A Melbourne woman found dead in the apartment paid for by her wealthy older friend was going to work for him managing a new brothel, a court has been told.

The body of Ellie Price, a 26-year-old mum, was found with her throat cut in her South Melbourne apartment in May 2020.

Her boyfriend Ricardo Barbaro is standing trial for her murder, accused of killing her in the early hours of April 28, 2020.

Barbaro was arrested two weeks later in the ACT, jurors in his Victorian Supreme Court trial have been told.

During his opening remarks to jurors, Barbaro’s barrister Rishi Nathwani focused on the relationship between Ms Price and another man, Mark Gray.

Mr Gray, an accountant 31 years her senior, was funding Ms Price’s lifestyle including covering her rent and paying for her Mercedes sports car.

In a text message sent by Mr Gray after Ms Price’s death, he claimed he was going to give her a new business he was opening – the Harem Palace, a brothel in the same street as her apartment.

Mr Gray received a text message saying Ms Price had been showing the business to Barbaro, telling him that she was going to manage it. 

In a reply, read by Mr Nathwani, Mr Gray said, “it was going to be her business”.

Ms Price’s mother Tracey Gangell told jurors on Tuesday that she thought that business was a salon Ms Price was going to operate.

But the court also heard Mr Gray had applied for a sex worker licence which was granted a year after her death, on the eve of a preliminary hearing to determine if Barbaro would stand trial.

Further text messages between Mr Gray and Ms Price’s sister, Danielle Price, revealed he offered advice on how family should answer questions in that court hearing.

He told Danielle Price in October 2020 not to worry about the hearing.

“You, me and mum will prepare for it,” he wrote in one text.

“When I come down we will go through everything,” he wrote in another.

Ms Gangell said she had contact with Mr Gray multiple times a week in the lead-up to the hearing but could not recall him telling her what to say.

In texts to Danielle Price he offered advice for evading questions from “scumbag lawyers”.

“My tip is to memorise three phrases – ‘I don’t know’, ‘not to my knowledge’ and ‘I’m not sure’. They’ll hate that lol,” he said in a message read to jurors by Mr Nathwani.

Ms Gangell denied Mr Gray had ever told her to do the same.

“He never told me to say that,” she said.

She also told the court Mr Gray had expressed after her daughter’s death that he wanted to marry her daughter.

She said Ms Price only ever wanted to be friends with him.

Mr Nathwani asked if Mr Gray had ever expressed any feelings that, despite him giving her all the money and keeping her in all she wanted, that she still chose Barbaro.

“Not to my knowledge,” Ms Gangell said.

The trial before Justice Lex Lasry is continuing.

-AAP