Satanic trial evidence summarised

Harvey Isha, Robin Harwood, Linden Wagner and Courtney Daniels during their trial for the murder of teenager Kirsty Theologo. File picture: Dumisani Sibeko

Harvey Isha, Robin Harwood, Linden Wagner and Courtney Daniels during their trial for the murder of teenager Kirsty Theologo. File picture: Dumisani Sibeko

Published Nov 4, 2013

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Johannesburg - Evidence presented in the trial of four people accused of murdering Kirsty Theologo was summarised on Monday by a prosecutor in the High Court in Johannesburg, sitting in Palm Ridge.

Linden Wagner, Courtney Daniels, Robin Harwood, and Harvey Isha are charged with murdering Theologo, 18, and attempting to murder her 14-year-old friend in October 2011.

Theologo died in hospital after being assaulted, doused with petrol and set alight at a hill in Linmeyer, Johannesburg. Her friend survived.

The accused sat attentively in court listening to prosecutor Karien Coetzee.

As in other court proceedings, Isha wore a skull cap to court. Next to him was Harwood, who wore a green and yellow Bafana Bafana T-shirt.

Daniels wore a red flower in her hair and a brown jersey, and sat next to Wagner, who is accused of masterminding the plot. They chatted to each other before the court proceedings began.

In previous proceedings, Wagner told the court he repeatedly hit Theologo on the head with a rock.

He said he poured petrol on her and set her alight as part of a Satanic “soul-selling” ritual, which was meant to awaken the beast spoken of in the Bible.

He and the others then chanted a poem calling on the beast to awaken, but nothing happened.

Wagner said he and his co-accused had hoped to gain certain things from the ritual. He was hoping to gain power.

He told the court they drew a five-pointed star and put a Bible in a fire. Some of them cut their hands with a knife and dripped their blood into the fire.

It was alleged that he believed that Theologo was the prostitute spoken of in the book of Revelations in the bible.

A woman in the gallery sobbed while Coetzee went through the evidence.

Wagner said “something had come over him” when he attacked Theologo. He said he was friends with her and had loved her.

Two others, Lester Moody and Jeremy King, earlier confessed to the killing and were sentenced to 17-years in prison, five of which were suspended.

Sapa

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