Christopher Anderson was "full of rage" when he allegedly stabbed his pregnant girlfriend to death in a Maroubra apartment, the NSW Supreme Court heard on Monday.
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Mr Anderson has pleaded not guilty to murdering 23-year-old Allira Green, who was five months pregnant with his child, when she died from a single 15.5 centimetre stab wound in the early hours of August 3, 2013.
In her opening arguments, Crown prosecutor Virginia Lydiard told the court that the handle of the kitchen knife used to pierce Ms Green's heart had produced a positive match with Mr Anderson's DNA. The pair had been in a "dysfunctional and sometimes volatile relationship" and had exchanged "a number of heated text messages" in the hours before she was stabbed, she said.
But Mr Anderson's barrister Charles Waterstreet said Ms Green's death was an "unfortunate accident", arguing that his client had acted in self-defence after Ms Green, who was high on drugs, had launched herself at him with a knife.
Key witness, Allira Holt, recalled how she had gone to collect Ms Green from her friend Louise Bodeker's Maroubra unit in Sydney's east, when Mr Anderson, then 39, also arrived at the premise.
"I went to walk out the door and Mr Chris Anderson was standing at the door trying to grab the door off me," she said.
"His eyes were very scary."
Ms Holt said the accused said "you're dead or I'm going to get you" before a fight broke out as the women tried to force Mr Anderson out of the unit.
"We were trying to push him out the door and he was trying to grab Allira."
The court was told that at one point Mr Anderson had grabbed Ms Holt by the neck and thrown her across the room.
Then, Ms Holt said she "felt a sting in her back", which caused her to yelp out in pain, her knees to buckle and her eyes to close momentarily.
When she opened them she saw that Ms Green had "taken a step backwards and she was holding her chest".
"She just collapsed. She fell to floor front down."
Although she glimpsed the knife she could not be sure who had been holding it, she said.
But Mr Waterstreet said Ms Green had been the first to wield the knife and in the course of attempting to stab or kill his client was ultimately "the instrument of her own demise".
Mr Anderson had been "very zealous" to protect the baby from Ms Green's "unfortunate addiction" to ice and had performed a "Bruce Lee like manourve" in order to wrestle the weapon from Ms Green, he said.
The crown said Mr Anderson then fled the scene and called a friend, saying he had been set up and that he was on Xanax and "ice".
The trial continues on Tuesday
