RELIVING THE HORROR
People close to the Van Bredas talk about the pain of watching the court case against Henri
SHE feels sick to the stomach every time someone talks about it. For most people Martin, Teresa and Rudi van Breda are names in a sensational news story – members of a family who were horrifically bludgeoned to death in their home in De Zalze estate near Stellenbosch. But for her they’re so much more than the victims of one of the most shocking crimes to rock South Africa in recent years. They were her dear friends.
For two years she’s been desperately trying to work through the terrible deaths of her friends but now the matter is in court daily and she’s confronted with details of what happened to Martin (54), his wife, Teresa (55), and their eldest son, Rudi (22), on the fateful night of 27 January 2015. Their middle child, Henri (now 22), stands accused of their murder.
“It’s a wrench,” the friend, who asked not to be named, tells us. “They were such lovely people and I can’t believe they came to their end like that. Such torture . . . I think it’s much worse than being shot dead. So gruesome.”
The woman, a longtime friend of Teresa, says for months she’s been struggling to find peace. She’s made a photo album to capture treasured memories of the family, but now she’s finding it traumatic as facts are revealed about their final moments.
In the first few days of court proceedings Henri, who’s also charged with the attempted murder of his younger
sister, Marli (18), was on his own. Apart from his uncle Andre du Toit no other family members were in court. Andre and his wife, Sonja, have been appointed Henri and Marli’s guardians.
There was also no sign of Henri’s girlfriend, Daniellé Janse van Rensburg. She told YOU last year she was convinced of his innocence. “Anyone spending just one day with Henri will know that he’s not capable of doing something like that,” she said. “I’ll stand by him.” (YOU, 30 June 2016.)
It’s unclear why she wasn’t in court but two days after the start of the hearing she posted a cryptic entry on Facebook.
“I can’t stand rocking when I’m in here, because your crystal ball ain’t so crystal clear,” she wrote.
Martin’s brother Bailey denied rumours of a rift in the family because of Henri, saying he and Andre, his twin brother, simply have different views on the matter.
“It’s very sensitive to us,” says Bailey, who lives in Gauteng. “We’re Martin’s blood brothers but our perspectives differ. I have a closer relationship with Henri than my twin brother has.” Bailey says he’ll call Henri every now and then.
He says it’s hard to see his nephew on trial but he’s planning to attend the proceedings at a later stage. “We can’t sit there for months. We keep an eye [on the case] via the media. And we have people who are updating us.”
HENRI appears almost vulnerable sitting in the dock. Looking at him, it’s hard to believe he stands accused of a brutal family killing. The greyand blue-toned suits he wears to court brighten his pale complexion; his expressionless face is framed by wavy dark-blond hair. The sensational trial started on Monday 24 April in the high court in Cape Town where Henri, after months of speculation, shared his version of what happened. According to him, a man dressed in black clothes entered his parents’ house and wiped out his family. He claimed the attacker laughed as he aimed an axe blow at his dad.
Only time will tell whether Judge Siraj Desai will accept Henri’s statement as the truth, but it also depends on whether the state prosecutor, advocate Susan Galloway, and her team succeed in proving the contrary as the onus of proof rests with the state.
Martin, Teresa and Rudi’s butchered bodies were found around 7 am in their luxury home at 12 Goske Street. Their youngest child, Marli, sustained severe head injuries but survived the attack.
Henri smelt of strong liquor, said Sergeant Adrian Kleynhans, the policeman who was first to arrive on the scene. “He seemed emotional, as if he was blowing off steam, and he was nervous. But he wasn’t crying.”
In his plea explanation Henri says the police took away the grey pyjamas and white socks he was wearing and let him wait in just his boxer shorts in a freezing police station where a statement was eventually taken from him.
At one stage he heard police officials telling each other that Marli had been given something to drink which was making her wide awake and that she was telling them everything that happened.
Chief detective Colonel Deon Beneke also told him that Marli was telling them everything and asked if her recollection would be the same as his. Henri had said “yes”.
The family friend describes Henri as a strange child. She says although Rudi was lovely she simply couldn’t relate to Henri. “I love children. He was a different type of boy. I never had a rapport with him.
