A murderer has shed tears in court after stabbing two teenage girls, killing one, and then pretending to be mentally ill to try and escape the consequences.
Earlier on Wednesday, the murdered girl's older sisters fought through sobs to tell the NSW Supreme Court the devastating impact her death had on their family.
Kristian Kovaleff, 21, has pleaded guilty to murder and wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm.
The two teenage girls, one of whom survived the December 2020 attack inside a Parramatta hotel room, cannot be identified.
Kovaleff admitted he feigned symptoms of mental disorders for up to 18 months in an attempt to avoid jail.
He told the court he regretted his actions and deserves to be punished, disagreeing with the Crown's suggestion he was only pretending to be remorseful, similar to how he had pretended to be mentally ill, in a bid to lessen his jail sentence.
He conceded his desire to have sex with the girl who survived the attack and then kill her were "maybe not" unrelated urges.
She survived, after vomiting blood and spending eight days in hospital.
Kovaleff planned to kill her the week before, when he tied her up in a Campbelltown motel room, and felt "jealous" when he heard she would be visiting the Parramatta hotel room with her friend, whom he murdered the next week.
He told the court he thought they were meeting another man at the hotel.
The Crown submitted Kovaleff instead saw an opportunity.
"You didn't kill her that night because you saw it was an opportunity not to kill one person, but two,'" the crown prosecutor told Kovaleff.
"It wasn't exactly like that," he said.
Questioned by his own barrister about why he had not killed the girl at Campbelltown, he said he didn't have "the guts", but used the next week to prepare to kill her and her friend.
"I knew I could psych myself up to kill them by watching Ted Bundy," Kovaleff said.
He had a "pre-occupation" with the notorious serial killer since he was 16.
Kovaleff began to cry as he told the court he felt sorry for the family of the girl he killed, who did not deserve anything he did to her.
Earlier, the girl's older sister told the court she had to translate the news delivered by two policemen in the middle of the night that she had been brutally stabbed to her parents.
Her parents have moved house, struggled to work and deal with depression every day.
Her father sings sad songs and paces around the house crying into the early hours of the morning, while her mother remembers bringing her water as she studied the day before her death.
"Ever since the tragedy, every day I take some water to (the) library to look for my baby girl," she said in her statement, read by her daughter.
In her own statement, the woman said she is getting used to hiding how "empty" she feels after her sister's death.
"(Her) heartless murder will burn in our minds and soul for the rest of our lives," she said.
Another of the girl's sisters recalled their mother refusing to let the coffin close at her funeral
She said her parents no longer allow themselves to feel joy or have fun.
"I can see the guilt in their eyes every time they want to smile, laugh or just have a good time," she said.
The hearing was adjourned to receive further evidence at a date yet to be determined, before Kovaleff is sentenced.
