Sophie Elliott was referred to by Clayton Weatherston's friends as ''the psycho girlfriend'', the High Court in Christchurch has heard today.
Weatherston (33), who denies murdering the 22-year-old Honours student on January 9, had a two-hour conversation with a post-graduate student at the university the day before the killing. The pair also talked for about an hour over coffee on the morning of January 9, Weatherston's 32nd birthday.
Sarah Forbes said Weatherston had wanted to discuss Sophie with another woman apart from his former girlfriend.
She believed the relationship had ended and Weatherston told her on January 8 he wanted nothing more to do with Sophie. She advised him not to have any more contact and to take his name off any websites, Ms Forbes said.
Although she had met Sophie only once, Sophie had invited her to be a friend on the social networking site Face Book but when she told Weatherston he told her not to do it as Sophie would ''monitor her'' on Face Book.
''I knew amongst Weatherston's friends she was called the ''psycho girlfriend,'', Ms Forbes told the court.
Weatherston said he was looking forward to Sophie working in Treasury from Friday so she would be out of sight.
He also told her he did not like Sophie's mother but liked her father, that her parents had broken up when Sophie was 13 and she had needed counselling, Ms Forbes said. He also said in reference to Sophie's mental state that she had wanted to commit suicide although she did not know when that was, the witness said.
He told her Sophie was very insecure about the relationship, that she was doing ''spot checks'' at his place.
''He told me she'd go over to his house in the middle of the night and check there was no other woman there.''
Weatherston said he was in a new relationship and was very happy in it.
He expressed his concerns that day about what Sophie might be saying to her course supervisor, Robert Alexander, about him and whether that might affect his chances of getting a lecturing position with the department.
But when she saw him again the next morning, his birthday, Weatherston seemed upbeat and happy. He talked about being able to go back and work at Treasury if he missed out on the lectureship.
And he made the comment that the Treasury people were ''all weird'' so Sophie would fit in well there.
