The trial of the remaining three accused of the #KrugersdorpMurders is currently being held in the South Gauteng High Court.
Marcel Steyn, 20, Zak Valentine, 34, and Cecilia Steyn, 37, have all pleaded not guilty on 11 counts of murder. Marinda Steyn, her son Le Roux and John Barnard have already been sentenced after pleading guilty. Le Roux and John negotiated a plea bargain and have testified for the State.
Also read:
#KrugersdorpMurders – trial starts with son Le Roux’s disturbing testimonial
This is a round-up of what has transpired so far.
• Le Roux Steyn’s testimony:
Le Roux Steyn, 22, was the first State witness to testify during the trial. He started his testimony by describing how Cecilia, the leader of the group, started her own church, which she named Electus per Deus, which means ‘chosen by God’ after she and Ria Grunewald from Overcomers Trough Christ (OTC) had a fallout.
Cecilia joined OTC because she claimed to be a witch who wanted to be delivered from Satanism. Cecilia and Ria were not seeing eye to eye and Cecilia had members of the group destroy OTC members’ property with homemade bombs.
Cecilia then had the group kill Natasha Burger and Joy Boonzaaier. Cecilia believed that Natasha’s prayers were meant to harm children. The group convinced Boonzaaier to meet with Burger and then the group (Zak and Mikeila Valentine and Marinda Steyn) killed Burger. Boonzaaier was killed because she witnessed the murder.
When Valentine’s wife, Mikeila, expressed her concern about the group’s activities, she also was killed.
Next to be killed were pastor Reg Bendixen and Jarrod Jackson – Bendixen because Cecilia did not like him and Jackson to fake Valentine’s death.
The group killed their other victims after by making ‘work-related’ appointments with them. They threaten them with various weapons to get their bank card PINs and then kill them once they had the information they wanted.
Le Roux testified that he became part of the group because his mother (Marinda Steyn) was involved. He was led to believe that his father did not love him anymore and that there was nowhere for him to go, should he try to run away. He said Cecilia took all the money they stole from their victims and the rest of the group never saw a cent.
According to Cecilia’s lawyer the group was never a ministry but only a group of friends. But Le Roux testified that they were led to believe that they were helping people who wanted to be delivered from Satanism. He said that they used to meet in Cecilia’s flat and pray together.
Marcel, Le Roux’s sister, denied involvement in the murders that were committed from 2012 to 2016, and denied verifying the victims’ PINs before they were killed. Le Roux contradicted her version of the events.
He said he and his sister used to have a very close relationship and even exchanged letters after they were arrested. That stopped over time as they grew further apart.
He blamed Cecilia for what had happened to his family and said he felt anger towards her.
Also read:
#KrugersdorpMurders Day 2 – Le Roux’s testimony more shocking than first day
• John Barnard’s testimony:
Barnard, who testified next, said he joined the group in November 2015 after telling Cecilia about Peter and Joan Meyer, his employers. Barnard believed he was not being remunerated fairly and that the Meyers were rich.
The group killed the Meyers in their home in Noordheuwel, but could only get R600 from them.
John told the court that he was living with Marinda and Le Roux at the time of the murders and that he and Marcel were told to make as much noise in his room as possible by playing loud music to deafen the victim’s cries for help while they were being assaulted in another room.
They would then go into the room where the victims were held, take their bank cards to the ATM, test their PINs and phone Marinda when the PIN was correct.
Le Roux testified it was his job to strangle the victims, after which the group would dispose of the bodies.
• A friend of Valentine’s testimony:
One of Valentine’s friends, who cannot be named, testified in court that he did not trust the police as one of the investigators was a regular at Cecilia’s house. The man was living with Valentine when some of the murders occurred. Cecilia’s husband was a warrant officer in the police, according to Le Roux’s testimony.
Valentine’s friend testified that Colonel Hennie de Jager, head of the police’s Occult Unit asked him to record the group admitting to the murders. Although he said he could not trust De Jager he still went ahead and recorded the confessions.
He allegedly told the group that Grunewald’s son, Joshua, had invited them to a braai. Cecilia told him to attend the braai and make friends with Joshua.
