A witness has told a judge she heard a young woman had gone missing soon after she saw her in a supermarket looking petrified and saying her life had been threatened.
"She was absolutely shaken almost like she had seen a ghost," Kelly Smith testified in the NSW Supreme Court on Friday.
"She said that Craig had threatened to kill her when he got out."
She was giving evidence at the trial of 51-year-old James "Jim" Scott Church, who has pleaded not guilty to murdering Leisl Smith, who vanished from the NSW Central Coast on August 19, 2012.
The body of the 23-year-old has never been found.
The Crown alleges the then-farrier killed her after she told people she was pregnant to him and because he wanted to save his new relationship with Belinda Lees.
But the defence has put forward other scenarios including that Ms Smith's former partner Craig Elkin, who has since died, was a viable suspect or that she disappeared on purpose.
Kelly Smith told the judge-alone trial her son had been a friend of Leisl Smith's brother.
She could not recall the year, but remembered seeing Ms Smith in the Wadalba Coles a few days or possibly a week or two before her son told her she had gone missing.
"The fact that I had bumped into Leisl and given how distressed she was, I wished I had said something," she said.
"If I knew she was going to disappear I could have possibly helped her a bit more."
Ms Smith, who was with a young man who seemed to be consoling towards her, was extremely shaken and rattled.
"She was scared for her life," she said.
"She said she was concerned because of what her father had done."
She told her Mr Elkin had threatened to kill her because he said he had been set up with drugs by her father Storm Smith.
Her son later told her: "Have you heard where Leisl is? Nobody can find her, she has gone missing".
The witness was told of other evidence in the trial indicating the alleged drugs set-up occurred in 2009.
But when asked if the supermarket encounter could have been years before she heard of the disappearance, Ms Smith replied no.
"It was not long after I spoke to Leisl that Keiran told me Leisl had disappeared."
Keiran Smith gave evidence that he didn't tell his mother about the disappearance.
She had told him after he moved to Queensland in 2013.
He said he did not know the year but recalled an incident when he was in a car with Leisl Smith and others, when Mr Elkin had threatened her.
"I was just told Storm set Craig up with some pills," he said.
"Storm didn't get on with him. I think he just wanted him out of the picture."
He said Mr Elkin was on crutches and came running up to the car and said "I am going to f***ing kill you".
Mr Smith said he then distanced himself from those people as "I didn't want to be a target myself".
"It was pretty intimidating having a fully grown man yell at us."
The trial continues before Justice Elizabeth Fullerton.
