Local News
Griekwastad murder trial: Accused grilled for a third day─── LANI FOUCHÉ 12:04 Wed, 20 Nov 2013
Lani Fouché
Kimberley - The state this morning continued its cross examination of the Griekwastad triple murder accused.
The 17-year-old who’s accused of killing Deon, Christel and Marthella Steenkamp on their farm Naauwhoek last year, for a third consecutive day couldn’t answer all the questions about the day the murders took place.
State advocate Hannes Cloete listed several examples of how the boy clearly adjusted his testimony as more and more experts testified in court.
These included how he told several people shortly after the murders that he knéw the Steenkamps were dead, but this week only said he thought they were dead and couldn’t be sure.
He was also earlier very specific about the amount of money that was according to him stolen from the safe, and this week says it could have been anything between R50 000 and R80 000. Cloete again accused him of lying.
Cloete also pointed out that the boy told several family members and friends shortly after the murders that he heard shots while inside the barn, waited there for about ten minutes, went inside the house where the contact between him and Marthella took place, changed his shirt, went back to the barn and took off in the bakkie.
He never told anyone about the second set of shots he heard, as he’s testifying now. “It shows there was only one attacker. More than one attacker would have led to simultaneous shots,” said Cloete.
“And for your story to make sense, you needed Marthella to still be alive after the first set of shots, otherwise how would you explain the blood on your shirt? The shootings couldn’t have happened in one set, then they’d all be dead when you entered the house. And your story wouldn’t make sense.”
The amount of Marthella’s blood that was found on this T-shirt also doesn’t make sense according to the accused’s version, said Cloete.
“There was a lot of blood on her shirt. Where did it all come from? It couldn’t have been from your brief encounter with her.”
The boy answered with “I don’t know, but I know it must have been from that one encounter. It must have happened then.”
He also couldn’t explain where the blood marks with sharp edges on his shirt came from. “Obviously those were smear marks coming from an unknown object. It was testified in court,” said Cloete.
The boy said only his and Marthella’s bodies were involved in the contact and that he can’t explain those smear marks.
Why the attacker was “kind” and didn’t shoot the boy while he was inside the house with the attacker in close proximity, is also a mystery, said Cloete.
“I’m not an attacker, I wouldn’t know why he did what he did,” said the boy.
Judge Frans Kgomo pointed out that this evidence may make it seem that the boy asked someone he knew to do the shooting.
“I’m only pointing it out, you dont’ have to answer it.” “Thank you, Honorable,” said the boy.
The case continues.
