It was one of the men who would allegedly later torture and kill her partner Dane McNeill, 20.

"Where's Dane?" she said she asked.

Mr McNeill's alleged killer – Haysem Charbaji – told her he was down the road at a pub.

After Ms Patterson hung up, she tried to call Mr McNeill several more times but the phone rung out then later went straight to voicemail.

On Tuesday, Ms Patterson sat in the witness box of the NSW Supreme Court staring straight ahead at Haysem Charbaji and his brother Azam.

The two men are on trial for the murder of Mr McNeill, who was allegedly beaten, drugged and stabbed in the lead up to his death in July 2014.

Ms Patterson told the court that, on the day Mr McNeill went missing, she also saw him with Haysem Charbaji in a silver Holden Commodore at Sadleir, in Sydney's southwest.

She told the court she went over to talk to Mr McNeill, with whom she was fighting at the time.

When she approached the car, she said Haysem Charbaji threatened to "kick [her] head in".

"He said if I damaged another car then he'd hurt me," she said.

The court heard Haysem Charbaji believed Ms Patterson owed him $3000 over some damage done to the car of his girlfriend at the time, Lexy May Jamieson.

Ms Jamieson is also on trial, charged with being an accessory after the fact to Mr McNeill's murder.

Ms Patterson told the court Mr McNeill was a regular ice user who owed money to another man called Shane at the time of his death.

During her opening address to the jury, Crown prosecutor Margaret Cuneen, SC, told the jury Mr McNeill was assaulted, drugged with Xanex and stabbed up to a dozen times in the lead up to his death.

A garbage truck driver later found Mr McNeill's charred remains inside a suitcase at a reserve in Picnic Point in Sydney's southwest on Monday July 21, 2014.

The trial continues before Justice Stephen Rothman.