A day after strangling his girlfriend and burning her body, Lachlan Young pretended to grieve — then told a friend, "Well, she's hot now, isn't she?"

Loved ones of victim, Hannah McGuire, looked on with shock and disgust on Monday as a prosecutor told the Supreme Court in Ballarat of the April 2024 murder and the events leading up to it.

Young, who is set to be sentenced for murder, killed Ms McGuire, 23, at their Sebastapol home before placing her body in her ute and setting it alight in bushland at Scarsdale, staging the scene to look like a suicide.

Prosecutor Kristie Churchill said Young was "controlling and verbally abusive" throughout the couple's turbulent relationship, which began in late 2021.

She outlined incidents where he damaged her property, threatened her and once tried

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