Accused 'strangled wife days afer counselling'

SYDNEY - Days after their last marriage counselling session, a man strangled his wife before heading to a notorious Sydney suicide spot with two bottles of bourbon and a bottle of sleeping pills, a court has heard.

Nanthagopal Lechmana, 37, was arrested near The Gap in Watson's Bay in the early morning of February 25 last year, hours after killing his wife of six years.

He had left a suicide note in which he admitted killing 27-year-old Pharzana Nanthagopal.

"If I can't have her, no one can," the note read.

"As you know, I love Pharzana very much and every time she says she wants to leave me it breaks my heart to pieces - hurts me to pieces.

"When you find this letter I will probably be dead too."

The bloodied body of Ms Nanthagopal was found in the couple's North Parramatta apartment by her parents who lived nearby, after Lechmana called to tell them she was dead.

Lechmana has admitted to strangling his wife but says he was suffering from major depression at the time.

He argues this should be grounds for reducing the charge against him from murder to manslaughter.

At the beginning of his murder trial in the NSW Supreme Court on Tuesday, a jury was told both husband and wife were being treated for depression at the time of Ms Nanthagopal's death.

They had also been attending regular marriage counselling sessions.

Ms Nanthagopal's parents both gave evidence that the couple - who spent almost half of their married life living at home with them - had an "argumentative", "aggrieved" and "unhappy" relationship.

This deteriorated further in the months leading up to her death, they said.

Mahrukh Palkhiwala said her daughter had demanded a trial separation in November 2007 and Lechmana had asked her to try to persuade Ms Nanthagopal to change her mind.

The day before her death, Lechmana had been trying to kiss, cuddle and tickle his wife on a family walk, and Ms Nanthagopal had told him to "stop it", Ms Palkhiwala said.

Shortly after 3.30am the following day, Ms Palkhiwala answered the family phone and heard a "gurgling" noise on the end of the line.

"I heard a gurgling noise - somebody was sort of drowning and trying to put their head up and trying to breathe," she told the court.

"I kept saying, 'Hello? Hello?' but there was no voice from the other end."

A short while later, Lechmana called to say "in a very calm, cold voice" that their daughter was dead, she said.

The trial before Justice Megan Latham continues.

- AAP