“We can only hope that justice will be done. When I think about how much I loved Martin and Teresa and that they were taken away, I get very angry.”
HOW IMPORTANT IS FORENSIC EVIDENCE?
The courts have high regard for the value of forensic evidence, Pretoria-based forensic consultant and fraud examiner Nick Olivier says. “Forensic evidence is based on the premise that a person leaves traces of themself behind every time they touch something at the crime scene,” he says.
The testimony of forensic experts is also generally reliable, says Professor Johan van Graan, a lecturer in policing and forensic investigation at Unisa.
“The experts are highly experienced and qualified in their areas of expertise.”
Still, various types of testimony are heard and the court doesn’t necessarily rate forensic testimony more valid than any other.
“If the court is sceptical about the testimony of the accused or a witness, the forensic evidence will be of a greater value as it can either support or disprove their version of events, because the analysis thereof is based on scientific principles,” Olivier says.
“Overall, forensic evidence is crucial to a case,” Van Graan adds.
But it can’t conclusively prove a person’s guilt, Olivier says. “It only proves the person was at the scene of the crime. DNA and fingerprints endure for a long time and someone might have been at the scene long before the crime
happened, which could explain why they left traces of evidence.”
Forensic science is an established and advanced science, Van Graan says. “That’s why the forensic and medical experts are usually consistent in their findings.”
Olivier agrees that forensics can be critical in the outcome of a case. “There are specific calculations, for example about the speed and the direction of blood spatter, and these can be used to reach reliable conclusions.” “Because blood has certain characteristics, the grouping, pattern and distribution of spatter give a good indication of the victim’s movements and the direction in which both victim and perpetrator went, the sequence of events, where the crime took place, what kind of weapon was used and much more,” Van Graan says.
Analyses of blood spatter can help the courts determine the truthfulness of a witness or accused, he adds.
The location of the axe after the attack, where the survivors were found, how the victims lay and how the blood spatter was distributed could reveal the position of the attacker during the killing, Olivier says.
“You can, for example, determine where the attacker was, if the victims were lying down or on their knees when attacked, whether or not there was a long struggle before they were killed, how long it took to kill the victim and how tall or strong the attacker was.”
A postmortem examination could shed further light on the crime, he says. The nature of the victim’s injuries, the extent of their wounds and whether there are signs they fought back also add a great deal of insight.
DO SOME MURDER WEAPONS REVEAL MORE THAN OTHERS?
“A gun leaves behind evidence that can be traced directly to the murderer thanks to ballistics tests and tests for residue left on the shooter after the gun is fired,” Van Graan says.
“A gun can reveal the direction from which the shot was fired as well as the distance between the firearm and the victim. No two guns leave the same marks on spent cartridges so it’s possible to match a spent cartridge with a specific firearm.”
But whether the murderer uses a knife, axe, blunt object or even his bare hands he always leaves a trail of evidence.
The Locard’s principle, one of the most important in forensic science, states that the perpetrator brings something into the crime scene and exits from it with something, and that both these constitute forensic evidence. It could include DNA left on the murder weapon or blood spatter on the victim or perpetrator’s clothes.
WHAT ROLE DO THE POLICE PLAY?
In South Africa there are strict rules for how a crime scene should be approached and evidence should be processed. If protocol isn’t followed, the credibility of the evidence is undermined. The court can decide that a piece of evidence isn’t of much value to the case or dismiss it altogether because the correct process wasn’t followed, Olivier says.
“That’s why the initial processing of a murder scene is definitely one of the most complex and integral tasks in the entire investigation,” Van Graan adds.
“A quick response by the police is often critical to the success or failure of the entire investigation, because when the crime scene is left unprotected it’s vulnerable to contamination. Contamination happens when evidence is tampered with or crucial evidence is removed or destroyed.”
Van Graan says there are many cases where evidence is ruled inadmissible in court and perpetrators are let off the hook because evidence wasn’t correctly processed. “The Oscar Pistorius murder case is a classic example where the defence focused on the management of the crime scene and evidence was dismissed because there was a question mark over police credibility.”