The #Krugersdorpmurder trial for the last three accused of this deadly group is still ongoing in the South Gauteng High Court.
To read the last round up, click here:
Interesting yet disturbing info about the #KrugersdorpMurders trial so far
A number of witnesses for the prosecution have already testified:
• Estelle Schutte from Rawson Properties testified that she and another agent went to Zak Valentine’s home when he wanted to sell his house. She said they followed Valentine into the house, where the sliding- and safety doors were open. When Valentine walked in, he started calling his wife, Mikeila Valentine, but when he did not get an answer he went looking for her in the house. They heard him screaming and ran to the bedroom. When they walked in it was dark and she could see someone was in the bed. They turned on the lights and according to Schutte there was a lot of blood on the side of Mikeila’s face and stab wounds on her neck. Schutte said that Valentine just stared at the body while the other agent phoned the police. According to her, Valentine was calm the whole time, but did cry when he phoned his father. Valentine allegedly asked her if the clients were still coming and later, while police were documenting the crime scene, said to her that now they were getting new photos of the house, just not the ones that they wanted.
Advocate Amanda Nel, for Valentine, stated that after consulting with her client he told her that he was not himself that day and had not yet had his injections as he is a diabetic. When he referred to the “client”, he was talking about an appointment he had later that day.
• Natacha Burger’s mother, Denise Burger, testified that her daughter was very religious and had recently finished her law degree. She said that she found out about her daughter’ s death from Natacha’s friends, who were supposed to visit her the night of her murder.
Burger was part of the Overcomers Through Christ (OTC) ministries and met the group through them. Le Roux Steyn testified that Natacha was lured to the home of her neighbour, Joy Boonzaaier, where she was murdered because Cecilia believed that she was praying against children.
• Hanlé Lategan’s husband told the court that he has been struggling with her death. He said that he had never suffered from depression previously, but for the past two years he has had to take medication. According to Le Roux’s testimony, his mother, Marinda, had an appointment with Lategan. Marinda threatened her with a revolver and they withdrew R3 000 from her account before strangling her.
• The sister of Glen McGregor, Lorna Schroeder, testified that the loss of McGregor has been very difficult for the whole family. According to her, they are waiting for the case to be concluded in order to have his memorial service in Scotland, where they grew up before moving to South Africa as children. Le Roux testified that the group went to McGregor’s smallholding. His mother, Marinda, apparently told McGregor that she needed advice about her taxes. After they entered McGregor’s house, she took out a revolver and ordered him to lie down. According to Le Roux, the man did not want to lie down and when it looked like he was going to fight back, Marinda shot him in the stomach. They rummaged through the house, taking what they could and transferred money from his account. Eventually they strangled him and dumped his body.
• Heather Scholefield, wife of Anthony Scholefield, and Kezia McAlpine, wife of Kevin McAlpine, also testified in court. According to Heather, a man named Ruan Schoeman arranged an appointment with her husband at Key West Shopping Centre. She asked the man for more information about himself but he said that his fiancée would bring the information to the meeting.
According to Kezia, a man also made an appointment with her husband at the same shopping mall. Both appointments were for 6pm. Heather told the Court that when Scholefield had not returned by 8.30pm she started phoning him and Ruan. When they did not answer, she phoned the police, who said they had seen a vehicle matching the description of Scholefield’s car and went to investigate. They then found Scholefield’s body. Kezia said that she was visiting family and began worrying about her husband at about 9pm. She wanted to wait until 9.30pm before phoning the police, but by 9.20pm she had received an SMS indicating that two bank transactions that had gone through their account. McAlpine’s mother went to Key West in the meantime to look for his car, but could not find it.
His body was later found in his BMW. According to Le Roux’s testimony, he would phone the brokers just before the meeting and ask to change the meeting place, arranging to meet them at his mother’s flat. Once the victims were inside, his mother would take out her revolver and order the victims to hand over their bank cards, PIN numbers, cellphones and car keys. As soon as the group had what they wanted, the victims were strangled.
• A Discovery Life Assessor, Shane Chatzkelowitz, testified that he had to do an investigation after the company suspected something was wrong with Valentine’s life insurance policy. The policy was set up less than five months before the group faked Valentine’s death by killing Jarrod Jackson and then burning Valentine’s car with Jackson inside. The group wanted it to look like Valentine died in the car, in order for them to claim his life insurance. Chatzkelowitz said the sudden death and the fact that the beneficiary, in this case Cecilia Steyn, pushed for a quick payout, made the case very suspicious. The same morning that Marinda Steyn went to identify Jackson’s body as that of Valentine, Le Roux and Cecilia phoned Discovery to start procedures for the insurance payout. According to Chatzkelowitz, he became suspicious when he realised Cecilia was lying. He said she told him Valentine’s medical bracelet and wedding ring were found in the car, but his report stated differently. She also told him two men were arrested in connection with Mikeila’s murder and deported without a hearing. She stated in the interview that Valentine’s car could have rolled and then later said they suspected his blood sugar could have dropped.
