Cape Town - Murder-accused Johannes Christiaan de Jager was angry because a teenager entrusted in his care stayed in bed instead of looking for a job, the Western Cape High Court heard on Monday.
De Jager, 49, testifying in his own defence, said slain teenager Charmaine Mare had nearly always stayed in her bedroom when she moved to him and his girlfriend Carol's Kraaifontein home in Cape Town last year in January.
On January 9, two days before her death, De Jager and his friend Carlo found her sleeping in the room during the day.
They were washing their hands in the bathroom opposite her room at the time.
Prosecutor Romay van Rooyen asked if it had bothered him to discover she was sleeping.
“Yes it did because she was supposed to be looking for a job. It was also the instructions of Carol that I had to send her around to go and look for a job,” he testified in Afrikaans.
Van Rooyen asked why it bothered him so much if it was ultimately not his problem, because he could not control her movements.
“Then she would have lied (sic) on our shoulders. She's not so lazy to sleep and that's even what Carlo said,” De Jager said.
“[It bothered me] to an extent and then I started losing my temper.”
De Jager has pleaded not guilty to killing the Mpumalanga resident. He has also denied raping and killing prostitute Hiltina
Alexander, 18, in Cape Town in May 2008.
The court heard that Mare had missed a job interview he organised that Tuesday and he had shaken her ankle.
The day before that, he claimed she had been wearing transparent pants and no panties when he called her to fetch a cooldrink at night.
He had not made mention of this in his evidence-in-chief but told Van Rooyen it stood out in his mind.
She asked what he thought of Mare's choice of clothing.
“I just looked. That's all. I did not say anything,” he replied.
“But it was something that stood out for you?” Van Rooyen said.
“I was sitting in front of the TV and she came out there. You could see it. A man is not blind,” he replied.
De Jager's cross-examination will resume on Tuesday.
Sapa