Two people who knew Kate Lynn Reid well were on the witness stand Tuesday at the trial of the man accused of killing her.

Hugh McColl is charged with second-degree murder in connection with Reid’s January 2015 death.

He has pleaded guilty to indecently interfering with her remains, but not guilty to killing her – arguing that while he did hit her in the head repeatedly with a hammer, it was in self-defence.

McColl and Reid shared an apartment on Burn Place, near Belmont Avenue and Highland Road in Kitchener.

Tuesday’s first witness was Shonn Martin, who was Reid’s half-sister.

Martin told jurors that Reid had worked as a line cook and waitress, but was unemployed during the last few years of her life.

A few weeks before her death, she had inherited $21,000 from the death of her second husband.

Martin testified that her last contact with her half-sister was on Dec. 26, 2014 – one week before her death.

On that day, she said, a phone call between the two ended badly. It wasn’t an unusual occurrence, she testified.

Martin’s testimony then turned to mid-January 2015, when she said she knocked on the door of the Burn Place apartment and got no response.

A few days later, jurors heard, McColl told Martin that Reid had left for New Brunswick with a man.

By the time Martin ended up in the apartment – more than a month after Reid’s death – she found it in a state of disarray, with its carpeting ripped up and a couch tipped over.

“I did not have a good feeling,” she said.

Also testifying Tuesday was Adam Drazaga, who regularly drank with Reid at Burn Place.

He testified that he was in the third-floor apartment on Dec. 31, 2014.

According to Drazaga, McColl spent most of the night on his room, only occasionally moving into the rest of the apartment.

“I didn’t notice any tension at all,” he said.

Drazaga was shown a picture of Reid’s apartment from after her death, and commented that there seemed to be a “bunch of stuff missing” including a TV.

Court heard that McColl had made arrangements for a number of items to be picked up by a thrift shop.

Reid’s remains weren’t found until more than two months after her death.

They had been left near a dumpster outside her apartment, and were covered in snow through the winter.

The day’s final witness was a neighbour who lived in the apartment below McColl and Reid.

He told the court that he noticed a dark, greasy substance dripping from Reid’s balcony.

Under questioning from McColl’s lawyer, the neighbour said that he told police the substance in question was likely paint.

The trial continues Wednesday.

With reporting by Max Wark