Saunders’ DNA matched
‘Full profile match’ found in swabs taken from Courtney’s top
MURDER accused, Mortimer Saunders cupped his face with his hand and stared eagerly at the DNA expert, Luthando Tiya, who testified that DNA found on Courtney Pieters’s top, presumed to be semen, was a full profile match with Saunders.
Tiya, who testified as a state witness at the trial, said DNA results conducted on swabs taken from Pieters’s bodily fluids and DNA obtained at the crime scene was male DNA.
Tiya said the DNA on the shirt was a match to Saunders, however, there was not enough DNA obtained from the jeans and vaginal valve swab to match it with the accused.
“We were able to fully extract DNA from a possible sample on a top. In this particular top, we managed to extract only male DNA.
“We compared the profile of the deceased and accused. If you make comparison on DNA from the top to the accused, the numbers fully align and are the same. This is what we term a full profile match. DNA on the jeans and deep (vaginal) vault was male DNA.
“The extraction protocol employed was for possible semen. Not enough DNA was obtained from the jeans,” said Tiya.
Tiya said a second swab testing on the right thigh of Pieters contained a minute concentration of male DNA which tested positive as semen.
However, the DNA was also too little to visualise a full DNA profile.
The DNA results came after State witness and chief forensic analyst Jacobus van Zyl unveiled in court on Wednesday, that Pieters was given a large dose of poison which was found in her stomach, kidney, liver, bowel and blood samples.
During cross examination, defence advocate Mornay Calitz said the results of the second thigh swab were not disclosed to the defence and questioned whether Tiya personally did the analysis and physically saw the semen on the top in question.
Tiya admitted to only analysing the findings and not conducting the DNA analysis on his own.
When questioned, he said it wasn’t possible to establish the age of the DNA found on the shirt.
After the case was postponed until Tuesday, family members and friends gathered outside the court, expressed anger at the state witness for “messing up the DNA”.