Durban — A week after the murder of a husband who was allegedly killed by his wife, her lesbian lover and her friend, one of the women left Durban to go to Johannesburg.
Mark Buttle was stabbed multiple times in the neck in 2018 while in his car in Newlands East allegedly by his wife Analidia Dias Bella Dosantos, her lover Teagan Allison Brown, and the two women’s friend Charmaine Margaret Khumalo.
The three are alleged to have hatched and executed a plan to kill Buttle. It has been alleged that an insurance policy was motive behind the murder coupled with allegations that Dosantos, 41, was had been having an affair with Brown, 25.
Brown died in July before the trial started early this month.
On Monday, while on the stand Khumalo told the court that she had left Durban to go and visit her fiancé.
She denied that she had left to evade arrest following Buttle’s murder.
Khumalo said it had been a month since being in Johannesburg when she got a call from Brown who wanted to come stay with her in the home she shared with her fiancé.
“She (Brown) had learned that accused three (Dosantos) has since moved to Joburg: she was asking if she could visit me and my fiancé so she could see Dosantos. She did come and live with me for about four months. Accused three was not living with us when she was in Joburg, I didn't know where she was living,” she said.
She said she had gone to Johannesburg at the behest of her fiancé who wanted to celebrate her birthday with her which had been a week ago.
Khumalo explained that at the time it was her birthday the man in Joburg had no money and only sent her money to travel to visit him a week after the fact.
Khumalo at the time of Buttle’s murder had been in a relationship with one of the State’s witnesses, Shareen Ogle.
She said that she had lied to Ogle telling her she had been separated from her fiancé when in fact they had a misunderstanding.
This had been after senior State prosecutor Khatija Essack had asked: “If you were no longer together with him and you were with Shareen why would he want to celebrate your birthday with you?”
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