/ 7 June 2022

Lack of blood at Senzo Meyiwa crime scene was ‘surprising’, state witness admits

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A police van patrols in front of the house where Senzo Meyiwa was murdered. (MUJAHID SAFODIEN/AFP via Getty Images)

The lack of Senzo Meyiwa’s blood on the kitchen floor, where the footballer was allegedly shot, surprised forensic officer Sergeant Thabo Mosia, who conceded the possibility that the crime scene was contaminated.

Mosia, who has been on the witness stand for about two weeks in the Pretoria high court, mostly under cross-examination, admitted that witness statements read out in court — which alleged that a neighbour, Maggie Phiri, was seen cleaning the crime scene — confirmed “the possibility that the crime scene was contaminated”.

On Tuesday,  advocate Zandile Mshololo, for the fifth accused Fisokuhle Ntuli — after reading out the witness statement alleging contamination — asked Mosia, the state’s first witness, whether he found blood on the kitchen floor, which the state claims is where Meyiwa was shot in a supposed botched robbery. 

Meyiwa, who captained Bafana Bafana and Orlando Pirates, was killed at the Vosloorus, Gauteng, family home of his lover, singer Kelly Khumalo, on 26 October 2014. The state says he was shot in the house’s kitchen and eventually collapsed in the living room. 

Mosia, responding to Mshololo, said he did not find blood stains on the kitchen floor, but there was splatter in the living room, near the TV stand. 

“It is also surprising to me, so I cannot answer,” he said, adding that he was shocked to find no blood where Meyiwa was allegedly shot and conceding to the “possibility” of contamination. 

Mosia further admitted that there were no blood-stain trails from the living room to Meyiwa’s BMW X6, in which the footballer was transported by Khumalo to Botshelong Hospital, where he was pronounced dead. 

But Mosia added that, at the time he arrived at the scene, he did not believe that it was contaminated. 

“When I arrived at the crime scene, I did not see it as a crime scene that was contaminated. I saw it as an ordinary crime scene,” Mosia testified. 

Mshololo’s client, Ntuli, faces charges of premeditated murder, attempted murder, armed robbery, illegal possession of a firearm and the illegal possession of ammunition. 

His co-accused — Muzikawukhulelwa Sibiya, Bongani Ntanzi, Mthobisi Ncube, Mthokoziseni Maphisa — are represented by advocate Dan Teffo. 

They have all pleaded not guilty.