A man accused of violently murdering a young mother on New Year’s Day 2002 may have been so drunk that, when he discovered her blood-soaked body on his double bed, he could not remember what had happened during the preceding few hours when she was allegedly murdered, the Bloemfontein High Court heard on Wednesday.
Psychiatrist Dr Janus Pretorius testified there was a ”strong possibility” that Bernard Cloete (25) could have been suffering from amnesia due to alcoholic intoxication when he found the body of Helen Else (23) in his bedroom that morning.
Pretorius said it was normal for a person to panic when they found a dead body in their flat without being sure what had happened.
The court heard that Cloete’s boss told him on that New Year’s morning to go home because he was drunk when he arrived at the restaurant where he had worked as a waiter.
According to Cloete’s earlier statement he then returned to his flat in a Bloemfontein suburb, finding Else’s body lying on his bed and not remembering what had happened. His bedroom was full of blood. He panicked, immediately thinking that he must have been responsible, he said.
Cloete earlier admitted that he later dumped Else’s half-naked body, wrapped in a blanket, next to the road to Jagersfontein, south of Bloemfontein. He denied that he had murdered her.
When questioned by prosecutor Amanda Bester on Wednesday, Pretorius admitted that one would have expected it of Cloete to act by perhaps calling an ambulance or the police before he left for work that morning, when he allegedly discovered Else’s body in bed beside him.
Cloete and co-accused Lourens Korb, also 25, are standing trial on charges of murder and theft.
Else, whose son, Brandan, will be four years old in February, allegedly met Cloete and Korb at a dance club near Bloemfontein on New Year’s Eve 2002.
She was last seen alive on that New Year’s morning while leaving with Cloete for his flat after they had drinks at a neighbour. After an extensive search her badly decomposed body was found only two weeks later next to the road to Jagersfontein. Her handbag with R1 600 was never found.
Korb and Cloete, two restaurant waiters, were arrested on January 12, 2002, a day before her body was found.
An investigating police officer earlier this week testified in court that he had never been on a crime scene with so much blood as the one they found in Cloete’s bedroom. – Sapa