Cape Town - I killed her. This was the damning confession a Mitchells Plain man allegedly made to police less than an hour after Claremont mother Anzunette du Plessis was found dead inside her house, the Wynberg Magistrate’s Court has heard.
The court heard that in the confession, Moegamat Armien Salie, who had worked on the roof at Du Plessis’s house, admitted to stabbing her several times before slitting her throat.
Details surrounding last Thursday’s attack came to light on Monday, during the first court appearance of the men accused of killing her.
Salie, 31, of Mitchells Plain, Warren van Rooyen, 28, and Dudley Boesak, 32, both of Hanover Park, appeared before magistrate Marietjie van Eeden on Monday.
Prosecutor Charlean Olivier-Manuel revealed the State’s case against the men and identified Salie as the man who slit 33-year-old Du Plessis’s throat.
Police had been driving on Racecourse Road, Lansdowne, about 1pm last Thursday when they spotted three men pushing a trolley. Inside was a flat-screen TV set and three laptops.
“The items had blood on them and the accused’s clothing had blood-spatters on it. Police asked where they got the items and accused number one (Salie) then said ‘I killed her’,” Olivier-Manuel told the court.
She said Salie had taken police to Du Plessis’s Buchanan Street home where they found her lifeless body. Her child minder who had taken her two-year-daughter for a walk in the park first found the body around 12.05pm.
She told police that the house had been burgled and that the flat-screen TV was missing.
Olivier-Manuel said Salie made a confession to police and according to it, he and his father had done maintenance work on Du Plessis’s roof a few weeks before the murder.
“(Salie) made a confession implicating himself, admitting that he wounded and killed the deceased. On the day of the incident he asked her (Du Plessis) to open the gate so he could check on the roof which he worked on previously with his dad,” Olivier-Manuel said.
Salie then allegedly gained access to the house via the roof and once inside, Du Plessis noticed him and hit him, Olivier-Manuel said.
“When the deceased found him she started hitting him and he grabbed a knife he had in his pocket and stabbed her. She fought back and he stabbed her again. And then he slit her throat.”
“When she fell to the ground he grabbed whatever he could and fled,” Olivier-Manuel said.
Van Rooyen and Boesak have been linked to the crime because they were also found in possession of the stolen property.
Olivier-Manuel asked that the men be kept at Claremont police station so that they could be seen by a district surgeon and their blood drawn for DNA analysis.
They told the presiding officer that they did not want to be held at Claremont police station because police had allegedly assaulted them over the weekend.
Van Rooyen said he had vomited blood three times since his incarceration and Boesak complained of a swollen jaw.
Van Eeden considered the men’s request but decided it was more practical for them to be held at the police station and ordered that the doctor conduct a full body examination.
The prosecution asked that the case be postponed for one week so that police could ascertain the bail profile of the three men.
Their criminal records, addresses and whether they are flight risks have to be established before the State can make a decision on whether to oppose bail. The men are due back in court next Monday.
Cape Argus