Detectives questioned an alternate suspect over the Easey Street double murder almost 50 years ago and "had no doubt" he had killed the two women, a defence lawyer claims.
The bodies of Suzanne Armstrong, 28, and Susan Bartlett, 27, were found by a neighbour inside their home in Melbourne's Collingwood on January 13, 1977.
Details of the killings and near-50-year journey, before police extradited accused killer Perry Kouroumblis from Italy to face the two murder charges and one rape charge, were aired in Melbourne Magistrates Court on Wednesday.
Ms Bartlett was found fully clothed with 55 stab wounds, lying near the entrance to Ms Armstrong's bedroom, prosecutor Zubin Menon told the court.
Her housemate and long-term friend Ms Armstrong was found on her bedroom floor with a polka-dot nightie pulled above her chest, pools of blood under her head and shoulders, and semen stains on the carpet underneath, he said.
She had suffered 29 stab wounds and had allegedly been raped.
Neighbour Janet Powell saw a dog belonging to the two women wander into her front yard about 5pm on January 11, Mr Menon said.
Ms Powell knocked on the door but there was no answer, so she took the animal inside and returned to knock eight times, before placing a note on their front door saying she had their dog.
Three more people visited the house between January 11 and 13 including Ross Hammond, an acquaintance of Ms Bartlett who had met her a week before, who knocked but there was no answer.
Mr Menon said Mr Hammond went around the side of the house on the evening of January 11, wrote a note for Ms Bartlett and left.
A man who had gone on a blind date with Ms Armstrong, Barry Woodard, visited on January 12 after calling her with no answer, and he left a note on the kitchen table.
Each of these people are expected to give evidence to a committal hearing over the deaths.
Mr Menon said Kouroumblis, then aged 17, was interviewed by police the day after the women's bodies were found.
He alleged officers searched a vehicle and found a knife inside the boot, and Kouroumblis gave differing accounts to police and his friends about how he got it.
The prosecutor claimed he told police he found the knife on the ground but told a friend he had stolen the knife.
He said Kouroumblis was living 230 metres away from the Easey Street home with his family.
Kouroumblis was spoken to again about the double killing in January 2017, and had agreed to give a voluntary DNA sample but then refused and left Australia for Greece in May of that year, he alleged.
Mr Menon revealed police seized a "tissue sample" from Kouroumblis in 2018 after searching his vehicle and used this to compare against evidence from the crime scene.
DNA found on a towel, which contained blood, a lamp shade and semen found at the scene was "100 billion times more likely to observe those results if the accused was a contributor", Mr Menon alleged.Â
Kouroumblis' defence team will question the admissibility of forensic evidence that had been preserved for almost five decades, as well as how their client's DNA was collected.
His barrister Dermot Dann KC said Kouroumblis would plead not guilty to the murders if the case went to trial and he would apply to have the rape charge thrown out at the end of the committal hearing.
"In issue is the identity of the person or persons responsible for the tragic and brutal deaths of Ms Armstrong and Ms Bartlett," he said.
"There is evidence of an alternate suspect being interviewed by police in 1977, when these events were fresh in the minds of homicide detectives.
"They had no doubt the alternate suspect was the person who killed Ms Armstrong and Ms Bartlett."
The committal continues.