A police officer told the court how murder accused Johannes de Jager directed police to Charmaine Mare's body parts.
|||Cape Town - Johannes Christiaan de Jager pointed out the drain where he hid the torso of teenager Charmaine Mare, a police officer told the Western Cape High Court on Tuesday.
Lt-Col Michael Barkhuizen said he conducted the pointing out with De Jager after he consulted a lawyer.
Barkhuizen is a leader of a detective group in the Hawks which investigates high priority murders.
De Jager has pleaded not guilty to the rape and murder of prostitute Hiltina Alexander in May 2008, and the murder of 18-year-old Mare, an Mpumalanga resident, on January 11 this year.
He previously told the court that Mare had been taking her time to get ready and he had grabbed her arm in the bathroom. He said she slipped on the bath mat, or lost her balance, and hit the rim of the bath. She never regained consciousness. He panicked and tried to get rid of her body.
Barkhuizen said De Jager led him to a house in Kraaifontein, Cape Town, on January 16, where he had been staying with his girlfriend, her daughter and his son. Mare had been staying at the house during a holiday and to visit the daughter.
“There he pointed out certain things to me and made certain reports to me,” he said.
A portion of the recorded pointing out was shown to the court. In the video De Jager is seen walking to the house with handcuffs and chains on his ankles and wrists. The first stop is a purple bedroom, which has posters on the walls, items scattered on the floor, and an unmade bed.
De Jager indicates this is where Mare slept, but that it looks different. He then takes Barkhuizen to a small bathroom and says this is where Mare changed into her clothes that morning.
“You said she slipped here?” Barkhuizen asks in the video.
“That's correct, yes,” De Jager replies, showing where her body lay. The next scene shows De Jager walking through the garage to a paved courtyard outside, where he points at a square drain hole in the middle, about 40cm wide.
Barkhuizen told the court the accused also led him to a deserted plot near the Kraaifontein shooting range.
“I later established this is where the deceased's body had been discarded previously,” he testified.
“Lastly, later that afternoon, the accused took me to a spot on the N2 highway near Macassar where he pointed out a spot on the left hand side of the road.”
He said two objects were found, wrapped in dog food bags, in a Mr Price plastic bag.
“These bags contained the legs of the deceased... These two objects were lying partially concealed in the grass next to the tree.”
Barkhuizen said when De Jager led them to that spot, he exclaimed: “Daar le hulle nog” (They are still lying there)”.
Sapa