Cop: Animals are not like that

Imagine being on the phone to your home at the moment that your spouse is being brutally murdered.

See also;
News24: 14 October 2007 - 'She is crying, she is crying'
News24: 17 October 2007 - Woman killed at home in broad daylight
News24: 17 October 2008 - Accused wears Bok jersey

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No one deserved to die the way Kathy Odendaal was killed in her home in Lynnwood Manor, Pretoria last year, the Pretoria High Court heard.

Captain Peet van der Spuy said Odendaal was subjected to humiliation, torture and indignity.

"One should not compare it to animals, because animals are not like that," he testified.

Van der Spuy, who was in charge of collecting forensic evidence in the case, testified in the trial of Mohlatsi Alfred Matlala, 23, and Jacob Tshepo Dithung, 29.

They have pleaded not guilty to a range of charges connected to an alleged crime spree in the Lynnwood area in October last year, including two counts of murder and several of robbery with aggravating circumstances.

Girl, 3, shot in the back

They also face a charge of attempting to murder a three-year-old Malawian girl, Alphiner Ndalana, by shooting her in the back during a robbery at a house in Lynnwood Manor.

Van der Spuy said he believed Odendaal had been chased through her garden before she was murdered in a washroom in her house.

She was found naked in her house with her shirt around her throat.

Odendaal had been strangled and stabbed repeatedly, and died of a deeply penetrating stab wound to the chest.

Her husband Gideon, a commander of a defence force unit, testified that he was in Cape Town on business on October 16 last year when he received a call from his security company that an alarm had been triggered in their house.

Husband told not to enter house

He asked them to go to the house and tried to phone his wife, but there was no reply. He then phoned their domestic worker, Fransina Majadibodu, on her cellphone.

She sounded frightened and told him she was hiding under her bed and there were people with his wife and they were hurting her.

He immediately phoned the security company and police and made arrangements to fly back home. He was meanwhile told that his wife had died.

When he finally arrived home that night, police did not want him to enter and he was only allowed into the house the next day.

Odendaal testified that his wife had worked from home, making beaded jewellery.

Security at the house had been tight, with an alarm system and security gates at the doors.

The trial continues.