Nigel Hayden, a neighbour of Mr and Mrs Walkington, was the first person to see the body of Samantha Jane Walkington in the early afternoon of March 29 last year.

"I took it he meant it ... like he hated her, like she was nothing," Mr Hayden said.

Mr Hayden said he went into the Walkington home, on Buttabone Station near Warren, about 1am after he and his wife Donna were woken by two of the five Walkington children aged 13 and 11. The elder child had told them that "Dad's choking Mum".

Mr Hayden said he went to the Walkingtons' front gate and called out twice. The first time there was no response and the second time there was a response from the accused that he could not understand.

"Ben came out the front door," Mr Hayden told the jury.

"He said 'I've killed her, I've done it'."

Mr Walkington repeatedly asked him for a bullet, so he could kill himself, Mr Hayden said.

"He lifted his shirt up and said he tried to stab himself, but that he couldn't even get that right. He said he didn't want to go to jail for killing her."

Mr Hayden entered the Walkington home shortly after: "I walked in a couple of steps and saw her on the lino.

"He walked around her and kicked her in the head, there was no sign of life.

"He said ‘she wanted to take the kids off me, she won't take them off me now'."

Mr Hayden said the accused walked around the victim again and kicked her once more, this time in the back of the head.

"I felt crook as," Mr Hayden told the jury.

Under cross-examination, Mr Hayden said he felt the accused did mean to kick his wife's body.

As Mr Hayden testified, Mr Walkington - dressed in black pants, a white shirt and a black tie - sat bent over his knees with one hand resting on his leg and the other rubbing over his eyes and forehead.

Mr Hayden also said he could not tell if Mr Walkington was affected by alcohol on the night of the stabbing even though he was as close as two feet from him at certain times.

"Did he have trouble with his movements, was he staggering or stumbling?" Crown Prosecutor Peter Barnett asked.

Mr Hayden said the accused wasn't and he later testified that in his opinion Mr Walkington held his alcohol well.

The jury also heard from Mr Hayden's wife Donna about the night of Mrs Walkington's death and the months leading up to it.

Mrs Hayden said she knew Mrs Walkington had visited the man her husband suspected her of having an affair with on three occasions.

But when the accused asked Mrs Hayden about it, she didn't tell him.

Mrs Hayden said she and Mrs Walkington talked freely about things of a sexual nature and the day before she was murdered, Mrs Walkington confessed that on the night before she had slept with the man her husband suspected.

Mr Walkington has pleaded not guilty to the murder of his wife, but guilty to manslaughter. The trial continues.