Johannesburg - The State's first witness, Marianna Smith, will be back on the stand in the Kimberley High Court on Tuesday to testify in the triple murder trial of a 16-year-old youth.
The youth has pleaded not guilty to fatally shooting Northern Cape farmer Deon Steenkamp, 44, his wife Christel, 43, and daughter Marthella, 14, on their farm, Naauwhoek, last April.
On Monday, Smith, who is Deon's sister, told the court that when she met the youth shortly after the killings he was calm and did not say much.
“He did not say a lot. It was either, 'I could not remember' or did not want to talk about it,” she told the court.
The youth's lawyer Willem Coetzee asked Smith whether she had expected him to give detailed testimony when he was going through such trauma.
She said the family had only wanted to know what had happened, and that his behaviour was an indication to her that he had not told all he knew.
Coetzee said the youth had seen a psychologist for help by the time she met him.
Smith said it was possible this had helped him calm down.
She denied that she was in any way prejudiced against him.
The court heard that the Steenkamp family had tried to figure out how the killings unfolded.
Smith testified that she and her mother stood in the living room and speculated about how Deon and Christel might have been overpowered. - Sapa