Brisbane socialite Maureen Boyce was stabbed to death in a "jealous rage" by an on-and-off lover she met in the United States, the Supreme Court has heard.
Thomas Chris Lang is accused of killing Ms Boyce by stabbing her in the stomach up to five times, and has pleaded not guilty to murder at his trial which began today in Brisbane.
Mr Lang said he called police to Ms Boyce's Kangaroo Point apartment in inner-Brisbane in October 2015, where he had been staying with her.
Ms Boyce, 68, was well-known in Brisbane for her modelling work in the 1970s.
In his opening address, crown prosecutor David Meredith told the jury police found Ms Boyce "lying in bed with a cooking knife impaling her to the bed".
"The knife was protruding from her back," he said.
Mr Meredith said Mr Lang had concerns about Ms Boyce's faithfulness towards him.
"[Lang] … in a jealous rage stabbed Maureen Boyce four or five times in the stomach while she sleeps and kills her," he said.
The court heard Mr Lang told police officers that Ms Boyce was "extremely distressed" the night of her death and threw her mobile phone off the balcony, because prospective buyers did not make an offer to purchase her penthouse.
It was originally on the market for $3.7 million.
Mr Meredith said Mr Lang has made no claim he acted in self-defence.
"The real issue in this case is whether it was Thomas Lang who stabbed Maureen Boyce or whether she committed suicide," he said.
"Four to five thrusts of a knife can hardly be accidental."
Defence barrister Tony Glynn urged the jury to carefully consider the evidence.
"Don't fall into the trap of thinking 'nobody kills themselves by stabbing themselves'" he said.
The court heard Ms Boyce married her husband Graham Boyce in 1976 and when the relationship broke down she went to live in the United States to work as a model, where she met Mr Lang.
The prosecution said Ms Boyce and Mr Lang's relationship was on and off and they rekindled their relationship in 2013.
Mr Meredith said Ms Boyce told her son Zachary when he was a teenager, that Mr Lang was his father.
Mr Lang's murder trial is expected to run for two weeks.
