Mark Kenneth Jenkin retreated to the cells at Wollongong Courthouse shortly before 1pm Wednesday as Supreme Court Justice Peter Hamill reserved his decision on verdict.

Jenkin is accused of standover behaviour targeting the funds of 56-year-old Mr Dower, who suffered an assortment of traumatic injuries before police found his remains in the laundry of a Crana Place, Mangerton public housing complex on April 16, 2015. 

Closing submissions from Jenkin’s defence barrister, Peter Lowe, turned to medical evidence on the likelihood that many of Mr Dower’s injuries were caused after he died, when his body - encased in a surfboard bag - was dropped 5.5 metres from Jenkin’s second-storey unit. 

Jenkin admits he disposed of Mr Dower’s body but denies he caused his death. 

Medical experts were divided in their appraisal of Mr Dower’s injuries. One concluded his death was the result of “homicidal violence”, finding a subdural bleed, some fractured ribs, severe bruising and contusions to his torso and a fracture to his hyoid bone (at the root of the tongue, at the front of the neck) occurred before he died and had “substantially contributed” to his death. 

Another doctor made no conclusion as to cause of death.

Both doctors found some injuries, including some rear rib fractures, were consistent with a fall from a height. 

In earlier evidence, Jenkin described himself as “heavy handed” and said Mr Dower’s hyoid bone injury and some rib fractures could have occurred when he was positioning the ailing Mr Dower for CPR, then carrying out compressions.  

The trial heard evidence from 72 witnesses, many of them residents of the public housing complex, some of them caught up in Mangerton’s so-called “criminal milieu”, Mr Lowe noted. 

The defence contends police pinged self-confessed drug dealer Jenkin for Mr Dower’s homicide early on and “deliberately targeted” him in their investigation “because your witnesses … in Mangerton basically said, ‘let’s get Jenko’.”

In earlier evidence, Detective Senior Constable Shawn Adams dismissed this as “rubbish”. 

Jenkin sparked Justice Hamill’s ire at times during Wednesday’s closing arguments, seeming to repeatedly mutter in response to the judge’s clarifying comments and questions. 

Mr Lowe drew attention to Jenkin’s earlier testimony, that he would have called an ambulance if he thought Mr Dower was going to die during the days he spent at his unit, when he became increasingly unwell. 

The defence pointed to a phone call Jenkin made to his father, in which he said as much, but acknowledged he would have known at the time that authorities could listen in on the call. 

The Crown alleges a call intercepted from a contraband mobile phone, in which Jenkin allegedly arranged a lethal “hot shot” of heroin for a woman he feared would turn Crown witness, is indicative of his true demeanor, and of his guilt. 

But the defence notes Jenkin attributes Mr Dower’s fatal injuries to another man - in that call, and in his testimony. 

The trial continues June 27.