Barman describes accused’s antics
‘He mimicked playing a guitar, paced up and down and danced’
A BARMAN at the Camps Bay Retreat Hotel has described Guatemalan murder accused Diego Novella’s “bizarre behaviour” in the early hours of July 29, 2015.
Jean Nyabenda, a French-speaking Burundian, told the Western Cape High Court that Novella stared at him for 15 minutes, mimicked playing a guitar, paced up and down and danced from about 1 o’clock that morning.
“I was like maybe there is something wrong with this guy.”
Novella has been charged with murdering his American marketing executive girlfriend who was found by hotel staff in the room they shared, on the afternoon of July 29, 2015. She had been strangled, had blunt force trauma to her face and had defensive wounds on her arms.
Nyabenda testified that he had been “astonished” when Novella stared at him for about 15 minutes while he sat behind the reception desk.
“I didn’t speak to him, but all the time I was asking myself, ‘Why is he staring at me like this?’” he said.
Novella had ordered a Virgin Mary, and paced up and down the reception area.
Hours later, when two other hotel staff members, Sarah and Diana, arrived for their shift, Nyabenda told them Novella had not slept.
Nyabenda told the court that Sarah told Novella he should get some sleep, and he replied, “‘What is sleep?’, he said ‘No, I can’t go and sleep, because to me sleeping is nothing’”. Nyabenda said he couldn’t understand why Novella had paid for a room, but then slept in front of the reception area on the floor.
“It made me ask ‘Why is he behaving like this?’
“It is what made me think there is something wrong with this man, because of his behaviour.
“He behaved in this bizarre way over a period of some hours,” Nyabenda testified.
Last month the court heard that Novella had taken cannabis oil and sceletium (a herb) before the murder. His defence will argue diminished capacity due to drug intoxication.
Novella claims he cannot recall killing Alban and denies he had the intent to murder her.
Novella had brought Alban to South Africa to seek treatment for her Lyme disease (caused by bacteria and spread by ticks) at a spiritual retreat. He claims they were in love with each other and that her death “devastated” him.
Alban’s parents, Howdy Kabrins and Doris Weitz, together with their respective partners, arrived in South Africa from America at the start of the trial.
The trial continues.