A WOMAN filmed holding a firearm the night before it was allegedly used to kill ice dealer David King during a "drug rip gone wrong" at Salt Ash claims the gun belonged to Mr King and he had given it to her to film a video while she waited to buy drugs.
The jury in the murder trial of Elijah Cage, Max Lowcock and Tyson Stamp were on Tuesday played the video, which shows the woman "parading" up and down a street at night clutching a gun and saying "If he doesn't hurry up I'll shoot the dog".
The woman gave evidence that the video had been filmed at Mayfield on the night of August 28, 2021, when she went to meet Mr King to buy drugs.
"I was just showing off," the woman gave evidence. "David King had [the gun] in the car. He said I could take the video."
Mr King, a 45-year-old mid-level methamphetamine dealer from Tanilba Bay, was killed when he was shot once at close range with a shortened shotgun while behind the wheel of a ute in Hideaway Drive on the afternoon of August 29, 2021.
The car then swerved off the road, careered into a tree and two men got out covered in blood, the jury has heard.
The trio of Mr Cage, Mr Lowcock and Mr Stamp have all pleaded not guilty to murdering Mr King as well as kidnapping the woman who brokered the drug deal and witnessed the shooting and are currently facing a trial in Newcastle Supreme Court.
It is the prosecution case that Mr King was shot by either Mr Cage or Mr Lowcock, who were in the car with him at the time he was gunned down, while Mr Stamp was waiting nearby in a hired Hyundai Santa Fe.
The woman filmed holding the gun was in a relationship with Mr Cage at the time of Mr King's death and is an important witness in the case, the jury has heard.
But her claim that she was handed the gun by Mr King the night before he was shot is disputed by the prosecution.
"The crown case is that the assertion that it was David King who let her hold the gun, that is false," Crown prosecutor Liam Shaw said during his opening address. "That is an endeavour to get her boyfriend Mr Cage off and putting the gun into the hands of the man who was shot."
