Pretoria - Suspected Olievenhoutbosch serial killer Richard Jabulani Nyauza laughed as the survivor of one of his alleged vicious attacks on Wednesday told the Pretoria High Court she felt as if she could kill him.
"I'm noting that the accused seemed to find it very funny and laughed," Judge John Murphy said on seeing Nyauza's reaction.
This followed survivor Jane Seremane testifying: "I relive the incident and on looking at him now I feel as if I can take away his life."
She was recounting how Nyauza, 36, offered her a lift to Botswana, then brutally attacked her and left her for dead in August 2006.
Nyauza has denied guilt to charges that he murdered 16 women and raped four of them between January 2002 and August 2006.
He also denied that he had robbed three of his victims and attempted to murder Seremane.
The mother of five said Nyauza had picked her up in front of a police station in Magaliesberg, then drove her to a deserted dirt road where he stopped, opened the passenger door, stabbed her in the chest with a screwdriver and demanded money.
She said Nyauza had forced her into the back of his bakkie after tying her hands behind her back with her own shoelaces, tying a nightdress around her neck and covering her with a blanket.
They drove for a long distance until he finally stopped in the veld and threw her into a ditch.
"He told me to look him straight in the eye. I asked why he didn't leave me, he already had my money. He told me to shut up. He told me to look him in the face, but not to make any noise.
"Then he stabbed me with the screwdriver above the eyes. I screamed. He scolded me and said why am I making noise when he told me to be quiet.
"He grabbed the nightie around my neck and started strangling me. Then he stabbed me with the screwdriver in the back of my neck and took off my panty.
"He put the blanket over me. I could hear the vehicle driving off. He thought I was dead.
"At the time I was three months pregnant and I lost the baby as a result. The child simply stopped moving thereafter," she said.
Seremane told the court how she blindly stumbled around in the veld because both eyes were swollen shut until a man came to her aid.
She never recovered fully from her ordeal and still battled with chest problems because of the stab wound.
She also lost partial sight in her one eye, lost the full use of her left hand and continually suffered from headaches.
"This incident has affected me psychologically. No matter how friendly a male person tries to be, I'm suspicious and frightened. I'm afraid of men."
Nyauza's former employer Lourens Erasmus testified on Tuesday that Nyauza had worked for him as a driver until he disappeared in 2002. When Nyauza came looking for work again early in 2006, he told Erasmus he had been arrested for rape and had been in jail for three years.
He said Nyauza had been using the work bakkie to deliver feed to a farmer near Magaliesberg on the day of the alleged attack on Seremane. He returned to work hours later than he was supposed to.
The trial continues. - Sapa