He was supposed to ask Joshua to help him fetch beer from the car, stab him in the neck and load him into the boot of the car.
Cecilia told the man that one of her friends needed Joshua’s kidneys to survive and that was why they wanted to kill him.
After recording the conversation the man went home, packed his belongings and fled. He said he hid from them for six months because he was afraid. After running away he was fired from his job because his employer told him that Valentine kept driving past his workplace and he felt the man was a threat to his business. The man said he was unable to buy a car or open a bank account because out of the blue he was blacklisted for not paying a cellphone account.
He admitted to knowing about some of the murders but that there was nothing he could do as Valentine was looking for him.
Also read:
#KrugersdorpMurders — Cross examination of Le Roux – was Cecilia’s group even a real ministry?
• The testimonies of Peter and Joan Meyer’s children
Nina Scott-Dawkins, 33, testified that her parents never conducted business at home, but made an exception as Peter was trying to open a water park in KwaZulu-Natal and thought the meeting would be about funding.
She testified that her mother had told her when she first met the group, her hair stood on end.
Scott-Dawkins said Marinda had promised to release funds for the project at a later stage but that she needed R1 million as prepayment for paperwork and to put her son through school.
Meyer didn’t like the idea because that was not the way he did business.
The Meyer’s son, Nicholas, 25, testified that on one occasion when Marinda, Marcel and Valentine showed up, he was at home. They said they had a meeting with Meyer but he wasn’t home at the time and asked to reschedule. Nicholas said Marinda did not look like the government official she pretended to be.
The evening of the murders Nicholas went out. When he came home he saw all the lights were on and he went in to look for his parents. His girlfriend at the time found their bodies in the living room.
• Linda Bendixen’s testimony:
According to Linda Bendixen, 69, wife of pastor Reg, she had financial difficulties and became depressed after her husband was murdered. She told the court that she had to sell their house because they did not have a pension plan or life insurance.
She testified that a few days before Reg was murdered he received a call from a young man who expressed interest in his church. He agreed to meet the man at a coffee shop in the Northgate Shopping Centre.
Linda said she went to work on the day of the meeting. She tried phoning her husband throughout the day but could not reach him. When she came home she saw him lying on the grass. She tried to pick him up but realised his injuries were serious and phoned her son.
• Joshua Grunewald’s testimony:
He said he and his mother are estranged and haven’t seen each other since 2012. He said in 2012 he received weird calls about jobs and that he saw a man with a helmet walk up and down his street, although he did not see a bike.
In 2013 the police phoned him to tell him that his life could be in danger and he was being followed.
He told the court how he met with someone from Discovery and was under the impression the man’s name was Mark. When the police showed him a photo of one of the people following him, he identified the person as the man he knew as Mark. In actual fact it was Zak Valentine.
• A good friend of Cecilia’s testimony:
Another witness, who can not be named, was a good friend of Cecilia’s and lived with her from time to time. She said Cecilia had multiple personalities and one of those was a little girl called Anja. When Cecilia allowed Anja to surface, she and the woman would play together and sometimes colour in.
Other personalities were named Akeesha and Lilly. On certain significant nights on the Satanic calendar Cecilia lied down and closed her eyes. On those nights they all met at Grunewald’s home to pray for Cecilia.
According to the witness they believed that her soul left her body and went into another spiritual realm. She then would spit up blood.
After Cecilia and Grunewald had become estranged the witness was told to stay away from Cecilia and that she was bad news. She however continued her friendship with Cecilia and with the rest of the group.
Cecilia started asking the witness questions about Burger’s comings and goings. The questions later became more specific, according to the witness.
The witness testified that although she was convinced the group killed Burger, Cecilia told her that it was a Satanic church that did not like the way Burger was praying. According to the witness, Mikeila lost a lot of weight before she was murdered. The woman said after Mikeila’s murder she became scared but could not go to her family as they had lost contact.
• Karen Luitingh’s testimony:
She told the court that she met Cecilia through OTC and after being baptised, Cecilia told her that all the demons had left her. She could see this by the light that shone above her head. She got together with a church group for lectures and prayers. After one such meeting her car was bombed. She later received threatening messages from an unknown number.
The trial continues.
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