Brisbane socialite impaled to bed with cooking knife

Maureen Boyce had apparently known Thomas Lang for more than 35 years.

Socialite Maureen Boyce's on-again/off-again New Zealand-based lover told an emergency call operator he'd found his "fiancee" dead with a "self-induced" knife wound to her abdomen, a Queensland court has been told.

Thomas Chris Lang is on trial in the Brisbane Supreme Court after pleading not guilty to murdering the 68-year-old in 2015.

His trial has heard he knew Ms Boyce for more than 35 years and had been staying at the former model's Kangaroo Point sub-penthouse in the lead-up to her death.

Lang, who was based in Tauranga, told emergency services that he found Boyce dead with her hand around the knife. Photo / News Corp

In the call played to the court today, Lang, who worked as a doctor in Tauranga, said he found Ms Boyce dead with her hand around a knife on the morning of October 22.

"I just woke up this morning and I found my fiancee dead in her bed with a knife in her abdomen," Lang told the audibly shocked operator.

"There's been no forced entry, it looks self-induced."

Lang told the operator Ms Boyce had been "upset" the night before and told him to sleep at the other end of the apartment.

He later told police the discovery had left him "dazed".

"It's awful when you lose the person you've loved your entire life," he said.

The court has heard Ms Boyce was stabbed four or five times with a cooking knife so deep the blade protruded from her back, impaling her stomach to the bed.

In his opening statement on Monday, crown prosecutor David Meredith said it was up to the jury to decide whether Lang killed her or "whether she committed suicide".

While the court has heard Ms Boyce struggled with mental illness for years, including bipolar disorder, Meredith said it was the Crown's belief Lang flew into a "jealous rage" after he realised his married lover had no intention of leaving her husband.

The trial continues.

- AAP