The man lawyers say framed accused killer Thomas Bednar for the murder of his mother spoke to police during a welfare check when her body was found.
Bednar's barrister John Desmond claims the 54-year-old is being framed, and that family friend Danny Cohen is the one who killed 78-year-old Judy Bednar in her Chelsea home in May 2021.
Bednar is standing trial for murder in Victoria's Supreme Court and has pleaded not guilty.
Mr Cohen, a family friend of the Bednars, gave evidence on Wednesday that he had access to Mrs Bednar's doorbell camera.
He was notified when officers arrived at her home for a welfare check on May 14. Her body was discovered naked and extensively injured on her bedroom floor.
"I'm looking after Judy. I'm looking after her welfare. Ask her, she'll tell you," Mr Cohen told an officer at the door through the camera.
"Did something happen again today? Is Judy OK?"
Bednar told officers when he was questioned about his mother's death that he believed he was being framed.
Mr Desmond said there was a viable alternative suspect, and it was a plausible possibility that someone determined to frame Bednar was the real killer.
"The defence says that it would be someone ... aware that Thomas Bednar had a negative attitude toward his mother," he said.
"It will become clear that we're nominating Danny Cohen as the ultimate suspect for the killing."
Mr Cohen told the jury he had a conversation with Mrs Bednar about her will three days before she was killed and that he had raised the topic.
"It was following a conversation I had with her that she fears her safety for life," he said.
But prosecutor Mark Rochford KC has told jurors Bednar had sent abusive text messages to his mother in the year before her death, including one saying "it won't be long until the sharks eat your flesh".
The relationship between the mother and son broke down when Bednar was young. He went to live with a foster family at 15.
It's alleged Bednar killed her because he blamed his mother for a series of involuntary mental health admissions.
About a year before his mother's death, Bednar began sending "delusional, aggressive, paranoid" messages to a number of people including his mother, Mr Rochford said.
"I'm sick of my mum making out as though I'm crazy," read one June 2020 text. He threatened he would "curse" the family unless he received his inheritance.
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