2017-06-15Staff Report 2 Roland Routh Windhoek-An eleven-month-old baby of murder victim Anna Nadia Coetzee and her alleged killer, Eben Cloete, 38, was found playing in the blood surrounding its mother’s body. This grim detail was brought to the attention of Judge Dinah Usiku on Tuesday in the ongoing murder trial of Cloete. Testifying in the case the godmother of the deceased told the court she found the baby boy playing peacefully in the blood around the corpse. Sofie Losper said she and the stepmother of the deceased, Martha Afrikaner, were at home when she was summoned to the house of August Groenewaldt, the biological father of the deceased, by Anton Cloete, a friend of the accused and the deceased. Anton Cloete had earlier testified he was at the house of the deceased when she told him to call Losper and Afrikaner as the accused was trying to break down her bedroom door. According to Losper, on her way to the residence of Groenewaldt she and Afrikaner met with the accused who was bare-chested and only wearing one “plakkie” (sandal). “We did not say anything to him – he just flat-out told us to ‘go and see, I finished it, go and see for yourselves’.” Losper said she continued to the house while Afrikaner went to call Groenewaldt and that was when she entered the sitting room and saw bloody baby hand marks on the floor. “I followed the handprints to the bedroom and found the deceased on her stomach in a pool of blood and the baby playing in the blood,” Losper further informed the court. She further said she did not touch anything, not even the baby and then went outside to a neighbour’s house where she informed the neighbour about what she saw, who then went into the house to fetch the baby. Earlier Anton Cloete and Bio Xoagub testified that they and another friend, Quinton Gowaseb, were sitting on the stoep in front of the victim’s house chatting with her and Patricia Muvarure when the accused arrived. According to them when the victim saw the accused entering the gate she immediately went inside the house followed by Muvarure and the accused asked them ‘why is she running away, I did not do anything.’ Xoagub testified they did not answer the accused and he and Gowaseb left, leaving Anton Cloete and the accused behind. Anton Cloete testified he saw the accused going into the house and was still there when Muvarure exited and it was after that that he called someone named !Ypan who told him the deceased was calling for him. Muvarure previously testified she locked herself in the bathroom of the house after the deceased had locked her bedroom door and that after she opened the bathroom door found the accused in front of the victim’s bedroom. The accused is charged with one count of housebreaking with intent to murder and murder read with the provisions of the Combating of Domestic Violence Act 4 of 2003. It is alleged he unlawfully and intentionally broke open the bedroom door of Coetzee with the intent to murder her and then intentionally killed Coetzee on Thursday, August 13, 2009 by stabbing her at least eight times with a sharp object in her chest, whereafter he fled the scene. He is represented by Milton Engelbrecht and State Advocate Palmer Khumalo is prosecuting. The case continues and Cloete remains in custody. 2017-06-15Staff Report 2
