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Dayna Isaac had a bright future ahead and was set to attend a trial for a new job at the beginning of 2023.
By the day’s end, she’d been murdered – allegedly at the hands of a man who could not accept she did not want a serious relationship.
Dayna Isaac, 28, died on the day she was set to start a new job.
Paul Jason Sultana is on trial in the NSW Supreme Court after pleading not guilty to murdering 28-year-old Isaac in her Penrith apartment on January 16, 2023.
The 34-year-old is accused of strangling Isaac because he was angry at her rejection, before calling his mother to the scene, leaving the body in the apartment and driving her car to bushland, where he set it on fire.
In a police statement dated the day of the killing, Sultana’s mother described her recollection of the key details of the moment her panicked son allegedly called her to the murder scene, and his history with Isaac.
Janet Tsiliris’ statement, tendered to court in the trial before Justice Peter Garling, outlined how Sultana met Isaac through his brother, who was best man at Isaac and her husband’s 2017 wedding.
Paul Sultana has pleaded not guilty to Isaac’s murder.
Sultana began staying at Isaac and her husband’s granny flat while doing “odd jobs” for them, Tsiliris told police, and formed a friendship with Isaac as her husband was rarely home. Isaac moved to Penrith with her children after her husband went to jail, Tsiliris said.
Tsiliris said she also became friends with Isaac, who told her she had a trial shift for a potential new job planned for January 16, 2023.
At 2pm on January 16, Tsiliris said she answered a call from Sultana who repeatedly said “It’s bad”, to which she asked, “What’s bad?”
Isaac was allegedly murdered at the hands of a man who could not accept she did not want a serious relationship.
“I had no idea what he meant, but I could tell it was out of the ordinary in terms of his behaviour and how he was talking,” her statement read.
As she met her son on Lethbridge Street in Penrith, he turned up in Isaac’s car and kept saying: “It’s bad.”
“I didn’t know what to take from that,” she told police.
“I thought, ‘What’s bad?’ I thought maybe she didn’t get the job or something.”
She said Sultana parked in Isaac’s car park and took her into her apartment, where she saw blood in the entryway and a “pressure mark” on the wall.
Tsiliris told police she looked towards Isaac’s bedroom and saw her lying on her back with blood on her face. In shock, she ran out of the unit, yelling “I’m gone, I’m out of here”, saying she was too traumatised to check on Isaac. Instead, she went to the police station to make a report.
Also tendered to the judge-alone trial were the statements of Isaac’s parents, Garry and Deborah English.
They both described instances where Isaac told them Sultana and her were only friends and he wanted more, but she did not.
Deborah said she saw Isaac and Sultana at Isaac’s unit the day before she was killed.
Dayna Isaac’s father, Garry English, at an earlier court appearance.Credit: Kate Geraghty
“During the day Dayna told me that she did not want a relationship and that Paul was moving his stuff into her unit and she did not want that as it felt like she was in a relationship,” her statement read.
Meanwhile, Garry described a heated argument on Christmas Day in 2022 in which Sultana told him how much he cared for Isaac and how he could “give her the world and treat her like a lady”.
“I said, ‘Paul, she likes you as a friend, you have to accept that’,’ Garry wrote.
“He got in my face and told me that I have to tell Dayna that he was good for her.”
During opening addresses on Monday, Crown prosecutor Yvette Prowse said the trial would hear testimonies of three women – including two former intimate partners – suggesting a pattern of physical and verbal violence when Sultana believed relationships were crumbling or felt rejected, saying their similar experiences were “not a coincidence”.
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Sultana’s barrister Gregory Woods KC told the court his client did not kill Isaac, the Crown’s case was largely circumstantial and there were no eyewitnesses to the murder.
He said Deborah’s police report did not state her son had committed murder and that Sultana’s decision to burn her car and belongings stemmed from “panic” rather than guilt.
He said his actions were consistent “with a man who believed that he might be blamed in these circumstances because he had previously been accused of bad behaviour by ex-girlfriends”.
The court heard Isaac died of strangulation, had blunt-force injuries to her face and body and was found with two cords around her neck.
Tuesday’s evidence began with testimonies from a forensic pathologist and the lead crime scene investigator.
The trial continues.
If you or anyone you know needs support, call Lifeline on 131 114, beyondblue on 1800 512 348, Kids Helpline on 1800 55 1800, or the National Sexual Assault, Domestic and Family Violence Counselling Service on 1800RESPECT (1800 737 732).
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