MURDER accused Gary Anthony George growled “like the devil” as he stabbed Andrew Mackenzie Nall, a jury was told.
George, 42, and Christine Margaret Holleran, 50, are jointly charged with murdering Mr Nall at his flat in Chester last August.
he pair deny murder although George, of no fixed abode, admits killing the 53-year-old former supermarket worker but claims it was an act of manslaughter.
George has also denied causing grievous bodily harm with intent to homeless man Brian James Riley.
Giving evidence to the trial at Chester Crown Court, Holleran said she watched George twist a knife into Mr Nall’s chest before he telling her ‘it’s too late, I have killed him’.
She said there had been a ‘ding dong’ in Mr Nall’s Eversley Park home on the night he was killed but she left the flat when somebody shouted at her to get out.
Holleran told the court that when she returned she saw George sitting astride Mr Nall ‘like he was riding a horse’, stabbing him on the lounge floor.
She claims she fled in shock and came back later to find Mr Nall lying on his back near the bedroom and George kneeling over him twisting a knife into his body.
“I will never forget it for as long as I live,” she said. “Gary was kneeling next to Andy and he was twisting the knife in him.”
Holleran, who told the jury George was growling as he stabbed Mr Nall, said: “He was like the devil.”
Mr Nall was found with 49 stab, slash and cut wounds to his body including a number of unusual carvings on his face and body.
Holleran had been living with Mr Nall at the time of his killing and has previously told the court the couple were going to get married.
She said she had been drinking with Mr Nall and George on the night of August 30 and Mr Nall had put on music and was dancing and showing off a tattoo on his bottom.
Holleran said she could not remember going to Bargain Booze with George to buy more alcohol at about 9.30pm that night and denied telling George she had been raped by Mr Nall.
She was unable to recall where she had slept on the night Mr Nall was killed or where she had been in the hours after his death, although CCTV footage showed her hugging George in the street on August 31.
Holleran said she was too scared to call the police after seeing Mr Nall had been killed.
She said: “He (George) might have stabbed me. He had already put bleach in my eyeballs.
“He was a hard nut, people referred to him as the gangster of Chester. Well, he thought he was the gangster of Chester anyway.”
Ian Unsworth QC, prosecuting, said to Holleran: “I put it to you that you are a liar and that you have selective memory when it comes to the killing and injury of Mr Nall.
“You took part in that didn’t you?”
Holleran replied: “No. I loved Andy, he meant the world to me. I would never do that.”
Mr Unsworth said Holleran had previous convictions for attacking men and she agreed she had a propensity to attack men while drunk.
He said: “You are a cold hearted woman. You say you were upset by what had happened to Mr Nall.
“When you were embracing the man you described as the devil were you shedding a tear for Andy then?
“When you saw him twisting the knife in a demonic manner did you shed a tear for Andy then?”
Holleran replied: “I can’t remember.”
The trial before The Recorder of Chester Judge Elgan Edwards continues.