A killer's face was ‘blank’ as he launched the attack that left his housemate dead, a court heard.

Eugen Coman, 34, has admitted stabbing Leonid Laboshin to death in the kitchen of their shared home in Pinnocks Way, Botley, on Sunday, October 17.

But he denies murder, with lawyers for the Romanian national expected to argue that he was not in his right mind when he carried out the killing.

Coman, who it is claimed had ‘bizarre fantasies’ about the Agent 47 assassin character in the Hitman video game series and who was dressed in a similar black suit when he was arrested, has accepted manslaughter on grounds of diminished responsibility.

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On Wednesday, jurors at Oxford Crown Court heard from the only eyewitness to the alleged murder; a housemate, Maryia Fando.

She was in the kitchen sharing a joke with Mr Laboshin in Russian about the photographs on their immigration documents when she looked down and saw blood on her housemate.

In a statement given to a police officer in the wake of the fatal stabbing, she described Coman’s face as having been ‘blank’. He was showing ‘no emotion’, she said.

The woman fled out the back door and began knocking on neighbours’ doors asking for help. One man refused to help her. Another neighbour, James Evans, saw her distress and went to her aid; he called 999 shortly after 9pm.

Oxford Mail: Leonid LaboshinLeonid Laboshin (Image: Thames Valley Police)

The last she saw of Coman was the lights of his BMW as he drove past her and out towards the Botley to Eynsham road, she told the jury.

The court was told that the defendant had shown a romantic interest in Ms Fando after she moved to the Botley house at the end of August, around a month and a half before the killing. His interest went unrequited.

In a series of Instagram messages he appeared to invite her out, asking if she wanted to watch films with him. He said she was good looking, professed that he was ‘not ugly’ himself and that he was ‘smart’.

"You're the prettiest in the house and yeah I like you,” he said in another message. By way of reply, she told him – repeatedly – to ‘stop it’.

Coman’s landlady, ‘Sasha’ Nadezdhina, whose bedroom was on the ground floor of the house, described the defendant as having been ‘jealous’ of Mr Laboshin. The victim had a blossoming friendship with Ms Fando and they travelled to London to see an exhibition at the Tate Modern the day before his death.

The defendant had made some comment to her about the ‘best man winning’, Ms Nadezdhina told the jury.

The landlady described Coman’s behaviour as being more unusual and there being a ‘general agitation’ in him in the weeks before the alleged murder.

Coman, formerly of Pinnocks Way, Botley, denies murder. The trial continues.