Stuart Paul Anderson on trial for murdering Vicki Ramadan in her Sydenham home in March 2019

A handyman is accused of murdering his elderly neighbour in Sydenham before calling triple-0 to say “I’ve got no idea how she died”.

Vicki Ramadan was killed in a ‘targeted, deliberate assault’ in her Sydenham home, a court has heard. Picture: Ian Currie

A handyman was charged with the murder of his elderly neighbour seven months after calling police to report finding her bloodied body after detectives caught him out lying, a court has heard.

Stuart Paul Anderson is on trial in Victoria’s Supreme Court for the murder of Vicki Ramadan, 77, at her Sydenham home in March 2019.

He has pleaded not guilty.

On the first day of the trial on Tuesday, prosecutor Neill Hutton said Mr Anderson, 41, killed Ms Ramadan in a “targeted, deliberate assault” some time between March 23-27.

He told the jury Ms Ramadan, a vulnerable woman who lived alone, was “brutally assaulted”, sustaining three blows to the face, and at least nine to the side of her head.

Vicki Ramadan died in 2019.

The 77-year-old woman lived alone in Sydenham.

Her body was found on the hallway floor in a pool of blood.

Mr Hutton said Mr Anderson became a suspect with homicide detectives after his statement changed multiple times in the months after he called Triple 0 to report finding Ms Ramadan dead in her Marlborough Way property on April 6.

“I’ve got no idea how she died,” Mr Anderson could be heard saying on the Triple 0 call.

“I just know there’s blood everywhere. There’s blood all over the floor.”

Mr Anderson said the back laundry door was broken open, suggesting it was a burglary gone wrong.

Mr Hutton said Mr Anderson initially told police he went to check on Ms Ramadan at 9.30am and had planned to do some work on her fence.

He had been helping her with odd jobs around her house, Mr Hutton said.

The crime scene in Sydenham where Ms Ramadan died. Picture: Ian Currie

On April 14, in another statement to police, Mr Anderson said he took Ms Ramadan to Bunnings to buy a flat pack wardrobe, paid for it on his card, and helped her put it together three weeks before finding her dead.

“There’s a lot of lies in there,” Mr Hutton said, with evidence that it was a friend of Ms Ramadan who actually took her to Bunnings.

Mr Anderson told more lies in an interview with A Current Affair on April 16, Mr Hutton said, where he pleaded for the public to help detectives “catch the son of the bitch” who killed her.

“She didn’t deserve this at all,” Mr Anderson said during the media interview, played in court.

He described her as “polite” and said he “had no problem with her whatsoever”.

Mr Hutton said this interview was “essentially a sham”.

“It’s a charade. It’s false,” he said, adding the lies were “to make him look like a better person”.

Ms Ramadan’s body was found on the hallway floor in a pool of blood. Picture: Ian Currie

When detectives contacted him again for a further interview four months later in August, Mr Anderson admitted he hadn’t told the complete truth about how he found Ms Ramadan’s body.

Mr Anderson told them that he had in fact found Ms Ramadan dead at 1.30am on April 6 when he jumped over her back fence, kicked in her laundry door to retrieve tools he had left there.

He said nobody seemed to be home, and that he needed the tools to fix his car to get it roadworthy.

But when inside, he found Ms Ramadan lying on the floor.

“I really freaked out,” he allegedly told detectives.

“It was dark. I couldn’t see what she looked like. I felt her and she was cold.”

He returned to the property the next morning as a ruse to his partner, Jade Bennett, telling her he was going to check on Ms Ramadan.

Soon after he returned to his Breadalbane Court home, telling Ms Bennett: “Come quick, come quick. She’s dead.”

“You might appreciate why the police started to focus on him,” Mr Hutton told the jury.

Defence barrister Glenn Casement said the “prime legal issue” in the case is the identity of Ms Ramadan’s killer.

“It wasn’t Stuart Anderson,” Mr Casement told the jury.

He conceded Mr Anderson “regrettably didn’t tell the whole truth” when first questioned by detectives.

Mr Casement said sometimes people are untruthful “but it doesn’t make them murderers”.

“He’s hiding a break in, not a murder,” Mr Casement said.

“He found the deceased, he did not murder her.”

He asked the jury to listen to the evidence carefully and ask themselves: “Can you exclude somebody else (killed Ms Ramadan)?”

The trial, before Justice Amanda Fox, continues.