From behind the counter of Wollongong’s Metro Petrolium service station, Alison Hilton caught glimpes into the world of one of her regular customers, Mark Dower.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
He would visit every other day, sometimes arriving as early as 4am to use the ATM because, he told her, he was expecting his overseas pension money to land in his account.
He spoke of his Dutch daughter. He was unshaven and often smelt of alcohol fumes, but was “really friendly to talk to”, Ms Hilton thought.
She would watch him leave, making sure he made it safely across Crown Street.
But Mr Dower was different whenever he came into the petrol station accompanied by another man, Ms Hilton told a NSW Supreme Court trial in Wollongong on Tuesday.
His companion had a muscular, medium build and long, red hair, which he wore in a plaited ponytail, she told the court.
She once saw the red-headed man looking over his shoulder, watching Mr Dower use the ATM, and saw Mr Dower hand over cash to him several times.
“When [Mr Dower] was with this gentleman, he wouldn’t talk,” Ms Hilton said.
“Mark got money out and gave money to this man with the ponytail. He put it in his little bumbag thing. That was on a lot of occasions.”
Mark Kenneth Jenkin, who wears his long, red hair in a plaited pony tail, stands accused of murdering Mr Dower.
The Crown alleges Mr Dower was the victim of violent standover behavior by Jenkin, who sought to take his money.
On April 16, 2015, police found Mr Dower’s badly decomposed remains in the laundry of the Crana Place, Mangerton complex where Jenkin was a resident and Mr Dower was couch-surfing.
Mr Dower had been placed inside a surfboard bag and thrown off a second-storey balcony.
In later evidence Tuesday, a friend of Mr Dower’s described seeing Jenkin kick him and ask him for his Nike shoes, as he was waiting for a bottle shop on Crown Street to open.
The pair got in a scuffle before Jenkin walked away carrying the shoes, said the woman, who cannot be publicly identified for legal reasons.
“Mark was just going like that,” she said, raising her arms over her face, “trying to protect himself”. “He had to walk barefoot.”
She said she saw Mr Dower covered in scabs and sores about a month before he disappeared.
He had moved in with Jenkin and “he was getting really worried and scared and I was scared too and I didn’t want to get involved”, she told the court.
The trial continues before Justice Peter Hamill.