Bartolomeo ‘Alex’ Rapisarda facing murder trial over death of his friend Dennis Pollock

A man who was allegedly shot dead by his friend had earlier amended his will to hand his Mornington Peninsula house and $200k in superannuation to the accused murderer.

Bartolomeo ‘Alex’ Rapisarda claimed Dennis Pollock had been suicidal and shot himself dead. Picture: Brendan Beckett

An accused murderer who was set to inherit the $550k estate of a man shot dead handed police a note in the alleged victim’s scrawl that read, “if anything happens to me, it’s my own responsibility”.

Bartolomeo ‘Alex’ Rapisarda called paramedics from the Baxter home where he lived with owner Dennis Pollock, claiming the 64-year-old had been suicidal and shot himself dead on September 16, 2017.

But when paramedics arrived and found the man slumped in his woodwork shed, they couldn’t see the small jagged gunshot wound at the back of his ear, with a rifle and silencer he’d earlier been shooting targets with placed on a bench nearby.

Instead, paramedics said they believed he’d suffered a heart attack.

“Cardiac arrest?” Mr Rapisarda replied, according to the prosecution’s opening remarks in his Supreme Court murder trial on Wednesday.

“He didn’t shoot himself? What about the blood?”

Prosecutor Jeremy McWilliams told the jury that this is when Mr Rapisarda, then aged 45, “suddenly” went into Mr Pollock’s wing of their shared Baxter home and produced a note written in the dead man’s handwriting.

“Alex,” the note read.

“I know you helped me for at least the past two and a half years.

“I know I owe you up to $40k to date.

“If anything happens to me, it’s my own responsibility.”

It’s with this note that defence lawyer David Jones KC urged the jury to “keep an open mind”.

But Mr McWilliams, for the prosecution, argues Mr Pollock’s death was murder, motivated by financial gain as Mr Rapisarda stood to inherit his property.

The two men had met years earlier through Mr Pollock’s late wife, with Mr Rapisarda agreeing to pay bills and do upkeep on his Baxter property in return for being allowed to live there with his own wife and daughter.

A year before his death, Mr Pollock amended his will to hand his house and $200k in superannuation to Mr Rapisarda in the event of his death.

As it turned out, his last movements were caught on a CCTV unit Mr Rapisarda had himself installed.

The court heard that the accused killer told police at the crime scene that he’d gone out for cigarettes that fateful morning and returned to find the older gent dead in the shed.

But officers reviewed the footage and found Mr Rapisarda had followed Mr Pollock into the woodwork shed, with the two men inside for 16 minutes.

Only Mr Rapisarda re-emerged.

Just one day earlier, the jury was told Mr Rapisarda had received multiple calls and texts from his financial broker because he’d fallen $1000 into arrears on a $35k loan, which he’d taken out in his wife’s and Mr Pollock’s names after he’d been rejected.

No payments had been made since August 10 – more than a month earlier.

He was warned that a caveat could be lodged against Mr Pollock’s Baxter property to protect against a potential default on the loan.

“I want a meeting with all parties, including Dennis, this has gone on far too long, please sort it out,” he was told by his broker.

But the next day, Mr Pollock was dead.

A biomechanics expert would testify while it would be “possible” for Mr Pollock, who had a BAC of 0.05, to have shot himself in the back of the head with the .22 rifle, it would have been “difficult for him to do so”.

Mr McWilliams, for the prosecution, said friends of Mr Pollock would reject the suggestion he was suicidal, and said he’d overcome prostate cancer just the year earlier and was quite “future focused”.

But Mr Jones asked, “Can the prosecution prove beyond a reasonable doubt it was Mr Rapisarda that pulled the trigger?”

The trial, before Justice Jane Dixon, is set to run for over a week.