Pretoria - A witness has told the Pretoria High Court that he saw murder-accused Thato Kutumela walk with an empty backpack on his back into the complex where his girlfriend lived and that when he returned, the backpack clearly contained items.
Elvis Sithole is a tiler and sits every day outside Tile Africa in Garsfontein, waiting to be offered jobs. The complex where 18-year-old Zanele Khumalo was murdered in her parents’ home is directly across from Tile Africa.
Sithole told the court that Zanele and the accused were familiar faces to him, as he often saw them together. He said when he saw Kutumela standing at the main gate to the complex in Zita Street that morning, he did not think it was weird.
According to Sithole, Kutumela arrived at the complex some time between 7am and 8am on April 21 last year. He said Kutumela stood outside the main gate leading to the complex for between 10 and 15 minutes, playing with his cellphone.
Sithole said when the gate opened as a car drove through, Kutumela walked in. According to the witness, the accused had an empty backpack with him and he wore a blue “work” jacket when he entered, but when he came out again, “after quite a long time”, he wore a black jersey and had a bulky backpack.
Sithole was questioned at length by Kutumela’s counsel about the time he saw the accused entering and exiting the complex, and the court was told that “time played an important part” in this trial.
The witness was told that cellphone records revealed that Kutumela phoned his girlfriend at 8.31am. The accused said this was in order for her to open the main gate to the complex for him.
According to his version, she did not open the gate, although he also buzzed her from the gate to do so. He stood waiting only for five minutes and entered the complex as a car drove through the gate. Kutumela’s version is that he left shortly after 9am, and the cellphone records will prove that he gave Zanele a missed call at 9.08am so she could open the gate so he could leave.
Kutumela is adamant that he was wearing the same clothes when he went inside - all black as required by his then-employer, Woolworths.
He also said his backpack contained his soccer clothes and that it was not empty when he entered the property.
Zanele was found dead in her bed when her father, Temba Khumalo, arrived home from work some hours later. It is suspected that she was strangled.
She was naked.
Her body was covered by a blanket and her pajamas, panties and robe were missing.
Kutumela is facing charges of murder, rape and robbery. The last charge relates to the missing items of clothing.
Proceeding
Pretoria News