Murdered Cremer tied to drugs
Friend says she was ‘potentially dealing’
TESTIMONY that murdered Megan Cremer not only used drugs but could also have been dealing in drugs has shocked trial watchers in the Western Cape High Court.
Jeremy Sias is accused of Cremer’s murder after he was arrested following the discovery of her body. He maintains that he stole the car and dumped the body, but did not kill her.
His advocate, Bashier Sibda, is trying to convince the court that Sias was not the only person who could have killed Cremer.
She went missing on August 3, 2019 and her body was discovered five days later on August 8, 2019 after Sias led police to where he dumped her body off Olieboom Road in Philippi.
After shocking revelations by Linda Mohr – the owner of the Vaderlandsche Rietvlei horse farm in Philippi, where Cremer stayed – that Cremer had used drugs; strange men were watching her and that she had large sums of cash that she used to pay for her rent and buy horses, Mohr’s son James took the stand for the defence.
James, 24, testified about his suspicions of Cremer not only using, but “potentially dealing drugs”.
He showed the court WhatsApp texts between himself and Cremer dating back to February 2018. In one specific text, Cremer wrote: “Drug hangovers are the worst.”
Reading their exchanges to the court, some directly from his phone, others handed in as exhibits, he said he asked her “was it worth it”? Cremer responds: “Was bloody amazing until I had to get up and adult at 7.30 this morning”.
He then asks Cremer to elaborate and she responds: “Don’t do drugs is my wise advice.” He asks about the costs and Cremer says with a laughing emoji, “Yes James, coke is not cheap.”
Further into their exchange on the same day, Cremer says: “I was so far from sober, it was borderline illegal. Don’t tell anyone about the drugs.”
Around the same period in February 2018, she texted him: “I have some advice for you. Since I am older I feel I need to pass on my life lessons. Do not take large amounts of cocaine, the sweats that come with it are not worth it.”
A student at the time, James said the show jumper would often share life advice with him because their relationship was “very friendly”.
He said: “I wouldn’t call her a sister but we were very close friends. I believe she was giving me honest advice. I did find it strange that she said it after I said I was moving out.”
He said in January 2019, he assisted her with buying a laptop and was escorted by security at an electronic store in Claremont because she paid for the R10 000 device in cash.
In another exchange on January 17, 2019, he testified that he jokingly asked her, “You got the goods … I’m running low on drugs” but her response was, “huh … I’m so confused.”
When advocate Sibda asked why he made that statement, he said: “She lost a lot of weight, quite quickly and I saw she had a lot of cash in her purse when we bought the laptop. So, I got suspicious and I was testing the water … Suspicious that she might be, potentially dealing with it because of the amount of cash she had.”
James said the day before she went missing was an important day for him because he had made a breakthrough with a mobile app he was developing that Cremer had encouraged him to finish. He said when he told her the news, “I expected her to be more excited about the development. It just looked to me that she was a bit distressed. She looked like she wasn’t as engaging as she was before, like she was distracted by something else.”
State advocate Emily van Wyk initially indicated she would object to the evidence being handed in but later changed her mind.
During cross-examination, she asked whether James had ever seen Cremer using drugs. He replied, “I’ve never seen her using drugs.”
Advocate Van Wyk asked him whether she may have been watching her weight due to her show jumping aspirations.
He said: “I’ve seen some large people jump horses, but if you want to jump high ... I know people who are 80kg on a horse and still do jumping. But if you want to go into the professional realm, then I assume you would have to lose weight, but she wasn’t in the professional realm. She jumped because that was her passion.”