Homicide detectives are convinced well-known Melbourne stripper and sex worker Johanna “Jazzy O” Martin was not killed during a sex act that went wrong.
Detective Senior Constable Tina Dodemaide told the Melbourne Magistrates’ Court that excessive force had been used for a long time to strangle Ms Martin.
Detective Dodemaide said she believed Ms Martin had been murdered because of the suspicious way the body had been disposed of, the way her jewellery had been removed and the fact no one had come forward to claim she had died accidentally from a sex act that went wrong.
Steve Constantinou, 49, of Port Melbourne, is charged with murdering Ms Martin on October 11 last year and stealing gold jewellery including chains, rings and bangles from her worth $33,000.
A theory introduced by Detective Inspector John Potter that Ms Martin had died accidentally from some sort of sex act was denied by the prosecution but they did accept her fingernails had not been damaged from when she might have been using her hands to try and stop being strangled.
In earlier evidence, Paul Bedford, the pathologist who conducted the autopsy on Ms Martin, found she died from “neck compression” consistent with being strangled with some sort of ligature.
The 65-year-old grandmother’s body had been found in bushes wrapped in a blood-stained sheet in Lorimer Street, Port Melbourne, about 400 metres south-east of the West Gate Bridge. There had been no attempt to conceal the body.
Ms Martin was well-known in the adult entertainment industry for her “extreme acts”, which made her a millionaire. She is believed to have been the oldest worker in the game in Victoria. Source: The Age
