Exactly half an hour before university student Jamie Gao was allegedly murdered inside a dimly lit shed, his accused killers paid a visit to what would be his execution site, a court has heard.
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Former policeman Glen McNamara says he went to the shed at the request of his co-accused Roger Rogerson to fix a stiff door at 1.16pm on May 20, 2014.
"It was like a lock that needed WD40 and it needed to be lubricated. I thought a squirt of WD40," Mr McNamara said as he explained his reason for visiting the shed shortly before Mr Gao's death.
Mr McNamara is captured on security footage opening and shutting the door of unit 803 four times.
Crown prosecutor Christopher Maxwell QC argued the pair was at the shed arranging it for a planned killing.
But Mr McNamara maintained he was there to inspect the door of a shed – a shed that did not belong to either of the co-accused.
"I put it to you that you were down at that shed at that time for a reason very different to fixing that door," Mr Maxwell said.
"No," Mr McNamara replied.
"You were arranging the shed," Mr Maxwell continued.
"No," he said.
"You were working out the best way to kill Jamie Gao."
"Absolutely not."
After Mr Rogerson and Mr McNamara had visited the shed they drove to nearby Arab Road. It was here Mr Gao got into the white Ford station wagon that Mr McNamara was driving.
"From the time Jamie Gao got in your car at Arab Road, that was the first step in making him disappear, what do you say about that?" asked Mr Maxwell.
"No," replied the accused.
"And that you'd arranged it with Roger Rogerson?"
"No," he replied.
"You did everything you could to ensure that from the time he got in your car, he would not be observed by closed circuit television," Mr Maxwell said.
Again Mr McNamara replied, "No."
Mr McNamara and Mr Rogerson are accused of killing Mr Gao inside unit 803 and then dumping his body off the coast of Cronulla.
The prosecution has argued the pair carried out the alleged murder in order to steal almost three kilograms of the drug ice that Mr Gao had brought to sell them.
But each is pinning the murder on the other.
Mr McNamara claims Mr Rogerson shot and killed Mr Gao, and that he helped to dispose of the 20-year-old's body only because Mr Rogerson had threatened his life and the lives of his daughters.
But Mr Rogerson maintains it was Glen McNamara who shot and killed Mr Gao.
Both have pleaded not guilty to all charges against them.
The trial continues before Justice Geoffrey Bellew.
