The police investigation into the rapes of three women and the murders of two of the women and a baby was incomplete, the Temba Circuit High Court heard on Thursday.
Defence Advocate Janus Roothman argued that the police’s investigation had been incomplete and this had led to discrepancies.
He is defending William Kekana (19), who is standing trial for the violent murder of one-year-old Kayla Rawstone; her mother, Janine Drennen (24); and grandmother, Hester Rawstone (52) last year.
Under cross-examination, investigating officer Inspector Deon van Rensburg claimed he had only sent crime scene evidence to the forensic laboratory a day and a half after it was collected because “things” often got lost.
“We only hand it in then because if we handed it to forensics things get lost and that is why we keep it until we are ready,” he said.
State Advocate Dewald Reynierse argued Kekana was not shot in his right leg by his dead alleged accomplice Charles Baloyi, as Kekana had testified on Wednesday.
Kekana has claimed Baloyi shot him when he disagreed with Baloyi’s shooting of Rawstone after she answered her cellphone.
On Wednesday the court heard how Kekana and Baloyi abducted the family in Sunnyside on July 31 2003, shot the grandmother on the Hebron Road, raped Drennen and a 17-year-old-girl they abducted in Stinkwater, and then shot dead Drennen, the teenager and Kayla at close range.
Reynierse argued that Kekana had told investigating officers that he had shot himself. Van Rensburg testified that Kekana had never mentioned that the gunshot wound to his right leg had been caused by Baloyi.
“He said he had shot himself by accident,” he said.
In cross-examination, Roothman tried to highlight inconsistencies with the police investigation.
He argued that the 9mm handgun found in Kekana’s possession at his arrest in the early hours of August 13 2003 was in fact not the one police claimed had been sent for forensic testing.
“We dispute the same weapon found in Kekana’s possession was sent to the forensic laboratory,” Roothman said, asking Van Rensburg why it had taken him a day and a half to submit the weapon and other evidence to forensics.
The gun had been sent for DNA testing because the investigating team believed blood spatterings would be found on the barrel as the victims had been shot at very close range. — Sapa
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