A Victorian woman accused of ordering her new husband to execute her former fiance over a bitter custody battle, which ultimately left both men dead, allegedly told her own mother that "it wasn't meant to get this out of control," a court has heard.
Biannca Edmunds appeared in the Supreme Court of Victoria where she is standing trial over the murder of Michael Caposiena at Westmeadows six years ago.
She has pleaded not guilty.
Mr Caposiena, her former fiance, was fatally shot in the head by Glen Cassidy, her husband, who also died after being stabbed multiple times with a carving knife during the bloody incident.
Prosecutors told the jury that Ms Edmunds was behind the plot which led Mr Cassidy to arm himself with a gun and seek out his wife's former lover.
"She assisted or encouraged or directed the murder of Michael Caposiena, and she did that using the hand of Glen Cassidy," crown prosecutor Neill Hutton said.
"She provided Mr Cassidy with the murder weapon and she gave him Mr Caposiena's home address," he said.
He told the court that on the day after the killings, Ms Edmunds said to her mother: "It's all my fault."
"Her mum says that when she was speaking to her that night … the accused woman said, 'It wasn't meant to get this out of control. I never wanted Glen to end up dead. Glen wasn't the one who was supposed to die,'" Mr Hutton said.
But John Kelly SC, who is defending Ms Edmunds, told the jury that never happened.
"She denies having a conversation with Ellen Edmunds, her mother in the evening of March 12, to the effect of, 'Glen wasn't the one who was supposed to die,'" he said.
"She disputes that she assisted, encouraged, or directed Glen Cassidy to do anything of an untoward nature towards Michael Caposiena."
Court hears details of victim's grisly final moments
The court heard that in the lead-up to the killings, Mr Caposiena had wanted more access to the couple's son, which sparked a bitter custody dispute.
The jury heard Mr Cassidy travelled to Mr Caposiena's Pascoe Street Home in Westmeadows to confront him shortly after 7:30pm on March 12, 2016
The fight was witnessed by Silvana Silva, who was Mr Caposiena's girlfriend.
The court heard that as the two men shook hands, Mr Cassidy pushed Mr Caposiena back into the apartment and, while holding the other man's right hand, pointed the barrel of the gun towards his target's head.
Mr Caposiena tried to shrug the gun off and managed to stab Mr Cassidy during the struggle before the trigger was pulled.
"A short time later Mr Caposiena falls to the ground, he's mortally wounded, probably instantly dead because he's been shot right through the ear," prosecutor Mr Hutton said.
When police arrived at the scene, they found Mr Cassidy's body outside the house with stab wounds and Mr Caposiena's body inside, with a gunshot wound.
Prosecutors told the court police later found a map inside Mr Cassidy's jeans, which they allege the accused woman drew for him, and which detailed the neighbourhood including the location of security lights and barking dogs.
The jury was told that in the lead-up to the fatal killings Ms Edmunds' mother-in-law, Maree Cassidy, heard her saying: "I wish I could get someone to kill him. I want someone to shoot him."
They also heard that on another occasion, Ms Edmunds allegedly said to Mr Cassidy: "If you were a real man, you had any f**king balls, you'd go and deal with this bloke. You're a spineless coward. You're not a real man at all."
Prosecution dismisses text message alibi
The prosecutor, Mr Hutton, told the jury that after the killings, Ms Edmunds sent herself a "false alibi" to her own phone from Mr Cassidy.
The message allegedly read: "Biannca, I love you so much. You have no idea. I'm about to do something that you would consider absolutely f**king stupid, but I can't put up with this shit anymore … If I get caught, I want them to know you had nothing at all to do with this."
But Mr Hutton told the Supreme Court that Mr Cassidy's literacy level was not capable of producing a text message like that.
"There are several witnesses in this trial who know what Mr Cassidy's level of schooling was like and will say that that's not the type of text he wrote. He wrote much shorter, he wrote spelling errors, he used words like obstacles and bullet spelled incorrectly," he said.
"After the shooting the accused tells her mum about this alibi text message and forwards it to her mum and her mum is one of the ones who says that the alibi was not written by Cassidy because the grammar was perfect.
"Later on, after the murder the accused had a new boyfriend … and she admits … that she wrote that text message because the accused couldn't spell properly."
Mr Kelly, who is defending Ms Edmunds, said he would be taking the jury through other examples of Mr Cassidy's texting.
"He had voice to text capability on his Samsung Galaxy," he said.
The trial continues.
