Marli van Breda asks not to testify in brother Henri’s defence
THE STATE’s final witness, bloodstain analyst Captain Marius Joubert, told the Western Cape High Court yesterday that there were no signs of a second axe being used on Marli van Breda on the night her brother and parents were murdered in their family home in the security estate De Zalze in Stellenbosch.
He testified that a fleeing intruder would have left a trail of drip marks from the bloodied object, but there were no signs of blood to support that theory.
Marli, who was 16 years old at the time of the January 2015 attacks, was hit eight times with an axe. The State believes it was the same axe used to murder her parents and her brother, Rudi.
But her other brother, 22-year-old Henri van Breda, who is on trial for the murders, claims an intruder, possibly more than one, was behind the attacks. None of Marli’s blood was found on the axe used to kill Rudi and parents Teresa and Martin.
Joubert said the fact that none of her blood was found on the murder weapon was inexplicable. Furthermore, her blood was not found on Henri’s socks or shorts, unlike the blood from the other family members.
Earlier, evidence in the trial also showed that Henri, Rudi and Teresa’s DNA were found in the shower, but defence advocate Piet Botha told the court his client would not have had enough time to clean himself and move his brother’s body without stepping in blood. No blood was found on the bottom of Henri’s socks.
Joubert testified last week that bloodstains on the crime scene indicated that Rudi’s body had been moved from his bed where he had been attacked and shoved around, possibly because of anger the attacker was directing at his victim.
Joubert conceded that this was merely his opinion as he was not a behaviour analyst.
He told the court that Marli was facing her attacker but that he could not exclude the possibility that her attacker came from outside the room Henri shared with Rudi.
This would fit in with Henri’s version that he was not near his sister when she was attacked.
Senior state prosecutor Susan Galloway told the court that Marli had indicated she did not want to be a witness for the defence.
She has retrograde amnesia and therefore has no recollection of the events of that night. Galloway confirmed that Marli cannot remember what happened.