Man Allegedly Stabs Workmate 49 Times For Rubbing His Penis While Sleeping

A court heard how a man allegedly knifed a colleague up to 49 times in a NSW abattoir, leaving him to die in a pool of blood, because the victim had "tried to rape me."

After a night of drinking cans of bourbon and taking photographs with former coworker Jesus Bebita, Jamie Cust stabbed him to death at his Scone home in Dec. 2018.

Cust's murder trial in the Supreme Court heard that after turning himself in, he told police that he "freaked out" when he woke up with his pants down and Bebita "touching my penis."

"I stabbed Jesus several times and to cover it up I lit the doona alight to burn down the house," the court heard he told detectives at Muswellbrook police station per Canberra Times.

"I should have got on a boat and left the country," he added.

The court heard on the first day of the trial before a jury in Newcastle that the now 22-year-old has pleaded not guilty to the murder of Bebita, 41, alleging that he behaved in a rage after being provoked.

His counsel, Paul Rosser QC, said the jury would be asked to return a guilty conviction of manslaughter instead, claiming that his client had been sexually assaulted: "an act that has violence latent in it."

"Now the accused has taken a human life. That is as serious as it gets," Rosser said in The Australian report.

After working together at JBS Meatworks in Scone from January to November 2018, Cust and Bebita became friends.

Rosser claimed per an online tabloid that his client regarded Bebita as a "mentor."

Cust, then 20, had moved to Sydney by December 2018 but returned to the Hunter Valley to gather personal belongings such as "his steels" - or work knives, according to the court.

On Wednesday, Crown prosecutor Brendan Queenan told the jury that Cust will be charged with murder rather than manslaughter.

Bebita picked up Cust from Muswellbrook around 8 p.m. on Dec. 17 and drove him to Scone, according to Queenan.

Before returning to Bebita's two-bedroom home, they stopped at a pub bottle shop and purchased a case of 24 cans of Woodstock Bourbon.

The court heard that Cust was "hysterical" when he called his stepfather Vivian Price at 4.15 a.m. on Dec. 18 to seek a ride home.

Cust was drenched in blood as his stepfather arrived near Scone train station, so he grabbed a floor mat to lay on the passenger seat to avoid staining the car.

Cust confessed to his stepfather that he stabbed the victim because he was being raped.

Price testified in front of the jury that what his stepson told him in the car astounded him.

Cust told police the identical account he told Price after being persuaded not to go.

Officers discovered crimson specks at the front door and traces of blood on the door handle when they arrived at Bebita's Parker St residence about 7.35 a.m.

The Philippine native was discovered in a semi-fetal posture on his bathroom floor, slashed and with a substantial pool of blood under his head and chest.

He had 49 wounds, including one through his back that perforated his chest cavity and another "gaping" cut that stretched from his right ear to his left chest, according to a post-mortem.

The trial is still ongoing.