She also said they were bothered by the fact that they didn’t know if he was already dead when the car started burning. When asked for more information from the police and DNA results, Cecilia said that the lab in Pretoria was behind with their DNA results and the police in Petrus Steyn did not have fax facilities.
• Rowan Venter, who worked and lived with Michael de Villiers (Zak Valentine’s alias after faking his death) at Kia Kaha Ministries in Magaliesburg, said in the evenings they would read the paper and listen to the radio. He told the court that Valentine had prayers that were printed out on paper. He told Venter that he got them from “C”. Venter said he wasn’t sure what “C’s” full name was.
Valentine also told Venter that God told him that he should marry “C”. Le Roux previously testified that the group referred to Cecilia as “C”.
Venter said that after Valentine moved out, the police came by one day looking for him. Only after the police showed him a photo of Valentine did he realise who they were looking for. The police allegedly arrested Valentine at one of the ministry’s camps.
• According to pastor George Nel from the Lighthouse Full Gospel Church in Randburg, they received SMSes saying that “a pastor is going to die and there is nothing you can do about it” an hour before the murder of pastor Reg Bendixen. Bendixen was a friend and mentor of Ria Grunewald, from the OTC. Cecilia was a prominent member of the OTC because of her satanic past. Nel said that Grunewald had asked him to assess Cecilia’s credibility and he believed her to be a born-again Christian. Nel went on to say that Cecilia and Grunewald had an argument because Cecilia did not accept Grunewald’s principles of a born-again Christian in the Know your Saviour course the OTC presented.
One night, a security company informed Nel of a fire at his church. When he got there, the bathroom and office had been destroyed and the place smelled like petrol. Nel was told the fire was started by a petrol bomb. He told the court that on the night of the fire, his brother found a note on the church gate saying “Ria, who is going to protect you now”. Bendixen was presenting a course with Grunewald at the time of his death.
Nel said that OTC members and people close to Grunewald received threatening messages, one of which was a very specific SMS about Bendixen.
One of the messages he received was about his son. It said he had a beautiful son and named the place where the sender had seen his son. After the murders of Natacha Burger and Reg Benedixen, Nel and his wife decided to keep their son as close to home as possible. He told the Court that Grunewald ended her ministry after that.
• During the trial, the Court had to decide if a statement taken from Valentine just after Joan and Peter Meyer’s murder was allowed in Court.
Warrant Officer Conrad Robertson took the statement from Valentine in 2015, when he wanted to find out why a vehicle connected to Valentine was seen at the Meyer’s home the day before their murder. Robertson later testified that he had thought of Valentine as a suspect when taking the statement. Valentine claimed that his rights to an attorney and right to silence were not presented to him when the statement was taken. He said he was giving the statement as a witness and not as a suspect. Advocate Amanda Nel said the statement influences Valentine’s right to a fair trial. Judge Ellem Jacob Francis said that Valentine should have been informed he was a suspect before the statement was taken, and thus ruled in Valentines favour and rejected the statement.
• According to Melani van der Merwe, who worked with Marinda Steyn, she met Cecilia through Marinda. Cecilia was the author of Know your Enemy, a course presented by the OTC. Van der Merwe said that Cecilia could travel to Egypt in four seconds due to Astral Projection.
Astral Projection is an out-of-body experience, during which one’s soul separates from the physical body and travels without it. Although Cecilia did Astral Projection she told Van der Merwe that Christians were not supposed to do it as it is a thing that demons do. Van der Merwe said Cecilia told her she had a third eye for looking into the soul and she could see that Van der Merwe had not been baptised. She said Cecilia could read her thoughts. She told how the group was familiar with Cecilia’s different personalities. ‘Anja’ would come out when Cecilia laid her head on Grunewald’s shoulder. Grunewald would tell Cecilia to sleep and then call ‘Anja’ to come out. According to Van der Merwe, ‘Anja’ was a loving three-year-old girl. She said when she visited Cecilia one Sunday, ‘Daphney’, one of the other personalities, was cooking. According to Van der Merwe, Grunewald was busy with a follow-up course to Know your Saviour and Cecilia wanted to host a second Know your Enemy course. It is alleged that this created controversy between the two and that is when Cecilia broke away from the OTC to start her own ministry. Various members of the OTC received threatening SMSes and Van der Merwe said hers was about her head being split open with an axe. She claimed she wasn’t scared because she knew God would protect her. She said she moved away from Cecilia and Marinda when she realised they weren’t living like Christians should.
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