said he put her body in a cupboard - which investigators referred to as a "makeshift coffin" - and later drove it to Cardiff in his van where he left it for days before dumping Ms Easey's body in Cockle Creek.
The prosecution case against both Mr Dilosa and McHenry relied on a number of admissions they made in the aftermath of Ms Easey's death, the pair allegedly telling numerous associates in the drug world that they were responsible.
Mr Dilosa waved those away in his evidence, saying they were either lies or where he had confessed he had done so to protect McHenry.
And, after listening to his evidence, and watching McHenry's interviews with the police, the jury were left with no doubt that McHenry had murdered her friend.
McHenry, who also posed as Ms Easey on social media after her death in a bid to defraud Ms Easey's mother, will be sentenced in April.
But when it came to Mr Dilosa, who was represented by Public Defender Angus Webb and solicitor Adrian Kiely, the jury were hopelessly deadlocked and unable to reach either a unanimous or majority verdict.
He will face a re-trial likely in 2024.
