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A man accused of murdering his work mentor by stabbing him 49 times after waking to him rubbing his penis on his sleeping body has pleaded not guilty.
Jesus Bebita, 41, was found laying in a pool of blood on the bathroom floor of his Scone flat in December 2018, with 49 stab wounds to his back, head and hands.
Jamie Cust, who was 21 at the time of the attack, turned himself in to police a few hours after the incident, emotionally telling them that Bebita had tried to rape him, the Daily Mail reports.
Crown prosecutor Brendon Queenan said the court would hear evidence that the two men were "good mates" and had been colleagues at Scone, JBS Meatworks.
The two men spent a night drinking together to celebrate the last evening before Cust returned to Sydney where he was due to start an apprenticeship as a chef.
21-year-old Cust attempted to call his stepfather after the attack, the prosecutor said.
"As soon as Vivian answered the phone … Mr Cust sounded hysterical, and was crying," he said.
When his stepfather Vivian Price came to pick him up from the flat, a hysterical Cust told him that Bebita had tried to rape him.
"He said he woke up, his pants were down and (Bebita) was rubbing his d**k on him," he said.
Cust then reportedly admitted to his stepfather that he'd stabbed Bebita and thought he was dead.
"Jesus mate, if you've done that the best thing you can do is go to the police," Mr Price said he'd responded.
But Cust pleaded that he wouldn't be able to turn himself in.
"He just didn't want to go to jail," Mr Price told the court.
Cust pondered fleeing the country after bundling his bloodied clothes into garbage bags, but Mr Price said he finally convinced his stepson to go to the police.
Upon giving himself up, he was asked to repeat his account of what happened to detectives.
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"I woke up, and we were in bed together, and he was touching my penis, and I freaked out," Cust told them.
A sexual assault nurse and series of tests concluded that there was no genital injury and no semen was detected, Mr Queenan said.
Cust's lawyer, Paul Rosser QC, urged the jury to find him not guilty of murder, but consider a manslaughter charge.
"Mr Bebita suffered what can only be described as a frenzied attack," he told the jury.
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"There is a clear evidence that (Cust) lost control of himself."
The lawyer argued that something "very significant" must have happened as Bebita was "something of a mentor" to Cust.
He added: "Ultimately, using common sense … it is probable that something caused him to lose self-control and it's probable that it was what he, the accused, said it was."
The trial continues on Thursday.
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- Crime
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