Financial dependency and a hostile relationship were the motives behind the alleged murder of a family matriarch in Red Hill nearly four years ago, prosecutors have told a jury.
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At the start of her closing arguments on Wednesday, prosecutor Margaret Jones said the Crown would also rely on the artist Melissa Beowulf's tendency to become enraged at Katherine Panin's moves to restrict the artist's power of attorney over her affairs, as well as alleged lies about when they had left home the day she died.
Ms Jones also referenced in her closing address the evidence the court had heard about Mrs Panin's own shortcomings and how she was difficult to live with.
"This is not a popularity contest," she said.
"It doesn't matter if the person is difficult to live with, that's not relevant."
The portrait artist and Archibald Prize finalist Mrs Beowulf, 61, and two of her sons, Thorsten, 33, and Bjorn Beowulf, 31, have pleaded not guilty to murdering 82-year-old Mrs Panin.
Mrs Panin was Mrs Beowulf's mother-in-law and the two men's grandmother.
There was no love lost between the two women, Ms Jones said, with the prosecutor describing the relationship as hostile.
She told the jury the Beowulfs had run out of money and needed the funds from the sale of a Woollahra house in Mrs Panin's name to pay bills.
Mrs Panin had moved to Canberra to live with the family at their Red Hill home, a situation the court has heard caused a lot of tension.
Living at the home was Mrs Panin and her son Thorhammer Beowulf before he died earlier in 2015, as well as Mrs Beowulf and their sons, and Mr Beowulf's live-in partner Dianne McGowan and their son.
On the day she died on October 12, 2015, Mrs Panin was due to move into a retirement unit in Deakin, paid for with money from the sale of the Woollahra home.
It was Mrs Beowulf who called emergency services, telling the operator she and her sons had come home to find Mrs Panin at the foot of the Red Hill home's back stairs and "completely dead".
Police launched a murder investigation a month later, prompted by a phone call to Mrs Beowulf in November to clarify the timeline.
The police investigation was not being fuelled by Dr McGowan, as the Beowulfs had believed, Ms Jones said.
Ms Jones told the jury the accused had lied about the time they had left the home that day, originally telling police it was 10am.
It was only later when called by the police in November that Mrs Beowulf said they had left at 2pm.
The prosecutor also pointed to evidence that human contact with a computer at the home had ended at 12.41pm, and that Mrs Panin's last phone call was a few minutes earlier.
She said that was consistent with there being an altercation with Mrs Panin about a phone call she had made to a friend about an appointment to change her will.
She said Mrs Beowulf told police they had arrived home about 3.30pm, which was consistent with the phone evidence.
Mrs Beowulf had told police she called out and got no response before finding Mrs Panin on the stairs.
It was then about half-an-hour before Mrs Beowulf called triple zero at 3.55pm, Ms Jones said.
The trial continues.
