Pregnant teen was strangled, says doctor

Published Apr 10, 2013

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Pretoria - Zanele Khumalo, 18, who was allegedly murdered by the father of her unborn child, probably died of strangulation, a doctor has told the Pretoria High Court.

Dr Loraine du Toit-Prinsloo on Tuesday testified in the murder trial of Thato Kutumela, 26, who is said to have raped the teenager before killing her. Earlier, he denied the allegations against him and said he did visit her briefly on the morning of April 21 last year at her parents’ Garsfontein townhouse, but Zanele was unharmed when he left.

Her body was discovered by her parents, Busi and Temba Khumalo, when they returned from work. They had difficulty entering the house, as it was locked from inside.

When they eventually got in, they found their “sleeping” daughter lying on her stomach on her bed. They shook her as they thought she was asleep, but soon realised she was not responding. She was naked and only covered with a blanket, her pyjamas and underwear missing.

Zanele was taken to the nearby Pretoria East Hospital, where a doctor declared that she had already been dead for about six hours.

Du Toit-Prinsloo testified that it was difficult to determine the exact time of death, but it seemed Zanele had been dead for six or more hours before she was brought to the emergency unit. It was between 80 and 90 percent certain that she died of manual strangulation - strangling with bare hands. Zanele also had bruise marks to her upper neck caused before her death, she said.

The doctor confirmed Zanele was five months pregnant. She could not confirm rape. The teenager did not have injuries to her private parts, but that did not mean she was not raped, the doctor said.

A manager at Woolworths, where Kutumela worked at the time, testified he had been absent from work several times after the incident, without sick notes. He apparently only handed in a sick note in June that year - two months after the alleged murder when he had been in hospital after a circumcision gone wrong. Kutumela, who is out on bail, was arrested eight months after the alleged killing.

Pretoria News

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