Waterfall of blood flowed at Van Bredas

WHETHER or not Henri van Breda axed his parents and brother to death‚ he relived the horror of the aftermath yesterday through the eyes of veteran paramedic Christiaan Koegelenberg.

Testifying as a state witness in Van Breda’s triple murder trial in the Cape Town High Court‚ Koegelenberg described the “waterfall” of blood that flowed down the stairs as he moved Van Breda’s younger sister, Marli, who survived the January 2015 attack.

Koegelenberg described how he was led by police into the Van Breda family home at the De Zalze estate in Stellenbosch‚ only to find everything deurmekaar (muddled up).

Henri was sitting with a small dog (known to the media as Sasha)‚ and Koegelenberg was told there were four victims in the house.

Climbing the stairs‚ he came across two of them. “I saw one was still alive. I went to the first two victims while my colleague went to the other two‚” he said.

Police took pictures‚ and then the blood from Marli’s wounds “flowed like a waterfall to the bottom of the stairs” as he and a colleague moved the then 16-year-old.

“In my 39 years of service, this is one of the worst incidents I have ever seen‚” Koegelenberg said.

Members in the public gallery‚ including representatives of the Van Breda family‚ looked down in shock as gruesome photographs were shown in court.

Earlier‚ an unsuspecting buck‚ and possibly its friend‚ became digital exhibits as Piet Botha‚ Van Breda’s defence counsel‚ shared footage from infrared cameras at De Zalze that showed a buck on one side of the fence at the luxury estate‚ and later on the other side.

“The buck could have gotten over the fence without triggering the alarm‚” Botha argued.

But Judge Siraj Desai accused him of speculation‚ saying there was no way of knowing if it was the same buck.

Botha also showed footage of a 2013 incident in which a panga-wielding man had tried to get through the fence but was thwarted by guards who had seen him on the thermal camera. – TMG Digital/TimesLIVE