The wealthy benefactor behind a Melbourne mum found dead in the apartment he paid for asked her family to end contact so he could clear his head after her death, jurors have heard.

Ellie Price's rent, some expenses and Mercedes sports car were all paid for by her friend Mark Gray, a brothel owner she met at a Melbourne club three years before her death.

Price's boyfriend Ricardo Barbaro is standing trial for her murder in the Victorian Supreme Court, but it's her relationship with the other man that has been the focus of the trial.

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Family considered Gray, an accountant 31 years Price's senior, to be her only close friend in Melbourne.

Price's mother, Tracey Gangell, told jurors she considered herself to be close to Gray also after her daughter's death.

The court heard Gray gifted her family $25,000 to share for Christmas when Ellie Price was still alive in 2019.

Gangell told jurors she could also recall him giving the same gift for Christmas in 2020, after her daughter's death.

Police discovered Price's body, with her throat cut, in the bedroom of her South Melbourne apartment in early May 2020.

But prosecutors allege she was killed by Barbaro in the early hours of April 29.

Family raised the alarm after Price failed to answer calls, but Gangell said she never asked Gray to go check on her daughter.

"Ellie always called me back and I didn't want to hassle Mark," she said.

Gangell wasn't sure how much contact she had with Gray in early 2020, but said after her daughter's death and in the lead-up to a committal hearing to determine if Barbaro would stand trial they would speak on the phone or via text multiple times a week.

Jurors have heard text messages between Gray and Price's older sister, Danielle Price, appear to show him coaching his young friend's family on what to say during that hearing.

"My tip is to memorise three phrases – I don't know, not to my knowledge and I'm not sure. They'll hate that lol," he said in one message to Danielle Price.

Gangell said it did appear from texts as if he was trying to coach them, but she couldn't remember being shown those messages and said Gray never sent her anything like that.

Text messages between the pair after Price's death could not be retrieved.

Gangell said contact with Gray ended after the committal hearing in May 2021, at his request.

"He said that he needed time to heal and get his head straight and if I can respect that, so after that I stopped sending messages," she said.

Other texts shown to jurors reveal Gray said he intended a brothel he was opening in South Melbourne to be Price's business.