Cape Town - The motive behind lawyer Pete Mihalik’s murder has yet to be canvassed in court as a third witness on Tuesday testified to the tragic scene that unexpectedly awaited him outside his home the day Mihalik was shot and killed.
Stiaan Kotze, of Green Point, tried to hold back his tears during his testimony, every so often shutting his eyes to picture the scene from memory.
He was the first to arrive at the scene after Mihalik was shot in the head while dropping off his two children at the Reddam House School.
Kotze was at his home in Thornhill Road reading emails when he heard two loud gunshots from outside. Dressed in his sleeping shorts with a zip-up jacket and flip-flops, he ran outside to see what had happened. He then heard a lady screaming and spotted a man rushing from Mihalik’s car. He wasn’t able to identify the man.
“There was a young lady standing next to the left passenger door and she was screaming ‘please help me’. I ran to the car and she said ‘please help me, my brother has been shot’. As I ran to the back door I could see a lot of blood coming from his neck, from the boy in the back. I removed my zip-through and put it around his neck to stop the blood,” he said.
He asked her to keep the pressure on the brother’s neck while he attended to Mihalik. The car was still on with music playing but he managed later to switch the car into neutral.
He said: “I opened the door and I asked the gentleman if he was okay. He looked at me, he didn’t turn his neck but he swallowed and he just stared at me. There were two bullet holes, one to the side of his head and one to his jaw, and there was very little blood. I could even see the metal at the side of his head and I could see a mark at the side of his jaw.”
Kotze said that he saw Mihalik take his final breath.
“The gentleman swallowed once and I could see him stop breathing.”
Kotze said he went to great lengths to ensure Mihalik’s son remained alive after the boy told him he wanted to sleep and was tired.
“I told the boy he mustn’t sleep, just focus on me and I told him to lie in my arm over the dad’s shoulder with my zip-through still blocking the blood in his neck.”
By then a crowd had gathered and Mihalik’s daughter asked him if her father was still alive, but he couldn’t respond and asked one of the parents from the school to comfort her while they waited for the first responders.
Eventually another parent offered him assistance and took the boy to hospital.
He said that police told him that his statement was 95% accurate compared to the camera footage they had of the scene. The State will play the footage in court on Thursday.
Sizwe Biyela, Nkosinathi Khumalo and Vuyile Maliti are on trial for allegedly planning the shooting and killing of Mihalik and the attempted murder of his two children.