Court hears details of gruesome Pretoria murder

The High Court in Pretoria yesterday heard gruesome details about the discovery of an ex-brigadier’s decomposing body, wrapped in plastic, in a manhole behind a house in Capital Park two years ago.

Captain Petrus van der Spuy told the high court he discovered the body after Estelle Reddy, 36, came to the police station on April 4, 2016 and asked him, out of the blue, if he knew about Danie Dreyer’s murder and if it had been reported.

Reddy, who was Dreyer’s ex-girlfriend, told him she did not see him being killed, but knew where the body was.

Asked how she could be sure that the person was dead, she said she had felt the body, that it was wrapped, and that she was dead certain Dreyer was dead.

She first took him to a dump where he found a black bag with clothing she had thrown away and then took him to Dreyer’s house in Villieria where she showed him a bedroom that had been burnt.

She said Dreyer was murdered inside the house and her friend Gerhardus Papenfus, 42, set the room alight with petrol. She said Papenfus had Dreyer’s firearm and that his body was in a manhole next to Papenfus’s house.

When they arrived at the house, Van der Spuy introduced himself, warned Papenfus of his rights and asked him if he knew anything about a firearm and a body. Papenfus said he knew nothing.

There was a strong smell of rotting flesh outside the house next door and he asked Papenfus and his mother if they knew what caused the smell, but they said they smelled nothing.

The smell was worse at the manhole. After battling to open it, Papenfus saw a plastic bag in which something had been wrapped and the smell became unbearable. Papenfus denied any knowledge of the body.

Reddy, Papenfus, Kevin Johnson and Ruvan Furst of Eersterust pleaded not guilty to a range of charges, including the murder of Dreyer, and the robbery of various of his household goods and theft of his car.

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