"He was trying to run - he was obviously affected by something," Donna Searle testified on Tuesday in the NSW Supreme Court.

His voice sounded "pretty distressed" and "freaked out".

Jesse Leigh Green is accused of the stabbing murder of 22-year-old Teah Luckwell in the early hours of March 28, 2018.

She was found that evening lying in a pool of blood just inside the front door of her Tamworth unit.

Justice Stephen Campbell is conducting a special hearing in which 30-year-old Green has been taken to have pleaded not guilty to the murder, as well as to a break and enter and assault with a weapon said to have been committed at another house on the same night.

Ms Searle said she lived in Robert Street, while Ms Luckwell - whose name she did not know at the time - lived two doors away in a block of flats.

After being unable to sleep in the early hours of March 28, she was reading in bed when one of three dogs made a "weird sort of growl" and she heard a scream.

"It was very loud and it was terrifying," she said.

"It was not good".

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Although she had heard screams in the area before, this was only the second one which made her get out of bed and look out the wooden louvre blinds onto the street.

She saw the "young guy" trying to run, saying "oh s***, oh f***'", maybe three times.

The man, who was wearing long shorts, had his arms crossed at the top of his chest and "was sort of hunched forward" and rocking.

She had thought he may have been hurt because of the way he was holding his hands.

Ms Searle said she went outside but didn't see anybody but saw the clock which said the time was 4.20am.

The hearing continues.

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