WHERE was Justin Dilosa when Danielle Easey was brutally murdered?
Was he with his ex-girlfriend in the bedroom of her home at Narara as the pair savagely attacked the 29-year-old mother, stabbing her and striking her with a hammer?
Or had his ex acted alone? Had Dilosa gone outside and fallen asleep in his van at the most opportune time, the consequence of days of using methamphetamine.
What exactly happened to Danielle, known as "Del", and why?
It's a mystery that has plagued Danielle Easey's family and friends since her body was found dumped in Cockle Creek on August 31, 2019.
After nearly four years and two lengthy criminal trials in the NSW Supreme Court, a jury on Thursday returned with answers to a few of those enduring questions.
We may never know exactly what happened inside the bedroom in Reeves Street, but the jury were left with at least some doubt that Dilosa was directly involved in her killing, finding him not guilty of murdering Ms Easey alongside his ex partner, Carol McHenry.
As for a motive for Ms Easey's brutal death, an investigation, two trials and hundreds of pages of testimony have not unearthed much other than the paranoia you might expect from a group of people whose life is completely consumed by methamphetamine.
The 37-year-old Dilosa, who was represented by Public Defender Angus Webb and Newcastle solicitor Adrian Kiely, had admitted to the cover-up, but denied the murder.
And despite the weight of evidence that he was involved after the killing, the prosecution case against him being present in the bedroom during Ms Easey's murder was a purely circumstantial one.
There was no direct evidence linking him to the murder. No CCTV, no DNA, no eyewitness.
But on the night she died, Dilosa admitted to burning his beloved pig-hunting knife in a backyard bonfire at Cardiff before he later returned to the house at Narara.
There he wrapped up Ms Easey's body and drove it around in a "makeshift coffin" for several days before dumping it in Cockle Creek not far from Wakefield Road at Killingworth.
Dilosa claimed he did all this not because he was involved, but because he wanted to protect the real killer, his ex-partner, McHenry.
And he also repeatedly confessed to a number of associates in the drug world, telling almost anyone who would listen that he "took responsibility".
"You know that chick, she was no good," Dilosa said, according to one associate. "I had to kill her. She was going to hurt my friends and I'd do it again."
He told another associate that "everything was fine until the crack ran out".
"She started to lose it," Dilosa said, according to the associate. "She was saying she was gonna bring everyone down. Then it happened. I stabbed her in the head and in the back."
But Dilosa said he had either never made those "admissions" and if he had they were uttered only to take the wrap for McHenry, who he said he did not want to see separated from her children.
The jury's verdict means they must have accepted his version about falling asleep in the van, which he gave during his first murder trial in late 2022, and found that when he was confessing to the killing he was doing so in a "bizarre" and "ludicrous" drug-addled attempt to protect McHenry.
And they must have found that when he went to those extreme lengths to cover up the grisly murder, it was not because he was involved, but because he wanted to help McHenry, his former partner of some eight months.
It was the second time Dilosa has faced a murder trial after a jury in December last year was deadlocked over his involvement in Ms Easey's killing.
And now that Dilosa's second trial has ended with an acquittal, the Newcastle Herald can reveal his ex-partner, Carol McHenry, was last year found guilty of murdering Ms Easey at the conclusion of what was then a joint trial with Dilosa.
The pair had pointed the finger at each other, both claiming they were asleep when the other murdered Ms Easey.
In that case the jury were left with no doubt McHenry had murdered her friend, but at least some of those jurors were left with some doubt that Dilosa was directly involved too.
The Herald can also reveal McHenry was last month jailed for a maximum of 22 years and six months, with a non-parole period of 15 years and six months, making her eligible for parole in 2035.
She was also sentenced for defrauding Ms Easey's mother, Jennifer Collier, in the days after she murdered her daughter.
In an incredibly callous act, McHenry began using Ms Easey's phone and her Facebook account in a bid to make it appear she was still alive and defrauded Ms Easey's mother of $50.
"It has taken approximately three and a half years to get here, but here we are." Ms Collier said in a moving victim impact statement read as part of McHenry's sentence proceedings in April. "This is one of the hardest things I've ever had to do to come face to face with my daughter's killer and to try to put into words just what your actions on that fateful night and then for the next couple of weeks have done to me and my family."
Ms Collier discussed the last time she had seen her beloved daughter, who she called "Del".
"When Del left our house that day, I said to her: "stay safe, love", Ms Collier said. "She replied: "Always, mum". That was the last time I saw her face. She would always message or call and when I didn't hear from her for two days, I sent a message to her phone saying I was going to report her missing. "Sure enough, that was when you started messaging me, pretending to be her.
"I believed you were her and that plays on my mind nearly every single day. "What if I had acted on that feeling that it may not be Del. Could I have changed anything deep down? I know that her life light had already gone out, but I can't shake that feeling. "And then for you to ask me for money to get home, well, I would've given anything to get her home that day. And you knew that. How could you be so cold and calculating? This was the same day the detectives turned up and told us our beautiful daughter had been murdered. All I could do to stop from collapsing was to argue with them and tell them they had the wrong person because I had been talking to Danielle on messenger and I'd put money in her account that morning. Only to be told by the officers that it was her murderer. You. How could you be so calm and collected after you murdered my beautiful girl? And then you went on with your life bragging and telling people what you had done. I cannot fully explain what your actions have done to my family and myself, but I do hope that your life in prison is as tough as mine is."
She was the only person found guilty of killing Ms Easey, but McHenry's path to a conviction for murder was far from certain.
She was initially charged only with being an accessory after the fact to murder and fraud and it wasn't until December, 2020, when prosecutors decided to upgrade her charges to murder.
In retrospect it seemed like the right move when she was the first to be found guilty at the conclusion of the 2022 trial. Now, after Dilosa's acquittal, it seems like a stroke of genius.
In the end, McHenry was sunk by her own admissions and the evidence of Dilosa, who claimed he had protected her as long as he could before she turned and tried to pin the blame on him.
Dilosa's evidence worked, in part, the first time. McHenry was convicted and he got a re-trial.
And with McHenry gone from the court dock, the second jury found the confessions, Dilosa's behaviour in burning the murder weapon and dumping the body were not strands in a cable that bound together to make a powerful circumstantial case against him, but the "ludicrous" and "bizarre" drug-addled behaviour of someone who was loyal in a world without loyalty.
And so the answer to the question; where was Justin Dilosa when Danielle Easey was killed?
Well, the jury, through their verdict, say he wasn't in that bedroom in Reeves Street and he wasn't armed with a knife.
They say McHenry acted alone and murdered her friend in the most horrific way.
Dilosa remains behind bars after pleading guilty to being an accessory after the fact to murder and will be sentenced at a later date.
