Johannesburg - The two accused in the Montecasino murder case plotted their wealthy victim’s demise for weeks, as part of a deal with other scammers, claimed State prosecutor Zaais van Zyl, who questioned former stripper Maruschka Robinson for hours.
Robinson and her former boyfriend, JP Malan, are on trial for defrauding, murdering and disposing of Dustan Blom’s body, which was found in the boot of his vehicle in the Montecasino parking lot in Fourways in 2013. Both have admitted that they defrauded Blom on several occasions.
In the High Court sitting in Palm Ridge on Tuesday, Robinson said she and Malan would spike Blom’s drinks with a drug called GHB before taking his debit card to make withdrawals.
Robinson, who was Blom’s housemate, has claimed that on the night of the killing, Malan proposed that rather than drugging Blom, he would put him in a sleeper-hold to ensure he remained unconscious while his bank account was raided. It was this choking that ultimately killed Blom, Robinson said.
Van Zyl was not convinced, arguing that text messages between Robinson and Malan indicated they had been planning the fraud, and probably the murder too, for weeks.
“It wasn’t a spur of the moment thing,” said Van Zyl, who said Blom’s planned trip to Bali in the week of his death, and the presence of a new girlfriend often visiting the house, had put pressure on the pair to commit the crime.
Call logs from Malan and Robinson’s phones also showed they had been in contact with another fraudster, nicknamed Romeo, who ended up with Blom’s credit cards. Robinson denied this even though the phone records showed numerous calls to Romeo on the day of Blom’s death.
Both accused have pleaded not guilty on a robbery charge, but Van Zyl was able to get Robinson to admit the pair had planned to use violence to get Blom’s money.
However, she insisted she did not think such strangulation could potentially kill her housemate.
The prosecutor also asked Robinson to explain footage of her and Malan at Montecasino a short while after the murder in which they appeared happy as they flirted, giggled and drew money from Blom’s account.
“I wouldn’t say ‘happy’, I would say ‘drugged’,” she responded.