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Sarah Monique Tilley, 23, requested her release in the Supreme Court of Victoria on Wednesday after being charged with the murder of Sergio Cuesta Posada.
Cuesta Posada’s body has not been found.
Phone records showed Tilley, who was in Queensland, had two conversations with the deceased on the night he disappeared, Detective Senior Constable Jason Stewart told the court.
During those calls, Tilley allegedly instructed Cuesta Posada to go to the Chelsea Heights address where she knew he would be killed.
“He didn’t leave the house alive,” Detective Stewart told the court on Wednesday.
“There was a fight – I don’t know what exactly happened.
The detective told the court Cuesta Posada was known to Tilly and her partner Paul and he had traveled to Queensland to see them days before he was killed.
Tilly and Paul’s home was burglarized on Sept. 7, and surveillance footage showed Cuesta Posada was responsible, Detective Stewart said.
A gold necklace worth $150,000 was reported stolen, but Detective Stewart told the court he believed cocaine was taken instead.
CCTV footage of the burglary was allegedly found on Tilley’s phone when she was arrested and extradited to Victoria in February.
Tilley’s defense attorney, Chris Farrington, denied that Tilley had the tape at the time of the alleged murder.
He told Judge James Elliott that the prosecution’s case against his client was not strong because it was based on inferences from phone records.
The lawyer said it’s possible the only reason Tilly contacted him was because he called her first, and even if she did give him the address, she did so innocently.
Farrington argued that Tilley is a young woman with no prior convictions, a stable home, available job opportunities and a supportive family.
Her parents were willing to post $100,000 bail, and prosecutors did not say Tilley was a flight risk or a danger to the public, Farrington said.
The risk that she would interfere or instruct someone else to interfere with Cuesta Posada’s remains could be managed with the condition that she not associate with any of her co-defendants, he said.
In handing down his bail decision, Judge Elliott found that the charge against Tilley was “comparatively weak”.
This factor, together with the support systems in place, meant she had exceptional reasons to be granted bail, the justice said.
Tilley smiled and said “thank you” to her lawyers as she was bailed to an address in Melbourne’s south-east.
Her case will return to Melbourne Magistrates’ Court in August.
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