Defense witnesses also suggested that her husband, banker Robert Kissel, was an aggressive man who tightly monitored his wife's finances and was strict with his children.

Testifying for the defense, Nancy Nassberg, a friend of accused murderer Nancy Kissel, said that in February 1999, she and her maid asked why the accused was wearing her sunglasses indoors during a children's birthday party. They were shocked when she lowered her sunglasses, revealing the bruising on her right eye and said, "rough sex.''

After an embarrassed moment, "Nancy, like laughed, and sort of changed the subject,'' said Nassberg.

She noticed bruising on Kissel's face another time in late 1998 at the Hong Kong International school (HKIS) and heard her dismiss it as something inflicted while playing with the children.

The assertions seemed to back up Kissel's earlier claims that she was routinely abused by her husband, who took drugs, and was obsessed with power, success and money.

Nancy Kissel, 41, is accused of giving her husband a spiked milkshake which left him unconscious as she bludgeoned him to death with a heavy metal ornament on November 2, 2003 in their luxury Parkview apartment. She denies the charge of murder and is out on bail.

She has accepted that she killed her husband, but says she cannot recall how she came to inflict five fatal wounds to the side of his head.

She has testified that there was a furious fight that night, in which she feared for her life as her husband bore down on her swinging a baseball bat.

The decomposing body of Robert Kissel, a former high-flying Merrill Lynch banker, was found wrapped in a rug and locked in a storeroom in the Parkview residential complex in the early hours of November 7.

Testifying to Kissel's mental state after the crime, defense witness Geertruida Samra, who provided surety for the accused's bail application, spoke of visiting her in Siu Lam psychiatric centre in "the very early days'' of her stay there.

She was shocked when Kissel asked, "how's Rob?''

Samra said she told the accused, "Honey, Rob's gone, you know that right?'' Kissel replied she didn't "remember much,'' according to Samra.

Witness Nassberg, who worked for the US consulate in Hong Kong for five years, first met Nancy Kissel in 1998 and offered to help her get settled in Hong Kong. She said Robert Kissel frequently queried the accused about her food purchases from Oliver's Delicatessen.

"She had to justify [her purchases] with Robert,'' she said.

Nassberg said the defendant always wanted her children to have fun and freely express themselves, but that the deceased "criticised her that she was too lenient.''

Nassberg remembered two occasions, both during meals at the Aberdeen Marina Club, when she thought the deceased was "on edge'' and reprimanded the accused in public for not controlling the children.

Samra, who knew the accused from the Parent Faculty Organization at HKIS, said she noticed three injuries to Nancy Kissel in 2002.

Once, she noticed a black eye that was explained away as being caused by her younger son bumping her on the head accidentally.

Another time, Samra noticed what she thought were rib injuries. According to Samra, the accused told her she "played rugby with the girls'' and bruised her ribs.

When Samra said she didn't think her friend played rugby, Kissel responded that it was from a "tumble'' while playing with the girls.

Samra also described the scene she found at the couple's apartment after the body had been discovered on November 7.

Her first thought was that the deceased had died of a heart attack and she had rushed to their apartment.

"The door was wide open. I walked in,'' she said, adding that there were no guards outside. She saw a flurry of activity, policemen carrying computers and the dog moving from one room to another, she said.

At the beginning of the trial, one of the Kissel's domestic helpers testified that she never saw the police cordon off the suspected crime scene and that police, friends and family were able to walk in and out relatively freely.

Earlier on Wednesday, prosecutor Peter Chapman completed his cross-examination of the accused's father Ira Keeshin, noting that he said he feared Robert Kissel would return and harm the family.

Keeshan added it did not occur to him to ask the family's two domestic helpers what might have happened and where Robert Kissel was.

The trial continues today before justice Michael Lunn.