Nicola Puddicombe said she was thinking about killing her boyfriend months before he was discovered in her bed bludgeoned to death with an axe to his head, her former lover testified Wednesday in Ontario Superior Court.

Ashleigh Pechaluk told jurors it was in the fall or winter of 2005 when a distraught Puddicombe told her she could take no more of Dennis Hoy's mental, emotional and physical abuse.

"What was your reaction?" Crown attorney Tom Lissaman asked.

"Part schocked," replied Pechaluk, adding quickly she thought Puddicombe was feeling that way "justifiably."

Lissaman asked Pechaluk if Puddicombe indicated what "options" she was considering to murder Hoy, a GO Transit worker who was 36 when he was killed early on Oct. 27, 2006.

"She cooks for him all the time so she said she would put something in his food," Pechaluk said.

"What did you say to that?" Lissaman asked.

"I don't think I said anything."

"Did she tell you anything about the type of poison?"

"No. She made the comment. I wasn't going to dig deeper."

Pechaluk, acquitted of murdering Hoy earlier this year, was on the stand for the third day at Puddicombe's first-degree murder trial. The two women became involved in an intimate relationship almost a decade after Puddicombe, now 36, began dating Hoy.

Pechaluk has portrayed Hoy as a controlling, manipulative and cruel man who belittled Puddicombe and knocked her around when she got out of line.

Puddicombe didn't break things off because she felt trapped and feared for the safety of herself, her family, dogs and Pechaluk, the 25-year-old testified.

Pechaluk said Puddicombe told her Hoy had connections to an outlaw motorcycle gang and also carried an OPP badge as part of his job, giving him access to databases that would allow him to track her down if she left him.

On numerous occasions in early 2006, Puddicombe also expressed the desire for something to happen to him, such as being in a car accident.

"What did you take those comments to mean," Lissaman asked.

"She didn't like him. She didn't want to be with him."

But at other points in her testimony Pechaluk said Puddicombe was "torn" about her feelings for Hoy, even after he started seeing an old girlfriend.

"She loved a certain part and hated another," Pechaluk said.

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"Did she use the term hate," Lissaman asked.

"Sometimes."

The trial continues.