Pretoria - The expertise of forensic expert Roger Dixon – who helped to get Fred van der Vyver acquitted of the murder of his girlfriend Inge Lotz – was on Wednesday questioned by the prosecution in the Oscar Pistorius trial.
He was this week called to the stand in the High Court in Pretoria to testify as a forensic expert on behalf of the defence in Pistorius’s murder trial.
Dixon, who left the police’s forensic laboratory after working there for 18 years, was still a member of the SAPS when he was called in to help identify a fingerprint that the State claimed belonged to Van der Vyver.
He was accused of killing his girlfriend, a student at the Stellenbosch University.
In 2007, Van der Vyver was acquitted in the Western Cape High Court after the police bungled the case.
The police at the time thought they had their man, when “his” prints were lifted from the case of a DVD that Lotz had rented on the afternoon before her death. Van der Vyver was adamant he was never at her flat that day.
The defence hired a leading US fingerprint expert, who concluded the print came from a drinking glass and not the DVD cover.
Dixon was called in to examine from which surface the print was lifted. He concluded it had indeed been lifted from the glass.
The Lotz murder remains one of the country’s most puzzling mysteries.
There are other links between the Pistorius and Lotz killings. Leading pathologist Professor Gert Saayman did both autopsies. Dup de Bruyn, who at the time defended Van der Vyver, is now the lawyer representing the parents of Reeva Steenkamp.
Pretoria News