A man murdered another man on a hotel dance floor by stabbing him in the chest, then hid the knife and returned to dance with a girl, a Brisbane court has been told.
Callum Joseph Keys, 21, is on trial in the Supreme Court in Brisbane for the murder of Phillip Stephen Halipilias, 20, at the Alexandra Hills Hotel early on May 2, 2009.
Keys today pleaded not guilty to murder but guilty to manslaughter.
In his opening address, crown prosecutor Glen Cash told the court while there was no question Keys stabbed Mr Halipilias, the crown was required to prove he committed the act with intent.
Mr Cash said there had been an altercation between friends of Keys and Mr Halipilias at the hotel, in Brisbane's east, the week before the death.
Keys then brought a hunting knife to the hotel the next week and used a fake ID to gain entry, expecting another fight to erupt, Mr Cash told the court.
The prosecutor said Keys stabbed his victim in the right side of the chest, rupturing his aorta, and then fled to the toilets leaving him to bleed out on the dance floor.
After hiding the knife in the cistern of a toilet and removing his shirt, Keys returned to the dance floor, Mr Cash said.
"Coming back to the dance floor, where the vast majority of people seemed to have not yet worked out what had occurred, he (Keys) danced for a period of a minute or so with a friend of his," he said.
"She will say that when he returned from what must have been the toilet ... the defendant danced with her for a couple of minutes and she'll tell you that he did seem a bit strange or a bit different to how he had appeared earlier in the night."
Mr Cash said Keys told police during an interview that he only intended to cut his victim's arm during the dance floor fight but he was bumped and the knife "collided" with his chest.
More than 50 witnesses are expected to be called during the trial, which continues before acting Justice Kerry O'Brien.
