THE NIGHT OF THE MURDER

Henri’s version He enters a plea of not guilty. In a statement – read out in court by his advocate, Pieter Botha – he says that a man with a balaclava attacked his parents, brother and sister. He says he fought the intruder, who then fled through the back door. He says he lost consciousness on the stairs in the house and when he came to it was daybreak. That’s when he phoned emergency services. The axe Precious Munyongani, the Van Breda’s domestic helper, claims an axe similar to the murder weapon had been kept in the house’s scullery. She was at work the day before the murders, but says nothing had appeared unusual. An argument Stephanie Op’t Hof, a neighbour, claims on the night of the murders she’d heard raised voices coming from the Van Breda home. The defence argues it’s possible she could have heard the sound of a Star Trek movie, which Henri, his dad and brother had watched that evening, but she’s adamant that what she heard wasn’t a movie soundtrack. Phone calls Henri tried his then girlfriend, Bianca van der Westhuizen. The first call to her was at 4.24 am, followed by more calls, but she didn’t answer the phone. He later texted her: “Emergency. Please pick up your phone.” She says the reason she hadn’t answered was because she puts her phone on flight mode at night. She thinks he called her because he didn’t know who else to call.

At 7.12 am Henri speaks to Janine Philander, an emergency services operator.

Philander says she thought it was a hoax at first. “He sounded hesitant and then he giggled. I thought it was a prank. But then he was calm,” she testifies. She says the call was different to the ones usually made after someone’s been attacked. “Usually they’re beside themselves, screaming, yelling, in tears. They can’t remember their own phone number and are confused,” she says. First on the scene Sergeant Adrian Kleynhans, the first police officer on the scene, testifies the front door of 12 Goske Street was ajar when he arrived. When he moved towards it, Henri appeared. “He was nervous, but wasn’t crying.” Kleynhans says Henri smelled of alcohol and Kleynhans instructed him to sit down on the ground outside. Kleynhans says the house didn’t look as if it had been broken into – there was a plugged-in laptop on the table in the dining room as well as a handbag. The television was also still there and a bloodied axe was lying on the stairs. Henri in his underwear The police confiscated the pyjama pants and socks Henri had been wearing. He was taken to a doctor then to the detective’s offices where he was held in a freezing room wearing only his underwear. In Henri’s plea statement he says Colonel Deon Beneke, the head detective with the Stellenbosch police, told him he didn’t believe a word of Henri’s “bulls**t story”.