Pretoria - Cellphone records show Thato Kutumela made at least 19 calls to Zanele Khumalo, the mother of his unborn child, a day before she was killed. They also show he was in the vicinity of her home on the day of the alleged murder, while he claims he was already at work by that time.
Vodacom cellphone expert Johanna Heynecke took the stand on Thursday to testify in Kutumela’s murder trial.
It is claimed that he strangled Khumalo, 18, in her parents’ Gita Street townhouse, in Garsfontein, on April 21, 2011, after he had allegedly raped her.
She was five months pregnant with his child.
Kutumela admitted to visiting Khumalo between 8am and 9am that morning, but claimed he was back at work - Woolworths at Lynnwood Bridge - at about 9am.
His then-manager testified earlier that he noted on the security register - signed by employees when they clock in - that Kutumela was at work by two minutes past nine.
This seemed odd, the manager said, as the previous registration was that of a person who had clocked in at 9.50am that morning.
Cellphone records presented to court on Thursday showed Kutumela was still in the Garsfontein area at 10.33am on the morning of the alleged murder. The closest cellphone tower to him was in Jacqueline Drive in Garsfontein. Heynecke said the tower covered a radius of only 5km.
The records showed that Kutumela moved away from the Garsfontein area at about 11.07am.
Heynecke said Kutumela did not answer his phone for the rest of that day (until 9.24pm) and the phone went on to voice message, although it was switched on.
Khumalo’s parents found her dead in her bed when they arrived from work at about five that afternoon. A doctor established that she had by then been dead for about six hours.
The phone records showed that on April 19, 2011 - two days before the incident - Kutumela made nine calls to Khumalo within seven hours. Heynecke said this was about a call an hour, which she regarded as a high frequency of calls.
Kutumela called Khumalo about 19 times the next day. Many of these calls lasted a second or less.
Heynecke said it appeared that Zanele picked up but immediately terminated the call. Other calls lasted for several minutes, yet others only for a few seconds.
“There appeared to have been a lot of calls, but not much conversation,” the witness said.
Soon after midnight on the day of the incident, Khumalo phoned the accused and spoke to him for about 56 minutes. He then phoned her back within minutes and they spoke for about 25 minutes.
He later phoned her several times until the early hours of that morning. Some of the calls lasted a second or two or merely went on to voicemail. He also called Khumalo’s landline number at 8.31am on the morning of the alleged killing.
The cellphone records revealed that Kutumela phoned Khumalo’s phone several times after her death. He made the first call a day after her death. This call lasted 30 seconds - an indication that someone answered the call, the court heard.
He again called the number twice two days after the incident. Each call was answered - one call lasting eight seconds, the other 11 seconds.
A close friend of Khumalo’s, Gaongalelewe Ganki Letoale, testified last year that Khumalo wanted to dump Kutumela, but he would not let her. She said her friend was unhappy in the relationship. Letoale was not allowed to testify about what Khumalo had told her about the relationship as Acting Judge Johan Kruger ruled it to be hearsay evidence and thus inadmissible. - Pretoria News