There were gasps in the Wynberg Magistrate’s Court on Tuesday when it was revealed that the former boyfriend of Cape murder accused Dina Rodrigues will testify that she had paid R10 000 for a contract murder on a baby.
”You told him, ‘I paid R10 000 to sort out the problem,”’ state prosecutor John Ryneveld said.
Rodrigues, accused of ordering last month’s killing of six-month-old Jordan Norton, was continuing a bail application postponed last week.
Ryneveld said the former boyfriend and biological father of the baby, Neil Wilson, will testify that Rodrigues allegedly said Wilson should not worry because there was nothing linking her to the crime.
Ryneveld said the murder would have been ”perfectly planned” if it wasn’t for the fact that the murder suspects left a waybill behind at the scene.
Ryneveld said phone records and handwriting analysis point to Rodrigues being behind the murder.
”The evidence [handwriting analysis] is thus conclusive,” he said of a comparison of handwriting on a waybill found at the crime scene to waybills Rodrigues had written at her work.
This document, argued Ryneveld, is of double significance because it is one of two blank waybills a Speedfreight employee will testify Rodrigues specifically requested.
Ryneveld said it is ”definitely” Rodrigues who wrote the waybill found at the crime scene, to which defence counsel John van der Berg objected, saying this is only an opinion.
Van der Berg said South African courts treat handwriting analysis cautiously.
During re-examination of investigating officer Esmerelda Bailey, Van der Berg called Wilson a ”liar”.
”Without Mr Wilson, you have bits and pieces of information, but not the clincher, as it were,” said Van der Berg.
Wilson has made various allegations against Rodrigues, including that she wanted him to delete incriminating SMSs and that Rodrigues had confessed to the murder.
”Oh my God, what have I done, I’m going to jail for the rest of my life,” is what he alleged Rodrigues told him shortly after her arrest.
Earlier, Ryneveld sketched how Rodrigues allegedly acquired the Norton home telephone number.
He said that Rodrigues’s best friend, Arendienne Fourie, will testify she gave the number to Rodrigues.
Several phone calls traced to Rodrigues’s office phone were made to the Norton residence a few days prior to the murder.
Jordan’s uncle, Dylan, will testify that he received a phone call on June 14, the day before the child was killed, saying a package would be delivered to their home. This call was also traced to Rodrigues’s place of work.
Asked why she should be granted bail, Rodrigues said she has not been found guilty yet and is entitled to a fair trial.
”Because I am very much innocent,” she told a packed court.
The hearing continues. — Sapa