Mark Kenneth Jenkin denies he murdered 56-year-old Mark Dower, whose remains he placed inside a surfboard bag and dropped from his second-storey Crana Place unit in the early hours of April 4, 2015, before stashing the bag in the outdoor laundry below. 

An anonymous tip-off to Crime Stoppers led police to the grisly discovery 12 days later.

Giving evidence at his Supreme Court trial in Wollongong on Thursday, Jenkin described Mr Dower collapsing facedown in Jenkin’s bathtub, leaving a blood smear where his head had hit the bath rim the night of March 27 of 28. He was badly injured but was briefly still alive, he said.

"I knelt down ... as I touched the gash on his head a clot ... fell onto his shirt. It was soft on the outside ... like a tadpole without the squiggly bit on the back," he said.

“I touched the head again. I actually thought his skull moved. Another clot fell out. I said ... ‘I'm going to have to call the ambulance ... he begged me not to’.

He told the court Dower disliked hospitals but made no objection – said “nothing at all”- when he mentioned calling an ambulance a second time. 

"I said, 'Mark can you hear me?' I shook him. I thought he was asleep. I slapped him on the cheek. I picked his hand up next to me. I tried to find a pulse. I couldn't find a pulse."

Jenkin told the court he performed CPR but Mr Dower could not be revived. 

He described initial efforts to find a phone but told the court he ultimately didn't call an ambulance because Mr Dower was dead - "100 per cent".

READ MORE: ‘I didn’t kill Marky’ - accused Mangerton man speaks

Jenkin later told the court he had stolen property inside his unit, a taser in his pocket and a rock of heroin and satchels of ice on his table - "that [handling drugs] what was doing before I got Mark to have a shower", so couldn't tell authorities about the body in his bathtub.

He said he took steps to have Dower's body delivered to Wollongong Hospital. "My plan was to get a car of some sort that I could leave there. I would ring them from a phone I could dispose of so they could take care of him and his mother could have a funeral."

"I had asked people for help, people from jail I thought I could trust.” 

Jenkin describing clearing out his unit with a female helper on April 3, 2015, in anticipation of a police visit. "I've got bags of [mobile] phones, bags of hot goods I've bought off people ... drugs," he said.

Jenkin told the court he was bashed, had his house keys stolen by “bikies” and stayed at an aquaintence’s flat for 5-7 days after Mr Dower died.

He said he returned to the unit about 1am April 4 to deal with the dead body in his bathtub. 

He said he got inside his flat by climbing through a neighbour’s window. His female helper, who hoped to live at his unit when he next went to jail, offered to assist – "she said to me, 'I'm the only one that knows the body's in the bathtub. I should help you move him” – but he opted to act alone, he said.  

"I took Mark out of the bath with a lot of anguish and pain. Prior to this I had to drink 90ml of methadone to kill the rib pain I was having [from being bashed],” he said. 

"I pulled him out of the bath. It wasn't easy. He flopped around a little bit ... I expected him to be stiff ... it wasn't a gentle process but I wasn't throwing him down." 

He described placing Mr Dower’s remains inside a silver surfboard bag that only opened at one end. "Like you'd put a pillow in a pillow case basically. That's how I ended up getting him in there."

He told the court he used a plank to slide the surfboard bag that held Mr Dower's remains, but it slipped. He said he made an "anguished argggh" before it dropped from his unit onto the ground outside.

"I feel like a low dog for doing it, I really do, but I just had to drop him,” he said. "I said a prayer to God. I said, 'I'm sorry Marky'." 

Jenkin said he waited inside the unit for 5-10 minutes – watching for witnesses – before he moved outside and carrying the bag to the laundry, where he stashed it behind several surfboards.

Addressing earlier witness testimony of an overheard conversation in which Jenkin allegedly asked a convicted murderer the best way to dispose of a body and how to remove identifying features from a body, he said, "no, I wouldn't even think if that. I didn't do anything ... why would I need to get rid of anything?" 

Thursday afternoon’s evidence turned to allegations Jenkin used a contraband mobile phone in prison to order a lethal "hot shot" (drug dose) for the female helper, who he feared would turn Crown witness.

Jenkin attributed intercepted comments he allegedly made while in prison - "just give her a f-ckin hot one bro ... snuggle up next to her give her a f-ckin big one" to his drugged state. "At the time I was smoking a lot of pot. I was on bupe ... that's just a jumble to me of sh-t coming out of my mouth."

Jenkin’s evidence comes contrary to a long line of Crown witnesses who have painted him as a violent standover man who repeatedly assaulted and detained Mr Dower in order to take his money.  

Crown prosecutor Michael Fox said Jenkin’s denials were “a complete pack of lies”. 

“The only true thing you've said was that Mark Dower was a good bloke,” he said. 

"I'm the only one that got up here and told the complete truth and nothing but the truth, so help me God," said Jenkin, who delivered much of Thursday’s testimony with his eyes cast down, turning a small metal crucifix over in his hands.

In later cross-examination, Jenkin denied a former partner's claim he kept her from medical treatment until bruising he'd caused her had healed.

He denied he then remained present throughout the woman’s entire doctor's appointment to ensure she didn't speak "out of school".

Mr Fox suggested the woman’s account was true, and showed a pattern of behaviour. 

“I suggest, sir, that you were prepared to compromise (her) health ... to avoid your violent assault being brought to the attention of authorities ... I suggest you did exactly the same thing to Mark Dower."

Jenkin denied these claims.

The trial continues Friday before Justice Peter Hamill.