'Someone's been hurt'

THE former fiancee of murder accused Matej "Matthew" Vanko has told how he disappeared the day Don Stevens was killed and later told her she should leave him because "someone had been hurt".

Olivia Bennett

THE former fiancee of murder accused Matej "Matthew" Vanko has told how he disappeared the day Don Stevens was killed and later told her she should leave him because "someone had been hurt".

Olivia Bennett, 35, left the NT Supreme Court flanked by detectives yesterday afternoon, after she gave evidence that she woke up to the news that Vanko was a wanted man on April 24, 2012.

She said her sister in Sydney told her she had spotted an alarming media report.

Armed tactical police arrested a shirtless Vanko outside their home on Nightcliff Rd about 7am.

He surrendered.

Ms Bennett told the jury her then-partner came home from work, sick with hayfever, the previous day.

She went to the MVR with their 10-week-old son but rang to ask if he would take some chicken out of the freezer. She said she wanted to make him soup.

He said he was out.

When she got home the chicken was still in the freezer and his phone was in flight mode on the kitchen bench. Ms Bennett said Vanko didn't return home until after 9pm.

"I was worried," she said.

He left again and came home after she had gone to sleep, pottering about the house.

"He came to bed about 4.30am and told me I should go to Brisbane to be with my family," she said.

"He said something along the lines of 'someone had been hurt' ... he said 'it might be bad'."

He had just returned to work with Serco at Northern Immigration Detention Centre after time off for a back injury.

She said she was aware he possessed handcuffs, a shotgun, pistol, and two hunting knives. But she said he was never violent. Prosecutors allege Vanko was responsible for the stabbing murder of Mr Stevens at Howard Springs on April 23, 2012.

It's alleged he also stabbed and shot a blue heeler and stabbed a Maltese terrier, found dead in a bedroom.

He allegedly ambushed his work colleague, Mr Stevens' sister Noelene, and held her hostage for three hours until she escaped and raised the alarm. The trial is expected to wrap up today.