A roll of "blood-stained" carpet wrapped in brown paper was wheeled into the courtroom on the third day of Kylie So's trial for the alleged murder of Robert Dickie.
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The worn, off-white coloured carpet from the bedroom of Mr Dickie's Elong Elong home was unwrapped and unfurled on the floor of the courtroom, next to the dock where 50-year-old So sat.
Presiding judge Justice Mark Ierace moved down to the floor to examine the carpet, which had been the subject of much discussion over the first two days of the trial.
The crown's case hinges on blood evidence to prove the 71-year-old retired farmer - reported missing on June 16, 2016 - is indeed deceased as no trace of his body has ever been found.
A light coloured stain, identified in court by detective sergeant Adrian Tighe as an "area of bleaching", was visible in two places on the topside of the carpet.
Flipping the carpet over, brown coloured stains were revealed on the other side of where the bleaching could be seen.
The blood staining on the carpet was initially found by crime scene investigators in 2017 - 14 months after the last reported sighting of Mr Dickie leaving his home on foot, on June 14, 2016.
However, the light stains seen on the carpet as it lay in the courtroom were also visible in crime scene photographs taken just days after his disappearance.
Earlier, the court heard that trace evidence of blood was also found on the walls of the bedroom, on the underside of the bed frame and on the mattress.
Swabs of this blood were a "likely match" for Mr Dickie's DNA.
Giving evidence before court, forensic pathologist Dr Allan Cala said - based on the photographs - he estimated "in excess of" one litre of blood may have been lost by the alleged deceased.
Crime scene examiner Sergeant Scott Gane agreed, he said the amount of blood pointed to a "significant blood shed event".
'Don't do it because you'll get it wrong'
However, a bloodstain pattern expert called on by defence counsel Ian Nash raised doubt about Dr Cala's estimate.
Taking to the stand Dr Mark Reynolds, a former blood stain analyst with the Western Australian police force, said he was surprised to see how little blood was visible on the carpet when he viewed it in person.
He said the photographs he had previously seen made the bloodstains on the carpet's underside appear "longer".
Dr Reynolds also argued that guessing blood loss based on a visual estimate was "too inaccurate" to be taught to the blood analysts he trains.
"What we teach is 'don't do it because you'll get it wrong'," he told the court.
"I've attended many crime scenes where blood has been shed. I have made interpretations in my mind that this person is quite sick, based on the amount of blood around.
"But I have never attempted to quantify it."
He added, the fact carpet is a porous surface made visual estimates particularly inaccurate.
"It's simple mathematics, if you don't have that third dimension you just can't do it ... you can do it if you want to assume a thickness, when you have a porous surface you can't establish that third dimension," he said.
The trial of Ms So will resume at the Supreme Court in Dubbo on Thursday, August 17 at 10:00am.
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