A blood smear found on a bottle of hand sanitiser buried in a handbag cannot be explained in the murder theory against Aleksander Vojneski, defence lawyers say.
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Mr Vojneski, 31, is accused of stabbing his girlfriend Paula Conlon to death in her Macgregor home on March 27, 2012.
Vojneski, a mentally unwell man with an ice habit, was allegedly becoming increasingly frustrated by failed attempts to source drugs while at Ms Conlon's house on the night of the murder.
The Crown has built a circumstantial case against him during the past five weeks of his ACT Supreme Court trial, including evidence of past incidents of violence and knife use, his behaviour that night, the day after the killing and before and after his arrest.
A teenage boarder staying in Ms Conlon's home also gave evidence of hearing a scream and the words "no, no, no" on the night of the murder, saying he was quite certain it was only Mr Vojneski, Ms Conlon, and himself in the home.
The pair's six-month relationship, which began in a psychiatric unit, was rocky and involved violence and frequent break-ups.
A fingerprint of Mr Vojneski's was found on a plastic bag near where Ms Conlon was killed, his blood on the door handle and floor tiles outside the bedroom, and another fingerprint on a different knife in the kitchen.
The Crown alleges he cut his own index finger during the attack.
But barrister Jack Pappas, in a wide-ranging attack of the prosecution case on Friday, said there was one piece of forensic evidence that could not be explained by their theory of the murder.
A blood smear containing a mixture of Mr Vojneski and Ms Conlon's DNA was found on a bottle of anti-bacterial hand sanitiser in her handbag in the bedroom in which she was killed.
The bottle was buried in the bag, and Mr Pappas said blood could not have been sprayed onto it during the attack.
He argued that meant Mr Vojneski, having murdered his girlfriend, would have had to have stopped at the handbag, picked out the bottle, wiped his hands and then left without cleaning the blood he left on the tiles or door handle.
"That's just silliness, surely, and doesn't accord with commonsense," he said.
Mr Pappas said Mr Vojneski could have cut himself earlier in the night, and gone into the room to get the antibacterial gel from the handbag.
He also asked why Mr Vojneski's blood or DNA wasn't found anywhere else at the home, nor in the van or friend's home he was at the next morning.
"How do you commit a crime like this and leave no forensic evidence that cannot be explained innocently?"
Mr Pappas said police had hatched a theory within 12 hours and then pursued Mr Vojneski in a blinkered investigation.
"They didn't have much then and, in my respectful submission, they still don't after more than a month in court."
He also attacked the Crown's alleged motive for the killing, questioning why Mr Vojneski wouldn't have called his mother or brother for drug money that night, given they routinely funded his habit in the past.
Mr Pappas offered an alternative hypothesis for the murder, which involved Mr Vojneski being dropped home by Ms Conlon, and another person coming into the home when she returned.
He said there were shoeprints on the inside of the door, one from a Converse-brand shoe, one from a police-type boot, and one from an unidentified shoe.
He also argued the murder occurred at 11.15pm, rather than 10.10pm, which the Crown has argued.
Mr Vojneski, Mr Pappas said, had also turned up at a friend's place that night looking for drugs.
"And when you add all that into the mix, do you say the accused can't have been in two places at once?"
Mr Pappas finished his closing submission on Friday. The trial will resume on Monday, when Justice John Burns is expected to sum up the case.
