For 19 months Jason Hiroki sat in prison, apparently reconciled to going down for the murder of Nicholas Katopodis, despite being innocent.
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It was, after all, a sacrifice he was willing to make to protect the woman he loved.
Then one day in early 2013, he made an extraordinary claim.
In an interview with police, his first since his 2011 arrest, Jason Hiroki did a backflip, telling investigators he was innocent and the real murderer was his former lover and first cousin Aroha, who had been under their noses all along.
He claimed to have been asleep on the lounge of their Mount St Thomas home after a night of heavy drinking and smoking when Aroha Hiroki shook him awake, saying she'd hit Mr Katopodis in the head many times, killing him, after "he tried to come on to her".
But in a Sydney courtroom on Tuesday, Aroha Hiroki dismissed as "lies" his version of events on the night of July 27, 2011, saying they were born out of his desire for revenge against her.
Instead, she claims it was Jason Hiroki who killed Mr Katopodis with a lawn bowl and a beer bottle that night.
"He knows I did nothing [to Nick Katopodis] - this is all about revenge for Jason," she said under cross-examination from Crown prosecutor Tony McCarthy.
Revenge about what? she was asked.
"For leaving him," she replied, saying Jason Hiroki had not taken well the news that she had started seeing another man while he had been locked up.
Aroha Hiroki has spent the past two days giving evidence in the Supreme Court murder trial she is sharing with her one-time lover.
Prosecutors say Aroha and Jason Hiroki are jointly responsible for killing Mr Katopodis that night. However the pair, through their respective lawyers, are seeking to blame each other for the death.
On Tuesday, Aroha Hiroki faced repeated questioning about her claimed "ongoing fear" of Jason Hiroki, which she said arose from the many violent assaults she had endured throughout their relationship and his repeated threats to kill her if she turned on him.
She previously told the court it was "fear" and "duress" that led her to help Jason Hiroki bury Mr Katopodis' body under their house a few days after his death, and why she continued to lie to police about what had happened that night.
During questioning from Jason Hiroki's lawyer, Janet Manuell, SC, Aroha Hiroki denied suggestions she was lying about being scared of her cousin, and was simply claiming she was fearful in a bid to mask her real role in Mr Katopodis' death.
The court heard Aroha Hiroki had been working as a prostitute for three Illawarra brothels in 2011 and was earning good money, prompting Ms Manuell to suggest that if she was genuinely scared of Jason Hiroki, she had both the motive and means to leave him.
"Your family didn't like your relationship with Jason - they would have been more than happy for you to leave him," Ms Manuell said.
Aroha Hiroki confirmed some in her family, who are spread among New Zealand, Queensland and Adelaide, were unhappy with her and Jason's coupling.
But she said she did not leave at the time because she had been caught up in the "cycle of abuse" and she did not want to "take my problems" to her family.
Ms Manuell further suggested Aroha Hiroki's claimed fear was fake because, had she wanted to, she could have "gotten rid" of Jason Hiroki for "many, many years" by way of jail, if she had simply told police from the start what she now claimed was the truth about her former lover's role in Mr Katopodis' death.
Instead, Ms Manuell put it to Aroha Hiroki that she had repeatedly lied during the investigation and was continuing to lie now.
Aroha Hiroki admitted to lying during interviews with police, but said she was now telling the truth because she had found her courage and felt she was no longer under Jason Hiroki's control.
The trial continues.