It has been more than two years since Fred van der Vyver handed police an ornamental hammer and submitted himself to arrest on suspicion of murder.
Now he is facing his destiny in Cape Town's High Court, and it was impossible for it to happen quietly.
The trial of the handsome young actuary, which has run over several weeks at different times this year, has been marked by crime experts at war, unexpected allegations of racism and, perhaps most salacious, the shadow of unrequited love.
Since the brutal slaying of Inge Lotz, Van der Vyver's girlfriend, bludgeoned and stabbed in her Stellenbosch flat in March 2005, Van der Vyver is now a faded version of a man once strong in his gait and sure of himself.
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| 'Ek sal jou nooit verneuk nie' |
Like Baby Jordan-Leigh Norton's killer Dina Rodrigues and Taliep Petersen murder accused Najwa Petersen, he has become an unwitting celebrity - photographed repeatedly and having his appearance commented upon.
Like the other two cases, his has become extraordinary for its grotesque but intoxicating combination of attractive characters, sexual mystery and, as happened with Rodrigues, a main protagonist who will not testify.
Official police statistics show that Lotz - who was repeatedly hit over the head from behind and stabbed moments after she had died - was but one of 23 people killed violently in Stellenbosch in 2005.
Now instantly recognisable, Van der Vyver looks beset by adversity. Yet his life should have been sweet.
He had a burgeoning career as an actuary, and, until two years ago, was singled out romantically by Lotz, a particularly bright and attractive young woman.
Her best friend, Wimpie Boshoff, testified that, such was the allure of Lotz, a mathematics master's student, that many men were in love with her, even if she did not feel the same way about them.
One once wrote her a poem almost a metre long.
Lotz's close circle of friends has been key to the case, and investigators studied letters exchanged between Lotz and her friends shortly before and on the day of her death. Associates alleged Van der Vyver was jealous about Lotz's apparent flirtatiousness and upset over claims of an innocent kiss with another man.
Trial Judge Deon van Zyl has suggested that Van der Vyver could have been "tipped over the edge by a quarrel", referring to the contents of a letter Lotz wrote to him, apparently on the morning of the killing, in which she repeatedly asked forgiveness and promised to be faithful.
Psychologist Gerard Labuschagne said his view was that Lotz's killer had acted out of anger. Regarding the letter, he said its theme appeared to be infidelity.
"'Ek sal jou nooit verneuk nie' [I will never cheat on you], which had been crossed out and replaced with 'Ek sal nooit iets agter jou rug doen nie' [I will never do anything behind your back], indicated that Lotz might well have been unfaithful," Labuschagne said.
Lotz's body was found late at night after a friend, feeling edgy when she did not take his calls, asked a neighbour to check her flat
Everything around her body was in place. Her remote control was still clutched in her hand, and the DVD she had been watching ran blankly beyond its end.
It is that DVD that is central to the battle that has broken out between South African investigators and international star witnesses employed by the defence. Their fight is over evidence that calls Van der Vyver's alibi into question, with fingerprints being contentious.
The police say they found some on the DVD cover, but these were then identified by a forensic expert for the defence as having been lifted from a glass.
Van der Vyver's alibi is that he was at work on the day, yet, the state asserts, if it could be shown that he touched the DVD, that could call his cover into question.
This week, Van Zyl expressed doubt that the police had fabricated evidence after the defence put their first witness - American crime scene expert Pat Wertheim - on the stand. Wertheim said the South African investigation constituted "a gross case of incompetence or negligence", arguing that the prints had been taken from a drinking glass - a curved surface - and not a flat box.
Police indicated early on they did not see Lotz's death as random. They suspected obsession, intrigue and even premeditation, and so unfolded the unexpected race controversy that seemed to create a situation redolent of white South African paranoia.
Black handymen fixing a tile on her balcony were apparently the last people to see Lotz alive, about 1pm on the day she died.
In June, investigating officer Inspector Deon de Villiers said he and his superior, Superintendent Mike Barkhuizen, the commander of the Serious and Violent Crimes Unit, had had a fallout over the men, which led to allegations of Barkhuizen's apparent racism.
De Villiers told the court that Barkhuizen thought the workers at Lotz's complex "had to be the main suspects" and that there was a possibility of a botched robbery. He said Barkhuizen never visited the crime scene, yet ordered the workers to supply hair and blood samples for the forensic elimination of suspects, while suggesting Lotz's white family and friends were to be approached "tactfully".
The trial continues, with Lotz's father, Jan, a prominent radiologist, saying the family remained unable to speak about their daughter's life or death.
The pain is too deep.
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