Toekomsrus resident on trial for friend’s murder

Toekomsrus resident Loretta Innocentia Cook is on trial for murder and attempted murder at the Palm Ridge Magistrates’ Court on the East Rand.

Cook is accused of having cut open a friend’s stomach with a razor blade in order to remove her unborn child from her womb on 6 January 2012 in Toekomsrus.

The victim, Valencia Behren bled to death on scene. The baby survived.

Beeld reported that Cook denied having tied up her friend and cutting open her stomach. She also claims that she was pregnant.

Behren’s sister-in-law, known as Belidine Steyn, told the court that this was a lie and that Cook’s alleged pregnancy was not visible. Steyn told the court that initially Cook had visited Behren at her house and told her she had brought her a pram and had a bag full of baby clothes for her.

According to Steyn she went to Cook’s house on midday that day and that’s when she make the shocking discovery. She saw Behren’s body on the ground outside the kitchen door, next to the stoep. The father of the baby Joseph Pieterse was there already.

Steyn testified that during this time Cook was lying on the ground in a back room but it didn’t look as if she was conscious.

According to her Cook then was transported to a local hospital where she appeared normal.

Steyn says at the hospital she saw a baby in an incubator with its head cut and immediately thought it was Behren’s baby.

Asked how she knew this, Steyn told the court she knew that Behren was meant to give birth the next month.