A journalist formerly accused of another cold case killing has been aired as an alternative suspect in the Easey Street double murder.
Lawyers for Perry Kouroumblis, 66, have spent a second day questioning witnesses and police over the 1977 deaths of Suzanne Armstrong, 28, and Susan Bartlett, 27.
The women's bodies were found by neighbours on January 13 of that year, after Ms Armstrong's toddler Gregory was heard crying inside his cot at the Easey Street home in Collingwood.
Kouroumblis was extradited from Italy in December 2024 and charged with the two murders, and rape of Ms Armstrong, after advances in DNA testing allegedly connected him to the crime scene.
His barrister Dermott Dann KC on Thursday cross-examined next door neighbour Ilona Miklosvary, who had discovered the women's bodies after taking in their dog.
Ms Miklosvary, who was working at The Truth as a sports reporter, said she had a colleague named John Grant stay at her home a few days before finding the bodies, after giving him a key.
She said Mr Grant, a crime reporter who slept on her couch on January 10, 1977, had been accused at the time of another killing - the unsolved murder of Julia Ann Garciacelay 18 months earlier.
Mr Grant has never been charged in connection with Ms Garciacelay's death.
Ms Miklosvary woke at 7.30am on January 11 to find Mr Grant already up, and they went into work together.
Reading her statement from 1977, Mr Dann said she told police that "after a few drinks" Mr Grant was "foul mouthed" and "would go up to a girl he didn't know and ask for a f***".
She did not remember saying this to police, but added "it was in keeping with most of the men I knew".
"It was the '70s," Ms Miklosvary said.
Mr Dann said she told police she believed Mr Grant was "capable" of the Easey Street murders at the time, which she said she did not remember.
On January 13, she woke to Gregory crying and went next door where she found her neighbours' bodies.
"I went in and found the girls, rang my office to say I couldn't come in - there were police at the house and I'd just found my neighbours murdered," Ms Miklosvary said.
Earlier, former police officer Gary Looker described being one of the first to arrive at the crime scene.
"We knocked multiple times to see if anyone was in the house, we also yelled that we were police, no response whatsoever," he said.
He said he walked into the kitchen and continued down the hall where he saw the body of a woman near the front door.
Mr Looker did a "visual check" of the bathroom where he saw "what I thought to be blood" around the bath plug.
"It was a watered down blood, as if somebody had washed blood from themselves or had a shower in the room."
Douglas Carroll, a retired homicide detective, said he visited the scene on January 14 with a police inspector, forensic scientist and a senior sergeant from the local police.
"I remember the horrifying look of the bodies," he said.
Asked by Mr Dann if he had discussed the possibility a rape had occurred after one of the women's deaths, he said "I don't recall that".
His diary noted that he spoke to three alleged suspects at the time - Barry Woodard, who was dating Ms Armstrong, his brother Henry, and Ross Hammond, who was dating Ms Bartlett.
Hammond had told the detective he "climbed in her bedroom window" close to Ms Bartlett being found dead, Mr Dann said, but Mr Carroll could not recall this.
Mr Carroll also wrote an information report based on a knife that had been allegedly seized from Kouroumblis.
At the end of the committal, magistrate Brett Sonnet will decide whether there is enough evidence to send the matter to the Supreme Court.
Kouroumblis denies any involvement in the murders and will plead not guilty if committed to stand trial.