A drug dealing truck driver helped organise the murder of a fellow truckie who had a speed debt he was unable to repay, a court has been told.
Daryl Graeme Swinton, of Maryborough, died in the front yard of a property at Munruben, south of Brisbane, on October 21, 2004 after being stabbed repeatedly by 35-year-old Phillip Gary Cullen.
Cullen pleaded guilty to the murder in November last year and was jailed for life.
The man who allegedly recruited Cullen for the job, 43-year-old John George Weisz, is now standing trial in the Brisbane Supreme Court after pleading not guilty to one count of murder.
The court was told on Wednesday Weisz was a member of a drug-dealing network of men who sold speed to truck drivers at a number of different truck stops around Brisbane.
Prosecutor Angus Edwards said Mr Swinton had accumulated a drug debt he couldn't repay, and that the dealers had taken his money, possessions and car as a partial repayment in the months leading up to his death.
When the dealers couldn't get any more from him, Mr Edwards said, they decided to kill him.
"He really had nothing left and was no longer any use to these dealers," he said.
"They had bled him dry."
The court was told the original plan was to kill Mr Swinton with a drug overdose called a "hot-shot" after he arrived at Brisbane Airport on a trip to reclaim his car.
Mr Edwards said, however, the "hot-shot" was not available, and that Cullen instead attacked Mr Swinton with a knife.
Weisz was questioned by police the day after the murder but denied any knowledge of it.
However, the court was told he later changed his story during further interviews and eventually admitted to hearing conversations about the "hot-shot" plan.
The prosecution alleges Weisz became heavily involved in the orchestration of the plan, claiming he sent a number of mobile phone text messages to his associates warning them not to steal anything from Mr Swinton because he wanted the death to look like a suicide.
Cullen took the stand on Wednesday and rejected claims that Weisz had pressured him to kill Mr Swinton, but admitted a number of times that his memory was shocking because of all the drugs he had taken over the years.
The trial continues.
