A Corowa man allegedly murdered two years ago suffered serious blunt-force trauma injuries but it was a single knife strike just above his knee that killed him.
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This was revealed on Thursday during the Supreme Court trial in Albury of two men charged over the death of Christopher Quirk.
Forensic pathologist Hannah Elstub said Mr Quirk's femoral artery was severed by the knife, causing substantial blood loss leading to death.
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The accused - Heath Kevin Parkinson and Adam Dennis Coates - have pleaded not guilty over an attack on Mr Quirk in Vera Street, Corowa, on March 10, 2018.
Mr Quirk later died in hospital
Parkinson is contesting a murder charge, while Coates - who appeared via a video link to Goulburn jail - is on a downgraded charge of wound with intent to murder.
Parkinson is accused of stabbing Mr Quirk and Coates of attacking him with a 92-centimetre wooden mattock handle.
Coates told detectives, in an interview late that afternoon, he remembered punching Mr Quirk but not attacking him with the handle.
At the end of the interview, a video of which was played to the court on Thursday, Coates said in response to such a question from Detective Senior-Constable Tim Simmons: "We've had our differences you know" but "no".
When earlier asked why he punched the victim, Coates said: "I just didn't want him coming near me because he was bleeding everywhere."
Detectives suggested to Coates, who admitted smoking "two bongs" of cannabis earlier that day, he hit him with the mattock but could not remember.
"I don't know. A lot was going on."
Mr Quirk, Dr Elstub said, had also been been using illicit drugs before the confrontation.
A toxicology report revealed he had 1.0 milligrams of methamphetamine per litre of blood in his system.
"Would it seem likely," Judge Stephen Campbell, SC, asked, "that Mr Quirk was under the influence of methamphetamine at the time of his death?"
Yes, she replied.
The autopsy revealed also that Mr Quirk suffered blunt-force trauma injuries, cuts and abrasions across his body, though those to his head - which included a fractured nose, cheekbone and eye socket she conceded could have been inflicted with a single blow from the mattock handle - were not life-threatening.
"In this case ... it would be at the very mild end of the spectrum for concussion injuries," Dr Elstub said.
The judge-only trial continues on Friday.
