Johannesburg - Standing over Christopher Norman Bates’s lifeless body, wielding a bloody knife, Lorraine Mogapi screamed: “I’ll stab him, I’ll stab him!”
This was what Oxford Gardens security guard Elliot Mhlongo told the Johannesburg High Court in Palm Ridge on Thursday during Mogapi’s trial.
The 30-year-old sex worker is accused of murdering Bates, a US consulate worker, at his Illovo home in January.
On Wednesday, she told the court that Bates had picked her up in Illovo and agreed to purchase her services for R200. She claimed that after taking her home and having sex, Bates refused to pay her, resulting in an argument where he allegedly attacked her with a knife.
She claims she used pepper spray to disarm him, taking the knife as she fled from his home. Bates then chased her with a baseball bat and she was forced to stab him in self-defence.
But the state witnesses called to the stand so far have poked numerous holes in her story.
Mhlongo said he was in his guard house on the night of the murder when he heard her screaming: “Security, security, I’ll kill him!”
He saw her wielding the bloody knife. He then accompanied the woman back to Bates’s body. When they got to the corpse, she moved to the body and stood over it, screaming that she would stab him again.
Mhlongo said he grabbed Mogapi’s arm, moved his hand down to her wrist and twisted the knife out of her hands. He then grabbed the baseball bat lying next to Bates’s body.
While the pair waited for the police, Mogapi allegedly asked Mhlongo if he could open the security gate to let her out, but he refused, saying she had to wait for investigators.
Mogapi’s attorney, Sindisa Hlazo, pointed out that in Mhlongo’s initial police statement, he said Mogapi had screamed that Bates had been trying to kill her. Mhlongo admitted to the error, but said she had actually said: “(This person) tried to kill me, I’ll kill him!”
Meanwhile, Constable Axolile Sondara also testified that the victim’s blood was found in his kitchen, and that there were also bloodstains on the baseball bat, despite Mogapi’s lack of injuries.
The Star