Courtney’s mother ‘lied’
The mother of murdered threeyear-old Courtney Pieters, of Cape Town, misled the police about the killer’s identity.
This emerged in the high court in Cape Town during judgment in the trial of selfconfessed killer Mortimer Saunders on Tuesday.
Judge Pearl Mantame started her judgment by evaluating the evidence of witnesses.
Mantame said investigating officer Captain Sean Tailor testified that he showed footage from CCTV cameras near the area where Courtney’s body was found in Epping to her mother‚ Juanita Pieters‚ and other neighbours.
She said the footage showed Saunders “dropping something”.
Mantame said Tailor testified that Pieters at first claimed she did not know the person in the footage‚ but later admitted she did when police sniffer dogs tracked Courtney’s body fluids to Saunders’s room.
“Juanita Pieters approached him [Tailor] and advised him she had lied ... she could see that it was the accused.”
According to the judgment‚ Saunders and other residents identified another resident as the suspect but the man was released after police interviewed him.
Tailor went on to collect DNA samples from all men at the house to see if any of them could be linked to the crime.
Saunders had provided police with her picture, which he had on his cellphone.
But Tailor could not get hold of Saunders until he was arrested.
“He advised [the police] that he did not need a legal representative‚” Mantame said.
“He told them he had killed the deceased‚ inserted his fingers into the deceased’s vagina after she had died.”
Mantame evaluated forensic pathologist Professor Johan Dempers’s evidence‚ which showed that semen had been found in the child’s vagina.
However‚ Dempers‚ a senior forensic pathologist at Tygerberg Hospital‚ said he was not certain whether the semen was deposited while the child was alive or after her death.
In his admission‚ Saunders said he killed Courtney in Elsies River with ant poison and committed necrophilia.
But the state says he raped her while she was still alive. Dempers said there were lacerations to the child’s vagina.
“The findings were that the lacerations were caused by the [insertion] of an object‚” Mantame said.
“It was stated that the laceration could have been caused by penile penetration.”
In his plea explanation in May‚ Saunders said: “I unlawfully and intentionally committed a sexual act with a corpse.”
Courtney was murdered in her home in Elsies River in May 2017. Saunders was a tenant in her home at the time‚ and he was also friends with Courtney’s father‚ Aaron Fourie.
Saunders said she irritated him by waking him up to watch television in his room.
“Irritated for having been woken a second time ... I decided to give her ant poison‚” Saunders said.
He had bought the poison‚ in powder form‚ months earlier to repel ants in his room. He mixed it with water.
“Initially she did not want to drink it‚ but on telling her to do so she did‚” he said.
The judgment continues.