The murder of DayleOrsmond has provided an extremely vivid illustration of poor police work in South Africa, writes Mungo Soggot
It is almost a year since Dayle Orsmond, a computer programmer, was beaten and strangled to death in her Johannesburg flat. The 36-year-old woman was found on the floor by her bed, trussed with stockings and battered on her head and neck.
There were semen stains on the duvet around her body, but an autopsy yielded no evidence that she had been raped. There was no sign of a forced entry into her flat and nothing was stolen, eliminating robbery as a motive.
During the 11 months following her murder on September 18 1998, the police investigation has gone nowhere; no charges have been laid and the case has been closed.
The story of the probe into Orsmond’s murder provides a graphic enough illustration of poor police work in a country with a rampant crime rate. Worse still, when Orsmond’s aunt and uncle complained to the police they became involved in a series of clashes culminating in her uncle, Eric Vorster (69), laying an assault charge against one of the investigating officers.
Vorster says he was assaulted last March when he visited the investigating officer at Hillbrow police station to deliver a letter complaining about the handling of the case.
Vorster says the policeman, a Captain Olwage, was so irritated when he handed him a letter of complaint that he threw it on the floor, and when Vorster stooped to pick it up Olwage grabbed and manhandled him out of the office.
The Vorsters became involved when Orsmond’s mother, who lives in KwaZulu-Natal, telephoned them the day after the murder to ask them to identify her daughter’s body. The couple went to the morgue where they saw their niece’s battered corpse, her limbs still bound by strips of stocking which Eric Vorster cut away in preparation for her burial.
The couple visited Orsmond’s Berea flat where they met officers from the Hillbrow murder and robbery squad. Eric Vorster says the crime scene was not cordoned off, but some fingerprints had been taken.
One of the policemen, a Sergeant Muller who works under Olwage, warned the couple against entering the flat because they might be distressed by pornography and bondage equipment strewn around Orsmond’s bedroom. Vorster learned later from his niece’s boyfriend that he and Orsmond had used the equipment.
Muller asked Vorster and his wife, June, to take home the bondage equipment, none of which, says Eric Vorster, was tested for fingerprints.
The couple has recorded all their conversations with the police on tape and in writing. They have taped evidence that the police ignored leads that the Vorsters discovered after conducting their own investigation.
The Vorsters obtained telephone records both for Orsmond’s flat and her boyfriend’s cellphone. From these they discovered that three telephone calls had been made from Orsmond’s flat on the Wednesday night before her murder – a night, which, according to her boyfriend, she had spent at his house.
Eric Vorster gave the phone lists to Muller about 10 days after the murder, but the police failed to follow up the numbers that had been dialled – some of which had also been dialled from her flat after her death.
Vorster also tried to persuade the police to accompany him to one of the people phoned that night – a computer trader – but says Muller failed to set up the meeting before the computer trader left the country.
Vorster says Muller has still not collected either the strips of stocking he cut from Orsmond’s corpse or photographs of her for the television programme Crimestop.
The Vorsters raised these and other flaws in the investigation with Olwage, Muller and a Superintendent Prinsloo from Pretoria at a meeting at their home on February 9. Prinsloo entered the picture after Orsmond’s mother complained to an MP about the investigation.
The meeting became acrimonious with Olwage protesting that his men were saddled with an impossible caseload. At one point, Olwage suggested that Orsmond had “assisted” in her own death – presumably as part of a sex act – but later abandoned this theory.
Prinsloo was diplomatic throughout, and at the end of the two-hour session chided Muller in Afrikaans for failing to pursue Eric Vorster’s leads. “It is unacceptable. I agree with Mr Vorster in what he says. It is unacceptable to me that he gave you those names of those people that were phoned from the flat and that you had to go and see them and that you didn’t do it.”
Prinsloo scolded Muller for saying Vorster should have taken more of an initiative. “That is not his work, it is your work. So I accept that you have done wrong there. That we didn’t do our job correctly there.”
The upshot was that the Hillbrow officers promised to pursue Vorster’s leads, keep the family informed and keep Prinsloo abreast of the case.
It was not to be. Three weeks later, Vorster wrote to Prinsloo complaining that the police had failed to honour their undertakings. “It seems so sad that a tragedy like this must now further traumatise us as a family and that without wanting it, or looking for it, we are now involved in the discovery of the disgraceful ineptitude of the SAPS [South African Police Service] to investigate the case.
“On a personal note, sir, I must thank you for the efficient way in which you handled this case at our meeting, and [I] am available at all times to come to Pretoria for further discussions.”
Orsmond’s mother says when she telephoned Prinsloo a month later, he exploded and warned that if she or Vorster or anyone else in the family interfered any more he would transfer the case to the Brixton murder and robbery squad, where it would be buried under an even bigger caseload.
The Vorsters have their theories about what motivated their niece’s murder. They are convinced it was made to look like a sexually motivated attack, and suspect that her death had something to do with the computer business.
Eric Vorster is particularly intrigued by the phone calls made from her flat on the Wednesday before her death when she was supposedly at her boyfriend’s home, two of which were made to people in the computer business.
Vorster says Muller told him it appeared Orsmond was a “loose” girl, but all her friends deny this.
The couple is unimpressed with the conduct of Orsmond’s boyfriend, who inherited her estate. He flew to London on business the day after the murder and never attended the funeral. Vorster says at one stage the police regarded the boyfriend as a possible suspect, and froze the distribution of Orsmond’s estate to him. He is now in Australia.
The Vorsters now battle to hide their disdain for the police officers whom they have encountered during the investigation. It is not the policeman’s assault on Eric Vorster that has poisoned them, but rather what they perceive as the officers’ ingrained high-handedness and sloppiness.
The officer investigating Vorster’s assault charge against Olwage has told Vorster that Olwage alleges he brushed him off in self- defence after Vorster tried to pull his tie. Olwage reportedly added that he had two witnesses – other policemen – to support his story that Vorster struck him.
Vorster says the allegation that he was the aggressor is preposterous – especially since one of the investigating officers had been with him when he collapsed with a stroke after seeing pictures of Orsmond’s corpse in January.
The letter Vorster wrote to Olwage which sparked the incident said: “The information I spent weeks and months collecting and the heavy financial burden I have to suffer and the SAPS personnel I was forced to encounter has all been to naught, due to you and others involved.”
The Vorsters know there is no chance their niece’s killer will be found, but now want to vent their frustration. “They [the police] clearly never applied their minds to this case,” Vorster said this week. “Not one little bit.”
l Prinsloo was away and Olwage was sick this week. One of Prinsloo’s senior colleagues replied on his behalf to a fax with questions about the case. The reply read: “A full investigation into the matter was conducted and Mr and Mrs Orsmond expressed their satisfaction with the way it was handled.
“The national commissioner of the South African Police Service is also satisfied that this complaint received the necessary attention, and regards the issue as finalised.
“The minister for safety and security was notified accordingly, and will correspond with the relevant role players.”