Everything Roger Rogerson and Glen McNamara did in the days before and after the death of Sydney student Jamie Gao was aimed at making their victim disappear, the crown said as the murder trial against the two former police officers nears its end.
McNamara didn't take his boat out of storage the day before the May 20, 2014 murder so he could take his daughter fishing, he was preparing to dump Mr Gao's body, prosecutor Chris Maxwell, QC, told the Supreme Court in his closing submissions on Wednesday.
The boat is one of nine pieces of evidence that Mr Maxwell said was all the jury needed to convict both men.
It's a circumstantial case, but the evidence is powerful, he said.
"The crown says everything has been done that can possibly be done to make Jamie Gao disappear, and more importantly to reduce the risk of detection," he said.
The court heard Jamie Gao, an alleged Triads associate and drug dealer, was driven from Arab Road in Padstow to a nearby storage unit where he was killed.
Mr Maxwell said while only one of the accused is guilty of firing the fatal shot, both were involved in conspiring to kill Mr Gao and steal 2.78kg of the drug ice he had in his possession.
They then arranged to move his body to McNamara's boat, weigh the corpse down and dump it in the ocean near Cronulla the following day.
"Right from the fact Jamie Gao opened that partly-opened door on Arab Road, everything was done by both accused to make sure that he disappeared, that he disappeared and would not be found at all," he said.
"The disposal of the body in this way is evidence available to you to find that they did it, because to allow the body to be found would implicate them in the commission of the crime," he said.
One failure, the court heard, was that they hadn't allowed for the possibility that the body would resurface and be discovered as it was.
Rogerson and McNamara have both pleaded not guilty to the murder and have denied acting as a joint enterprise.
Closing submissions are continuing.
